Unpopular Opinion: The IC boards shouldn't be anonymous

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Delphine
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Unpopular Opinion: The IC boards shouldn't be anonymous

Post by Delphine »

Good morning and welcome to my pre-coffee ramble!

The too long; didn't read version of said ramble is: I would like to suggest that the IC boards should automatically sign your name and mailbox number to anything you post upon them, in the way one signs a letter when they use the sign command. Meaning it will use the name you have NAMED yourself rather than your coded name. (Fun fact people with aliases: If you don't want to stare at your coded name all day, every day, just NAME yourself as ALIAS and enjoy.)

The long version of this:

The boards are often discussed on an OOC level, given all the various problems people have experienced with them, ranging from feeling like certain people spam the boards anonymously for the sake of trying to stir up trouble without taking any IC consequences upon themselves to the issue we sometimes experience with people trying to impersonate others with their posts. There's even the occasional issue where it's obvious someone isn't understanding a game mechanic and there's no way to contact them discreetly through OOC means to help them with it given the fact that they didn't sign their name. Having one's name automatically signed to their board posts would alleviate all of these issues as people would suddenly start to have to take credit for their troll posts if they were wishing to post them, no one could impersonate anyone else, and if someone was clearly struggling with a game concept, we would know who to slip an OOC tell to. I also believe this would cut down on how many posts the GMs have to delete as, in my experience, the moment you take the anonymous factor out of these things, people who were breaking the rules (or toeing that line at least) before suddenly and magically stop doing just that!

I think, in the future, once we have the Shady Society in place, a service the Shady Society offers could be some form of board anonymity again (for the right amount of riln). I'm not sure what this would look like, but I think that sort of ability would help support the fact that that society is engaged in, well, shady activities and would help give some flavor. And, of course, I think GMs should be exempt from this on their staff accounts so that they can sign their posts as Sheriff Cotton or whatever.

That's it out of me! Thought of the day.
You think to yourself, "I am surrounded by idiots and petulant children."

You experience a sudden flash of insight, as though you have an increased understanding of who you are.
Ephemeralis
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Re: Unpopular Opinion: The IC boards shouldn't be anonymous

Post by Ephemeralis »

Inexplicable Aetgardian technology compels everyone that uses the boards to immediately out themselves in a distinctly identifiable fashion.

That may sound a bit terse, and I certainly don't mean it to be, but that's more or less what you're suggesting.

Rabble-rousing on the boards is an ancient past-time and antagonistic characters are the real content in COGG once you're done grinding the EXP buckets and wondering what to actually use your skills on. Outside of cutting obviously OOC posts off the board, they should largely remain unmoderated. Save for maybe Mistral Lake's boards which have very valid IC reasons to be policed more heavily.

This being said, perhaps it could be a potential use of Linguistics to identify a particular "handwriting quirk" that is randomly generated for every character out of a very large list? And also a Linguistics use to forge new handwriting quirks. This way, you'll get some idea of who's posting something, and then can engage in shenanigans to find out who it is. Maybe by paying a Rogue or someone sneaky to watch for someone posting something and to take note of the newest quirk available on the board.
Gorth
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Re: Unpopular Opinion: The IC boards shouldn't be anonymous

Post by Gorth »

As raised on the Discord a few days previous, unfortunately it's just kind of how it is. The trolls come and go, and Shadgard's board in particular gets rather bloated with people posting things that don't really apply to it. I find it obnoxious, but it, at this point, is mostly just a result of the faction split being half complete, and not yet letting people spawn in Mistral.

As much as I'd like it if people cut out the random unneeded posts, there's no IC way I can think of to mechanically enforce it.
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Delphine
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Re: Unpopular Opinion: The IC boards shouldn't be anonymous

Post by Delphine »

Ephemeralis wrote: Thu Dec 01, 2022 7:28 am Inexplicable Aetgardian technology compels everyone that uses the boards to immediately out themselves in a distinctly identifiable fashion.

That may sound a bit terse, and I certainly don't mean it to be, but that's more or less what you're suggesting.
Actually, what I'm suggesting is a militia member/Pale being posted by the respective board, overseeing it. Also not trying to come off terse. I welcome alternative opinions and you bring up a fair point.

For the record, though, I'm not against IC antagonism. I often engage in such things myself. I just also always sign my work so actual RP can come from it (as in people can follow-up, seek me out to challenge my opinions, etc) instead of just making a drive-by catty remark.
You think to yourself, "I am surrounded by idiots and petulant children."

You experience a sudden flash of insight, as though you have an increased understanding of who you are.
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nobody
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Re: Unpopular Opinion: The IC boards shouldn't be anonymous

Post by nobody »

Gorth wrote: Thu Dec 01, 2022 7:33 am there's no IC way I can think of to mechanically enforce it.
This solution came to mind: Whatever bored board civil servant is responsible for monitoring simply removes any unsigned posts immediately. You know your post won't be read by anyone if you don't sign it, so by using post you are choosing to sign a name.

While that requires a signature though, it doesn't provide actual authentication. That being said, there is already plenty of suspension of disbelief going on to make the game both enjoyable and mechanically interesting. If a little more suspension of disbelief makes the game better, I certainly won't object.
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Karjus
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Re: Unpopular Opinion: The IC boards shouldn't be anonymous

Post by Karjus »

Throw me in with the opinion that whatever benefit may have been gained from anonymity on the boards is long gone/outweighed by other issues.

Bring in the Pale or Militia punishment of checking posts.
- Karjus

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Speaking to XYZ, you say, "I hope you don't treat your ass the same way."
Serity
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Re: Unpopular Opinion: The IC boards shouldn't be anonymous

Post by Serity »

Gorth wrote: Thu Dec 01, 2022 7:33 am As much as I'd like it if people cut out the random unneeded posts, there's no IC way I can think of to mechanically enforce it.
Even without a guard nearby, this is easy enough:

Code: Select all

This large wooden board has been placed here for use by the citizens of Shadgard to post public
notices and such about social events and general town matters. A large note at the top reads: 
"PLEASE KEEP MATTERS OF COMMERCE TO MARKETPLACE BOARD". A second note reads: "UNSIGNED POSTS
WILL BE REMOVED".

> post Shadgard sucks!
Given the notice at the top of the board, you realize there's little point in posting your message
without signing it with your name.
"You probably shouldn't XYZ" is already here and there throughout the game.
Navi
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Re: Unpopular Opinion: The IC boards shouldn't be anonymous

Post by Navi »

I've never been a fan of anonymity on public forums. I think the title of this BBS thread should be Popular Opinion, based on the responses here. Since we can just name ourselves whatever we want, I think it's superfluous to have that information be posted, but mailbox numbers seem reasonable.
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Rias
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Re: Unpopular Opinion: The IC boards shouldn't be anonymous

Post by Rias »

It's good to remember that the town boards are provided by organizations that have an interest in moderating them. The town notice/event boards are provided by the local government and potentially used by said government, even if it is primarily reading to keep apprised of things and only posting the occasional official notice or response. The market boards are put there specifically to effectively accommodate commerce (and have mostly been free of issues mentioned in this thread, notably). To leave them completely unmoderated would inevitably result in them accommodating the lowest common denominator and then they're of no use to their intended purpose as they spiral into mostly being used for trolling, slandering, insults, attempts at clever jokes, and anonymous shouting into the void. I've seen it happen in plenty of those forums/communities that touted their exceptional standard of freedom by refusing to moderate at all.

In the case of Shadgard: they're certainly no Dominion, but that doesn't mean they embrace anarchy and chaos. They still want their town boards to fulfill their purposes and not be used for stirring up unrest or allowing impersonation or spreading of blatant lies.

I do like the very simple yet effective concept of some poor unfortunate NPCs being placed on Board Duty and just removing posts that aren't signed. Between that and an OOC policy of no impersonation for board posts, I think we should be fairly covered in keeping the boards from devolving into disruptive chaos ignored by the majority of people. I'd hate to lose them as an effective communication tool for community events and such. We can try out an honor system at first so people can choose whether to include their name, aura, or mailbox number, but if people continue to not include some kind of signature or try to find weird loopholes ("well I sign with my nickname, which changes frequently") we can move to a coded option. I'd prefer to not do the latter so we'll see how things go with an honor system. We'll add a confirm nag when posting that reminds that unsigned posts will be removed.

I don't think there should be a policy against IC rabble-rousing or that we should make such a thing impossible. I just don't think sacrificing the effectiveness of town boards to facilitate such is the way to go with that kind of activity. Deliberate IC conflict RP can be fun and interesting and lets players self-start things, but a balance should be maintained so that the cons don't outweigh the pros. Again: we don't want to cater to the lowest common denominator.

I also want to note that most people have been good about signing their own posts and owning what they say, on their own intiative, and that has been awesome. Unfortunately this is one of those things where it only takes a very little to cause issues that affect many. I'm also not saying that I think anyone is deliberately trying to ruin the game or the experience for anyone else. Playing an antagonistic character includes doing antagonistic things. This is just one of the cases where I think the sacrifices of accommodating an antagonistic behavior outweigh the benefits on a large enough scale, and there are also IC reasons why the NPCs would take action to prevent it with reasonable measures (in this case, removing unsigned posts from official town boards).
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