Handwriting Comparison

[Serity]

In the last few months (well, since I started playing, but more often recently), there's been more random inflammatory papers scattered around towns and people have been getting insulting letters sent to them anonymously through the mail, not to mention that you can post on the message boards unsigned without consequence.

To that end, I put forth a suggestion (not my idea alone) for a command to compare two pieces of writing, either based on Linguistics skill or requiring a certain amount of Linguistics to unlock the ability, as well as a decent amount of roundtime.

The compare command should support at least the following forms of writing (with a minimum requirement of a certain amount of characters written):

• A selected board post
• A standalone document
• A specific sample of handwriting on a document
• A page in a book

To that end, syntax should support commands such as:

• [compare board post 37] then [compare against board post 38], or [compare board post 37 against board post 38]
• [compare inscribed paper] then [compare against inscribed memo 2], or [compare inscribed paper against inscribed memo 2]
• [compare inscribed paper sample 1] then [compare against inscribed paper sample 3], or [compare inscribed paper sample 1 against inscribed paper sample 3]
• [compare tome page 3 sample 1] then [compare against tome page 8], or [compare tome page 3 sample 1 against tome page 8]
• And of course, mixes, such as [compare tome page 2 sample 2 against board post 8].

It looks complicated, but it's just an object name, then [sample/post/page] and a number if appropriate, then, for the second one, 'against' and then the same.

For those unaware, when more than one person writes on a document, there's a line along the lines of "(The handwriting changes here.)" that indicates someone besides the previous writer wrote on it, hence the 'sample' syntax.

I also wish to mention Marcuson's complementary suggestion for Forgery for the sneakier roles, which could be used to throw off handwriting comparison or mimic the writing style of another piece of writing.

[Gorth]

I agree. Wholeheartedly. It is somewhat disconcerting when a means of messing with people is only truly doable because of the ways the game works. It is a good and very important thing to give to linguistics users.

[tulpa]

As much as l'd like to see Linguistics get some new toys (or kick the bucket completely), the study of handwriting isn't strictly linguistics and wouldn't feel quite right under that umbrella, to me, even in COGG.

But I like the general idea and could see this comparison involving a Perception check, instead. That way it could be accessible to many more character builds, though still with the option of seeking out a specialist investigator. Perhaps there could be additional rerolls based on how much literature in the same hand you've analysed and processed (as a short-term Effect condition?)

I do think providing Artificers with opportunities for the preservation of anonymity is critical and would have to be announced concurrently.

[silly]

+ 1

Would really appreciate something like this.

[Frisbee]

+2 or 3, if we are keeping track.

I expect anonymity can be preserved with the help of shady organisations where needed, but I feel like it is causing more drama than it is worth in its current form.

[tulpa]

I understand the frustration/irritation with the trolling, but I think if this is a feature it should be a balanced system and interesting in its own right, not just an indirect form of moderation. I'd be happy with *direct* moderation of some of these comments (edit: I mean the IC literature!), which are frequently lazy, passive aggressive and all the rest of it.

The tension between sleuth/authority and masquer/agitator could be a big draw for rogueish types (that we're lacking in) and keepers of the peace both.

[Rilulth]

Regarding posting anonymously on the boards, we heavily discourage this (and have said this both OOC and IC) and manually remove unsigned posts. We do miss these sometimes, as we are only human. It does have the consequence that we will set up an auto-remove for any board post if characters continue to post without signing by colour, postbox or name/alias. We can see who is posting.

Sending insulting and inflammatory letters anonymously is frankly upsetting and disappointing to hear about. Should the player of the character(s) this is happening to is reading this and feel this is getting to levels of trolling or harassment, please email us for us to look into it.

Once or twice is fine. Continuous is harassment and bullying and does not make a game fun for those on the receiving end. I do not want to get rid of anonymous mailing, but it will be looked at should this kind of play continue. Sign your mail and own your insults.

[Rias]

Firstly, I do think some kind of handwriting comparison is a neat idea. I'm not sure how I'd want it implemented or how available it would be, but it's a fun idea, as is the one for a way to "resist" handwriting being identified as oneself.

This leads to thoughts on a related matter though, which can be less fun.

Preemptive clarification: It's important for me to state that we haven't noticed a particular issue with the kind of stuff I write about following this paragraph, but we also aren't monitoring what everyone is writing nor the sending of letters. I do have logs, but those aren't looked over without some compelling reason to do so (it's a LOT of information to comb through, and not as entertaining a process as one might think). As Rilulth said, if anyone feels they are suffering from harassment - anonymous or otherwise - please do contact us so we can be aware of the situation and address it! You can report it via the REPORT command in-game or send an email to cogg (at) contrarium.net. The mention in this thread of people getting insulting anonymous letters indicates quite clearly that it has been happening to someone, so we want to try and nip that in the bud. That out of the way ...

Anonymous harassment is not a fun thing, nor is the drama it causes. The same could be said for falsely signing a letter as someone else. A while back the issue of board posts signed as someone else was brought up and we asked people to just refrain from doing that. I'll say the same for letter-writing. There's an argument for narrow case exceptions for something like, say, trying to lure someone out for a confrontation in pursuit of a specific ongoing game event or something, but for the time being I'm just going to ask people to completely refrain from falsely signing letters and to instead seek other tactics. It's difficult to think of a quicker way for drama-fires to spread than to write something accusatory or inflammatory and insinuate it was from someone else, drawing further uninvolved parties into the matter and adding indignation over false accusations to the fire. I don't think we need that kind of drama here.

This is not to be confused with legitimate mistakes or confusion over matters. It's completely possible for people to come to wrong conclusions or mix up who said what. We just don't want people deliberately using tactics that involve board posts or letters signed in someone else's name, since as of yet there is no way to see the actual handwriting or signature and conclude that it was forged. It's a goofy result of our virtual text-based medium we use for the game and not yet having any coded support for this kind of thing.

When it comes to anonymity, I'd ask for people to utilize it tactfully and to refrain from using it for petty insults or drama. If it's in response to or pursuit of an ongoing event and anonymity feels like a requirement for the writer's personal safety from retaliation, sure. If it's a setup for a super mysterious clandestine meeting that's supposed to feel shrouded in mystery and all that, great. If it's an anonymous tip where the informant doesn't want to reveal their identity, nice. If it's to call someone nasty names or stir up drama while avoiding personal identification and consequence, please don't. It gets real messy real fast, and often ends up bleeding into OOC drama which is extra unhealthy for the community.

To close on a positive note, from what I've seen, people have by and large been quite good about signing their posts and generally owning their opinions. That's been encouraging, so thank you and keep it up!