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On the Topic of Kindness and Toxicity


LotsOfMuffins
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14 hours ago, LotsOfMuffins said:

I mean fighting. Consistent trash-talking, constant unnecessary poking at one’s feelings to get a rise out of them, attempts to blackmail, spreading horrid rumours about them, vicious name-calling to the point where it gets personal, and just downright malicious and awful behaviour. And it’s terrible. 

(... more post here ...)

 

Think before you lash out. Be civil. Report harassment, don’t engage in it. End the cycle of hate. 

 

This post is just unbearable. The worst things that happen on this server aren’t “trash-talking,” “unnecessary poking at one’s feelings,” “spreading horrid rumors,” it’s actual molestry and abuse. It’s completely unquestioned misogyny and harassment of female players. It’s overt racism in OOC chat.


The time for staff to take action on a private report can be months. The solution to LotC’s “toxicity” problem isn’t for everyone to be polite. It’s not for players to disengage. You can disengage from “malicious and awful behaviour” and still, through no fault of your own, be targeted by “malicious and awful behavior.”  The solution to LotC’s seemingly endless toxicity problem is for staff to actually answer reports and deal with shitty behavior.

 

There are people on this server who deserve to be confronted, who deserve to (and bear with me on this one) have rumors spread about them. Pun was only ever removed from admin because people went public with posts that were immediately dismissed by other sex pests as “just rumors.” Other sex pests and harassers (like, for instance, Sky) only got banned because the noise surrounding what they’ve done finally got so loud that the staff couldn’t ignore it.

 

Obviously it’s good to be nice to people. I think most of our community understands this. The problem isn’t LotC’s community not being nice enough. The problem is vulnerable community members get privately harassed, and staff sits with its thumb up its ass waiting for players to submit a report (which they will ignore for weeks or months on end), or go public with it (which will lead to repercussions for the victim). Change your moderation policies before you give us another lecture. 

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I like the post 🙂

 

3 minutes ago, howard said:

The worst things that happen on this server aren’t “trash-talking,” “unnecessary poking at one’s feelings,” “spreading horrid rumors,” it’s actual molestry and abuse. It’s completely unquestioned misogyny and harassment of female players. It’s overt racism in OOC chat.

 

It’s doxing people and posting their addresses among your friends, harassment of real-life relatives of these people, pinging somebody’s 2FA with login attempts because you’re trying to brute into their skype/discord/etc. The feelgood notion of this post is lost to the stream when you realise that this occurred in 2013 and still occurs now. A lot of the players and playerbases on the server are outright malicious to people who slight them and are leagues removed from any benefit of this route of via media mutual discourse shiny happy people resolution.

 

Although I used some extreme examples (that did, and still do, happen) there are still players that skirt the line enough that they’re barely out of reach of a staff member’s bullet to the back of their head.

 

I fully believe that there are elements of the staff-team that are absolutely under-equipped to deal with hostile and toxic behaviour, but I won’t discount this as being purposeful or not. There are banned users who were continued to engage in their behaviour because it benefited a staff-members’ nation with the proviso that it’s fine until they get caught.   I partially disagree with the Pun point and believe that you absolutely need proof beyond an unreasonable doubt to gun down an administrator, I would absolutely see this as analogous to the bad-but-benefits culture of the server. People stay quiet about le bad things because it benefits them.

 

A twee post is fine for those with the rationality to modify their behaviour and self-reflect, but for the rest there is a greater cultural shift that is necessary.

 

Every now and then people get this brainpoisoning cognitohazard notion that being a bastard works and that sucks!!!!!

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23 minutes ago, frill said:

Although I used some extreme examples (that did, and still do, happen) there are still players that skirt the line enough that they’re barely out of reach of a staff member’s bullet to the back of their head.

 

I fully believe that there are elements of the staff-team that are absolutely under-equipped to deal with hostile and toxic behaviour, but I won’t discount this as being purposeful or not. There are banned users who were continued to engage in their behaviour because it benefited a staff-members’ nation with the proviso that it’s fine until they get caught

 

The problem is that staff being “under-equipped” to deal with hostile behavior is (mostly) a product of the admins’ own policies. Back in Anthos the GMs had full authorization to swing the ban hammer if you were being hostile or disruptive. There wasn’t this infectious brain worm circulating that minecraft players deserve a “fair trial” or some form of probable cause to be removed from a server. 

 

Protocols can be changed so that knowingly letting banned players assist your nation is a bannable offense. “Investigation bans” (which are Telanir’s greatest invention) can be expanded to include doxing, trying to log in to other players’ accounts, et cetera. In general, moderators desperately need more freedom to enforce the rules and moderate bad behavior separate from administrators who can barely set aside the time to log on.

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Toxicity solved.

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8 hours ago, AstriaS said:

As much as I hate playing the part of the cynical pessimist, I feel this needs to be said; As good of a message as this is-- and it’s a very good message, don’t misunderstand-- it seems to me that this is a lot of words with little weight behind them. As great as it would be for everyone to play nice, the fact remains that due to inaction on the part of all parties involved, nothing will change. So long as the powers that be, either by intention or ignorance, willingly turn a blind eye to the issues in question for whatever reason, there will continue to be no confidence in the system. With no confidence in the system, people won’t step forward when they’re mistreated. When people stop stepping forward, the inaction appears justified, and the cycle continues. Nothing will change, harassment and toxicity will continue.

 

tl;dr: If you want change, the way to do it is through principle and integrity, not just telling people to be better. Change is achieved by action.

 

Signed,

Astria, Local Cynic

 

7 hours ago, Xarkly said:

Definitely agree with the message but also strongly agree with Astrias when he underlines the importance of change in dealing with this. Not gonna repeat his spiel, but the Administration has been very complicit in building at atmosphere of frustration on this server, because the community is very slow to trust them to do their job to make this server both an enjoyable and safe place. Inactivity, the Safety Team, the Dev walkout and the reasons for it are all big reasons, and the list is pretty long.

 

Not to rag on a nice message but this problem is definitely more nuanced than telling folk to be nice, and about addressing the deep-seethed frustrations that spurn some of this dissatisfaction.

 

The Safety Team was an awful attempt at doing something relatively okay. I understood the idea behind it, but its execution was the worse it could possibly have been. I still don’t fully understand why Techxit happened, and I believe the Administration is moving away from inactivity. At least, members of the team aren’t disappearing for long periods of time, not doing anything within their staff teams, etc., so that’s nice. But there are definitely lots of things that the Admins have done and probably will do still that hurt the trust between us and the community. And that sucks. The Administration is not something that I wanted to address in this post, as I meant this post to be coming from me as a member of the community, not as a staff member / Admin / Community Team Member/ etc., but in terms of Administration, shoot me a PM and we can go over how we can fix some of the issues that you see. I genuinely want to help, and I’m 110% open to talk about any ideas, frustrations, concerns, suggestions, etc. that you have. Just the message of this post isn’t pertaining to staff vs players, but rather community member vs community member, if that makes sense. 

 


 

7 hours ago, JokerLow said:

i remember trying to talk to [redacted] about an issue between me and his group. it ended up in him calling me out for stuff i didnt do and threaten to ban report me for harrassing him if keep messaging him about fixing the problem

 

Sometimes, trying to have a conversation with someone really just doesn’t work. I’m not saying it will work every time, I’m trying to say that it’s better to attempt to speak about your qualms with someone rather than delve into a spiral of harassment. 

 


 

4 hours ago, HadvarAvMitteland said:

Hi there, I'm Swifty_Sam and I feel @KeatonUnbeaten makes an excellent point. Admins and moderation should show more compassion when dishing out bans. Personally, during my ban process the only moderator who has shown me compassion is @frill who is currently suspended for speaking his mind which is completely disgusting in my opinion. 

 

If you push for a kind community, you must first treat them with the kindness that you preach. I agree entirely with all your points, however people make mistakes and part of being kind is to show compassion.

 

Well, I’m glad that you agree with what I’m trying to say. As for the Administration side of things, I will try to help where and when I can. My PM’s are open. The situation with Frill, for note, is a bit more complicated than that. Again, my PM’s are open to discuss that as well, just I’ll have to talk to Braxis about what all I can discuss, since it’s about Moderation and stuff going on in there rather than anything on my team. But I’m open to talking about whatever. 

 


 

2 hours ago, Zacho said:

i like this post

i play on a minecraft server and don't need to get mad about things, because that is something a smart man would do. i also don't respond with something meme-y and understand that the message is only as powerful as you take it and i appreciate that muffins took her time to address an issue in our community. thank you muffins, and everyone else that memes on the post is a baby brain.

 

Thanks. Yeah I understand that I may come off as a tree-hugger who thinks that everything will be solved if everyone just hugs it out, but I’m not trying to say that.

 


 

2 hours ago, Platinumlens said:

Can you unblock me for more than five minutes this time? We can work it out! I feel better already

 

1 hour ago, frill said:

A twee post is fine for those with the rationality to modify their behaviour and self-reflect, but for the rest there is a greater cultural shift that is necessary.

 

 

This is meant for what you’ve just said there at the beginning of this statement. As for the greater things (doxxing, pedophilia, sexual predators, harassment, etc.), that does not fall under what I’m talking about. I’m just trying to talk about, well, toxicity. 

 


 

39 minutes ago, howard said:

Protocols can be changed so that knowingly letting banned players assist your nation is a bannable offense. “Investigation bans” (which are Telanir’s greatest invention) can be expanded to include doxing, trying to log in to other players’ accounts, et cetera. In general, moderators desperately need more freedom to enforce the rules and moderate bad behavior separate from administrators who can barely set aside the time to log on.

 

I do log on every day, as for the last bit there, but I understand that isn’t the case for every Admin. But moving on, I actually agree with your point about doxxing and such. It’s something I can speak to Braxis about, giving Moderation the freedom to enforce the rules and such. We have handled doxxing cases (Administration, that is), though we haven’t done an investigation ban for it. So perhaps investigation bans from Administration can extend to that for those cases, and for Moderation safety cases, it can, too. If you wanna shoot me a PM to talk more about this, then shoot me a friend request. 

 

1 hour ago, howard said:

This post is just unbearable. The worst things that happen on this server aren’t “trash-talking,” “unnecessary poking at one’s feelings,” “spreading horrid rumors,” it’s actual molestry and abuse. It’s completely unquestioned misogyny and harassment of female players. It’s overt racism in OOC chat.

 

 

As for this bit, like I said to Frill, I’m not really talking about that; it’s not the topic of what I’m trying to discuss. Rather, I’m talking about small-scale toxicity. 

 

1 hour ago, howard said:

The time for staff to take action on a private report can be months. The solution to LotC’s “toxicity” problem isn’t for everyone to be polite. It’s not for players to disengage. You can disengage from “malicious and awful behaviour” and still, through no fault of your own, be targeted by “malicious and awful behavior.”  The solution to LotC’s seemingly endless toxicity problem is for staff to actually answer reports and deal with shitty behavior.

 

There are people on this server who deserve to be confronted, who deserve to (and bear with me on this one) have rumors spread about them. Pun was only ever removed from admin because people went public with posts that were immediately dismissed by other sex pests as “just rumors.”

 

I can’t really speak on Moderation’s time to take action, but as for Administration, with the more recent reports we’ve gotten, it’s been handled within a few days, and in extreme cases, upwards of a week or two. Better than months, I suppose. As for Moderation, I can’t really speak on that, since I’m not as much of a part of that team as I used to be a few months ago. Though if there’s ever an issue with Moderation not dealing with something for whatever reason, my PM’s are open. Shoot me a PM, let me know, and I will do what I can to ensure that it’s handled. I do know that some reports I have submitted have taken weeks and sometimes nearing months on that end in the past. 

 

If the rumours are true, that’s one thing. That’s not really a rumour, just rather people spreading facts about someone. There’s kinda a grey line there, as to what is a rumour and what isn’t, because sometimes something you think is a rumour is true, and sometimes something you think is true is a rumour. But regardless of that, the situation with Pun was awful. It should’ve been handled better. I wasn’t on the Administration Team at the time (I think I was just a Community Team Member, not even a member), but I agree. Should’ve been handled better. The good news is that after the Pun situation, the day that we got a report on another Admin, they were gone. Completely gone. If anyone catches wind of crap like that, it should be handled timely. It should be handled immediately. Sex pests are disgusting, and although it’s not what I meant to address in my post, I understand your frustration with the situation and how it’s been handled (or rather, hasn’t been handled) in the past. 

 

As for the first bit in particular (”You can disengage from “malicious and awful behaviour” and still, through no fault of your own, be targeted by “malicious and awful behavior.”  The solution to LotC’s seemingly endless toxicity problem is for staff to actually answer reports and deal with shitty behavior.”), I know. Not engaging in “malicious and awful behaviour” oftentimes still results in receiving “malicious and awful behaviour”. That’s just harassment, if it keeps going, and staff should respond in a timely manner to something like that. If anything ever happens, shoot me a PM. I’ll do what I can to make sure that it’s actually addressed, and not in months’ time. But I definitely agree. 

 


 

3 minutes ago, Master Baiter said:

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I just woke up, so if nothing I said makes sense, sorry. But the gist is, my PM’s are open to discuss pretty much anything. 

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12 hours ago, LotsOfMuffins said:

On the Topic of Kindness and Toxicity

 

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I’d like to take a moment to speak on something that I’ve wanted to speak on for a while but have been reluctant to. This topic is kindness, or moreso the lack of it. 

 

Lord of the Craft is a roleplay, medieval, fantasy server filled with beautiful settlements, in-depth and unique lore, wondrous events, and most importantly, a fantastic and vast community. Hundreds of people log on every day, and even more interact with the community in some way every day. And during all my time as a member of the LotC community, I have seen one thing it seems to lack a lot of times: kindness. People hurt each other. People fight. Whether it be over friend group troubles, drama, or roleplay, people fight. And I don’t just mean light bickering, I mean fighting. Consistent trash-talking, constant unnecessary poking at one’s feelings to get a rise out of them, attempts to blackmail, spreading horrid rumours about them, vicious name-calling to the point where it gets personal, and just downright malicious and awful behaviour. And it’s terrible. 

 

I understand that sometimes, people say and do things that aren’t well-liked. I understand that people trash-talk one another to their friends, and although that isn’t okay, it’s not the issue I have. I understand that sometimes, people get very, very mad and blow up sometimes. What I don’t understand is the malicious, vicious behaviour exhibited by members of the community. I don’t understand why someone would go out of their way to belittle, slander, or attack someone, and in extreme cases, genuinely wanting to ruin their life. I don’t understand why people do not understand that although you aren’t physically beating up whoever you’re targeting, you are still harming them, and that’s something that should never be wished upon a person, no matter what. 

 

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not perfect either. I’ve had my fair share of bickering, faulty decisions, and otherwise; no one is truly innocent in this. However, I don’t wish harm on others, and I don’t understand why anyone would want that. 

 

Before you say something, please think for a moment. Perhaps try to start a discussion with whoever is annoying you so much to where you wish genuine harm on them. If a discussion doesn’t work, then please do not continue the cycle of hate by lashing out at them. If someone is harassing you or being toxic towards you, block them and report them. If a staff member makes a decision you don’t like, reach out to their manager, or if it’s a manager/admin, to an admin. My PM’s are always open. If it’s me you have a problem with, shoot me a PM. If you can’t PM me on Discord, simply PM me on the forums, and we can talk. Discuss what’s up. Have an honest and open discussion about the issues. Again, if a discussion doesn’t work with whoever you have qualms with, then just leave them alone. But either way, show them this act of kindness by not pursuing it anymore (unless the individual in question won’t leave you alone, then report it). 

 

What I’m trying to say is that we shouldn’t be so quick to spit viciousness at each other. We shouldn’t jump to hurting one another. If someone is being an issue, report them. If you have a qualm with someone, perhaps try talking to them about it. If that doesn’t work or if you don’t wanna try it, just leave it. It isn’t worth the energy of harming others, and it certainly doesn’t do any good. 

 

We are all people. Each one of us has feelings, each one of us has a life, a family, friends, goals, motives, experiences, trauma, crappy ex-friends... Each one of us gets upset, angry, cries, screams, makes mistakes, says the wrong things, does the wrong things, etc. We all are human. 

 

Think before you lash out. Be civil. Report harassment, don’t engage in it. End the cycle of hate. 

 

Please. 

 

R0pLo0gtfUhi31VISOsaq0rxREaEdBhHGfUpVsrGKyrJbra-JyUZhUEJJ8jfYkTbe4LE0BePnJ3wXGXGj2aAfZgTyS3aLP8Ek5gZ1dlBTbxQhuQvgatl9vRZN92tmMzlB1VUxkuk

is this satire?

 

this is coming from someone tenured on a team with the highest density of pedos per capita of any clique on lotc? this is coming from someone on a team where one of your colleagues was caught blatantly abusing pex to spawn in resources for their nation. The removal vote failed to pass.

 

“just report people when they are mean to you we will solve it!”. I am sure you genuinely believe this is a thing but this is incredibly silly. People play LOTC to win. It is a competitive game to fluff your ego. That will never change by virtue of what lotc is. So people (being on the internet) will always be petty and spiteful in an attempt to hurt those they dislike. Was Telanir’s first reaction when confronted with noncery, to aggressively assert that LOTC the corporation was not ‘liable’. Please spare me this hollow nonsense.

 

Also you absolute two faced reprobates removed frill under the guise of ‘hiatus’ because you’re too cowardly to face the backlash. The fact that every admin profile is not just a clown variant speaks for itself. lmao.

Edited by Narthok
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15 minutes ago, LotsOfMuffins said:

 

I do log on every day, as for the last bit there, but I understand that isn’t the case for every Admin. But moving on, I actually agree with your point about doxxing and such. It’s something I can speak to Braxis about, giving Moderation the freedom to enforce the rules and such. We have handled doxxing cases (Administration, that is), though we haven’t done an investigation ban for it. So perhaps investigation bans from Administration can extend to that for those cases, and for Moderation safety cases, it can, too. If you wanna shoot me a PM to talk more about this, then shoot me a friend request. 

 

was referring to Braxis and Telanir (admins more directly involved with moderation) to make a point about how any attempt to moderate this community is suffocated by protocol and admin overreach

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we should punish kindness and encourage toxicity

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UwU 

very much agreed 

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i think the answer to this is everyone playing lotc has deep seeded issues and everyone playing lotc is mildly mentally incorrect – now unleash all those people onto the same playing area PepeLaugh

 

the solution to ending toxicity on lotc is ending mental illness so therefore we need to elect cardi b as the president and she will save lotc

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Thank you for ending toxicity you are so brave for this statement. 

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34 minutes ago, Priceflash said:

i think the answer to this is everyone playing lotc has deep seeded issues and everyone playing lotc is mildly mentally incorrect – now unleash all those people onto the same playing area PepeLaugh

 

the solution to ending toxicity on lotc is ending mental illness so therefore we need to elect cardi b as the president and she will save lotc

preach it queen

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Some people can’t handle the basics of a normal conversation, others can’t conceive having a chat without trying to find some kind of provocation to kick and scream about. Wide majority of players are irrational to a fault, and just come back because they want to roleplaying with their mates. Server would be a better place if these people stayed in their lanes, but we’re on internet. Thats never going to happen.

 

Best thing to do is ignore the shitty players. If they’re bad enough they’ll hand you the gun themselves. It’s a whole lot easier that way.

Edited by methuselahs
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