Topic

Reputation and "calling out"

I understand why there's the policy against "calling out" -- it's much less ugly and disruptive to deal with abuse complaints behind the scenes than to have it all hashed out in the forums. 

But it's hard for Glitchen to develop social structures more complex and wide-ranging than a peat-digging posse without ways for actions to have social consequences (within the community, actions that aren't abusive/in breach of the community guidelines).  All our in-game actions are pretty well nerf-padded, which is cool with me!  But it means that more or less the only lever you'd have on someone who, say, goes into business with you and then doesn't follow through on their side of the bargain, or agrees to truce terms in the Bubble Battles and then starts poisoning again, or suchlike, is reputation.  And the calling-out rule seems to be limiting the ability to build that kind of reputation information for things within the social scope of the game as well as abuses/breaches of the Guidelines.

So, um, I dunno...  Thoughts?

(P.S. I put this in Off Topic because that's where things that are about interactions between Glitchen, rather than the mechanics of the game itself, seem to be going, but I wish there were somewhere in between ...)

Posted 14 months ago by Fnibbit Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • Personally I don't see this as a problem. 
    If someone's done something terrible, then they'd be reported to staff and staff would deal with them.  Anything else that's not worth of a report to staff should not be brought up in public at all.

    With a game like Glitch, there are always going to be conflicts. The people who want gas vs. the people who want spice. The people who want poisoners badge vs. the people who want antidoting badges. None of these people are doing anything wrong at all! They're simply playing the game, but because the way they play conflicts with the way someone else is playing if calling out was allowed, then these forums would just be full of drama constantly. 
    It's already got enough drama with people complaining constantly about others playing styles. 
    People need to just accept that there are different ways of playing, and sometimes you run into people who are doing their own thing and it doesn't tie in with what you're doing. That's just life.

    I'd rather they dealt more harshly with those who call people out. Especially the ones who persistently do it, despite being told that's it's against the guidelines. 
    Posted 14 months ago by Ebil Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Basically, I don't have time for petty games. Glitch is my playtime and I would rather spend that doing the things I want to do rather than settling disputes or sorting ways to shun someone. It's not like other open worlds (EVE, maychance?) where you can go and blow someone up and enact true consequences if there is a problem.

    Even if there were (beyond poisoning trees or the like) I probably wouldn't bother. People get found out one way or the other and will lose whatever connexions they have in the game.

    Let Speck handle it. I'm busy triple-jumping.
    Posted 14 months ago by shipwreck Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think that Glitch is going to get so big that there won't be a single group that hangs out in General forum that you can influence.  If people are going to build and lose reputations, it will be within smaller communities, like a group.  There will usually be enough cross-membership in groups that a bad reputation will follow you if you try to do the same thing in a different group.

    Using your 'business partner' example, anyone who gets known within the cubimal or icon trading groups as a bad person to do business with won't need to be called out in the game forums. They will simply have eliminated themselves from the main trading groups if they are ever banned.
    Posted 14 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Where does calling out stop? It doesn't, is the problem. Soon enough you would have people calling out other players for petty nonsense. "Lily Frog walked by me and didn't help me mine!" "Lily Frog picked up a drink I was going to pick up!" "Lily Frog is so damn awesome I could cry!" (Maybe not the last one)

    Or say you're in Global and someone expresses an opinion different to yours, there'd be nothing to stop you from coming into the forums and calling them out for things that never even happened, just to damage their name.
    Posted 14 months ago by Lyn Frog, Esq Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I would agree with you except it usually breaks down like this: 

    1) The situation is a pretty clear cut case of abuse or harassment. Reported to TS, moving on.

    2) It's not a clear cut case of abuse or harassment, or it was assumed that the offending party was indeed offending, but the response is so disproportionately inappropriate, it turns into a flame war, wherein both parties are wrong (or worse, the initial person was innocently doing something, and the response was inappropriate).

    In case 2, the forums become a place for people to air their dirty laundry, more often than not, and name names. There are very few instances where the poster is like, "whoa, sorry guys, reality check, here's the situation, what should be done? How do I make it right?"

    In that case, it's usually a nice person who doesn't see that the situation really is bad enough to warrant reporting it to TS, or are on the receiving end of a #2 (yes, that's a poop joke. Search your feelings, you know it's true).

    As far as reputation goes, I do see what you're saying and agree to an extent. But the issues you're using as an example affect a portion of the glitch population, not the whole. Within your sub-culture, that person will become known, and their reputation will suffer.

    It's like that with anything in any social group. Sometimes people will annoy the ever living shit out of you without ever doing anything definitively wrong. Part of being the bigger person is dealing with that and not becoming a complete turd in response. It's really easy to troll people we don't like, and do things to get them fired up. But in doing so, we become the people who make this game unfun, and we inadvertently hurt people.
    Posted 14 months ago by Xev Subscriber! | Permalink
  • why are people always out for blood

    so you got tricked. report it and move on. 

    why does it have to be that if someone makes a mistake that he has to become a pariah.
    Posted 13 months ago by Mr. Dawgg Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Just splank them, and run away!
    Posted 13 months ago by CrashTestPilot Subscriber! | Permalink