[Gifs and funny images are totally okay in this thread. Whoever uses the most appropriate/relevant and hilarious gif in their post will get a cubimal box. This is arbitrary and subjective. But hopefully also fun. Not that it needs to be said, but please err on the side of SFW]
Hey all! As promised, this is a condensed (lol) post illustrating the overall issues and possible solutions (wish list) of people who want more privacy options in Glitch. It will also attempt to address some common misconceptions about this.
It will be a bit long, but hopefully an easy read for those who are so patient as to take the time to do so. I will update it as needed with additional points that I have no doubt will be raised.
The goal of this thread is to open up a conversation and get input from the community, as well as fine tune some of these ideas so that they can be presented in an easier to read format in the Ideas forum. Likewise, there is no delusion that these will be implemented today, or tomorrow, or even next year. The goal is to ultimately get this on the TS radar and, if it is indeed a priority for other players as it is for me, perhaps it will be something that is taken into consideration for future development.
Everyone is welcome to post, whether they agree with me or not. I would simply ask that everyone take the time to read through this and other posts before doing so.
First and foremost, what are these "privacy settings" I'm advocating for? They're pretty general, actually. I simply wish that there were ways to better control social interaction in the game. We'll get into WHY in a moment.
What this isn't about: any personal information, or data about yourself you do not want known or shared should not be posted anywhere. As far as Privacy in Glitch is concerned, this isn't an issue that would or should be addressed by TS. It's more of a common sense thing.
What is Privacy in this context?
Privacy would consist of three levels:
1. default (everyone) which is what we currently have
2. Friends only - specifically people I have added as a friend, not people who have added me as a friend - make sense?
3. No one
These levels would be easily switchable, and ideally scalable. E.g. I can set Friends only for profile, but I can keep my chat interactions open to everyone.
Here are the places I believe would benefit from privacy settings:
1) Profile Pages specifically location, log in and "jump to home street"
2) Chat IM specifically people messaging a player directly. If a player is in global, a player is in global. Likewise, local chat would remain unaffected. This would apply specifically and exclusively to IMs.
A great suggestion is a simple /DND command with an optional "away" message. This would be an easily customizable message to indicate that you are unavailable to chat at the moment, and would appear when users IM you. Some sort of visual indicator or reset could be implemented to avoid a scenario where one forgets it's active. However, if it works the same way as most messaging systems, users could still IM the person with the away message, but the auto-message would be visible. In this way, if I forget I have it on, when someone IMs me, it will display and remind me. I'm sure I could write that better. I'll work on it.
3) Friends Semi-redundant, but the friends system has some issues with it. Right now, if you add me as a friend, you have access to everything about me. You can mail me, you can jump to my home street, you can see when I'm online in-game, you can see my status updates, and you can IM me very easily. This is all regardless of whether or not I add you as a friend. If this were modified to work the same way as groups (accept invite / accept friend request), that would help resolve a lot of those inherent issues. Pending requests would be just that: pending. This raises some issues, however, of not needing to friend someone to permit them to follow you, as it were. The goal is to add options, not remove existing functionality. This section will need some help, so please offer suggestions / ideas as you see fit. I will update.
As a quick aside, should friends be reworked, I think mail should be an option regardless of friends. That may be a bit intense, but I don't see a tangible benefit to being forced to add someone as a friend in order to send them stuff. I like friends, and don't personally have an issue with it, but it does strike me as a bit peculiar.
4) No longer priority: Home Streets
Though no longer an issue if the the three items above are modified, I will keep this as food for thought for the moment until the Friends functionality is better discussed. The below description doesn't get into why home streets should be private, so much as how extremely public home streets are. I think that's relevant and important to note.
Obviously, this is a major point of contention - I would simply wish that these 'public' streets be limited in accessibility for those who would wish it. As of this moment, home streets are the most accessible streets in Ur, unlike any other public place.
People can jump to home streets without using TP or energy, and can immediately link to them. This is a tremendous boon to friends and groups, but is a bit intense for all of Ur to be able to instantly get there. Hold your disagreements, we'll get to the why's in a moment. I promise.
Why? Why is privacy important in a game like Glitch?
1. Burn out.
Privacy is important for a number of reasons, but I think chief among them is burn out. This is something I've been trying to figure out how to say correctly for a while. I've gotten burnt out on the social aspect before, and I've seen plenty of other players get burnt out too. You probably have as well. People who were before very social suddenly disappearing or being moody in global.
Privacy is about limiting social interaction. Glitch is a social game. So why would someone want to LIMIT what the game is essentially about? Because the game is so social, it can be really easy to get overwhelmed. It's hard to spend a lot of time in the game and get "into" it socially without becoming more social. But, when you log in, and all your time is spent chatting while your character idles out, there's an imbalance of game mechanics.
Sometimes I log in and that's all I want to do. I love chatting. I love talking to people. I love being social. But on those days when I just want to tidy up my little Glitch house, or explore Ur? Sometimes you want to just play the game and not talk to anyone.
"So tell them!" Right, and by x time I've had to repeat myself to the x person, how good of a mood will I be in? How cheerful and polite will I be to the person who is innocently and justifiably trying to say hello? How nice is that? How shitty would it be to have your head bit off by a friend because they've just had to repeat themselves however many times and say they don't really want to chat at the moment? It's not about communication or needing to block people, it's about not being burnt out and turning into a colossal asshole. It's about still being able to enjoy the game and put energy into it when you have the energy to do so.
This isn't about blocking people who are saying hi. This is about controlling whether or not they can say hi in the first place so that you don't turn into a jackass. Perhaps people will be offended when my privacy controls are set to no IMs. But I think they'll be more offended if I have to tell them, "sorry, I really can't chat right now, because IF I KEEP TALKING TO YOU PEOPLE I WILL KILL. KILLLLLL. KILLLLLL!" (Points if you get the bad movie reference)
VS put it quite nicely: "Sometimes, I just wanna play, and the interactions are too many, too much. Saying so leads to more or prolonged IMs asking if I'm ok. On occasion I've ended up incredibly stressed and shutting down the game, when what I really want is just to wander and explore and go to my happy place. I created an alt to be able to just *play* sometimes, but oddly, conversely, that feels lonely because I'm not my usual me and for the sake of a little uninterrupted play time, I have to cut myself off from almost everyone. If there could be a way to let people know that I might not reply right away, I'd love to exclusively play as me-VS."
2. Public information is used against players in the forum.
Information has been used against players by the community plenty of times (a specific example is the housing debates a few months back - "so and so hasn't been in the game, they don't deserve a house!"). Ad hominem attacks against users or value statements about users who play a certain way by well-enough-intended people who are trying to make a point and use the information on the public profile to fuel that attack. Some people are understandably uncomfortable with that, and would rather not have that information accessible at all. I think that's a completely justifiable and appropriate reaction.
3. Everyone's business becomes everyone else's business.
The Glitch community is EXTRA SUPER HELPFUL. If you ask a question, you will get a response. That's wonderful. Then you'll get another response (often very similar if not the same as the first). Then you get an avalanche of responses.
Laureth explains this better.
4. Personal Identity and Avatars.
It's no secret that people get their real identity tied up with their Glitch identity. That line is blurred and with some players, it's impossible to see where one begins and the other ends. It's never as clear cut as we think, because the physical aspects of the game rarely enter into it. We all know people use computers, but what we see and interact with is an avatar. An avatar is like a glove, with traits and a little personality we develop for it. So, a really creepy glove, in this analogy.
Real life identifying information is moot in this instance, because the information that's really important is exactly the information that's available in game. Players have dealt with stalking behavior in-game before. Stalking doesn't always have to be malicious, (and it usually isn't). It can be well intended and still make people uncomfortable. Gifts left on doorsteps or letters in the mail can really rub people the wrong way. I've been on the receiving end of some peculiar things in my time, and I can only imagine what some other players have received.
I want to be really clear - this all relates to in-game situations. Stalking in-game and situations that happen there, not anything that has happened to anyone in real life. The goal here is to illustrate the separation between real life and Glitch while also acknowledging that personal identity doesn't adhere to those separations nearly as neatly.
One thing I can say for absolute certain is that even when something is apparently hostile, a quick conversation with the user in question usually turns that around. Most people here are great people and really nice and well meaning. I don't expect anyone to be able to handle the quirks and odd behaviors of the entire community all the time, and I think privacy options are really useful for giving a player some armor when dealing with that until they figure out what strategy works best for them (if they ever do).
I don't think Glitch should be about sinking or swimming in a social space. I think there should be options to better enable people to get along harmoniously without burn out, hurt feelings, feeling threatened, or being attacked.
Privacy is about options. Privacy would not and should not be the default. Public should be the default in this game. An option is there to provide an alternative when and if you want or need it.
Misconceptions:
Why do you need privacy settings? Just block people!
Blocking is limited for three reasons:
1) It's reactionary - it requires a problem to present itself in order to be an effective tool
2) It's permanent, in that it is very difficult to undo, and requires diligent record keeping on the part of the user
3) It's not very nice. A blocked person can tell they've been blocked if they poke around. Blocking is appropriate in situations where someone is being abusive or inappropriate, or simply annoying (not warranting TS involvement).
Privacy settings (in theory, of course) would differ in the following ways:
1) Privacy settings are progressive. It can be set prior to any event occurring. If I know I'm in a foul mood, I can proactively update my settings so that I don't inadvertently offend someone because I'm feeling fat and sassy. I'll save that for Global. Like I usually do.
2) Privacy settings deal with levels of interaction, rather than individual players, and are therefore impersonal. E.g. "It's not that I don't like you, dear reader, it's that I don't wish to chat with anyone at this point in time."
3) Privacy settings are inherently temporary and easy to revert. If I am toggling between being able to chat with everyone in the world, or only with friends, I should be able to easily switch back and forth.
You don't need privacy in Glitch! No one knows your real information!
As it relates to the game, my "real" information is what my character is doing and where she is. That's the information I don't want people to have. (See above in "why").
Privacy options is about hoarding resources. It gives a player an unfair advantage!
Privacy isn't about resources. It's about feeling comfortable in a social context. Not everyone is the social butterfly that you are, and not everyone takes to the unique culture of Glitch as quickly or as easily as others here have.
The world, as many have pointed out, is FULL of resources. I would say there's a surplus. Privacy would create no advantage - if anything, it would create a disadvantage where resources are concerned if the user intends to utilize only their backyard for resources in the "home street" context. Since replenishing resources is a LOT easier if you have help.
As for greed in general, we can debate until we're blue in the face who's "greedier," but at the end of the day some people will be greedy and some won't. Some people will be greedy about certain resources and generous with others. Sort of like a game economy...
This is just my initial take and attempt to address the many factors that enter into this discussion. I'm sure others have better and more eloquent ways of saying this, so please, please take the time to read through any replies. I will update this OP with additional concise points as they come in.