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Predatory Advances
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Comments
That's just not right. If you're playing a game with a set of rules, it's fair for the other players to know (i) what those rules are, (ii) how they are enforced, and (iii) that they are enforced. That's a basic principle of fairness and equity that is reflected in the law, and other well run organisations.
It shows us whether we're all being treated equally. It shows what behavior the administration will tolerate, and what behavior it will punish (and how severely). That's information I do think we, as a playerbase, have a right to. Or at least ought to have a right to.
I'm not talking about when a law has been broken, nothing in the OP or the text is really discussing grooming or RL unpleasantness. Just repeated unwanted sexual advances mainly (but not exclusively) directed at female newbies.
It's also just not right to say it serves no purpose. Shaming serves a very valuable purpose. It's an additional deterrent, and punishment, particularly in a game like Achaea where your reputation is really everything.
Seems to me that whatever administrative action is being taken has not stamped this out. We want to stamp it out right? What I'm primarily interested in is a discussion about how we can do more to achieve that.
Reporting on people who have been punished for this also serves no purpose other than to give us something juicy to gossip about. The point is to remove the bothersome people, not to inform us of how they're applying the rules.
If you have an issue with someone, just report them and let the admin who have the full picture deal with it as they see fit. You cant blame the admin for soing nothing if its not getting reported.
Over the course of about 8 female characters, 4 of which were sirens, I have had 0 issues with anything mudsex related. I've had the random tells, but a cool response has always curtailed any sexual possibilities for me.
I wouldn't want to see a public list of sexual offenders because it isn't a list of sexual harassers, but people convicted of sexual harassment. It works out alright in the real world due to the judicial system, but I feel like it's easier to get a false conviction here. Its too easy to alt and trap someone that you're feuding with OOCly through another character. Not to mention that sexual harassment/rape can be intentionally and consentingly RP'd by both/all parties. The question isn't whether it happened, but whether it was consented to by the players at the time and/or became OOC, which isn't always easy to prove or disprove.
As Achaea doesn't have much in the way of this, any time I see reference to "administrative action" in help scrolls, I just replace that with "permashrubbing" in my head and I am quite content.
Is this point in doubt? I don't need to know what they did, and to whom in order to know that they are taking care of something.
"At the very minimum we should know a general outline for what punishments will be handed out for what actions"
With regards to this, it would raise the issues of things not being accounted for. Right now the harassment help file
"In our sole determination, if the offence is serious enough, we may alert your service provider (ISP), your workplace, your university, or other relevant institutions, giving them details of your use of their resources."
This leads me to believe that if someone is harassing another, it will be dealt with, up to and including that level, which I am sure you can agree encompasses perma-shrubbing.
I think it is important to keep in mind that while we may not like that there are more than a handful of people out there trying to get the young (and not so young) to do things with them, this is a game with more points of view than just our own. These guys (or girls) could be being misconstrued, or perhaps the person they have approached have been too shy etc. to just say "no". I believe that the level of harassment needs to be higher than "he keeps chatting me up", and closer to the realm of "he is intimidating me" before the admin should step in with severe OOC reactions.
You can always ask your city for help, or on newbie channel if you don't have a city. Much like with most issues, it should only get to OOC punishment once IC resolution cannot be found.
There's no need to worry about resolving cases of newbie predation in-game/IC'ly, just ISSUE yourself or the other person directly, stating the circumstances of the situation as well as any dates and times.
We take these matters very seriously; new players are the lifeblood of any game, so we've got 0 tolerance for people driving them away with predatory behaviour.
Imagine actually being a new player. Someone makes a potentially sketchy but seemingly nice comment to you in passing. You have no concept of who people are, what the environment is like, anything. In an attempt to fit in you try to keep the conversation going, you heard this was a roleplaying game on the website and you think this is just one of the spontaneous instances of roleplay popping up. Suddenly things are really skeevy, and your first interaction in the game is some dude trying to feel you up during a conversation.
There's no guide to issuing or ignoring in the intro because the admin want a game where quality interactions happen, and the first response is to play a situation out as opposed to just blocking all communication. The predators are taking advantage of that environment to prey on people who don't know the intricacies of the game.
So again, nobody gives a shit how you would handle a situation as an experienced player.
Cascades of quicksilver light streak across the firmament as the celestial voice of Ourania intones, "Oh Jarrod..."
Eventually I let someone in the House know and let's just say he got the boning he didn't want. It happened he was applying for Ashtani citizenship and because I "led him on" and then reported it, his citizenship hopes were dashed. I think there's an old forum post about it where he lamented how shitty his game experience had been and I confessed it was me. People thought I'd done a shitty thing. To be honest,zero fuck given. It was funny to me, but I could see how uncomfortable and frightened it would've made a clueless kid.
It's not an unfamiliar situation for any woman. If you're alone, you get approached, you start thinking how you can get away from them as politely as possible without making a scene. You're instinctively afraid to offend because some guys can get really nasty about it. . You're on a train, it's crowded and someone starts feeling up your ass. You start making excuses for them because it's crowded, it could just be an accident, what if you caused a fuss and ruined someone's life because he got shoved up against you in the crowd?
Those are the feelings that a newbie will experience handling such predators. And I can sympathise.
At first I thought, name and shame! Why do people who'd act this way deserve the protective cloak of privacy?
But as @Skye says, naming and shaming risks turning the accuser into, "That bitch who got X banned." At least in the eyes of people who wouldn't believe or could personally justify or doublethink away that behaviour. You don't need the splash-back.
And @Tibitha's excellent point about witch-hunting is reason enough not to do it. It can be hard to tell truth from opinion or outright fiction, and mob lynchings aren't justice. The admins have the impartiality and access to informational tools, and the punishments they can levy are serious enough.
On one hand, name and shame may elicit a kind of mob-justice that can go horribly wrong.
On the other hand, some of these people may actually be established characters. They know what they're doing is dodgy shit, they know it's something wrong and they wouldn't want that tagged onto their mains. I think this is where cross-character accountability should really come into play. You're not allowed to make a troll alt to go into cities and attack random denizens to bother other players, why should you be allowed to get away with making alts to take advantage of new players who don't know any better?
And like I said before, the ones who make female characters with suggestive descs and play prostitutes at Minia archway /brass lantern aren't just 'doing their own slutty thing', because the genuine newbs get mixed up with them since their usual pickup spot is precisely where real newbies go.
If we want to retain players then we should ensure that they feel comfortable in the game.
Maybe have R&J throw HELP POLICIES into their rotations of newbie tells, explaining what that scroll is. I don't know. You definitely don't wanna throw "If you get unwanted advances, do this..." into the newbie intro, cause that would be a red flag, "How bad is this game that they have to preface it with this?" I'd close the window right then.
That way it comes over less as a "hey this has predators, watch out" from admin and more IC patriotism.
And then the senior player can advise them about ignoring or issueing themselves, thus also alleviating the feeling about over reacting.
The easiest solution I see is if we stop demonising sex stuff. That takes away the shame that keeps a lot of victims quiet, and the need for plausible deniability we see in those who embrace it - so they no longer feel they must do their thing at Minia, but can happily chitchat at the Doxy House or someplace.
The biggest obstacle I see is the large size and great frailty of the average male ego. (Not that the tiny size of the average female ego in my experience is any better.)
When Tahquil was a newb she got into a situation with a higher up in the house. I thought it was just part of the established RP for Mhaldor. however, I was extremely uncomfortable with it and straight up QQ because I didnt what I could do about it. I didnt have anyone I could ask if the behaviour was appropriate either. Next time I logged in I had to be portalled out of the house by Gildenlow and was questioned about what was happening. I explained things OOC and next day Gildenlow proposed to Tahquil and began running a one man interference show making sure I could still play comfortably even though I had to work with this elder housemate from time to time.
Point is, I was young and didn't know better. I hadn't established any connections I felt I could report it through. I was just lucky Gildenlow was awesome when asked him if mudsexing to gain ranks was what was expected of me.
Point is: even if the stigma of mudsexing was alleviated people would still target newbs because it's a hunting ground full of naive individuals who don't know what they can do to stop it.