Talk:Community Guidelines

Political correctness

The intent is noble but I believe we’re more often hurt by grievances specific to the game than social justice issues. I believe its mostly because matters of race, ability, etc are very rarely relevant to Blognomic. We’re mostly just having friendly competition with rules, enjoying an intellectual sport.

I believe Com. Glines focused more on sportsmanship rather than political correctness would be more appropriate. --Cuddlebeam (talk) 12:13, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

We don't know that - just because nothing has been raised doesn't mean it's never happened - but more more importantly: unless anyone disagrees that we object to harassment on any of those bases, it doesn't hurt to include it. Josh (talk) 12:48, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Alright. I just hope it doesn’t slip into being overly cancelling, because I still want to make jokes about PC Master Race and the sort without getting into official trouble for making a joke about Master Races, or being called androphobic for calling someone a dick, for example.--Cuddlebeam (talk) 13:19, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

If you're under the impression that the BlogNomic community as a whole would generally be fine with jokes about master races, this definitely needs clarifying. --Kevan (talk) 17:03, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Seconded. --Brendan (talk) 15:01, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

I would like to clarify that I am personally fine with jokes about uncomfortable topics. Pokes (talk) 18:16, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Whatever the split on particular topics, Cuddlebeam hoping that they can "still" make master race jokes implies that those kinds of jokes are currently considered acceptable among the group, which they're not. --Kevan (talk) 10:28, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Attacking motives

I think the GF code of conduct is a good starting point, and you're right, Josh, that it is overdue--BlogNomic is not a large community of active people at any given time, but viewed historically, it comprises a significant number of people. Large groups benefit from clear expectations and a team dedicated to acting on them.

In addition to basic safety, I have been thinking quite a bit about the thread in the comments of "Breakpoint Arrived," started by Clucky and continued by Josh and Kevan: the tension between it being a good strategy, even perhaps the best available strategy, to attack another player's motives, and the resultant emergent effects on perceived standards of communication. I think it's worth considering a trial of clearly stated game etiquette and accompanying definitions. I would want to draw those less from abstract social expectations--which may not be shared across different cultural upbringings or neurodivergent populations--and more from the things that, from experience, we have seen have cascading negative effects. I know there's some community opposition to putting things like this in the Ruleset, but maybe we could get to consensus on a page to link in the sidebar, at least. --Brendan (talk) 15:01, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

I agree with this. Let's start, then, with the issue presented here: attacking motives and where it crosses a line from an acceptable play to a corrosive behaviour. I've put some wording in but it's fluffy; how do we strengthen it? Josh (talk) 17:11, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

If we're trying to stake out a line so that everyone understands it in the same way, examples would probably help. --Kevan (talk) 08:08, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Discord discussion, 5 August 2021

This section has been edited for clarity and lightly anonymised.

Re. prior art

I think you're right that it's good to go looking for prior art. But narrowing from the set of multiplayer games to the set of debate-based persistent games reduces that universe of discourse quite a bit.

But MUDs are close cognates, for as far as they run on player-generated scripts.

However, MUDs handle behavior problems with a moderator judge, while a nomic natively operates more like a jury trial.

If there's one thing to take away from the document, it's that players should not be punished without some clearly rules-defined reason.

[not said on Discord but I'll put this here:] Wikipedia is something of a debate-based persistent game, and has a civility policy and a well-explained stance on personal attacks.

Re. how this exercise should manifest outputs

The ruleset totally could contain "Generals SHOULD NOT post a comment on an official post for the sole purpose of preventing its author from altering it" or something to that effect. It does not. If there are some rules norms that are enforced but can't be modified by the rules, they're fundamentally non-nomic.

Yeah, I'm looking for things that can be drawn on for discussion and social conduct, not things that need to be backed up by enforcement right out of the gate, especially because they're likely going to be prototypes for a while.

Just speaking from my own experience, I've made statements in comments in the very recent past that are pretty clearly ad hominem, for instance--disgruntled accusations of bad-faith voting rationales, for one. If there were a prominent page in the wiki that said something like "don't make ad hominem attacks, including accusations of bad faith in voting," and someone had pointed it out to me, I would have stopped.

Re. validity of the exercise and viability of the discussion

I think this is an unnecessary exercise, doomed to fail, that will end up alienating more people than making people feel more comfortable playing BN

Do note that the accused here are also members of the community; assuming no blatant hypocrisy, the "community standards" in question are standards that only part of the community holds, but tries to apply to another part.

We already have a set of standards that we all agree to play by - the Ruleset. For everything else, we must accept that some players will not agree to play by them.

I think there are also general standards of human conduct

and that while it doesn't hurt to clarify some of those standards

an attitude of "anything the rules don't explcitly state is illegal is legal" I think is harmful for the game

I agree that some players will not abide by unenforced rules. I don't agree that we have to accept that. Social pressure is real.

Yes, we can have a minority bullying the majority to achieve standards that couldn't pass by proposal.

With respect, I think typifying this process as "bullying" or dictatorial is unreasonable. I think we're very early on in a process that is designed to be as open and consultative as possible, and where the outcome is very much up for grabs

"Open and consultative" would have discussion taking place on the official discussion channel

I guess my point is that there shouldn't be one discussion. Everybody should have a go at this conversation on whatever format they feel comfortable with; I'm not precious about it and don't feel like I want to see every discussion that happens about it. If there's a useful dialogue that happens on slack, or on Twitter, or in DMs, great. I said "open and consultative" and that's not bad faith

I specifically think that it's important that the effort gets input from skeptics as there's no point in implementing it over anybody's heads

It either has community buy in or it's pointless imo

"Optimal" Play

BlogNomic is a time-based game: its pace is malleable, but edit windows expire, proposals time out, and many successful gambits have historically required actions taken in very quick succession. There seems to be a takeaway among some players that success therefore requires paying attention to the game 24 hours a day, or at least checking in every edit-window-sized chunk, without an allowance for sleep or other human activities. This issue is expressed in ais's comment of 06-08-2021 14:49:05 UTC, but that's not the only time it's been brought up, nor is ais the only player to voice it.

I don't think there's a viable rule that can prevent this kind of behavior, but it's not good for the game, and I don't think it's good for anyone's mental health either. I've noticed a tendency in discussions to display annoyance at the prospect, but also to shrug and say "well, it is the optimal strategy..." Which I don't agree with. If BlogNomic were a game that was reduced directly to "chance of victory approaches 100% as daily attention approaches 24 hours," there would be no point in having any other rules, and anyway the dynastic history indicates pretty clearly that it isn't true. The first rule of optimization is: don't do it.

I think there's an opportunity here for a place to "tap the sign," as Kevan has put it, when players display stress over perceived need for commitment. I think that kind of sign can fall under the heading of etiquette, too. I'm thinking along these lines:

• You will not be able to give feedback on every proposal within its editing window. No one expects you to.
• A note to point out a missing word or a contradiction within the window so the writer can adjust it is a welcome courtesy; an argument toward convincing someone to fully reconsider major elements of a proposal within that window is rarely welcome or courteous.
• Sacrificing other parts of your life (like sleep) to potentially increase your chances of victory can contribute to a vicious cycle where other players feel compelled to do the same. This turns BlogNomic into a game of beggar-thy-neighbour where the only victory is Pyrrhic, and is best avoided.
• Even at the point of borderline dormancy, no one player, even the Emperor, should try to shoulder full responsibility for the state of the game.

I don't want to come off overly mannered or preachy here, so I'd appreciate feedback on whether this seems like a good inclusion or a good way of stating things.