Changes to rule 9!

[Dumbdumn5]

 

I'm going to be the devil's advocate and say that the polls are a joke, even the admin only ones. It's never been a democracy and never will be. Even for the admins, only opinions are welcome and very minorly considered. It's a fairly rigged poll in the first placed given quite a few members of the team would be affected should it be expanded upon. You can't give an honest or genuinely fair result based on a closed poll from people that are directly biased against several of the results.

 

Don't pretend otherwise. Votes are a joke. Admin only votes even more so. This doesn't mean they can't be discussed and a fair result can't come to, but this is not the right way to do it if you ever want to pretend that you are remotely for what the users actually want.

 

You're right about the bias, but the majority of the issues we have with each other are discussed internally, as they are personal matters more often than not. In regards to opinions, we discuss the matters over the administrator staff chat thoroughly, and on multiple occasions I've seen player opinions in the staff chat, some for and against matters. Not only do we debate on the forums, but in the staff chat as well. Administrators will most likely support the opinions of one another, due to the trust that we give each other, and the friendships created with one another. This inevitably, leads to bias on most things that are not highly opinionated. However, most admins can say that they voted for the rules, not just for Bulma and Fox, but for anybody else picking a referential name.

 

[IcyV]

This is just a circular argument, and isn't going to move anywhere. I've made my opinion clear.

[necaladun]

 

The intent of Rule 9 was never to disallow the names of fictional characters.

 

This rule was written by myself and Mkenner, and the intent was to stop names such as Adolf Hitler or Fuck Off Shitface. We didn't even think we'd need the rule itself because we thought it'd be obvious. How naive we were.

 

The repeated accusations of names like Fox's being "rule breaking" or that he somehow pushed to have it changed to allow his name are complete and utter bullshit.

 

The push to change rule 9 was done by myself and mine alone to specifically ban names like Dick Payne and other genital puns. I thought I'd then discuss if we should make it stricter for other things - such as fictional names.

 

There was very little support for this. I was one of the people who am personally against any reference names, but the counter arguments given convinced me it was not worth pushing for. The strongest one being how hard it is to enforce - there are simply too many fictional names for any admin to be expected to be aware of, especially considering we don't all have the same backgrounds. I don't recognize Anime names as references, for instance.

 

When it comes to votes - the opinions of the playerbase inform us on expected reactions, but do not define policy. They are not done to decide by vote whether or not we should do something - but to see what kind of reaction we can expect.

 

This server is not run by public opinion or for it. It has, since the beginning, been run based on the way the admin team want things run. This view seems to be popular among SS13 players. There are a -lot- of things I would never allow to be changed no matter how many people voted for it - such as ERP, the use of "faggot".

 

[Kluys]

 

I personally was for the rule as it stands.

The thing with fictional names is that its really hard to draw a line.

I am ok with names like bulma briefs and fox mccloud to an extent because they can be considered actual names.

I am not however entirely ok with names like groot or starlord or scruffy the janitor ooooooooor mr anderson.

those aren't names, those are single words or titles.

 

[Gibson1027]

 

Hello everyone, I wanted to bring up a small point and case in defense of Mr. Payne here. I am coming up on my 1 year anniversary of forums posting and game playing on July 21st. (wohoo!) Now with that said in a large portion of that time has my characters (Echo, Sploosh) have met Mr. Payne in game. To my knowledge and understanding Mr. Payne , over the entire period the character has been created and known, has never once used his name in a derogatory way. He is a good example and trend setter for new and old alike! He is respectful, calm, and above all else acts like an adult, not once making a phallic ailment or distasteful feeling in his unmentionables as jokes. He gets on, does his job, has fun. I thought that was what was wanted? Now you may know this man better than I as I have only had about half a year, and the countless encounters as Echo and Sploosh with him. But I would like to give some information because no problem can be resolved without actions.

 

Now I know you guys don't all have a common background so I will give you a little help:

 

Etymology is the study of word changing throughout history and luckily for you! Etymonline is a website devoted to retracing any word origin you could think of!

Now let us take a few really common names:

This is exact quotations from etymonline:

 

"peter Slang for "penis" is attested from 1902, probably from identity of first syllable.

 

Johnson "penis," 1863, perhaps related to British slang John Thomas, which has the same meaning (1887).

 

Dick "fellow, lad, man," 1550s, rhyming nickname for Rick, short for Richard, one of the commonest English names, it has long been a synonym for "fellow," and so most of the slang senses are probably very old, but naturally hard to find in the surviving records. The meaning "penis" is attested from 1891 in British army slang."

 

 

Now excuse me for the pun but if you banned every tom,dick, and harry from the server for using the name Peter or Johnson BOY would the list be big. My thing is that people are reaching REAL hard for something to dismiss here because the word dick is a commonly used reference to a male sexual body part. So If my name is Cave Johnson. or Peter Parker would I illicit the same response? No I would be called for having a portal 2 reference name, and of course be called spider man.

 

What I am saying is I feel that what breaks immersion here is the people who play a character that is so unoriginal and takes from things so much that it ruins the experience.

 

I hate to have to use this but to quote Dumbdumn5 exactly : "Since people keep bringing up Bulma and Fox, I don't believe they make an excessive amount of either Dragonball or Starfox [reference] to any extent aside from their name."

 

Now I am not picking on fox but this is what I have an issue with:

https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradise/pull/1369

 

It is a blatant copy and pull of items from a series for a character of the same exact names.

For comparisons Fox McCloud is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_McCloud

 

Now I don't mind role playing but straight character ripping is unimaginative and game breaking! To quote rule nine: "Character names can both help or break immersion" and this does severely impact my immersion in game. I don't mind the station having wildly kooky and crazy characters but having blatant rips from another series is just such bad role play form. It would be the equivalency of going and seeing an avengers movie and behold! Arachnid Man, and his name is Parker Peter! His powers are he sprays uhhh I mean shoots web and his suit colors are red and white instead of red and black/blue.

 

He emulates spider man even though there are slight difference we still know exactly what he is doing.

 

 

Now to address rule nine I feel that it should be a case by case basis to see how far the character has devolved. The paradise server has trial mods, have them observe these characters and report in any unbiased actions or negativity they are doing to hinder the rules or even their character. This makes it easier on the normal admins to address the issue, stay relevant, and only handle the players that need it. I know it is not a hard implementation other than going: "Dean, Dumn, whoever, when you die can you ghost this person and see if their character breaks too much immersion?" and if you think they are biased send another mod to do it on another round! Anyways good luck Dick hope you get your name to stay.

 

[Earthdivine]

 

Now I am not picking on fox but this is what I have an issue with:

https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradise/pull/1369

 

 

This was a gift from Nienhaus, he never even asked for it to be done, so using this for evidence isn't really a good way of going about this. If he himself put the work into this, or asked for it, yes it could.

 

Now with that said in a large portion of that time has my characters (Echo, Sploosh) have met Mr. Payne in game. To my knowledge and understanding Mr. Payne , over the entire period the character has been created and known, has never once used his name in a derogatory way.

 

We had plenty of people playing characters with pun names that play good. But just because a Dick Payne or a Hughe Jass have vaugely good enough names and are also good players, there's even more derogatory names that had been used. People keep looking at this from a Roleplay point, when this should be looked at from a player perspective.

 

IRL names are asked not to be used because they can be used as an insult to those people, and seeing players naming themselves Mike Litoris, Hugh G. Rechton, or E. Jack Ulate, is far more worrisome then someone going about naming themselves after games or shows. This also would extend to all borgs and AI players, like HAL. If we go ahead and remove reference names, because it breaks immersion, what about game references that we already have, like the CentCom ALICE AI? SS13 is built completely on references, so to say that seeing a reference like that breaks immersion is...a little strange to me, honestly.

 

[Dumbdumn5]

 

What you have, Gibson, is a brilliant idea. A case by case basis would let us short out the griefers from those who genuinely wanted a character with a name that could be taken as phallic. While I have no problem personally with your idea, there's an issue with it all. It's incredibly hard to enforce. We want to monitor things, however there are times when we're too busy to do this. End-round when admins are juggling ahelps is no time to carefully watch a specific character, and we need all the admins we can get to watch out for rules 4 and 7, the rules which, personally, I've seen broken the most. It's impractical to try and watch over one person while you have to monitor everybody else as well, in addition to some players not even ahelping about issues that could lead to us stopping a griefer before they do any serious damage. It's a brilliant idea, but it's also a difficult one to practice. We don't have enough admins on consistently to watch over everybody with that sort of name, and even if we did, we can't all focus on that aspect without sacrificing focus on potentially round-ending affects.

 

In short, good on paper, not in practice.

 

[monkeysfist101]

 

What I am saying is I feel that what breaks immersion here is the people who play a character that is so unoriginal and takes from things so much that it ruins the experience.

 

I hate to have to use this but to quote Dumbdumn5 exactly : "Since people keep bringing up Bulma and Fox, I don't believe they make an excessive amount of either Dragonball or Starfox [reference] to any extent aside from their name."

 

Now I am not picking on fox but this is what I have an issue with:

https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradise/pull/1369

 

It is a blatant copy and pull of items from a series for a character of the same exact names.

For comparisons Fox McCloud is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_McCloud

 

Now I don't mind role playing but straight character ripping is unimaginative and game breaking! To quote rule nine: "Character names can both help or break immersion" and this does severely impact my immersion in game. I don't mind the station having wildly kooky and crazy characters but having blatant rips from another series is just such bad role play form. It would be the equivalency of going and seeing an avengers movie and behold! Arachnid Man, and his name is Parker Peter! His powers are he sprays uhhh I mean shoots web and his suit colors are red and white instead of red and black/blue.

 

He emulates spider man even though there are slight difference we still know exactly what he is doing.

I'd like to also call to attention the whole Vuplkanin race and the push for the security pod sprite to be turned into an Arwing.

 

Now I am not picking on fox but this is what I have an issue with:

https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradise/pull/1369

 

 

This was a gift from Nienhaus, he never even asked for it to be done, so using this for evidence isn't really a good way of going about this. If he himself put the work into this, or asked for it, yes it could.

 

So, what I'm getting from this is that if someone makes me a sprite and I code it myself, I can just give myself all kinds of fluff items, too? Nice!

 

SS13 is built completely on references, so to say that seeing a reference like that breaks immersion is...a little strange to me, honestly.

 

The references are in the code, not in the players. There's a difference between building ED-209 and naming your character Alex Murphy or Robocop (if you're a security borg.) If I take a Vox (if you're saying that wouldn't work because it isn't the right species, keep in mind that before his pet species was added, Fox was playing a tajaran with flavor text claiming it wasn't) and name it Falco Lombardi and act as though I'm that character, people would have an issue with me breaking immersion.

 

[necaladun]

 

So, what I'm getting from this is that if someone makes me a sprite and I code it myself, I can just give myself all kinds of fluff items, too? Nice!

 

Nope, not at all. Admins can get a free donator perk item or two without the donation. Players cannot.

 

 

 

In general, I'm going to ask you to cut out the sarcasm and snide comments here. If you have a problem with Fox, lodge an admin complaint. There is no need for a clear grudge about Vulpankin etc to stretch into these other threads.

 

[Earthdivine]

 

The Arwing was also not his, and infact had a picture of someone saying from him to do it, and said sprite was, once again, Nienhaus. I'm beginning to agree with neca in that this feels like an attack on Fox.

 

The references are in the code, not in the players. There's a difference between building ED-209 and naming your character Alex Murphy or Robocop (if you're a security borg.) If I take a Vox (if you're saying that wouldn't work because it isn't the right species, keep in mind that before his pet species was added, Fox was playing a tajaran with flavor text claiming it wasn't) and name it Falco Lombardi and act as though I'm that character, people would have an issue with me breaking immersion.

 

All I get from this is that it breaks the Immersion for you. You just gave what you consider an exception to the rule. It has to be all or nothing, otherwise we will keep getting edge cases of "But his name is fine why not mine?"

 

[monkeysfist101]

 

The Arwing was also not his, and infact had a picture of someone saying from him to do it, and said sprite was, once again, Nienhaus. I'm beginning to agree with neca in that this feels like an attack on Fox.

 

The references are in the code, not in the players. There's a difference between building ED-209 and naming your character Alex Murphy or Robocop (if you're a security borg.) If I take a Vox (if you're saying that wouldn't work because it isn't the right species, keep in mind that before his pet species was added, Fox was playing a tajaran with flavor text claiming it wasn't) and name it Falco Lombardi and act as though I'm that character, people would have an issue with me breaking immersion.

 

All I get from this is that it breaks the Immersion for you. You just gave what you consider an exception to the rule. It has to be all or nothing, otherwise we will keep getting edge cases of "But his name is fine why not mine?"

 

I did not give what I believed an exception to the rule.

My first point, referencing Robocop was to imply that any reference should be server-side. Building ED-209 is fine. Claiming that you're Robocop is not.

My second example was to show how ripping a character from other media detracts from immersion.

 

If it seems like I'm ragging on Fox, I'm not. I don't have an issue with Fox himself. I just believe that abusing adminship to circumvent the rules of the time is not the kind of standard that should be set for Paradise. With our population, we are currently the flagship for SS13 and should act like it. As far as the Arwing debate went. I'm fully aware that Fox was not the one to suggest the Arwing. He seemed to believe that Paradise did not have permission to use the current sprites and when informed that the sprites were open source still insisted the Arwing be used. Once again, I do not dislike Fox McCloud. I just think that he could have been a little more professional in his practices and was using him as an example for the naming convention.

 

[Gibson1027]

 

Hey guys lovely and fantastic suggestions and responses from everyone!

@Earth

I felt that typing up a big fancy reply for this is not really necessary because giving argument solves nothing so here is what I propose as a solution.

Under the purview of rule 9. the starting statement of this law states:

Character names can both help or break immersion.

also to redirect to line 7: Plain silly names (Stu Pid, Captain Bonzo-Fart the Eighth) are really only acceptable for the clown, mime and/or wizards.

 

It could be argued and I see a legitimate stance here that if real life names (from line one), silly names are barred thus leaving in question the idea that comical character reference names such as (fox mccloud,man bat, groot) could all be banned.

 

Now I am not arguing any more but propose a solution.

Under line 2-3 of rule nine:

As such, names of famous people IRL (Barack Obama, John Travolta), names of body parts or puns referencing them (Hughe Jass, Pee Ness), highly offensive names (Fuk U),

 

place a colon statement attached to this sentence : Movie, Game, Television, etc based references are still allowed as viable name refrences (I.E. Master Chief, Son Goku Bat Man)

 

Simply add that in as a clause statement and it is over. It is a law that is undisputed by the creator with a simple amendment then there is no confusion, fuss, or even write. If it is SAID in the rules from day 1.

 

 

@Dumbdumn5

 

I am so glad you love the idea. I could see it having issues yes but I do propose a small bit of a solution for this! Okay I am unsure if you have it but an equivalency to a logging system or admin notes for player complaints in game then you could keep a tally. See you guys are SUPER busy and I understand spam, questions etc are all a very big pertinent part of volunteering. Now with that said say that you have a player named "Dick But" reported for his name. You write that down under player notes/admin notes for said player and keep a tab. At strike 2 of said complaint say ANOTHER player reports "Dick But" for his name then you know that there is a concerning issue. That is when a trial admin would step into that case and get a record of conversation and ask the player to change/ or auto be changed. Now I know it is not the most speedy of solutions but utilizing player feelings about things is a good way to go about handling problem players. If you used the front banner as a notice board of reminding people of the rules in big pretty letters or recommendations of : if you see rule breaking report it. then I feel you would get a lot more player feedback from player complaint. I'll be the first to admit it I forget about player complaint sometimes. I have a bad player and I am more focused on the game so a little reminder in big bold letters saying: If you see anything suspicious report it etc: then I think I would readily remember to report suspicious and bad players!

 

Anyways if there is anything I can do to help you guys out just give me a shout. I want to solve problems and help people get results that benefit all parties and i think adding in a clause rule to 9 as well as handling players on case by case basis would be a good foot forward.

 

[Dumbdumn5]

Actually Gibson... that's a really good idea now that you mention it. It'd be easier to track than the player complaints section, but it'd need to have a similar menu to admin notes so we could dispute what was and wasn't a legitimate complaint. The base idea of it however, would be a lot more helpful in my opinion.

[Gibson1027]

 

@DumbDum5

Glad to hear it man! I am glad I even helped a little! =)