Behavior and or Manners During Events

Kate Goldwalker

Kate Goldwalker

Fairy Tail Girl
Moderator
As many of you are aware, POTCO hosts some GM events from time to time. They have their set of rules on how people are to behave during these events. Fortunately they are able to deal with disruptive people when the disruption occurs. (Host GM KOs someone when they try to attack said Host GM.) Unfortunately we are not able to.

So, seeing that its apparent that people have forgotten their manners or have not been taught, its time for a refresher course.

Lets first start with the POTCO Code of Conduct:
potcocode.png


Now, lets go back to a basic rule that I was taught as a child:
If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all.

Here is another:
Treat others as you want to be treated.

I could go on and on. Most of these "codes" many people have heard and know. The problem is that our society has downgraded itself and instead of being kind and respectful, we're trying to stir the pot and start things for the fun of it. This is absolutely ridiculous and it needs to stop. I have a proposal...

When at events and there are people who I have dubbed "crashers" arrive to crash the event and cause disruption, instead of confronting them we need to change tactics. Traditionally people feel the need to stand up for others and themselves when being bullied. And yes, those crashers are bullies. The problem in doing this is that we are playing directly into their hands. That is what they want, confrontation. They feed off it like leaches. We need to stop supplying them with their hearts' desires.

Instead of confronting them, just ignore them. Yes, I know it can be hard to do. I've ignored till all my buttons were pushed and I couldn't hold my tongue anymore, but we have to be strong. We need to simply click the Ignore on their pirate card if they are just being disruptive and making it hard for us to enjoy the event. If they re being rude, mean, using foul language, then click Report. That will also put them on auto ignore.

These crashers cause problems and drama at events for one reason. They like attention. When we give them attention, they get "louder," meaner, more disrespectful and sometimes start flaming others. If we ignore them and do not acknowledge their existence, they will eventually give up. It may take a few minutes, it may take a few days or longer, but they will give up.

I compare it to a toddler. Everyone knows that toddlers in their "terrible twos" throw big temper tantrums when they do not get their way. A toddler does this because they are trying to distract or frustrate the parent into doing what they want or getting what they want. However, when the toddler is ignored and their tantrum not acknowledged, they will give up. Keep in mind that the toddler is taking up more energy and effort throwing that tantrum than it takes to ignore it. Who wins then? The parent.

So, do we want to win this battle that these crashers bring to events? Of course we do. Ignore them and report the offensive when necessary. Do not acknowledge their disruptive behavior. That is when we win. If we give in to their crashing and end our event(s), then they win. I personally do not want some mindless crasher to determine how my game play will go. What is your choice?
 
Good Post Kate, and I agree 100%. I do not hesitate to report these clearly immature people. I know the reporting works because they tend to not repeat their actions, at least on their main, UA pirate. Some return with a basic level 1 pirate just to provoke us - and do not care if that account gets banned. I just keep reporting. Reporting also puts them on ignore, so I can participate in the event with minimal interruptions on my screen.
 
Not too long ago, I ran into a situation to where a "good" friend of mine (whom used to be a past GM of mine whom I esteemed with a 'sense of respect') disrupted an event to which I periodically attended. While I was attending the event for myself on the basis of sincerely enjoying it, my friend's purposes for attending were quite different. (There were a few individuals present whom he did not respect entirely).

After some time had passed during the interruption, I spoke up to my friend (whom did listen to my requests) but despite my input carried on for awhile but later just tp'd away. Once the event had ended and I had tp'd away, I wanted to understand for myself why my friend acted the way in which he did as the behavior was so out-of-character of him.

Not knowing how to speak up to him about this, he actually spoke to me first - offering his apology to me - and explaining that certain people at the event had basically "driven" him to do what he did. After we both continued to speak to one another for awhile, he acknowledged that it was the "wrong" thing to do and that it was a foolish thing for himself to do. Because he was a close friend of mine on POTCO, I told him that "yes" it was foolish thing what he did but that many people (including myself) had simply clicked IGNORE on him so that, in the end, his plain was foiled, lol.

The reason for this testimony of mine is to not only draw support for the IGNORE choice we may excercise on POTCO but...to also couple (when circumstances arise) open communication as well towards the particular person whom perhaps we may know whom experiences a lapse of judgement, character, and poor online behavior.
 
A few years ago i was attending an event my friend planned, and then a guild came and ruined it, and of course i bursted into flames because of that. But what i should have done, was either have everyone put them on ignore, or go to a different place and different server... but eventually we did it on her boat on friends/guild only.
But ( in my opinion ) It's a game, and a person that would want to crash/bully on the internet because they are to chicken to do it in front of your face.. so if someone is making you mad on a game don't waste your time making combacks and such, just tp away, even if your friend wants to argue to him and doesn't want to leave just tp away.
 
Behavior is a well known issue in MMO games. Especially in lower moderated games like POTCO who mostly just reply on their players to report issues, to which they usually do nothing or little about, then manage to ban people for stupid reasons or just out of the blue. I think a good system to implement, or at least give a shot is a 'hall monitor' type system.

The players would have the power to hold the 'mute' hammer and 'warn' players when they are seen to be breaking the rules which will ~sadly~ have to be reviewed by officials of the game before actual ban action can be taken to ensure the proper action was taken and to prevent abuse of power. Of course this will also cause lots of drama too, people claiming to be hall monitors, asking everyone if they are, etc to infinity and beyond. The real hall monitors would remain anonymous. Of course a system to choose trustworthy would have to be worked out so the power wouldn't fall into the wrong hands...

Wow. I just wrote like a whole novel on this. Kewl. Kinda like Wizard101: https://www.wizard101.com/game/update-notes/august2012#hm
 
In the game red dead redemption you can literally vote people out of a server. While this has been abused multiple times I think it could be a good addition for Potco. However in order for it to be added someone needs to actually be adding things to Potco :/

Let's not forget that a major portion of Potco players are of youth and adolescence[Kids and Teens]. After a long day of school sometimes people just want to blow off some steam so we should stop showing so much ethnocentrism[Judging others by how we were raised]. The mute button is there for a reason. A kid or teen having one bad day or one day were they need to let off steam is no reason to have there account banned.

There will always be people who go overboard and the smartest thing is to just be the bigger person and leave. Yes I understand that there's always that one guy at events who is craving attention, but just hit ignore and leave it be more often. I have only reported a few people in my entire Potco career because they went so absolutely overboard that it made me wanna fly over to them and discipline them in ways that there parents clearly did not.

-The report button should not excessively be used
-Talk to the person kindly[P.s. kindly actually means kindly not just going stop and maybe throwing in a please]
-Just hit mute and unless there spamming or glitching ignore it and be the bigger person
-Let's have fun together

I'll admit in my youth I was the kid/teen who was going crazy and getting reported. We all changed with growth and experience and were once immature.
 
In my opinion, Kate Goldwalker (supporting the 'ignore/report' option), Bobby Flat Foot (supporting a 'hall monitor' option) and Will Nightwolf (supporting a player-based 'voting' system) each have provided some "smart" ideas on how to deal with unruly behavior on POTCO. :D (In July of 2011, I have suggested also the idea about a 'new player' mentor/buddy system which, in itself, could also be applied to combat the issue by teaching rookie players what is & is not acceptable on POTCO).

When I came across this article, http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134784/the_politics_of_creative_.php, I understood the lessons EVE Online has done in consideration to bridging the gap between game developers and EVE players (via the 'Council of Stellar Management').

The point to be made is that if POTCO was permitted to survive within the long-term, somebody working within DIMG needs to be looking closely on how to counter behavior/poor manners, "inside" the game as opposed to outside.I like the idea :p of having developer GM's "hang out" on the game more.

*The absence of in-game leadership, is the cause (IMO) of what we are experiencing on POTCO. Everything else is just a symptom...
 
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I just wish the report option actually had a purpose or effect. Right now it seems to just be there for no reason and many players who act immaturely or cause trouble are aware of this so they pretty much ignore the code and their criticizing and continue on their wrongdoing...
 
What I do if they insult you say thats nice. say yeah, ok or something like that every time they say a disrespectful sentence. they get so annoyed that they quit being mean and walked away and kind of just looked stupid because everyone knew I didn't care what he said
 
The only viable option we have is to use our internal ignore. Reports DO some good, but far too often they end up in nothing-ness.

Disney will never give the player any more power than we have now. Call me a pessimist, but any power Disney may (could) hand over is simply seen (by Disney) as another avenue for those bent on causing trouble TO CAUSE TROUBLE.

I like all those ideas to varying degrees. However, I AM a realist, and I foresee none of those ideas ever seeing the light of day due to said reasoning above.

I DO SO HOPE I'm wrong.
 
As an event moderator who runs DreadPoet's story time to share poems and other literary works (for the last three and a half years) I can tell you first hand some of the things that go on. We have had story tellers leave the stage in tears because of some of the rude behavior we see exhibited. At least once a month we have griefers that come up on stage, disrespect the story tellers, throw grenades at them, set off fart potions in their face, use the monkey to push people off the rock, etc. It's not like they would stumble into this event--on a quiet server, in an area rarely visited, with few quests that need to be picked up. You have to go actively search the event out to find it-- or in this case, actively search it out-- to ruin it.

For me, I try to talk to them first and ask them nicely. After asking them nicely to stop, I give them a warning with a notice that if they persist that Disney will hear about it from me. And then I report them. (and you thought all I do is host... more than half the time I'm dealing with delinquents off stage)

Some times, like 2 weeks ago, whole guilds stage an ambush. It becomes impossible to continue when you have 6-10 people making stupidheads of themselves. The only way to address the issue is to 1) make an announcement that any person who has the disrupters on their friends list to de-friend them (I watch to see who these malcontents drop in on -- and will message them privately to better consider their friends.) On extreme and rare occasions, I will move the event server and location and make it invite only for a few weeks until the guilty parties get bored and move onto someone else to annoy. After all, there's always Abassa for that type of thing.

I do wish that one of these days, real moderators with power would anonymously attend and smite down the malcontents. Or wistfully grant it to me so I could use it to keep the event safe.

Does anyone know of a place within the game that you can hold approximately 100 pirates in the same room that you can set to private to exclude the people who seek to ruin the fun of everyone else attending?

Thoughts advice and comments are welcome.

--DreadPoet
 
Dread Poet Roberts said:
Does anyone know of a place within the game that you can hold approximately 100 pirates in the same room that you can set to private to exclude the people who seek to ruin the fun of everyone else attending?
Click to expand...
There are moments on the game to where I am running around and all of the sudden, I stop and look around and I begin to think to myself, "Hmmm...this would make a great guild meeting/event location." *Unfortunately, I never quite remember where these places are located once I am in a position to recall them either for other people or for myself.

Have you ever thought about attending an event inside an abandon shop, on a quiet server? Although many shops are lacking on interior space, at least many of them have an "upstairs"/loft area for packing in extra guests...(shrugs).
 
... and... in spite of moving the event... the malcontents found us... so again we had a sea of Pink ignores on stage. But it was much quieter when we just ignored than try to shout them down.

So on the plus side, just muting them did help a bit... well until they found siege charges.
 
Dread Poet Roberts said:
... and... in spite of moving the event... the malcontents found us... so again we had a sea of Pink ignores on stage. But it was much quieter when we just ignored than try to shout them down.

So on the plus side, just muting them did help a bit... well until they found siege charges.
Click to expand...
Depending on how many people come, could you do it on a private ship? It's unfortunate that some people do things like this - if they don't like poetry they shouldn't come. Simple as that.
 
Back in the days when you could pack your frigate like a volkswagon bus with 20,30 people, no problem. At present we have about 100 show up for each event and no ship is big enough to hold them all.
 
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