My problems with LAW

[Malkavia]

[quote]there are people who are just slackers, who seem to like to stall things instead of moving forward.[/quote]

For pretty much every event I've either organized or watched get organized, if there were accolades involved, one of the prerequisite questions the event runner would ask about potential honorees was "is this person active enough that we can anticipate they'll finish their thread?"

So we spent a fair amount of time looking into different users' activity, and one thing I quickly learned is that the vast majority of people are active in fits and spurts. People who are on all the time for a long time are rare. Even people who top the monthly chart will have weeks or months where they vanish or slow down.

So what causes people with thousands of posts to drop off? Naturally there's life and all the many ways it can be an asshole, but after that, the most likely culprit is burnout. LAW becomes stressful instead of fun, so the motivation to show up fades. Perversely, I think pressure to be active makes that burnout worse; the more people feel an obligation to post as if it were a job, the more shame they feel for a hiatus, the less likely they are to ever want to come back at all.

Anyway, that's not to say that dropped threads don't suck. My main girl's debut -- my first match on the site -- got dropped after a few weeks of activity, and yeah, I wish it hadn't. It's worse when it's a belt holder and the absence gums up a title belt storyline. If I ever run any user events in the future, I'll continue to make activity one of the big metrics to decide who I want to play what roles. And in general, I think people are smart to be leery of playing with chronically slow posters if speed and reliability is important to them.

But shaming "slackers" for being slow for who knows what reason? Eh, that imo suggests a culture I find pretty toxic.

[ThatPolishDude]

there are people who are just slackers, who seem to like to stall things instead of moving forward.

For pretty much every event I've either organized or watched get organized, if there were accolades involved, one of the prerequisite questions the event runner would ask about potential honorees was "is this person active enough that we can anticipate they'll finish their thread?"

So we spent a fair amount of time looking into different users' activity, and one thing I quickly learned is that the vast majority of people are active in fits and spurts. People who are on all the time for a long time are rare. Even people who top the monthly chart will have weeks or months where they vanish or slow down.

So what causes people with thousands of posts to drop off? Naturally there's life and all the many ways it can be an asshole, but after that, the most likely culprit is burnout. LAW becomes stressful instead of fun, so the motivation to show up fades. Perversely, I think pressure to be active makes that burnout worse; the more people feel an obligation to post as if it were a job, the more shame they feel for a hiatus, the less likely they are to ever want to come back at all.

Anyway, that's not to say that dropped threads don't suck. My main girl's debut -- my first match on the site -- got dropped after a few weeks of activity, and yeah, I wish it hadn't. It's worse when it's a belt holder and the absence gums up a title belt storyline. If I ever run any user events in the future, I'll continue to make activity one of the big metrics to decide who I want to play what roles. And in general, I think people are smart to be leery of playing with chronically slow posters if speed and reliability is important to them.

But shaming "slackers" for being slow for who knows what reason? Eh, that imo suggests a culture I find pretty toxic.

THIS
I think calling people slackers and shaming the pace of rp they are operating at can only achieve those people leaving all together.
RP is supposed to be fun, haveing people breath down your neck cause you haven't replied in a little bit just hurts the drive to rp all together. Like, no harm in asking, sometimes it can be nice if you can see someone is excited but when shit get's passive aggressive as it often does you can't help but ask yourself what's even the point.

[APlaying]

Let me clarify something: no one is complaining about slackers in general. What I'm referring to here are those who carry the responsibility, because champions are supposed to have the job of defending their titles. And that's not just for fun; it's a responsibility. If you don't take that responsibility seriously, you simply have no reason to continue fulfilling that role.

[ThatPolishDude]

I know the perception that bad eggs have been tolerated by the moderation team has been an issue in the past. There have been instances where there have been a ton of complaints about users and nothing substantive had been done about said users. Thankfully, I think this is much less of a problem now—at least, that's my current perception. I feel like the current LAW Discord moderators (and Polish) have been good with not letting themselves be perceived as tolerating bad eggs.

But, speaking vaguely to avoid publicly dredging up stuff, problems have arisen in the past from people feeling as if their concerns/complaints regarding certain users were not listened to or addressed. It's led to and/or contributed to some pretty poor outcomes—think public conflict, damaged trust, and at least one abjectly immolated interpersonal relationship. Moreover, lack of listening and/or addressing has led to at least two toxic (former) users remaining in the LAW Discord server for longer than what would have been prudent.

Although, I do get that it's a tough balancing act to balance responsiveness and leniency. It's probably inevitable that someone will think that moderation action was taken too quickly or too hastily. Moreover, I also get that it can be hard to ensure that people raising complaints leave feeling like they were listened to. But, difficulty does not give one carte blanche to not try.

I'll say that in my run we certainly been too eager to give people more chances then they maybe should have got or took too long to come to the decision. Thing is that when presented with a problem, unless it's cut and dry or needs immediate action one way or another we were making decisions as a group so it could be a bit before everyone gets around given timezones being all over. Then there is an issue of where's the line of someone being a colossal ass that should be gotten rid off when they might not have broken the rules. There have been cases like that when the users were technically not in violation even if everyone was mad. Then there were cases where personal drama was coming into things and such.

Also, when we did take action, it wasn't always visible, we did not announce bans or other disciplinary actions, there was a banlog in the past but we decided against using it as we continued. It might have given some more transparency but there are other concerns in regards of using such a tool and to be perfectly honest, I never saw any other place use such or have a use for it really. IDK if reviving it would help make actions more visible, it would require people to be going there and checking anyhow and if you go out of your way to see if someone has been banned, I think there are deeper issues to adress.

[ThatPolishDude]

Let me clarify something: no one is complaining about slackers in general. What I'm referring to here are those who carry the responsibility, because champions are supposed to have the job of defending their titles. And that's not just for fun; it's a responsibility. If you don't take that responsibility seriously, you simply have no reason to continue fulfilling that role.

In that case, this point is mute for vast majority, open, heavy, middle and light weight champions are all actively defending, lawless just changed hands and is going for the first defence, hentai is vacant, didn't loserbelt change hands recently as well? Like, I get people might get antsy about length of reign when they don't have behind the screen context but this seems kind of out of pocket, maybe I'm wrong.

Then again besides that, if you are gonna pressure the champion I see even less reason to want the belt. If taking it I agree for people to constantly be looking at my hands and hounding me about defences and timelines. Like, shouldn't being a champ be fun to the belt holder as well? Cause at this point what would even be a point of wanting that?

[APlaying]

I understand. The pressure of defending your title can be overwhelming. Anyone who's been active enough will know what all that pressure entails—it's not all fun. But at the same time, being a champion is about more than just enjoying the journey. It's about proving you're the best and defending that title against everyone who comes your way. And if that means dealing with the pressure and scrutiny that comes with it, then so be it.

[APlaying]

Aside from that, what you say about middleweight, oppenweight, and heavyweight are just three specific examples. The loserweight belt has been on the rocks for quite some time and is the only one that's been changed in years. The Tag belt is advancing at an extremely precarious pace, and that involves the defense of the same administrator.

The Hentai belt is a bit more controversial since, like all the other titles, like the lightweight belt, it had to be changed because the user RETIRED!

Everyone should be clear about the following: the champion must change the title for the benefit of the story. Not when he feels like it, leaving and not playing anymore. That's a behavior more akin to a guy with creative control, like Hulk Hogan, for example.

Someone who, instead of ensuring the progress of things, looks out for himself.

[ThatPolishDude]

I am sincirly confused by some of what you are saying, idk, maybe I'm not understanding but openweight, heavyweight and middleweight belts are roughly at 2 year mark and as far as I can tell all have plans to cycle to the next holder in the near future, lightweight changed even more recently though circumstances of said change were far from ideal. Lawless literally just changed hands and has first title defence going on right now as I'm typing it.

With hentai, the user did not retire, they themselves recognised that they would not be able to be active enough due to life circumstances to handle that and decided it would be better to drop it and let a tournament decide. So can you really blaim them for trying to be fair?

I get people might have particular issues but we are already talking about belts so everyone knowswho is holding which one, we might as well do away with talking in abstracts about "belts" as a whole and say exactly what our issues are cause I feel like most belts right now are handled well and the holders that had to adjust due to the callout in this thread already did, even if not everyone knows about the actions taken there

[APlaying]

It's easy for you to say, right? Because as far as I know, this doesn't involve anyone other than the same old users. As BG himself said, the defenses are against the same old users, and that has only stalled the situation on a creative level.

I think you're trying to ignore the fact that you're not taking into account some users who make an effort to interact with certain users who left their legacy or mark on the forum, but who in one way or another feel displaced.

[Malkavia]

I understand. The pressure of defending your title can be overwhelming. Anyone who's been active enough will know what all that pressure entails—it's not all fun. But at the same time, being a champion is about more than just enjoying the journey. It's about proving you're the best and defending that title against everyone who comes your way. And if that means dealing with the pressure and scrutiny that comes with it, then so be it.

It's a little unclear who "you" is here. No one thinks there's any problem with a character feeling pressure or scrutiny, but on the other hand, the player absolutely does run a titleholder purely to enjoy the journey. Writing a titleholder character has little to do with being the best at anything.

But that aside, I do think you and others are getting at a real question, which is something like -- do titleholders have a special responsibility to be active, and should the belt be nudged into a new home if they can't keep a reasonable pace? And I'd say yes. Everyone has more fun when belts are active parts of stories, and it's reasonable to ask people only to accept a belt if they feel prepared to do something with it.

However, I'd offer a few points to push against what I just said.

First, if someone posts once daily, I'd feel comfortable giving them an accolade--that's an above average rate. However, one post a day is around one thread a month. So at that rate, 7 title defenses takes 7 months -- under ideal circumstances: no slow partners, no life crises, no busy days, no delayed ppvs. And they're *only* doing average length matches -- no promos, no social thread buildup, no 150 post ppv epics, no posts on non-champ toons. Realistically, 7 well-told defenses is going to take closer to 21 months for many reasonably active people.

Given the reality of how slowly play by post rp moves, belts are going to change hands--even with active champs. That's a big part of why I strongly advise people not to invest too much emotionally in holding a belt. No one is guaranteed a turn with a belt, so invest in what you can control and tell stories that are great with or without accolades.

Second, most people who have been asked to step down from a belt were active when they started. Some -- alas, ark -- even had really good reigns. But then life happened. This is extremely hard to avoid since -- to reiterate a previous point -- almost everyone goes inactive sooner or later and it's almost impossible for anyone to predict who it will be and when. It could be you next month.

Third, despite all this, belts do move and defenses do happen. In the three years I've been here, I've seen just about every belt on the board change hands. When people become inactive, they are eventually asked to move the belt on. In the last year, I've made 15 title defense posters just for ppvs, and I know there's been several defenses outside of ppvs. In my opinion, the biggest change from when I first joined to now is not that fewer matches with belts are happening -- it's that people talk less about the matches that do happen. Which is a shame, since some of these recent defenses are bangers,

Anyway, so what's my point? My point is that one the one hand -- yes, it's better for everyone when belts move smoothly. But on the other hand, I think belts are inherently a bit slow, that hiccups are unavoidable, that much has been done to keep them moving...and that it's more fun for everyone if we accept that, exercise some patience, try to show empathy for titleholders and respect for their work, and try to enjoy the storylines that are happening rather than focus too much on whose turn is next.