Is CR pointless?

[MattWithoos]

Alutka, have you played DnD before? I'm curious on your views around DnD (where cheating is very, very easy if you try) and how that could translate to Cantr.

[Alutka]

Nope, I haven't. After a second thought: I played Savage Worlds though, will that do?

[pulkownikarnold]

I agree with Snickie.

Oh god, uhm, uh, CR, uh, yeah, it's pointy, it's sharp, it gets ya bad. Uhm, pointless? No, like I said, quite sharp. Uhm...

(happy Snickie??)

Yeh, we know.
If there's nothing more to add maybe we should end/close this discussion Instead of going off-topic.

[MattWithoos]

The last thing I'd add is that Alutka and I spoke in IRC and came to a mutual understanding. Alutka actually initiated it and apologised, and I returned the apology. Just want to shout-out that Alutka is not a bad person, not by a long shot. Thanks Alutka!

(FYI the issue was a cultural misunderstanding)

[Alutka]

Cultural plus foot in mouth syndrome (on my side). Maybe to end it let us agree that it was Ally's fault. He is always the best one to blame.

[Alladinsane]

The beatings will indeed continue.

The CR is pointless if you only have one character. If you have more than one, it is vital.
There is your solution. One character... or live with the CR.

To say that it is 'pointless' would imply that there was no intended point in creating it.
Who said that?
Quotes?

Why is so much of this thread involving putting words into the mouths of people who never said those words?
Psychoanalysts all? How is your professional practice doing?
The Cr recently reared its head high... it was to protect most of you from things that some of you admit not knowing.
The rest pretend to knowing.

smh

[andrzejek]

pointless to argue...
if you dont like cantr leave
if you want to change something leave because nothing is going to be changed
i saw many niche games fail like this one
there is no point in rescuing the corpse now

[LittleSoul]

The CR is a delicate issue. On one hand is it vague and subjective in some areas. On the other, we have to have some sort of rule to decide what is allowable behavior as a player in the game.

So I am wondering, even if we all agreed that the CR is wrong, or needs to be changed, or replaced, or taken out altogether - what is the solution?
The alternative?

When I think about it, I can't think of a much better one that is any easier to police.
It may have its faults, but what can we do that is more effective?
I think that's the more positive side of this discussion we should all explore.

[Wolfsong]

The CR is probably the easiest to police solution available because it is subjective, so you don't need to do as much to justify an opinion or action. That said, I don't think a replacement solution (not that I believe the CR needs replacing - just clarifying, and being brought out into the open) needs to be as "simple" because Cantr has more than enough staff around capable of putting in a few hours a week toward moderation, etc. Additionally, actually knowing what is and what isn't forbidden might go a long way in actually preventing a lot of rule breaking.

[MonkeyPants4736]

The Capitol Rule is not truly a rule in and of itself. If this were a business, the CR would be the mission statement. If Cantr were a government, then the CR would be a very basic constitution. In either case, it provides the philosophy of the game. It is by default not all encompassing.

Why have the CR in the first place? The purpose of the CR is to create the challenge/difficulty of the game (according to Jos).

Unlike other challenges in the game, this difficulty is not one that can be coded. It relies entirely on the efforts of the actors in the system (staff and players alike). None of those actors has a perfect understanding of the philosophy, yet every actor’s interpretation of the philosophy is fundamentally equal.

Since none of us have perfect understanding of the philosophy, but are all fundamentally equal as higher thinkers, the CR requires official interpreters in order to have consensus (or at least a noble effort at consensus). Originally, this function was performed by the Game Administration Council. (If memory serves correctly). The Council no longer exists. Since then, the only official mention of interpretation that I know of is that all staff are responsible to uphold the philosophy of the game.

With no higher authority expressly tasked with interpretation from the top down, interpretations fall to the Players Department by default, as they are the ones working at ground level, so to speak. The Player’s Department is not designed to be the interpreters of the CR. The Players Department is designed to enforce what was interpreted. They thus have the unfair burden of having all levels of responsibility, with little or no support from higher governance.

If the difficulty of the game is going to rely on a philosophy that is almost 100% dependent on people versus challenges being only ones that are coded, then I recommend reestablishing some entity that is responsible for top-down interpretations of the CR philosophy. Jos needs to assign these people (as he did in the original GAC), as he is the purest philosopher in the case of the CR (He is the one exception to our inherent equality in understanding the philosophy). Back to the government example, this group functions as the Supreme Court. This would relieve conflict between players and PD staff. The players will come to understand that the PD is just “doing their job” while the PD and players both have a higher authority to send particularly difficult problems to. This used to solve complicated situations, and the atmosphere in the community was MUCH more positive. The interpretations and decisions of the GAC are the rules of the game. CR is the philosophy the rules attempt to cater to, while the interpretations are the rules themselves.

Another recommendation is to (almost) throw away the concept of “cheaters.” The CR is not a rule. It is a philosophy. Players should be thought of in terms of levels of understanding of the philosophy. Some need to be “brought to the light” more than others. This is where the concept of guidance from the PD come into play. Members of the PD already embrace the philosophy of the CR. Their job is to increase the level of understanding for others when there appear to be lack of understanding.

I said “almost” throw away the concept of cheaters. Yes, there are going to be people who understand the CR but simply want to play the game in a way that violates it for some reason that gives them personal satisfaction. Their goals may simply never line up with the Philosophy, no matter how much friendly guidance is given by staff or the community at large. In this case, the interpretations from the GAC, which are the actual RULES of the game, are readily available, publicly posted, and enforceable. Nobody can claim that PD is making up rules as they go, and the community at large will help enforce rules through acknowledging commentary as they did in the past. The PD also has the GAC backing them up. In the past, this resulted in greater acceptance of PD actions. Players knew there was a higher power that both players and PD were accountable to.

Another recommendation: Partially throw out the restriction of discussing cases. This rule against discussing cases was not created to protect the methods of staff. It was also not created to keep “cheaters” from abusing case precedents. It was created to protect anonymity of the player. (Source: I was there). Previously, if a player wanted to discuss their case on the forum, the PD would generally say something like, “Hey, Player, for anonymity, it is recommended that you discuss this in PMs with us. If you want to risk losing anonymity, we can discuss this here.” These situations were rare, and the general reaction of other players was to support the PD member, to offer guidance to the player from their own experiences, and to ask related questions if the topic showed them places where their own understanding of the CR or related rules was unclear. The players wanting to discuss their cases generally were very guarded with specific information. They tended to not mention character names or towns. If they did, and the 4-Day rule was compromised or something was said that might affect current events, then moderation was practiced.

Another recommendation:
In most cases, ask players to moderate their own posts before staff moderates it. Urgently needed moderation is of course the exception, such as if someone posted a link to a picture of an inappropriate body part. But most situations aren’t urgent. Someone with a cuss word in their post can be asked to change the word on their own. If they refuse, or have logged out and not come back to the forum for a reasonable time, then staff can handle the moderation. In cases like this, the community will usually support the moderation. People will come out of the woodwork to say their kid reads the forum and they don’t want them seeing posts like that, etc. The need for moderation will decrease, because players will know that the community does not support inappropriate posts. It will also largely remove the seemingly increasing sense of heavy-handed moderations, secret staff agendas/conspiracies, etc.

I realize that not all of this post is a direct on-topic submission. However, the point is that the CR Philosophy relies on the whole community. The subtopics in this post are meant to suggest ways that the community can function together in the more positive atmosphere required for the CR philosophy to function as it once did.

[HFrance]

Good post, MonkeyPants.

I will reveal something about the Players Department restricted forum. A thing that do not compromises the safety of the Department nor the privacy of any player. Just to show the extensive work that this Department has been running since the beginning of the game, by ordinary but good people who voluntarily dedicate themselves for the complexity of things can walk towards the achievement of a something that some are saying is pointless.

Here is:

There is a dozen subforums with 3453 topics in total distributed, being a total of 57250 posts, some single posts occupying full pages of exposition and analysis. Without discussing any other matter than on capital rule and its interpretation, general procedures of the Department and specific procedures in each case. All with transparency and under the supervision of our principal and the GAB.

[MattWithoos]

I think the two posts, one from Hfrance and the other from MonkeyPants, are the most important and most valuable posts in the entire thread.

MP has just exposed the CR for what it really is, and what it really was, and the point of it. /thread, to be blunt.

HFrance's reveal should be bold and font-size 1,000. This is a testament to the amount of effort PD and staff put into a semi-transparent (fully transparent amongst staff) analysis of each case and of the application of the CR.

Just want to draw attention to the impact of these two posts and I ask the disgruntled players to spend some time re-reading and really deeply considering what has been said, because the facts are insurmountable against any emotional frustration towards staff and their practices.

[Rmak]

I think the two posts, one from Hfrance and the other from MonkeyPants, are the most important and most valuable posts in the entire thread.

MP has just exposed the CR for what it really is, and what it really was, and the point of it. /thread, to be blunt.

HFrance's reveal should be bold and font-size 1,000. This is a testament to the amount of effort PD and staff put into a semi-transparent (fully transparent amongst staff) analysis of each case and of the application of the CR.

Just want to draw attention to the impact of these two posts and I ask the disgruntled players to spend some time re-reading and really deeply considering what has been said, because the facts are insurmountable against any emotional frustration towards staff and their practices.

I read monkeypants and it was was excellent , best post I've ever seen on the issue. hpfrances was interesting and shows they write a lot and do a lot of a posts but that does not invalidate anything any disgruntled player has ever said nor prove any of those posts are valid. How many of those posts would still exist if the CR was clarified as promised ....twice? . My personal opinion is Implying disgruntled players are only emotional and don't think about what they say is also pretty weak.

[HFrance]

if I laugh, I'll be out of the topic?

[Snickie]

I have a question.

If the operation of the GAC and Players Department were so smooth and widely accepted as you say, then why was the GAC dissolved?