Verbally abusing your fellow mafia player is not okay

[kuribo]

Assuming that people type "fuck" solely to offend is fairly solipsistic


Some people, especially in a heated environment, tend to just dump their brainpoop right into the thread and hit Send

[Zdenek]

I think that everything that people are saying is offensive in this thread is acceptable in mafia games, but it depends on the circumstances. I mean I find a lot of this stuff tiresome or inappropriate at times, but sometimes people are scum fucks who should choke on rope, and sometimes people playing like retarded children, and sometimes people should be told to fuck off with their bullshit and proxy their vote to Vi :p.

[Zdenek]

and I'm making enemies like Don Giovanni.

[Zdenek]

"Shut up, you are bad and don't know what you are doing" type of attacks just gets old so fast and is needlessly abrasive

I agree with this, and also think that the number of players who are entitled judge people along these lines is so small that the amount this needs to be uttered to not be tiresome is quite small.

[Majiffy]

Some people, especially in a heated environment, tend to just dump their brainpoop right into the thread and hit Send

Ah, but I do loves me a good well-cultivated brainpoop that has been festering for days.

[Siveure DtTrikyp]

I find it kinda funny that there's two sides arguing in this thread, which both find something the other side routinely uses offensive.

Seriously though, abusive playstyles are an arms race between thick skins and piercing words. We don't have to go back to nothing, but some disarmament would be nice for the peaceful lot who never got going.

[kuribo]

I find it kinda funny that there's two sides arguing in this thread, which both find something the other side routinely uses offensive.

Seriously though, abusive playstyles are an arms race between thick skins and piercing words. We don't have to go back to nothing, but some disarmament would be nice for the peaceful lot who never got going.

HEY THIS GUY'S TRYING TO PROMOTE COMPROMISE


GET HIM

[Majiffy]

If you follow a path of disarmament, you're letting the communists win.

[Zdenek]

Hey guys. I noticed I was cited here.

My personal opinion on my posts is that they were out of line; I respect CTD highly as a player, etcetera. I was playing scum, though, and I feel that righteous anger actually comes off well for scum. The ends justify the means, and ultimately I avoided the lynch in LyLo in no small part due to those posts.

I'm definitely going to respond to these in more detail, though, because I feel they need to be tempered somewhat with context.

This is also an issue.

I suspect that some people are verbally abusive as town, so that they can also do it as scum. I mean the contexts in which I feel I've been "honestly" verbally abusive as town are somewhat different from the contexts where I feel that it's advantageous for scum, and I think some players are simply more abusive than they should be and in inappropriate circumstances, as town, so they can do the same as scum.

[LlamaFluff]

Yes, you are. Fuck is an emphasis word. Calling someone scum is a bland and common accusation. Scumfuck catches the eye. It's effective.

That depends on who is in the game entirely.

If I see a player who is pushing a case doing this, my immediate thought is: This player has a weak case and think the only way they can push it is swearing. Their case is probably bad and they are trying to mask it behind other things.

I fully agree with Vi that the use of "scumfuck" serves no purpose except trying to be offensive for no purpose but your own amusement. If it was going on in a game I was running more than in a couple posts I would probably step in and stop it. Again this is something that you need to realize that some people don't mind, but some people don't want in their game because they see it as unnecessarily uncivil.

Its not all sunshine and rainbows, but at the same time there needs to be a level of respect. I think of it more like a debate. The entire point is to make people think that you are right, but its something you can do without being abrasive.

[Majiffy]

And instead of abrasive, you can be passive-aggressively condescending!

[zMuffinMan]

And instead of abrasive, you can be passive-aggressively condescending!

That seems to be the message of the thread.

[Faraday]

why not be both for double the

[kuribo]

why not be both for double the

ugh god it'd be like trying to play mafia with my ex wife

[AGar]

...that you worry we're actually going to lynch the people you vote for.

I might be on the wrong site, guys.

It's my understanding that the word "fuck" is added or inserted into words specifically to offend people and for no other reason (aside from personal amusement or attempting to display familiarity with the person spoken to by showing that you can say offensive things to them but don't reasonably expect them to get upset). Am I wrong?

For me, personally, it's all about emphasizing the point. Fuck has a certain ability to draw attention. If you're scrolling along a bunch of walls and suddenly you see

fuck

in nice bold print like that, you're going to stop. Because you wonder what brings the person to that point. In a constant struggle between trying to keep my own posts concise (the more I play again, the more I find myself needing to quote pyramid because of antagonistic back-and-forths which makes my own posts stupidly large) and yet still trying to get my posts actually noticed as existing in between massive walls of "jesus-christ-why-are-the-so-many-words?", sometimes using a word strictly to catch the eye and emphasize that "Hey, I give a shit about this point I'm trying to make and you should, too" really works wonders.

[mastin2]

eh, there's a difference between saying "your play this game has been bad" and saying "you are a bad player"

This is largely circumstantial. If I'm playing with, say, Lord Mhork (that is, a player who has consistently had bad experiences with me), him calling me a bad player wouldn't be something I'd take as an insult; it'd be something I'd recognize as his experience. If I'm inside a game, I'll generally recognize "you are a bad player" or similar as

meaning

"your play this game has been bad", because that is probably, yes, exactly the intended message. (Shorthand, and all that.)

If someone is consistently shouting that but is making it crystal clear they're not meaning that, though, it's different.

It is not okay to verbally abuse another player because you think they are scum.
It is not okay to verbally abuse another player to establish an internet persona or to maintain a self-meta/playstyle.
It is not okay to verbally abuse another player to elicit a reaction/as a scum hunting tool ("sledging", etc.).
It is not okay to verbally abuse another player because you lost your temper.
It is not okay to verbally abuse another player to try to make yourself look town.
It is not okay to verbally abuse another player because you hold a grudge against them.
There is basically no situation where it is okay to verbally abuse another player, and if you do, the least you can do is apologize and learn not to do it again in the future.

Of course, it's in the eye of the beholder what does and doesn't constitute verbal abuse. General rule of thumb is if you wouldn't say it to a stranger's face, don't say it in a game of mafia. Ultimately though, it's up to the mod to uphold a certain standard and therefore most importantly:

If you are a mod and your ruleset includes a "have fun" clause, actually enforce that rule by doling out warnings and force-replacing severe offenders, preferably before players start dropping out or have to stick your nose into the matter.

I agree with all of this!

...I disagree with basically every example you gave of it!

I am more concerned about the "fuck you, you scumfuck" category of verbal abuse.

What would happen if someone called you a scumbag in a game? Would you bat an eye at it? Scumfuck is, to me, basically the equivalent of switching 'dang' for 'damn'. It is stronger, more emphasized, and more profane, making it slightly more vulgar, but otherwise is the same message: scumbag.

As for the "screw you" part, well...there's no verbal abuse in that as far as I can tell. To me, that's simply a player essentially, out of frustration, giving up on communicating with someone. You're writing verbal abuse into something that I simply don't see as being verbal abuse.

"Don't be such a moron" wouldn't be. "You're an idiot if you think that" is borderline. "You're either scum or incredibly stupid" is not okay.

And these are so ingrained into my brain as being basics of arguments that you saying they're not okay is making me go, "huh?". I can say, "Playername is not an idiot. Therefore, them displaying this stupid behavior makes them scum." Can I not? It's saying that you're reading them as scum because you don't think they would make an erroneous decision/post/stance/etc. as they did if they were town. So the inverse should also be true, that if you're reasonably certain they are town, you can call them out on having made the erroneous decision/post/stance/etc., and how it was stupid. It was idiotic. It was moronic. And telling them not to make stupid mistakes is...bad why?

I don't get it.

I mean, the closest one you have as an example that I could maybe see as being verbal abuse is "eat shit", and even then, I take that statement as probably being in a context where the person speaking it is using it as a means of reflecting their own opinion of what you're doing. That is, "your content is crap" said more bluntly, often in frustration. These things are sometimes objectively true, but often are entirely subjective and rely on the player. There's no abuse intended, merely a statement of that player's personal opinion on the other player's contributions.

Heck, even "die in a fire" I don't see as bad. (Though that may be the writer in me speaking.) I see it as basically being a colorful way of saying that you need to be purged from the game, again a statement of personal belief, one often reflected in scumspects. The closest I can think of to an actual verbal abuse is "go fuck yourself", and even then, it's more likely just a vulgar way of saying, "BACK. OFF.", which is something someone who is getting pushed in areas that are not relevant to the game is likely to say to make it crystal clear that...the areas getting pushed are not relevant to the game, should be dropped, and people can focus on other aspects of the player which are.

And while humans will do what they can...if they're feeling vulnerable and you push them, they will react violently and saying it's all on them is pure sheer arrogance and ignorance. Because assuming they're verbally abusing them ignores the possibility that, maybe, they're perceiving themselves to have been verbally abused, and are frail from it.

I disagree with one of your positions. This game relies heavily on emotional reactions, and impacting your fellow players in an emotionally stimulating way in order to understand their alignment is proper if you know how to do it.

That being said, most players don't.

Though I agree that emotions are important, I should note that there are more emotions than just rage. Apathy, sadness, happiness, excitement, eagerness, a lack of emotions, there's a whole lot more than frustration and anger that can be picked up on and read. The problem comes in that most players only think of the rage.

No one reads cases.
People listen to tone though.

This is true, but see above. There's more to tone than "being a dick" and "being a robot".

The problem is that quite a few players see "emotionally stimulating" others as being an asshole because you can just say "well I was playing the game" as an excuse for being an asshole.

I actually haven't seen this attitude recently at all. If it were to be present, I would fully agree, that it shouldn't be present, but I don't actually see it happening in games anymore.

Most people who don't act like that would prefer everyone else to actually be civil too.

There's not a person I hang around who doesn't, in my eyes, have this. It's just that...well. You have to be really detached to not get emotionally invested in a game. And guess what happens when you get emotionally invested in a game? Your sense of rationality degrades. It can be to any amount of degree, from barely fading at all to going completely out the window, but the simple fact of the matter is, caring creates pain. The majority of 'uncivil' behavior I've experienced has been from players who were pushed too hard by others and simply snapped. Because while we try to maintain rationality, and the majority of us do a fairly decent job...it's not something we can maintain. Trust me. I play mafia games on more sites than MS.net. You can't change human nature; this type of hostility exists on EVERY place I've played mafia, even places that play super-casually! Because the more you care, the more you get hurt when things aren't going the way you thought they would.

People can and DO put the effort into being civil. But when push comes to shove, they're frail individuals who have a lot of problems, and quite frankly, if you got players needing to replace out every time someone pushed them to their limits, the replacement rate in games would shoot up astronomically high, higher than it is already. How many games have you thought about replacing out of thanks to emotions? You don't need to have gone through with it, nor do you need to have snapped, but if you've come even close, you'd understand.

People who are frustrated need to vent that frustration. They have two choices: walk away from the game (replace out), or vent it in-thread. Because it doesn't go away. You can't make your emotions disappear. They won't vanish just because they're inconvenient. You have feelings. And curse words are proven stress relievers; they can help bring you down to a more manageable state.

This is a bit of an oversimplification, of course, but my point still stands. There's only so much humans can do to be civil when they've been placed in a bad mood, probably largely in part thanks to the players they're supposed to be maintaining civility for. You can limit it. You can manage it. You can focus it. You can never eliminate it.

While I greatly prefer the old meta for posting style and game speed, what I really miss is that back then people were respectful of each other.

This may sound strange to you, but in my experience, it is actually RESPECTING people that is causing an increase in hostility, not a lack thereof. It may seem counter-intuitive, until you realize that if you see a stranger do something you think is stupid, you're probably not going to attach much meaning to it. If you see a close friend or family do something you think is stupid, you're going to chastise them for being an idiot. Translate that into gaming terms, and someone doing something you thought they wouldn't do creates conflict, not because you don't respect them, but because you DO.

"Shut up, you are bad and don't know what you are doing" type of attacks just gets old so fast and is needlessly abrasive. You don't need to be the bigger asshole to win an argument.

I do agree with this, though.

This type of thinking is the exact reason that we have these issues today. If you are good and have a solid case, that wins you the game.

While that type of thinking IS an issue, you're not exactly right, either. Being good and having a solid case are no guarantee of victory. Because what you really need as a player is an understanding of the other players. (Which often comes after hostilities, I've found, as sad as that is. A sort-of Fire Forged Friends problem.) Understanding players allows you to appeal to their sense of logic (being reasonable), as simply as possible. In certain specific circumstances, that might actually require being an asshole--in most, it will require explicitly NOT being one.

My own experience is that neither reason nor rage actually work to this effect because people are overly convinced by themselves and aren't listening to you

(Thus why most of my efforts involve me trying to get them to use their own thought processes to read players the way I do, guiding them to my answer.)

but RAGE fails for two reasons--
1) It generally doesn't get people to stop voting for you.
2) It makes it very easy for others, scum and Town alike, to assume that it's a personality-based conflict and that there's probably nothing of substance going on and let's just not read any of that.

Precisely.

People who shouldn't be playing the game maybe don't bother to read cases, which have their own tone.

I think it'd be more accurate to say: nobody reads cases as MS.net traditionally defines cases. Things that are walls, PBPAs, have TL;DRs at the end, and whatnot. That's true. If your case is a succinct couple of lines or so ("X is scum because of Y, Z, and A, shown here at B most clearly but at C, D, and E." would probably be at the upper limit of a good case length), readable and should be read. Otherwise, it's basically your own fault. You make a post that's difficult to digest, then people aren't going to bother. It has to stand out on its own and be easy to follow.

So the system is broken and we shouldn't try to fix it?

The system is flawed thanks to humanity being flawed, but yes, we should try to improve it all the same.

...I just so happen to disagree with most of your 'improvements'.

What is or isn't "offensive" is entirely subjective.
You have your own set of values, and they're different from mine, and whatever, that's cool for you. Why are your values better than mine? Why should I care what someone else finds offensive if they don't care about what I think is more offensive?

Basically, this.

They don't play it to be emotionally riled by you because you think it helps you win more.

The thing about it is that I don't actually see people get emotionally riled up by a calm player. What I see is one emotionally-riled-up player causing another player to become emotionally-riled-up. They can build off of each other, or direct it onto another player who gets emotionally-riled-up.

It's like a highway collision of rage and anger. One player (often justified in having done so) accelerates too quickly to put on the brakes and crashes. The rest of the game piles up behind them. Traffic jam of words ensues.

Mafia is a game which should be done for fun. But people focusing on the effect rather than the cause are bound to not succeed.

[mastin2]

Because mafia is a game.

Speaking of which, it should be noted: I will yell, curse, and shout at a player such as, saaaaaaaaaaaaay, Majiffy in the middle of the game. If I'm particularly emotional, I might call him some worse things than just 'cheeky scumfuck'. I will be royally ticked off, raging at him, but when all is said and done and the game's over...I'll shake his hand, say "Good game", and move on. I say a lot of words, words that were said with great passion and heat, but once the adrenaline has faded, I meant few (if any) of the harsh ones and he's still a friend.

I've never had a friendship broken because of a mafia game, not even when I've said that it was strained in a game and I felt betrayed and backstabbed by said friend. (AP, I believe. In more than one game. ) Because while I may be upset at the happenings of the game (ESPECIALLY if I feel like they shouldn't be happening and/or there's been a history of them having happened that way before), at the end, I'll have calmed down, and will be there to cooly comment in the post-game. (Most of the time. And even if not, then it won't carry over to our next game together, and in fact will be treated with casual banter more often than not!)

That's because I recognize that in a game, there will be great conflict and fighting and clashes of style and belief and whatnot. I'll get emotionally charged, and discharge just as much, creating some hostility, but it's never permanent, since it's just that: a game. Just one that I happen to take dead-seriously.

I don't want to play games with people who lack a fundamental respect for me and my moral beliefs.

And it runs the other way, too. If you're not trying to understand where they come from...then you're discarding their fundamental moral beliefs and showing them zero respect.

I'd like to believe that the community here is inclusive, not exclusive.

MS.net having a reputation for elitism isn't exactly a new thing either, you know. It was around before I was a player, way back in the early 2008s, even, so it's certainly not new. Yeah, we do try to change it for the better, but again, part of that change is seeing the other side of the argument and realizing you don't hold a moral high ground, and that it's more like two different moralities, rather than an inferior or superior morality.

The OP is bringing to the attention of moderators and players that more and more offence is being caused.

Though I have seen a marked increase in hostility, I'd debate that it's offensive. Most of the times, it's just a passionate debate, that fades within a day (real life), or if not, a day (gametime), or even if it carries throughout the whole game, doesn't pour into the next one. In mafia games, players will fight. That is a given. So I don't really see it as that strange that some players fighting will get emotionally invested in the fight.

Efforts to focus on minimizing that fighting will do wonders.
Efforts to reduce the 'offense' will not, because it's treating the problem rather than the root cause of the problem.

It's my understanding that the word "fuck" is added or inserted into words specifically to offend people and for no other reason (aside from personal amusement or attempting to display familiarity with the person spoken to by showing that you can say offensive things to them but don't reasonably expect them to get upset). Am I wrong?

Quite. There are of course those who hold this as an opinion. It is not the norm. It is DEFINITELY not the norm. Not in any place I've been in. It's not considered "polite", of course, in that you're not going to drop f-bombs in a public gathering. You might whisper one into someone's ears ('fucking awesome' being a common example of this), you might drop it a lot with a group of friends walking down the street or something like that, you probably drop it at home all the time especially when things aren't going well, but there's nothing offensive about it. A lack of politeness is a bit rude, not offensive. (Again, of course there's going to be overlap.) 'Fuck' is considered (not sure if jokingly or seriously, but I choose seriously) one of the more versatile words in the English language, for how it can be used and applied.

It's usually used for emphasis, though, above all other things. And while too much emphasis leads to no emphasis, you can see that it's never meant to hurt someone with its usage. Not on any game I've played, anyway.

tl;dr, what Zdenek and AGar said--circumstances are everything, but in general, it's just emphasis.
Not verbal abuse.

[Majiffy]

Heh, heh, mastin said discharge. Heh.

[undo]

I must say I completely agree with CTD. I don't think it's acceptable to throw purely offensive words at anyone under any circumstances. 'You're playing bad' should be OK (when followed by a justification); 'You're an idiot' should not (even if followed by a 'justification').

Perhaps it's a cultural thing?

[Quilford]

And instead of abrasive, you can be passive-aggressively condescending!

What a terrible fucking false dichotomy. It's incredible that for so many of the people posting in this thread, the choice is not between being a jerk or not being a jerk, it's between being an abrasive jerk and a passive-aggressively condescending jerk.

[undo]

It's incredible that for so many of the people posting in this thread, the choice is not between being a jerk or not being a jerk, it's between being an abrasive jerk and a passive-aggressively condescending jerk.

Incredible and meaningful, I'd say.

[Majiffy]

And instead of abrasive, you can be passive-aggressively condescending!

What a terrible fucking false dichotomy. It's incredible that for so many of the people posting in this thread, the choice is not between being a jerk or not being a jerk, it's between being an abrasive jerk and a passive-aggressively condescending jerk.

Wonka.jpeg

[zMuffinMan]

What a terrible fucking false dichotomy. It's incredible that for so many of the people posting in this thread, the choice is not between being a jerk or not being a jerk, it's between being an abrasive jerk and a passive-aggressively condescending jerk

Well, that quite literally is the choice. You can either be a condescending dick in a "civil" manner or you can use vulgar language. What you're saying doesn't change, the underlying message is still the same.

There is no right way to tell someone they're wrong. You're just advocating for something you think is less wrong. Kudos to you. Very honourable.

[Hoopla]

i agree with CTD, vi, llama etc

but not because i find those things particularly offensive, more that i find them boring. majiffy and kuribo types seem to revel in that edginess for no real reason other than to mask their lack of personality.

just kidding

[Hoopla]

except not really