Rule 6.A, recordings and evidence

There were changes made to the rules regarding prohibitions and allowances for sexual content. Relevant to the discussion here was the change to 6.A which clarified it was permitted for characters to slander each other with false allegations about, among many other possibilities, sexual misconduct; if it didn't fall explicitly afoul of 6.B.

Now this is something that I think is dangerous to codify and allow for on its own, because it's been repeatedly shown that these types of allegations being made (even entirely without evidence or corroboration) will very readily hop the player-character boundary and spread outside the game and impact those players themselves, and also because it essentially gamifies the callout of abusive behavior which can muddy the waters on identifying real problems in the community.

However this policy is made even more dangerous by the potential future introduction of systems (SimSense and other types of editable 'recording' devices) which would allow for the creation of entirely manufactured roleplay by someone else without their consent, that is technically 6.B abiding but nonetheless extremely harmful towards its intended victim. I think the potential for abuse of these systems by bad actors and others is basically limitless because, again, this type of content has been shown to not remain purely IC. Questions about character behaviors have just in the past year alone repeatedly turned into accusations of misconduct against their players, something that would only be more damaging if the tools were available to essentially create false evidence to implicate players, even former players who would really have no means to protect themselves.

I don't think this is alarmist, these types of things have already happened and are happening. Accusations of misconduct against current and former players and staff are just some of the common problems, along with RW stalking and harassment, doxxing and other types of threats, all of them arising from what was supposed to remain IC. Players in this sort of hostile environment need more protections than the average game, not less. And something like SimSense, which appears like it could wholly fabricate entire roleplay scenes from scratch, would be reckless to introduce under the current ruleset, in the current climate, and in the context of the greater community of current and former players of Sindome.

If these types of 'reality editing tools' are to be introduced, I believe the fabrication of sexual content depicting non-consenting characters must be prohibited by an amendment to 6.A. This would still allow for the callout of behaviors, even if those callouts were not truthful, as long as it didn't involve the manufacture of evidence to make them true.

I think all other impersonations should be okay.

But sex is different. There's people who ERP and those who don't. And those who don't sometimes do for any number of reasons, from it just not being their thing, having a partner outside the game and them not feeling comfortable in that happening in a text medium while in a relationship, being here for other reasons than ERP, people with histories of sexual violence or assault against them.

The list goes on and on. And by having someone impersonate their character possibly doing that stuff and being recorded doing it is something that's not good for them or the community, I feel.

I don't care about any other kind of impersonations, I think those are fun things to do and to investigate and see if real or not. But not the sex stuff.

This should come as a surprise or news to no one. Attacks made against players have already jumped the IC/OOC barrier, it is already the basis for other rules of conduct that forced sexual roleplay and sexual harassment (even if it's text) can harm players. The game had positioned itself in the past as a bad behavior anything goes simulator to the detriment of everyone but the most predacious or mercenary audience of trolls and bad actors, and the @rules have been backsliding towards that again. More change is required to stop that that trying nothing and claiming we're out of ideas.

There is nothing at all that says calling out characters for being sex pests MUST also allow for the deliberate fabrication of false evidence. The argument was made at the time that these had to go together as some sort of compromise, which I find a little absurd and ringing very false.

Prohibiting knowing false fabrication of sexual evidence doesn't close the door on calling out Missing Stairs, nor does it block taking someone down for their disreputable Mixer liaisons. All those things can co-exist in a unified ruleset, and I think the rules we have now did much more harm than good by muddying the waters on what was real harm by making non-consent fabrication and false accusations a whole gameplay element.

Just to clarify my own position on this: I don't think there's any problem whatsoever with using what a character does against them, if someone wants to ERP their way through every sector and back, they can deal with that being weaponized. Likewise I don't see any problem with false or misleading accusations against a character within the @rules, or presenting evidence that is framed as something it isn't (like a photograph of two character asleep in the same pad to support a claim of a romantic liaison). The problem as I see it with knowing fabrication of evidence of sexual roleplay (ie. creating false recordings, staging character actions with disguise) are two-fold:

1. This has already been shown to be a weapon of choice for disgruntled players making attacks against other players, on the knowledge that accusations of IC sexual misconduct will be viewed by some other players as a community concern and will hop the IC/OOC boundary. Having the tools and allowances for this type of gameplay seems almost certain to me to cross the line into tarnishing players themselves for something they didn't do.

2. And related; having this sort of fabrication enshrined as gameplay under the rules and also enabled by IC tools will muddy the waters as to when character impropriety has crossed over into actual player impropriety and become a community concern. If a player is actually having issues with chronic boundary pushing in a way that might be a community concern, those issues could be confused and obfuscated by questions about IC fabrication that may have no answers.

While prohibiting the wholesale knowing fabrication of false sexual evidence doesn't eliminate the tendency for bad actors and others to wield out-of-game accusations, or eliminate the risk of player impropriety or misconduct going hidden or unnoticed or confused for valid IC gameplay, I do think that such a rule change would eliminate a lot of potential future problems and potential player and community harm at what amounted to very little lost; since all kinds of equally damaging in-character evidence (of fraud, espionage, theft, betrayal, murder, neglect) could still be fabricated to get someone fired/ostracized, but with considerably less concern that those fabrications could hop the IC/OOC barrier to become a player or community problem.

There's one area in game which requires clear line, no budging consent from a fellow player: sex.

Like 0x1mm, I don't mind rumors being spread, misinterpreting/lying about photographs, etc, etc. Anyone who does sexual content in-game knows there's a chance they aren't alone. And it's all good people creating sexual content for distribution on their own. But with the introduction of new in-game tech (the digital recorder) and with hopes for future similar but bigger types (SimSense), all which are great roleplay utilizers, comes the ability to create recorded fabricated content impersonating others.

Which takes the consent out of those players' hands. Some people don't opt-in to sexual roleplay. It's not for them for reasons I listed in an above post, IIRC. Not only would we take the consent out of their hands if we allowed fabrication/impersonation of actual sexual content of other characters, but we enter a realm where we force other players to have to view this content. Why? Because corporate security, the WJF, investigators, etc will be brought this fabrication to watch with claims of fraud, harassment, etc. Which is then forcing other people to watch this content because of the malicious nature of it and needing to find who did such. Those people may not want to watch explicit sexual content either or engage in sexual roleplay.

There's a former player who once joked in xooc when SimSense was in early development that they would create a SimSense recording of sexual content surrounding some other stuff that would need to force my character to watch it. Now, this was just a joke - but stuff like that will happen if we allow fabrication/impersonation of people in the tech that opens up those possibilities.

Because by allowing it, it in essence becomes Sindome's version of revenge porn. Except even worse, because it's then Sindome's version of deep-faked revenge porn.