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a_sporking_ratWhen one of our two admins (sadly not the one that That Guy was pals with and who let him get away with his bullshittery) and one of our mods had to step down and leave the board because of IRL issues, two worthy members were promoted to mod status in order to avoid an understaffed board. I for one was quite pleased for them. They're both very smart people who also had the time to be on the board enough to do their jobs, which the other current mod really didn't seem to...I can't recall the last time I saw her, anyway. Not that I'm saying whatever was keeping her might not be valid or that IRL comes before RP, but that if you can't be around, don't take the position.
We had a real problem at the board with inaccurate history coming from vampires, and the admins generally never cared, or even seemed to notice, and just accepted them regardless. But the fact is, olden days weren't just like modern times only with pretty clothes, and that's going to affect a character in so many ways as their beginning, and one of the new mods not only knew this, but is a bit of a history buff. So she makes the offer to the admin of, if applicants would like, helping them with the histories of their vampire characters if needed. Admin says that would be terrific, and admits she knows absolutely nothing about the subject herself. Color me surprised.
Almost as if on cue, a new member comes along, who I shall call Song. She hits a few of my annoyance points like being the type to come into the cbox just to say how bored she is (I never get that--is that a passive aggressive demand that we entertain you, or...?) but she seems eager and enthusiastic and friendly, so hooray, new person! She puts up her app for a vampire character. In addition to there being some questionable aspects to the vampire's present, the history also has a whole lot wrong with it. This vampire seems to have existed in a hell of a modern society for being from the Middle Ages, right down to being in a social class that didn't exist, playing instruments that didn't exist, etc.
Hey, I understand. Research is hard, you slip up. I've had times where I didn't come across, say, a certain child labor law that would greatly effect my Victorian vamp until way after I'd written out her whole history, and on my most recent "My AB OCs" post, one of y'all was kind enough to point out some misconceptions I had about the treatment of women in that period. It happens. Song probably looked up what she could but didn't think of some more minute stuff, right? No big. She also seems to not understand a few things about the canon that our board is based on, but that's ok too--a lot of people here, including some of our best members, have not read the books (and I wouldn't recommend them anyway) and that's fine because all the info needed is on the board, and whenever members, new or old, need to know something that isn't, we have folks who have read the books to help out answering their questions. So maybe our board info just didn't happen to include the things that Song messed up on (AB vampires are historically discreet--it's stated in canon that other vampires killed Vlad Tepes, who really was a vampire in this 'verse, for being too blatant--so her messy slaughtering wouldn't earn her points like her history said, and there's no stigma against a vampire being attracted to werewolves so her vampire has no reason to keep her 'thing' for them a secret and be afraid of it being known) but that's not her fault. I'm sure she'll fix it as soon as someone tells her.
I was wrong.
Mod, being the angel that she is, is quite eager to get started with helping newbies with this sort of thing, and makes the offer to Song to help with her character in this regard if she wants. Song says certainly and accepts the offer. Mod gives her a list of the major things that should be fixed in the history of her vampire. It's a short list, covering only the biggest inaccuracies, as well as noting to her the places where canon (the blatant killing, the werewolf thing) don't line up with the vampire's personality and story, as well as a request from the admin that she not have certain special powers at the start, which is not allowed for anyone, you have to earn them through gameplay. It's nothing that would take tremendous effort to fix, and it's worded quite well, not unkindly at all. Mod even gives her suggestions for HOW to fix these things, and also suggest that if she doesn't want to change said particular things, she could also make her vampire younger so that her very modern-style history works. I thought she was incredibly helpful.
I guess Song isn't happy though. She starts making little complaints in the cbox about how she's "never had to put so much effort into a character" and how "I don't do research"
Yup. You read that right. "I don't do research." I'm stunned, folks. I can't even. I can certainly understand not wanting to, but if you don't want to, why make a character that requires it? She just seems a bit pouty at not being told everything in her app was perfect. But she goes in and she "modifies" it, as she puts it. Actually, she just makes the vampire younger, putting her in the Victorian Era instead, but...changes absolutely nothing else, leaving it still inaccurate for both our canon and for the history in general. There's also still the big question of WHY her vampire was turned in the first place, since vampires in this canon generally have a very practical reason (even if some of our players forget this...seriously, most were either turned for love/beauty, or just seemingly at random) for turning somebody. And then she demands that I help with that. No, seriously, just out of the blue she yells in the cbox RF GIVE ME IDEAS in all caps. Uh...why me? I'm always happy to help people brainstorm if I can, but just *telling* me to in the internet equivalent of shouting is kind of rude. I guess she picked me because I was just there, or maybe because I was one of the people there when she first came to the site and had answered questions for her before, or I don't know, but I gave her what I thought was a pretty sensible and likely reason, very practical for vampires in this canon. And then she twists into something that...is much more elaborate, makes less sense in the historical context, and which I admit I do not even entirely understand in how it would even work. I am too baffled at the moment to question her on it, though.
So when she asks Mod what she thinks of the app now, poor Mod has to say that no, she still doesn't think it really works for the period in question, and....either offered to PM her helpful links for info on the period, or actually did PM them, but either way, she's still trying to be very helpful to someone who, despite claiming she wanted advice, seems to be deliberately trying to take as little of it as possible.
And then boy does Song get bratty. The minor whining she'd been doing up until now becomes a full-fledged little tantrum. And she tries to get us in on it, popping this into the cbox last night:
What would you guys do. If someone doesn't like your history, because its to 'inacurate' and its already been changed for the second time, would you A: let the admins say something or B: Give up on that character and make one that doesn't need much history
Now, there's nothing wrong with the question of 'if I can't seem to get the history right, should I just do a character that won't need as much?' but the rest of it...firstly, it's not that Mod 'doesn't like' your history, it's that she is trying to HELP you, an OFFER of help which YOU chose to accept. Secondly, it *is* inaccurate, no need for the quote marks, it's not an opinion, it's a fact. Thirdly, what do you mean let the admins say something? Are...are you implying that you want Admin to tell Mod to STFU on giving help that you said you wanted from her? Because that's what I'm reading.
No one else in the cbox at the moment knows what she's on about, but I do, so I tell her:
If you're talking about Mod, I believe her advice is purely optional. If I recall, she asked you if you wanted it. It's a complimentary service, but I don't believe you're required to take it to be accepted.
And it's not. Mod becoming a Mod meant that this awesome new personal service was available to players, but it did not result in a new rule that said players had to take it to be accepted. Even I would think that would be unfair simply because of our board's long history of letting in very historically-inaccurate vampires. It's still an allowed option here, for better or for worse. Maybe, just maybe, the problem is that Song didn't understand this before, and now that she realizes it, she'll chill out?
Nope, she just continues to rail about how she shouldn't have to do this. Even though she was just told that she doesn't HAVE to and...didn't seem surprised by this information. She honest to gosh says
"I shouldn't have to research my characters."
She seemed to be hoping, or even expecting, that we'd all agree, that we'd all assure her that 'no, everything you put in the app is fine!' or that 'yeah, research is dumb, you don't need it!' and side with her against that big meanie Mod for actually daring to give her advice when she agreed to getting some. And that might have happened if a different group of members had been in the cbox at the time. Unfortunately for her, the ones that happened to be there just happened to be the ones who DID put effort and research into their apps, not because they had to but because they wanted to, because they didn't feel right if they didn't know what kind of world their character would have come from, etc. They were all very nice and polite when they disagreed with her and said why they preferred to research, but they were very clearly just baffled by her. I think we were all stunned when she whipped this gem out:
I don't see the basis of making a character 'realistic' if vampires themselves, (even though i'd like to think) aren't realistic.
What. No. That's not how that works. This is an urban fantasy/paranormal romance genre whose entire basis for the world is that it is just like our world would be if vampires and wereanimals and witches were dropped in. That's part of the POINT. Yes, there is some historical revisionism (which was admittedly done pretty poorly in the series itself) because having supernatural beings would change some things, but even that is still generally handled as realistically as possible and in ways so that the course of history was still largely the same. One unrealistic element in a world does not make that entire world drop all pretense at being realistic at all. What do you even SAY to an attempt at "logic" like this?
(Also I kind of side-eye and snort at the implication of her wanting vampires to be real. Like, I get it's a hot fantasy for some people and all, but for me, I have enough reasons to be afraid to walk alone at night, I'd rather not live in a world where bipedal mosquitoes are added to that list, and people who don't ever even consider this side of it and ~wish they were reeeal~ tend to be...special sorts, in my experience. Just my own opinion there, YMMV.)
I could almost understand (though still not agree) with all Song's fuss if this were something she was REQUIRED to do (and were given no help for it) but that's not the case. Maybe she misinterpreted something before, but I just made clear to her that taking the advice is entirely OPTIONAL and not a rule, and she's still whining about it? I don't get it. You can choose to take it or not. What is there to whine about? I just don't get it. Especially since, as I said, Mod was really nice, I personally saw everything Mod said to her. Mod even ran it by me and others to look at first when she worried maybe she was being too harsh or not tactful enough. SHE WAS SWEET AS SUGAR AND PROVIDED RESOURCES, ALL SONG HAD TO DO WAS CLICK THE FREAKIN' LINKS!
I personally find this pretty insulting to Mod as well---she takes the time to find the big points you need to fix, does research *for* you to tell you what those points are, even looks for helpful links for you, and THIS is your reaction? You ungrateful jerk. I for one would be THRILLED to have someone helping me out on a matter like this. And if I had an issue with the advice, I wouldn't go trying to get other members to join in with my kvetching about it in the public cbox. So not cool. So not polite. And so not smart, either, because everyone disagreed with her, as they all happened to mostly be the folks on the site that actually DID do research for their vampires and, though they all remained very nice and polite about it, were clearly baffled by someone who not only didn't want to do research (hey, it can be a pain, we understand that) but downright claimed it wasn't important at all to do.
I think the best part was when one of these members said that if a staff member was giving her advice on the character, it was only to help and make them better, and her response was
I have no issue with being helped on my character.
Uh, no, you pretty obviously do, Song, sorry to say. Even sorrier, her character was then accepted by the admins accepted as she was, right down to having powers she shouldn't be allowed to have yet. Her getting accepted with a faulty history is fine by me, since again, it's not a requirement that she take the advice and we've already got loads of vampires with inaccurate histories, but the powers thing pissed me off since that *is* in violation of a board rule, which Admin told Song herself. Alas, our admins sadly had a history of caving when people whine enough...as evident with That Guy.
We had a real problem at the board with inaccurate history coming from vampires, and the admins generally never cared, or even seemed to notice, and just accepted them regardless. But the fact is, olden days weren't just like modern times only with pretty clothes, and that's going to affect a character in so many ways as their beginning, and one of the new mods not only knew this, but is a bit of a history buff. So she makes the offer to the admin of, if applicants would like, helping them with the histories of their vampire characters if needed. Admin says that would be terrific, and admits she knows absolutely nothing about the subject herself. Color me surprised.
Almost as if on cue, a new member comes along, who I shall call Song. She hits a few of my annoyance points like being the type to come into the cbox just to say how bored she is (I never get that--is that a passive aggressive demand that we entertain you, or...?) but she seems eager and enthusiastic and friendly, so hooray, new person! She puts up her app for a vampire character. In addition to there being some questionable aspects to the vampire's present, the history also has a whole lot wrong with it. This vampire seems to have existed in a hell of a modern society for being from the Middle Ages, right down to being in a social class that didn't exist, playing instruments that didn't exist, etc.
Hey, I understand. Research is hard, you slip up. I've had times where I didn't come across, say, a certain child labor law that would greatly effect my Victorian vamp until way after I'd written out her whole history, and on my most recent "My AB OCs" post, one of y'all was kind enough to point out some misconceptions I had about the treatment of women in that period. It happens. Song probably looked up what she could but didn't think of some more minute stuff, right? No big. She also seems to not understand a few things about the canon that our board is based on, but that's ok too--a lot of people here, including some of our best members, have not read the books (and I wouldn't recommend them anyway) and that's fine because all the info needed is on the board, and whenever members, new or old, need to know something that isn't, we have folks who have read the books to help out answering their questions. So maybe our board info just didn't happen to include the things that Song messed up on (AB vampires are historically discreet--it's stated in canon that other vampires killed Vlad Tepes, who really was a vampire in this 'verse, for being too blatant--so her messy slaughtering wouldn't earn her points like her history said, and there's no stigma against a vampire being attracted to werewolves so her vampire has no reason to keep her 'thing' for them a secret and be afraid of it being known) but that's not her fault. I'm sure she'll fix it as soon as someone tells her.
I was wrong.
Mod, being the angel that she is, is quite eager to get started with helping newbies with this sort of thing, and makes the offer to Song to help with her character in this regard if she wants. Song says certainly and accepts the offer. Mod gives her a list of the major things that should be fixed in the history of her vampire. It's a short list, covering only the biggest inaccuracies, as well as noting to her the places where canon (the blatant killing, the werewolf thing) don't line up with the vampire's personality and story, as well as a request from the admin that she not have certain special powers at the start, which is not allowed for anyone, you have to earn them through gameplay. It's nothing that would take tremendous effort to fix, and it's worded quite well, not unkindly at all. Mod even gives her suggestions for HOW to fix these things, and also suggest that if she doesn't want to change said particular things, she could also make her vampire younger so that her very modern-style history works. I thought she was incredibly helpful.
I guess Song isn't happy though. She starts making little complaints in the cbox about how she's "never had to put so much effort into a character" and how "I don't do research"
Yup. You read that right. "I don't do research." I'm stunned, folks. I can't even. I can certainly understand not wanting to, but if you don't want to, why make a character that requires it? She just seems a bit pouty at not being told everything in her app was perfect. But she goes in and she "modifies" it, as she puts it. Actually, she just makes the vampire younger, putting her in the Victorian Era instead, but...changes absolutely nothing else, leaving it still inaccurate for both our canon and for the history in general. There's also still the big question of WHY her vampire was turned in the first place, since vampires in this canon generally have a very practical reason (even if some of our players forget this...seriously, most were either turned for love/beauty, or just seemingly at random) for turning somebody. And then she demands that I help with that. No, seriously, just out of the blue she yells in the cbox RF GIVE ME IDEAS in all caps. Uh...why me? I'm always happy to help people brainstorm if I can, but just *telling* me to in the internet equivalent of shouting is kind of rude. I guess she picked me because I was just there, or maybe because I was one of the people there when she first came to the site and had answered questions for her before, or I don't know, but I gave her what I thought was a pretty sensible and likely reason, very practical for vampires in this canon. And then she twists into something that...is much more elaborate, makes less sense in the historical context, and which I admit I do not even entirely understand in how it would even work. I am too baffled at the moment to question her on it, though.
So when she asks Mod what she thinks of the app now, poor Mod has to say that no, she still doesn't think it really works for the period in question, and....either offered to PM her helpful links for info on the period, or actually did PM them, but either way, she's still trying to be very helpful to someone who, despite claiming she wanted advice, seems to be deliberately trying to take as little of it as possible.
And then boy does Song get bratty. The minor whining she'd been doing up until now becomes a full-fledged little tantrum. And she tries to get us in on it, popping this into the cbox last night:
What would you guys do. If someone doesn't like your history, because its to 'inacurate' and its already been changed for the second time, would you A: let the admins say something or B: Give up on that character and make one that doesn't need much history
Now, there's nothing wrong with the question of 'if I can't seem to get the history right, should I just do a character that won't need as much?' but the rest of it...firstly, it's not that Mod 'doesn't like' your history, it's that she is trying to HELP you, an OFFER of help which YOU chose to accept. Secondly, it *is* inaccurate, no need for the quote marks, it's not an opinion, it's a fact. Thirdly, what do you mean let the admins say something? Are...are you implying that you want Admin to tell Mod to STFU on giving help that you said you wanted from her? Because that's what I'm reading.
No one else in the cbox at the moment knows what she's on about, but I do, so I tell her:
If you're talking about Mod, I believe her advice is purely optional. If I recall, she asked you if you wanted it. It's a complimentary service, but I don't believe you're required to take it to be accepted.
And it's not. Mod becoming a Mod meant that this awesome new personal service was available to players, but it did not result in a new rule that said players had to take it to be accepted. Even I would think that would be unfair simply because of our board's long history of letting in very historically-inaccurate vampires. It's still an allowed option here, for better or for worse. Maybe, just maybe, the problem is that Song didn't understand this before, and now that she realizes it, she'll chill out?
Nope, she just continues to rail about how she shouldn't have to do this. Even though she was just told that she doesn't HAVE to and...didn't seem surprised by this information. She honest to gosh says
"I shouldn't have to research my characters."
She seemed to be hoping, or even expecting, that we'd all agree, that we'd all assure her that 'no, everything you put in the app is fine!' or that 'yeah, research is dumb, you don't need it!' and side with her against that big meanie Mod for actually daring to give her advice when she agreed to getting some. And that might have happened if a different group of members had been in the cbox at the time. Unfortunately for her, the ones that happened to be there just happened to be the ones who DID put effort and research into their apps, not because they had to but because they wanted to, because they didn't feel right if they didn't know what kind of world their character would have come from, etc. They were all very nice and polite when they disagreed with her and said why they preferred to research, but they were very clearly just baffled by her. I think we were all stunned when she whipped this gem out:
I don't see the basis of making a character 'realistic' if vampires themselves, (even though i'd like to think) aren't realistic.
What. No. That's not how that works. This is an urban fantasy/paranormal romance genre whose entire basis for the world is that it is just like our world would be if vampires and wereanimals and witches were dropped in. That's part of the POINT. Yes, there is some historical revisionism (which was admittedly done pretty poorly in the series itself) because having supernatural beings would change some things, but even that is still generally handled as realistically as possible and in ways so that the course of history was still largely the same. One unrealistic element in a world does not make that entire world drop all pretense at being realistic at all. What do you even SAY to an attempt at "logic" like this?
(Also I kind of side-eye and snort at the implication of her wanting vampires to be real. Like, I get it's a hot fantasy for some people and all, but for me, I have enough reasons to be afraid to walk alone at night, I'd rather not live in a world where bipedal mosquitoes are added to that list, and people who don't ever even consider this side of it and ~wish they were reeeal~ tend to be...special sorts, in my experience. Just my own opinion there, YMMV.)
I could almost understand (though still not agree) with all Song's fuss if this were something she was REQUIRED to do (and were given no help for it) but that's not the case. Maybe she misinterpreted something before, but I just made clear to her that taking the advice is entirely OPTIONAL and not a rule, and she's still whining about it? I don't get it. You can choose to take it or not. What is there to whine about? I just don't get it. Especially since, as I said, Mod was really nice, I personally saw everything Mod said to her. Mod even ran it by me and others to look at first when she worried maybe she was being too harsh or not tactful enough. SHE WAS SWEET AS SUGAR AND PROVIDED RESOURCES, ALL SONG HAD TO DO WAS CLICK THE FREAKIN' LINKS!
I personally find this pretty insulting to Mod as well---she takes the time to find the big points you need to fix, does research *for* you to tell you what those points are, even looks for helpful links for you, and THIS is your reaction? You ungrateful jerk. I for one would be THRILLED to have someone helping me out on a matter like this. And if I had an issue with the advice, I wouldn't go trying to get other members to join in with my kvetching about it in the public cbox. So not cool. So not polite. And so not smart, either, because everyone disagreed with her, as they all happened to mostly be the folks on the site that actually DID do research for their vampires and, though they all remained very nice and polite about it, were clearly baffled by someone who not only didn't want to do research (hey, it can be a pain, we understand that) but downright claimed it wasn't important at all to do.
I think the best part was when one of these members said that if a staff member was giving her advice on the character, it was only to help and make them better, and her response was
I have no issue with being helped on my character.
Uh, no, you pretty obviously do, Song, sorry to say. Even sorrier, her character was then accepted by the admins accepted as she was, right down to having powers she shouldn't be allowed to have yet. Her getting accepted with a faulty history is fine by me, since again, it's not a requirement that she take the advice and we've already got loads of vampires with inaccurate histories, but the powers thing pissed me off since that *is* in violation of a board rule, which Admin told Song herself. Alas, our admins sadly had a history of caving when people whine enough...as evident with That Guy.
