Okay, really?

Really?

It's my go to analogy for "Options? Dear god no!" replies.

So this is my understanding of the pros and cons of Global Banter so far. This is taken largely from this thread.

Pros.
- People can chat easily with each other from multiple parts of the Island.
As a result.
- People move around a lot more as they can still chat away with friends. This in turn has led to more activity in the outer outposts - New Pitts, Ace High, and CC404.
Also
- If a scene is happening somewhere, then it's much easier to let people know, and more of a crowd can come and join in.
These seem to me to be big advantages.

Cons.
- Loss of one way of letting people know that you enjoyed their writing somewhere. As has been pointed out, there are other ways of doing this. However I still think that doing this in a public way carries advantages - it helps remind other people to do the same. So overall this is a rather small disadvantage.
- Loss of separate places for people to follow their own modes of enjoyment, be it glomping, chatting or whatever else. This leads onto the next.
- Loss of places for people who are a little nervous to dip their toe in. I refer back to Grey's and Waverly's posts for this. It is easy to feel intimidated by veteran, well established characters. The veteran players don't have to be elitist to be intimidating, just their existence can do this. I refer in particular to Grey's post where she mentions feeling nervous of Eben. Ebenezer is the probably the friendliest, least intimidating person on the Island and I'm sure that he's horrified to think that he's made anybody nervous.
If banter helped provide somewhere where they could feel safer starting out, then that was providing a useful function. Even if they stayed there, going so far as to write whole scenes that could easily appear in Story. If now they can't, then it's a large loss.

That about sums it up as far as I can tell. What have I missed out?

Naught, as far as I can tell.

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"Ain't nothin' left to do but smile, smile, smile." -The Grateful Dead

Agreed! Looks good HM!

How is it we all get so grumpy about this stuff?

-moo

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moooooooooo Visit and help me finish the monster list: goo.gl/rpBGe (Ya'll mostly know me as CLOG, fyi)

I confess I was one of the Grumblies, at first, not anymore. This stems from my personal way of using banter: both as 1) RP helper and 2) as a place to exchange a few friendly words with the fabulous people that write on the island. Bear with me for a few words on each.

1) As an RP helper (crutch, if you want), I found it extremely useful for popping a quick question regarding, let's say, a character's attributes that may not be obvious, to me, at least, from description and RP only (it happens!). It's also useful for letting your scene partners know if you're going to be away, for how long, which info you can't impart by simply typing /afk. Let's say you are doing a scene in which the presence of a certain character is crucial (and his/her input, too). It that particular character's writer has to go do RL stuff for 10-15mins, the scene can be merely delayed, if the writer is going to be away for more than that, perhaps for the day, the scene will have to be aborted or altered a lot, as to fit that character's lack of response. And this is just an example. Using distractions for that, I grant you, is possible, though not terribly practical. Using another form of external instant messaging, ditto.

2) the casual chitchat is by no means necessary, or useful but merely pleasant and fun. I've been part in quite a few sparkling, witty and hilarious banter conversations, both with long time friends and random comparative strangers, on topics ranging wildly from linguistics, etiology or music theory, to rains of colorful confetti-like mice and bra cup sizes. Ranting, most of it, pointless, but, as I said, sometimes hilarious. Sometimes, true, there was a bit too much glomping for my taste, drowning everything else, but I'm not young anymore (alas), and that might be to blame for my reticence.

Now, with the new system:

1) I kind of still can do it, if it is not extremely busy around, but it is harder to do. Not impossible, even when it's busy, it's still doable: let's say I have to take a phonecall. I write that I'll be back soon, then hit /afk. The other players in the scene will see that I'm AFK, and if it's important to them, they can scroll back a bit and see if I left a time estimate in banter, even if it's been swamped. If it's a question to a certain character, a distraction can do, not everything has to be lighting fast, it's not trading on the stock market, it's RP, done for fun and silliness.

2) - Less probable, much less probable, while still not impossible.

These are, for me, the main disadvantages.

On the other hand, there are the advantages, which Hairy Mary summed up very neatly. Just the other day, for instance, I was very happy I got to play with Mara for a bit, thing that wouldn't have happened, but for the Global Banter, and that I had hoped for since a chance encounter in NewHome, featuring a bottle of stolen booze and a bunch of wet and pissed off ammo cats.



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(Read here to avoid longwinded rant)

So: verdict, in my opinion: minor inconveniences for good results, I'd say overall a Good Thing.

I know my post isn't so much 'feedback' as questions, but I'm not sure where else to ask.

Do we know yet if we're planning to keep this function for good? It feels like it's been instated for good, and most are just waiting for the last of the complainers to conform or leave.

Personally, I fried my hand in hot oil Sunday morning and have barely logged in for the last 4 days or so. In my heart, I miss my friends and stories, but I was also suprised to find my blood pressure rising when I thought about it, and the thought, I can't deal with that banter, running through my head. I was shocked to realize I was half looking forward to coming back, and half dreading the stress and discomfort. Over a game I used to love and feel happier playing!

I have social anxiety and frankly, there's a lot of people on the site I don't see eye to eye with and can't tolerate being around. It used to be simple to deal with, since like real life, you didn't have to be where the other person was! No conflict, no sore feelings, no sweat, everyone enjoys their own lives.

Now if I see someone online I'm uncomfortable around or don't think I can deal with, I don't want to log in at all. "What if he's in banter? That means I can't participate because I don't want to interact with him and his friends. Why should I be excluded? Because I didn't get here first, and there's no privacy now, and I don't have the will to cope with the stress."

On a side note of actual on-topic, I was suprised to see how many people were upset banter is not already used EXCLUSIVELY for rp coordination. Crazy thought here, I realize this isn't Facebook, but it is still a socially-geared website. I get not everyone wants to hear everyone's drama - again, probably easier to avoid when you could leave the area and people behind to talk somewhere lighter - but still. I've had days where I've been quaking with an anxiety attack and needed to feel not alone, and the folks in Newhome talked me down gently so I could sleep and cope. I am so thankful for that. And they weren't all people I previously knew to private message, gtalk if I had it, etc. No one I knew was around, and kind strangers came through for me, making new friendships!

Going a little further with this, I've never had a real life roleplay group to play D&D with or any tabletops. But I have to ask those who do; do you ONLY 100% talk about the game while you're there? Is it like the stereotypes on TV where you completely lose sight and stop acknowledging reality to 'become' a character? Or do you talk to your friends, joke around, play a game controlling a character while socializing? I much prefer the latter, but perhaps this is some part of roleplay culture I'm misunderstanding? Are you SUPPOSED to take the game too seriously?

I really think there should just be attempts to find a happy medium. I don't think we should have our emo high school drama spilling out all over banter, but I also don't think we should be frowned on for talking about life, connecting with new people who can relate and making friends!

Again, take with a grain of salt from me. No one ever agrees with my points, making me some kind of black sheep. And I don't plan to stay on with new global banter whether it becomes story-related-only or remains casual. I just can't tolerate what feels like being crowded in a party room with a billion different people and conversations I want no part of. I enjoy my privacy too much to find comfort or happiness here anymore. And after a year and a half of loving this website and it being the one thing I look forward to when I wake up each day, I'm sad. I'm losing one of the last things I really enjoyed, and I feel empty. All for jamming all the banters together for reasons I do not understand to begin with. I'm real sad.

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"It's hard to get pumped about this, without someone nice n' fuzzy around."

Yup, it looks like this is gonna be permanent from now.

Teddybear, does it help to know that we have Place banters separate now? So you can go to your Place or a clan hall or whatever you like, and hang out with your friends there privately. Yes, it's not the same as outpost banter - but I think it may actually work better for your purposes? Someone you don't like or don't want to be near could be watching the outpost banter you feel is safe, but you're totally in control if it's in a Place. You can have complete privacy there, and invite your friends over via distract or messaging.

Thanks for trying Ada, I appriciate that someone's concerned about people feeling alienated from the site. CMJ confirmed my thoughts though, there's no place for me on this website anymore. Something I used to enjoy now makes me sick and sad and stressed.

I know I missed another thread somewhere, but I still don't comprehend why this happened. Who complained about perfectly good old banter? Or was it just 'Here's something not broken, let's take it apart and ruin it anyway!'? I don't understand how things work in the island's management... All I know is that my opinion doesn't and never has mattered. I'm not even remotely a part of the community.

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"It's hard to get pumped about this, without someone nice n' fuzzy around."

I'm going to say this, not just for you, Teddybear, but for anyone who's feeling stressed by the merged Banter:

The Island changes. The Island always changes. That is its nature. Usually the changes turn out to be very much for the better. Anyone who knows me knows that there have been a few times when I have been very sad about some of them, but it isn't my game, it's CMJ's. He listens to all his players, including you -- and me! In the end, though, he has to make an executive decision. It's not a democracy, it can't be; it's his personal creation. There are factors that neither of us can see.

Now it's your decision. You get to make it each time you log in, or don't. Ask yourself -- are the friends you have here, the values you've found here, the kinds of fun you can still have here... are they worth it to you, or not?

Sometimes, for some people, the answer is no. That's all right. Sometimes, the answer turns out to be no for a while, then they come back after a period spent doing other things and find they can have fun here again. When that happens, their friends cheer and do happy dances. And sometimes...

Sometimes, the value they've found here leads them to take a chance, try something new, and find out there are benefits after all, benefits they hadn't imagined.

I'm not going to try to tell you what your choice should be. Whatever you pick, though, don't feel so alone. You are a part of the community.

You're taking this decision so much more personally than it is. Your opinion matters, but it's not the only one. The last two (three?) weeks have been spent with lots of people voicing their icy hatred of the new Global Banter, then after a week (or two?) to warm up, many of them see the new benefits of the system and either accept that it's not so bad, or that they might even prefer it. You're just a little late to the thread (again, not that your feedback doesn't matter), because it seems that the majority of opinions turned around sufficiently to keep it in.

I thought your points about the "crowded in a party" analogy were really good, since though an extrovert's natural response is "just put yourself out there and make a ton of new friends", an introvert like yourself (as you described) will find that cripplingly unfun. Most of us know the pleasures of anonymity or undetectability when you just don't feel like dealing with certain people. I really get what you're saying, and I would be swayed quite a bit by more similar arguments by other people who feel that way.

But unless those other people actually do voice the same complaints now as you did, do you think only your dissent should be enough to stop many other from getting what they perceive to be benefits? From your perspective, you're making a good argument. From the developer's perspective, X amount of people are unhappy with the new system, and >X people are happy with the new system, and therefore he will probably use the new system.

Convince us, the rest of the populace, to support your point, and if the numbers add up, that might change CMJ's mind.

Although, as said before by CMJ himself, it's pretty much obvious which way this issue is going to swing already.

I find the concept of trying to get introverts to speak an amusingly sisyphean task. You'd probably have to use a MoTD poll.

Also, I don't think One True Banter (which is what I'll call this new Banter for ever and ever, no matter how many people don't understand me) is a permanent solution. I think this for one reason: more people will join the Island. I hypothesize that, eventually, there will be Too Many People, and Something will have to be Done. What will it be? I dunno. Maybe it'll be switching back to the old system. Maybe it'll be putting Global Banter back in, while keeping One True Banter. Maybe I'm and nothing horrible will ever happen. But that's the future. For now, pending any epiphanies about how despicable it is, I'm enjoying this experiment-gone-right.

If the One True Banter is now permanent, I still think icons denoting which outpost the speaker is occupying would be helpful.

This new Global Banter, in essence, reminds me of Facebook or Twitter.

If you like using it, it's great. It lets you natter with your friends and share stuff and meet people and learn things and ask/answer questions and arrange things and have fun - it's fleeting and instant, there's always someone there to chat with, and you can do whatever you like.

If you don't like it, then ... you can either abstain, becoming a Weirdo Antisocial Loner to all the people who do like it, and missing out on all the socialising and news and organising of parties that it seems everyone else is enjoying so much. Or, you can force yourself to look at it, and be continually wearied by the pace of the party and puzzled by the appeal, occasionally finding some small thing which seems worth reading and/or interacting with, but mostly wishing everyone else wasn't so keen on it (and would get off your lawn and turn their rackety music off, the damn kids).

If it isn't your thing, then no, of course you aren't being forced at gunpoint to buy the strawberry yoghurt. But if that's the only place you can get yoghurt, and if almost everyone else you wish to hear from and interact with is using yoghurt as their primary means of instant non-private communication (ok yes the mixed metaphor breaks down rather a lot), and if you wish to use something with similar properties to yoghurt .... well, a curry just ain't the same with strawberry yoghurt or sour cream instead of a nice plain yoghurt for your cucumber-and-mint raita.


I'd still be in favour of a Local Banter channel for the people who want to use that and a Global Banter channel for the people who want to use that.


@Hairy Mary: an excellent summary, good sir. I would also suggest adding that loss of local Banter channels has also made it harder to not just say you liked someone's roleplay after the fact, but also to coordinate or chat with people during the scene, without it getting lost amoung all the other things going on in GB.

@TeddyBear: your posts make me sad. I have every sympathy - I do feel rather the same about many points - but nothing constructive to add.

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Improbable Reference Links - goo.gl/MRBnb -------------- Land Registry (map of Places) ---- goo.gl/bpkRR

Okay, one thing I have noticed, and not heard mentioned here as a great positive:

Story and Banter channels don't swap places anymore. I haven't fiddled with the Place Banters yet, but it's certainly better in Outposts and the Failboat.

I mean, at least, I haven't seen it. Has anyone else?

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Something something unintelligible gibberish something.

There are times I'd rather have it off, but don't because someone might try to communicate something story related in the globanter. I agree wholeheartedly with Buddleia's post.

I don't think it's fair to say that Teddybear is taking it too personally. A change will always affect people, and people are allowed to feel affected. Teddybear, I suppose what I'd ask you to do is recognize the way you feel, but not let it make you feel like CMJ or everyone who likes the new Banter are doing it as a personal attack against you, or because they don't care about you. They do! We are a community, and you're part of it. It's just that decisions that affect a whole community can't be made based on the feelings of a few people, sad to say. :c

Fred, I think you're operating from the wrong definitions of introvert and extrovert. There are social introverts and nonsocial extroverts; for example, I'm strongly introverted, but I've learned to not mind just leaping in and making new friends. But that tires me out, whereas being by myself or with only a few people helps me recharge. I'm pretty sure that all had absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand, so, er, back on track.

I've reached a point where it doesn't matter to me which way it swings now, even though I quite like the Global Banter. I can see the benefits and drawbacks of both ways, and I know we're going to end up adapting to either one just fine. I've fiddled with the Places Banter, and I agree with Ada that it goes a long way towards making people feel like they have a space to just talk to their friends if they want to. The front room of my Place is Global Banter, so I can tune in to what's going on, and the other rooms are Place-specific or Local. It's good to have options.

Just weighing in with an opinion here on a few people's points. Do take it, as with every other opinion, with a grain of salt.

I don't really understand the benefit in posting an appreciative note in a quiet outpost's Banter when you've seen a scene you like. I didn't realize people even relied on such things, because I've seen it so rarely, and maybe only once in response to a scene I participated in. Further, I almost never return to the "scene of the crime," as it were. I feel like a Distraction, though it takes maybe an extra minute's time, is a lot more personal, heartfelt, and likely to be seen by the person you're praising. When I see something exceptionally entertaining, I drop the participants a short Distraction. --Of course, this is not to say that leaving messages in Banter has/had no value, just that it never really benefit me in the way I personally roleplay or socialize.

As for scene coordination, I've always found it difficult to do that via Banter in a busy outpost, and in my experience (so far!) Global Banter is no faster than the busy outposts ever were. Possible, yeah, but difficult. Less convenient than coordinating through GTalk, more convenient than coordinating through Distractions. On the flip side, when roleplaying in empty or slow-moving outposts, I never needed to coordinate that way because I was usually playing a (semi-not-very)pre-planned scene with people I was already acquainted with through Distractions or GTalk. So in that case, it was far easier to ask a brief question or make a quick note via Distraction or chat client than to try to coordinate any bit of scene in Banter. I found this especially true of plot-driven group scenes (for I've often been pulled into a group chat). So I don't feel that any Story-related functionality has been lost with the changeover to Global Banter.

On the hot topic of "socializing," I don't have much of interest to say. (this actually turned into a very rambly paragraph, sorry) I'm very much an introvert; socializing with others is very exhausting. I'm also fairly shy and self-conscious in a group. I appreciate Global Banter as a tool that allows me to pop in and say a few things to the public at large, if I so desire, and then disappear again without being missed. The whole Island is in the same chat room, it seems, so it's really easy to say "Hi SoAndSo!" or participate in any small snippet of conversation that interests me without traversing the whole Island to do it, or committing myself to a conversation. I also don't find it distracting or distressing to have the whole Island jabbering at the bottom of the page, because I don't really expect to see anything important in there. When I'm doing a scene, I'll skim the chatspace every couple of minutes for the names of anyone I'm writing with, and then skim the comments they made to see if it's anything relevant to what I'm doing (or need to do). For the most part, I assume that Banter is just unimportant sillyness, as it always seemed to be in the busy outposts anyway.

EDIT for clarity: I personally use Banter and Story stacked, one atop the other. I find it far more readable and far less distracting then the cramped columns when they're set one next to the other. If you find Global Banter distracting you frequently, this might be something to try?

On the dire, vital topic of "glomping": I don't care for it, personally. I roll my eyes at it. But it causes me no intense pain when people are doing that, as I can very easily ignore it!

And on the subject of people you can't tolerate being around, my only advice is from personal experience. Yes, there have been a few people I've been less than enamored with. I think everyone's had this experience, no? But I've never found myself driven out of a conversation by the mere presence of such a person. In fact, I'm almost always able to either ignore them entirely, or be neutrally polite to them (as I am with many people, whether or not I dislike them!) Being part of a community is a team effort. If I want to be part of it, I have to engage with others. And if I don't want to be snarked at or bullied, I have to be polite to others. If you're not giving whoever-it-is any reason to engage negatively with you, then chances are, they won't. And if you feel like they're personally harassing you, you can always ask a neutral moderator for help. The mere chance of being in the same "room" with someone you don't like should never be a reason to give up and leave entirely. There's always a way to get along with people you don't personally like.

TL;DR: I think new Banter is pretty fun and neat. I have no real issues with it. However, I wouldn't be heartbroken if it was rolled back, either, because I just honestly don't have a single reason to get worked up about what Banter system we might or might not be using.

Disclaimer: Since it seems that this has been a season of frustration, Opinions, and miscommunication, I just want to make my intent clear: these many, many boring words are just my opinion, based on personal experience, and by no means do I expect everyone to share my experience. Everyone's opinion is valid, my friends, yours and mine, even if we disagree.