Add 'Tot' to the list of banned OOC words for MRP

[Bisar]

Just what the title says.

[DrAmazing343]

holy fucking based . . .

I think this would kick up a shitstorm but I'm 100% down for it. Shame about the actual Tater Tots, but it's caught in the crossfire of something huge. Gonna talk to folks later and watch this thread to hear more thoughts, but off the rip I'm interested.

[Stabbystab]

I’m fine with this as long as ling is never touched.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

Err, can we get some reasoning for this please? "Traitor" obviously isn't nor should it be a banned word, so why would "tot" be one?

[norsvenska]

Err, can we get some reasoning for this please? "Traitor" obviously isn't nor should it be a banned word, so why would "tot" be one?

if i had to guess it's to prevent people from going ;JOHN TOT when John Tater accidentally brandishes his edagger

seemingly in the same vein as the frowned upon ;DOC BAD or other quick ways of saying that someone is an antagonist (or acting like one)

[TheSmallBlue]

Lately I've seen less people use stuff like "tot" and use "EOC" more so I don't think this would have that big of an impact

[NewtypeWoman]

that's fine imo? the first one is kind of an immersion breaking shortening, the latter at least feels like an in universe term well enough.

[Itseasytosee2me]

Yeah I buy EOC. I also would buy syndie.

The best way to give players good options for words to call traitors would to have more in universe refrences. If all in game resources refered to them as "rats" or "snakes" it might catch on. Snake actually might be really cool because its a synonym of traitor and also in some of syndicate iconography.

[Timberpoes]

Kill it with fire.

[DrAmazing343]

Syndie is great, traitor is fine, calling them an infiltrator or a saboteur? Cool, sovl. Snake is downright inspired, gonna pick that up for a few of my characters.

[Vekter]

I kind of agree, but people are just going to keep finding new things to call them instead, as SmallBlue noted with "EOC".

I think it's probably a good move but we should be more vigilant for people who are doing any variation of "(name) (antag role)" or "(name) BAD" and bop them for RPR 1 violations.

[Jacquerel]

I hate seeing the word "tot" in round, it's instantly immersion shattering that people would refer to each other that way in-character. "EOC" is an in-universe description, "'ling" is at least a fairly natural shortening of the word, "tot" just isn't.

[DrAmazing343]

Yeah— with some exceptions, I think shortenings are more or less fine by me. I'd almost always prefer something more verbose but even I'm not above yelling LING CHAPEL. Stuff like Ling, Revs s'okay by me. It's just that Tot is based off like, fucking Tator which is only barely very OOCly... traitor??? It's dumb. If it were cool, I'd be fine with it. Another slightly nettling example is calling nuke ops nukies but I'm far far less opposed to that because again, it's sorta like a shortening. It doesn't feel like a trained special operations force on a suicide mission to destroy your station by any means possible should have a nickname adjacent to cookies but again, at least it sorta makes sense.

Overall I'm fine with people finding new things to call 'em so long as they're just a tad more in the spirit of Muh Arr Pee. If it's tot today, and EOC tomorrow, I think we'll still have a win on our hands. They'll come up with something more creative down the line, and it'll probably be even better.

I still think snakes sounds super fucking cool to refer to Syndies as.

[IsaacExists]

I think I might steal calling syndies "Snakes" to be honest.
Though I believe only once, I have called a traitor a tot before to another in casual conversation. Sometimes it's funny. Is it OOC though? Not too sure about that one.

[warbluke]

I wish there was more administrative pressure placed on things other than callouts.
If you're in a tense life or death situation typing out a three letter response is fine, but in my brief vacation to Manuel (and also elsewhere) I see people using single word responses to a lot of things.
I don't care if it's how someone really talks in the physical world replying "real" or "sad" to every sentence makes me morose.

[Lacran]

I don't see tot as an issue, similar to how I don't see nukie as an issue. It's just an abbreviation, it's not necessarily ooc at all.

Of all the issues we could look at to improve roleplay, I think policing in-game slang for in-game terms is gonna be the least constructive use of anyone's time.

[GamerAndYeahMick]

Tot does feel very trouble in terrorist town esque and immersion breaking so I would agree with axing it.

[Vekter]

I don't see tot as an issue, similar to how I don't see nukie as an issue. It's just an abbreviation, it's not necessarily ooc at all.

Of all the issues we could look at to improve roleplay, I think policing in-game slang for in-game terms is gonna be the least constructive use of anyone's time.

Call me a stickler if you want but I actually don't love nukie on MRP either, "Nuke op" takes like two extra letters and makes more sense.

[Lacran]

I don't see tot as an issue, similar to how I don't see nukie as an issue. It's just an abbreviation, it's not necessarily ooc at all.

Of all the issues we could look at to improve roleplay, I think policing in-game slang for in-game terms is gonna be the least constructive use of anyone's time.

Call me a stickler if you want but I actually don't love nukie on MRP either, "Nuke op" takes like two extra letters and makes more sense.

Okay, but then is this about roleplay or just disliking slang players developed organically for ic terms?

Because this isn't getting people to roleplay more/better, it's just encouraging a more formal vernacular.

I could agree it's weird for like, a hos or captain or centcom staff to say tot, but I think an assistant saying tot is totally onbrand considering they're likely as a workforce to use slang.

[Vekter]

Okay, but then is this about roleplay or just disliking slang players developed organically for ic terms?

Because this isn't getting people to roleplay more/better, it's just encouraging a more formal vernacular.

I could agree it's weird for like, a hos or captain or centcom staff to say tot, but I think an assistant saying tot is totally onbrand considering they're likely as a workforce to use slang.

The problem is that "Tot" didn't evolve as slang, it evolved as the absolute fewest letters you could say to get across the idea that someone is a traitor. "Nukies" just bugs me and doesn't seem like something someone would naturally say, but that's a "me" thing, not an actual rules statement.

[Lacran]

Okay, but then is this about roleplay or just disliking slang players developed organically for ic terms?

Because this isn't getting people to roleplay more/better, it's just encouraging a more formal vernacular.

I could agree it's weird for like, a hos or captain or centcom staff to say tot, but I think an assistant saying tot is totally onbrand considering they're likely as a workforce to use slang.

The problem is that "Tot" didn't evolve as slang, it evolved as the absolute fewest letters you could say to get across the idea that someone is a traitor. "Nukies" just bugs me and doesn't seem like something someone would naturally say, but that's a "me" thing, not an actual rules statement.

I thought it came from tater tot as in traitor - tater - tater tot - tot.

To expose my bias I don't use tot, because it's dumb, but I grew up in Australia where slang is literally just making things the fewest words possible. Like "ARVO" for "afternoon" "smoko" for smoking break "cunt's fucked" for "this thing is broken/situation has become precarious" "Devo" for devastated... You get the point.

[Bisar]

I think nukies is fine as long as you're self aware about being blithely goofy in a life or death situation. American soldiers called the Viet Cong "Charlie", I think being numb to death and destruction as a long time Nanotrasen employee validates "nukies".

[warbluke]

Would "nukers" be better?

[Striders13]

the filter is annoying and we have tater tots food in game, no need to bloat it

[Bisar]

In-game tater tot discussion is something I'm absolutely willing to enthusiastically sacrifice.

[BlueMemesauce]

the tator tots item is even a reference to the term "tot"
it would weird to have something ingame that you cant say

[norsvenska]

"Alright everyone, I've finished prepping dinner. We've got top-quality meatwheat steaks, grilled to perfection, served with fresh herbs and a choice of either cheesy fries or tater to— right, I can't say that word. Uhh… 'grated potatoes formed into small cylinders and deep-fried, often served as a side dish.' Come down to the kitchen if you want some of this."

"Hi, hello, I'd like to place an order to go. I'd like one of those steaks you offered. They sounded delicious."

"Yes, I can do that for you. What did you want for your side?"

"I'll have the… hmmmm… the grated potatoes formed into small cylinders and deep-fried, often served as a side dish, please."

"Sure thing, I'll get that prepared for you."

(this will be the Manuel sector in 2565)

[Lacran]

I just think this is incredibly pedantic and doesn't actually do anything meaningful to enhance the quality of discourse. It really only serves to limit terms people have a pet peeve with.

[NecromancerAnne]

I think, for English speakers, we tend to look for ways to shorten the language we utilize frequently. You see it in all levels of society, organizations and even across borders sharing a primary language, each with their own specialized language, with highly specific meanings, for their particular contexts. Whatever means we can use to speed up our ability to convey information, we very often take if it starts to emerge naturally. Quite a bit of our modern language came about in much the same way. This isn't just an in-game phenomenon, this is something that happens in all kinds of contexts.

We invented the words, gave them meaning and understand them within the context of the game. If we apply that same need to the in-universe characters, they probably found a need for shorthand too. It's a bit goofy, but so is the game. It isn't like we're playing a high drama here. Equating dangerous corporate turncoats to 'tators' and then naturally 'tots' from 'tator tots' is an entirely normal process with logical follow through if you consider it starts with an an onomatopoeia, and then word association to shorten it further to get to less syllables. We mentally do the rest. Tot > Tator Tot > Tator > Traitor.

It even sounds like an insult, like you're infantilizing them. I think that is neat.

[JupiterJaeden]

I don’t really care about “tot” specifically, but griping over “X BAD” type callouts in general is kinda dumb. Yes, it’s not the most immersive, but the reason people generally do it is not because they’re lazy and don’t care about RP. It’s because in this game in order to say something you have to spend time typing, which generally means you have to spend time being vulnerable to being murdered. This in and of itself is not immersive because you can move and talk in real life, but there’s no way to easily change that in-game.

Bwoinking people because their WPM is under 200 and they didn’t write out “John McSpaceman is a Syndicate Agent” before getting murdered is a horrible idea. We are MRP, not HRP, which means antags are under no obligation to let you finish speaking before murdering you, and it is therefore wildly unreasonable to expect players to write essays when making a time-sensitive callouts. Sacrificing a little immersion for the sake of a vastly more playable game is a good thing.

[RedBaronFlyer]

I think nukies is fine as long as you're self aware about being blithely goofy in a life or death situation. American soldiers called the Viet Cong "Charlie", I think being numb to death and destruction as a long time Nanotrasen employee validates "nukies".

me on my way to administratively punish British soldiers for calling Germans "Jerries" and American soldiers for calling Japanese "Japs"

-

like others said I think it should be more of a case by case thing. To me I see this as pretty pointless and it doesn't really crack down on the actual LRP behavior that players do.

sidenote: the word filter punishes social anxiety users like a motherfucker. "Ur" and Fr" already block like 1/3rd of my messages and it's annoying as shit. The word filter checks the message AFTER it gets potentially altered by social anxiety or any other effect of chat altering so something completely innocent can be blocked as a result


(that is from the pre-melbert PR that made social anxiety a bit better but this word filter stuff still happens)

[NecromancerAnne]

like others said I think it should be more of a case by case thing. To me I see this as pretty pointless and it doesn't really crack down on the actual LRP behavior that players do.

I think this is the most important thing to re-iterate. It's completely pointless to to focus on something so particular under the guise of preventing LRP behaviour when ultimately it is maybe the least important thing to crack down on.

[warbluke]

me on my way to administratively punish British soldiers for calling Germans "Jerries" and American soldiers for calling Japanese "Japs"

I think the latter might fall under Rule 11.

[NikNakFlak]

As the creator of tator tots, I absolutely will die on this hill more than any other hill I have ever died on. If this is incorporated into the word filter, I will personally make a revert MR for tator tots everyday until I am banned from Github. Then, I will tirelessly see if there is a way to edit the config in game and remove "tator" from it so the players may speak freely about my glorious pill shaped balls of potato again. If this ends up in my deadminning, it will be a worthy cause. If this causes tator tots to be removed from the game, the sacrifice will have been larger than you possibly can imagine. If I removed from the community for these transgressions, know that I fought for you, the players.

Do not cast my tators to the darkness. Live my potato pills, LIVE!

[DrAmazing343]

After a bit of internal discussion, and with more to come, I'm gonna put down my Opinion here. This is not the end of the thread and this is not a ruling until I converse with my fellow headmins about it, but I want to jot this down real quick for my own perspective.

Tot and maybe Tator themselves could be things folks would make shorthands of in real life, and even if they are a bit OOC in nature, they're made a little IC by virtue of being a shorthand that was made over the course of the game's lifespan. I don't think we need to add them to the filter at this time. We DO, however, still need to ultimately crack down on folks who use this shorthand who also exhibit a lot of other ock ick behavior. If Burger and Timber agree, I'd like to leave it at admin discretion ultimately following in the footsteps of main rule 3: This is a sandbox roleplaying server.

If someone says "I think that X is a Tator" or "X is a Tot" that's one thing. It rubs me the wrong way, but I don't think it's ultimately what we're after. What we're after is instead folks who would use it to try and game out an escape from an enemy/call for backup in a way that breaks immersion even harder. Think seeing an esword and going "X BAD X BAD X TOT X TOT" over and over again— it's a small difference, and something some may call performative, but ultimately... yes. This is a sandbox roleplaying server, even our LRP servers! I'd like folks to not drop the pretense of any RP on any of our servers in the pursuit of getting some epic own or because it'd be a little easier than like, two more words. That's all I got, for now.

[NikNakFlak]

Require all people who say Tator, to also say Tot. Tator tot. Ban anyone else who uses Tator without the Tot

[conrad]

How would this be enforced? I agree with striders that putting tot on the filter is a bad idea. Is the filter a code change or config change?

Unless I skipped too many admin classes the other way is resorting to noting people that didn't get the memo.

[JupiterJaeden]

What we're after is instead folks who would use it to try and game out an escape from an enemy/call for backup in a way that breaks immersion even harder. Think seeing an esword and going "X BAD X BAD X TOT X TOT" over and over again— it's a small difference, and something some may call performative, but ultimately... yes. This is a sandbox roleplaying server, even our LRP servers! I'd like folks to not drop the pretense of any RP on any of our servers in the pursuit of getting some epic own or because it'd be a little easier than like, two more words. That's all I got, for now.

If an antagonist is actively, mechanically trying to kill someone, expecting a minimum character count for callouts is absurd. This is a WILD imbalance of power between an antagonist who is allowed to wordlessly kill you if they have an IC reason, vs. requiring victims to write a fucking essay while getting stabbed. It also unfairly punishes people with low typing speeds & those with ESL. This is not a failure on anyone’s part for not wanting to RP, it is an inevitable consequence of the mechanics of the game not allowing talking while performing other actions.

Not wanting to die is not “gaming out an epic win”, it’s a basic desire to keep playing the game that would be ridiculous to try and stamp out with policy, especially when we have NO other policy precedent anywhere on MRP saying you have to accept imminent death. It also doesn’t break immersion worse than the alternative. Standing still and dying is failRP, desperately calling for help isn’t. Without a policy requiring antags to give you time for extra typing, any policy limiting help callouts would be ludicrously unfair.

You could argue that in the case where you AREN’T actively under attack, callouts should have a higher standard of effort. I don’t really care in this case, but any policy like this would just require a lot more administrative effort to actually uphold.

Repeating again while I don’t give 2 shits about “tot” specifically, any policy with the intention of requiring high length callouts in general is a terrible, terrible idea.

[DrAmazing343]

This is why that was my Opinion and not policy. I also would like to reiterate that the way I’m leaning is to just leave it to admin discretion more than anything. I agree a minimum character count is shit, and that if you’re actively being murdered it’s a lot more flexible in my mind— it’s just the guy who sees le antag and runs away and yells ock ick shit to get the cops on him faster that’s the problem.

I’m no longer convinced putting tot on the filter would do much of value aside from creating a new slang, but generally I’d like to see NRP outside of actively life threatening situations addressed

[Vekter]

What we're after is instead folks who would use it to try and game out an escape from an enemy/call for backup in a way that breaks immersion even harder. Think seeing an esword and going "X BAD X BAD X TOT X TOT" over and over again— it's a small difference, and something some may call performative, but ultimately... yes. This is a sandbox roleplaying server, even our LRP servers! I'd like folks to not drop the pretense of any RP on any of our servers in the pursuit of getting some epic own or because it'd be a little easier than like, two more words. That's all I got, for now.

If an antagonist is actively, mechanically trying to kill someone, expecting a minimum character count for callouts is absurd. This is a WILD imbalance of power between an antagonist who is allowed to wordlessly kill you if they have an IC reason, vs. requiring victims to write a fucking essay while getting stabbed. It also unfairly punishes people with low typing speeds & those with ESL. This is not a failure on anyone’s part for not wanting to RP, it is an inevitable consequence of the mechanics of the game not allowing talking while performing other actions.

Not wanting to die is not “gaming out an epic win”, it’s a basic desire to keep playing the game that would be ridiculous to try and stamp out with policy, especially when we have NO other policy precedent anywhere on MRP saying you have to accept imminent death. It also doesn’t break immersion worse than the alternative. Standing still and dying is failRP, desperately calling for help isn’t. Without a policy requiring antags to give you time for extra typing, any policy limiting help callouts would be ludicrously unfair.

You could argue that in the case where you AREN’T actively under attack, callouts should have a higher standard of effort. I don’t really care in this case, but any policy like this would just require a lot more administrative effort to actually uphold.

Repeating again while I don’t give 2 shits about “tot” specifically, any policy with the intention of requiring high length callouts in general is a terrible, terrible idea.

1) DrAmazing said literally none of this, they said "We expect people to act reasonably IC and not try to find the most efficient ways to get other people in trouble for attacking them" and you heard "I'm banning you if your calls for help aren't at least 140 characters".
2) Screaming "HELP IN MAINTS" is fine, screaming "X BAD" is not. The bar is extremely low, enough so that I'd argue it's not a concern for folks who type slow or are ESL. The issue isn't that what they are saying is short, the issue is that the motivation is less that their character is in trouble and more that they want to get someone else to own the guy who killed them.

[JupiterJaeden]

1) DrAmazing said literally none of this, they said "We expect people to act reasonably IC and not try to find the most efficient ways to get other people in trouble for attacking them" and you heard "I'm banning you if your calls for help aren't at least 140 characters".

I don’t know how it’s unreasonable to interpret the sentence “what we’re after is folks who do x” from a headmin as meaning “we want to pursue administrative action against folks who do x”. Nobody said anyone is getting immediately banned, but I’m giving reasons why moving in that direction is a bad idea.

2) Screaming "HELP IN MAINTS" is fine, screaming "X BAD" is not. The bar is extremely low, enough so that I'd argue it's not a concern for folks who type slow or are ESL. The issue isn't that what they are saying is short, the issue is that the motivation is less that their character is in trouble and more that they want to get someone else to own the guy who killed them.

“the issue is that the motivation is less that their character is in trouble and more that they want to get someone else to own the guy who killed them.” These motivations are literally one and the same. The entire purpose of calling for help is to get someone else to help you beat your attacker. It is completely, completely reasonable IC to want to quickly identify your attacker so that people who come to help you actually know who to fight. If you’re gonna die anyways, identifying your attacker also serves as a last ditch “fuck you” which is also 100% reasonable IC. Both these things also give agency to players when attacked, and telling players to roll over & die because they couldn’t type a detailed enough callout is wildly unfun.

The issue is that SS13 has no shorthand for “non-specific bad guy” that doesn’t sound dumb. “Antag” is banned, and “EOTC” is clunky to type, so people have resorted to “bad”. Again, this is a consequence of a typing to talk system in a game in which split seconds matter for fights, not a a consequence of nebulous LRP shittery. Unless there is a restriction for antags to have to give you some time to type, as HRP servers do, it will never be remotely fair to force people to write out longer callouts while in or under threat of combat.

I have already stated in other cases (as in callouts not made under imminent threat), I don’t care. Crack down on this if you want but it’s already rare enough that it’s basically a non-issue on modern Manuel. Most “X BAD” type callouts, on Manuel, are made by people under duress, not randomly.

EDIT: Tangentially related, but I was thinking about it and I feel like “X EVIL” or “X IS EVIL” actually sounds less dumb in-universe than “X BAD” so I might try that myself sometime lol

[TheLoLSwat]

I think what is trying to be stopped(from admin POV) is beyond the scope of this thread, and specifically going “tot” or “X BAD” isn’t bad because there are clear and obvious scenarios where you are extremely pressed for time due to the nature of the game. This thread should be closed (and a new one opened if anyone can take the topic in a new direction)


Running around and spamming OOC in IC (or tiptoeing OOC IC) is a whole other issue

[DrAmazing343]

We've decided to leave this up to admin discretion.