(08-29-2015, 04:04 PM)Calliope Cloverbloom Wrote:(08-29-2015, 03:55 PM)Oli! Wrote: Right now, I don't think we're dealing with individual reactions to intrusion; these can range anywhere from being angry, to not caring at all, so they don't really have that much gravity except for in specific circumstances; the argument is more geared to whether or not people are allowed to have private conversations in /say, which they are, because there's no way to actually stop them from doing so.
Inability to prevent someone from doing a thing doesn't make that thing allowed or justifiable.
One can't prevent me from peeing on the sidewalk, but in general most modern societies agree that's not permissible (and moreso than being socially unacceptable, being caught in the act may warrant arrest).
By your own words earlier, people who make such RP faux pas may not care if they get blacklisted, and so that's no punishment to them, and therefore they have no deterrent at all. Okay.
So what if a person doesn't care if they get arrested, is it okay for them to just go around peeing on sidewalks to their heart's content?Â
Or is it still not acceptable behavior, regardless of their shrug toward consequence?
There are many ways you can be stopped from peeing on the sidewalk. Tackled by a passerby, tazed by a police officer, having your urine caught by a cup, who knows. The point is that just about any action done in meatspace can be stopped through physical interference. Not the case in Roleplay, where any interference at all has to go through the person being interfered with, who then makes the choice of whether or not they want to go with it or not. Therefore, this situation would be more akin to someone coming up and asking you whether you would allow them to stop you from peeing on the sidewalk, at which point you decide yes, no, or to ignore them.
And for the sake of addressing how things work In-Game, Yes, the inability to stop someone from doing something makes it an Allowed practice. There's nothing in the game's terms of service saying that it isn't allowed, and there's no way that we can stop it from being allowed on our own terms, therefore meaning that, for all intents and purposes, it is allowed.
When we speak about what is Allowed, there are two possible ways in which it could be viewed. We can view it in terms of a social standpoint, where people set the rules of what is and isn't allowed to be done, with those rules being enforced in a capable way that actually affects people's decisions. The alternate is what people can and cannot do in a purely physical sense, moral and ethical decisions aside.
Peeing on the sidewalk isn't acceptable behavior from the moral standpoint of most people. If someone doesn't care about the consequences of peeing on the sidewalk, and no one is around to stop them, then yes, they're allowed, or able, to pee on the sidewalk. Society and others around them might not agree, and the rules of said society might say that someone is then allowed to take them to jail for it afterwards, but there is no hard and fast rule embedded in the fabric of reality that says "under no circumstances can you pee on this sidewalk."
This is not the case in MMOs, in which there are hard and fast rules encoded into the basis of our virtual reality that stop us from interfering with people that are doing certain things. If we were able to suddenly stop people that are peeing on the sidewalk anywhere, from any place, then logically peeing on the sidewalk would not be allowed, because you physically cannot do it.
Regarding your earlier example about events in public parks: That's actually not how things work, either legally, or in terms of public acceptance. If someone has a birthday party in a public park, you are not allowed to take their privately paid-for cake and eat their privately paid-for food just because they are holding the party in a public location. You are allowed to sit at the park bench they're using, because that is public property, but all the things that make the event an event, balloons, people, food, gifts, etcetera, are off-limits to you both legally and morally unless they allow you to partake.
In real life, you could go ahead and take their food and their balloons anyway, because you have the physical ability to do so. In MMO Roleplay, this is not the case. You have no physical ability to do anything without approval.
For the sake of Simplicity, let's divide the two parts of Allowed into two different words. Socially Acceptable, meaning what is permitted by a group, and is therefore subjective and flexible, and Able, which is physical, absolute, and refers to the Ability to Do. It is not Socially Acceptable to pee on the sidewalk, but I am nonetheless Able to do so.
The party that determines what is Socially Acceptable is the one that is overseeing a closed system. This could be a society, a country, a guild, a game environment, and many other things. We, the Players, do not have control over the Game Environment. The Developers and the Game Masters are the only ones that do so. Their "Laws," the Terms of Service, do not prohibit having a private conversation in a public channel. Additionally, the World of the Game does not prohibit this. In the eyes of the Overseeing Party, it is therefore Socially Acceptable, and within the system of the Game, you are Able to do so. In both systems, therefore, they are Allowed.
We the players are not the governing body of the game's overall system (i.e. public environments and channels), and are therefore unable to enforce what we may deem to be Socially Acceptable in those contexts. We are, however, able to enforce such in smaller groups, such as Friend Groups, Linkshells, and Free Companies. Although they are Able to do something, just as they are in the game's overall environment, we may not deem it Socially Acceptable, and remove them from our controlled environment as a result. Within other controlled systems, however, it may be deemed as being Socially Acceptable, and therefore tolerated by the members of that group.
The conclusion that we come to, therefore, is that in the eyes of the Governing Body in which all systems are contained within the premise of this game, having private conversations in public places is both Socially Acceptable and something that you are Able to do. This is true, because they have absolute, inalienable control over both the Terms of Service, and the World of the Game. Therefore, as long as someone pays to access this system, they have the Right to engage in that activity. We may shut them out from our smaller, controlled areas as a result, but they are nonetheless within their overall rights to do what it is they are doing.