(07-22-2017, 02:00 AM)Lydia Lightfoot Wrote:(07-22-2017, 01:47 AM)Caspar Wrote: This is based on a false equivalency. A forum post has a totally different purpose than semi-public RP.
Does it? Please explain how a forum post here is at all different from an RP post made on the street in the middle of Ul'dah. How is it acceptable to randomly respond, without personal invitation to do so, to one of these, but not the other?
I t was touched upon by some others previously, but a forum post has a tacit understanding of being open to replies. This is literally the purpose of a forum. If the same question had been through other channels, say a direct chat or a private message, then it would be obviously clear that the text was meant for specific people to respond to.
Forums largely do not match up with typing text in-game, but RPC does have a perfect example of a board that does. Town Hall. And when we look at the threads in that forum, it's pretty easy to tell when and where unexpected additions to that RP scene are welcomed or not.
Typically [open] tagged threads are completely free for all. They're meant for anyone to join in, provided they can keep up with the flow of the thread or write their exit in if they choose to leave.
Then we have [closed] tagged threads which are still being RPed out in public, but aren't open to the public. I doubt the people who organized the thread would really appreciate random people posting in it. If anything, the posts would be deemed off-topic, get reported, and then be removed. If all RP happened in private, the general feeling of a community would likely die. RP would become incredibly clustered and it would be near-impossible to integrate new people who didn't already have some sort of connection. As others have also said, watching RP can be nice too, whether that's happening ICly or OOCly.
Then we get into the fuzzier tags which can have any range of meanings. Things like [semi-open], [semi-closed], and [ask first]. In the threads I've seen and read containing these tags, there's usually an out of character message with some context and possible means for getting involved. It usually means sending a message to someone active in the thread and asking to join in.
Then we have tags like [story] or [journal] which are basically the same as [closed], but often not collaborative writing to even begin with. They're typically single-person or at least single-perspective. Just like a closed tag, you wouldn't just go and start typing some response in someone else's thread that was marked clearly as not for that purpose.
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In game though? We don't have some sure-fire way of telling other people what status a given scene is. And the context of openness varies upon when, where and who is involved. Because even if two people were RPing some romantic dinner in the Quicksand of all places, you probably wouldn't just sit down at their table and start eating their food and expect them to handle that well. Maybe some people would! Or it'd turn into a different kind of scene! But it also wouldn't be unexpected for the couple to either ignore you or to ask that you not disrupt their RP. Or maybe they'd leave, noting that the Quicksand needs to keep an eye on their disruptive patrons or something. Social boundaries aren't white and black. And just like the real world, most people aren't going to initiate communication with every single person they encounter. Sometimes there's an obvious hook. Sometimes the people are complete strangers. Players RPing have their own preferences about the do's and don'ts.
