Staff Feedback Thread

[Champ]

This 'warning' against Doc Holliday is foolish, unnecessary, and sets an unreasonable precedent for the rest of the server.

Firstly, interpretation and enforcement of the server rules is largely discretionary, so too are they frequently re-written, so I'll here invalidate the argument that staff were bound by duty or obligation.

Next up, that sanction has cut out some important context, important enough to still warrant its own explainer despite so many re-writes:

For examples, see here.

Now let's go through what applies from that link to the up-until-now uncontroversial name of Doc Holliday:

1.4 Names of new characters should be set up with role-playing nature of our server in mind. This means that:

- Names should contain no swear words. ✅
- Country of player origin must not be used in character names. ✅
- Faction tags can only be used by the actual members of player factions or groups. ✅
- Names with excessive use of random symbols, capital letters, numbers, symbols, leet speak, emoticons should not be used. ✅
- Names should be in good taste and not reference real-life atrocities ✅
- Names should not contain meme-references ✅

I defy anyone to declare 'Doc Holliday' is a meme reference and should you dare, you must be even less funny than I am.

What follows after that within the explainer are recommended guidelines. The purpose and spirit of the rule is to have names suit a role-playing server. The post goes further to say that the staff won't bother to pursue all names not suitable for roleplay (random numbers, symbols, leetspeak etc.) but "we will take measures against players who use unacceptable names."

I would argue it is obvious to anyone that Doc Holliday does not constitute an unacceptable name not suited for a roleplaying server based on a half-built space opera more than 2 decades ago. Doc has done more roleplay under that name than most of the rest of us have ever bothered to do. This does not exempt them from any rules, but it makes it apparent that if the purpose of the rule is to encourage appropriate roleplay, Doc has been fulfilling that metric for a long time. Some might say too long.

So, why the warning? Because it's a reference to an old name / character most of us don't even recognise. Why do we dislike references or imports? Because they're boring, repetitive, uncreative. Do you know what most of the roleplay on this server is, and has been since its inception? (It's boring, repetitive, uncreative).

If someone makes their first character named Luke.Skywalker, what would the most experienced, skilled roleplayers on the server do? Immediately recognise they're a newbie. Ignore them. Treat them with some derision in roleplay. Make some coy jokes. Maybe take the angelic approach and //give them some polite advice, or even invite them to a group and tutor them if their heart's in the right place. Not report, them, just educate and redirect. And that's for the most egregious example, using a popular and memorable character name. Even if a report came through, most admins wouldn't have given a damn, because banning or Bastilling newbies because of silly choices they will soon enough themselves learn from and regret would be counter-productive. If original, or at least, in-universe roleplay is the goal, then surely at least roleplaying some other character is a middle-ground, better than not roleplaying at all (with which the server also is and has been, for decades, brimming).

My point is, this boils down to a misapplication of the server rules against 0.0.

Server Administrators are obliged:

• To develop and safeguard the health of the Discovery Freelancer community, official server, and forums.
  
• To be fair and treat all players equally independent of their level and faction alignment.
  

I would not and do not advocate for forcing a rename of an uncontroversial character that is simply a niche reference for new players. Therefore, I don't advocate for forcing said rename for experienced 'high-level' players. If you don't like the reference, the original character, or what Doc is doing with the roleplay, and you think it's boring or bad roleplay, do what I do. Ignore it, like you would any level 3 ship in Pennsylvania with a character name you think you might recognise. And if you can't sit still enough to do that, there's an entire subforum for you.

P.S. If the staff are going to concern themselves with forcing a rename of every account, ship, and character that has a name that exists elsewhere, you're going to have an absurd amount of work ahead of you, and surely you have something better to be doing.

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