--- In hpmush-logs@yahoogroups.com, Pixie <pixie@w...> wrote:
OOC Seminar: Conflict Resolution
Who: Everyone!
What: A discussion of conflicts and how to best resolve them on game.
Location: OOC Meeting Room

Source: Pixie

You say "All righty. Let's dig right in here. The topic of this
seminar is
Conflict Resolution. We've seen a lot of tempers flaring of late,
so it
seemed like it might be a good time to discuss this topic."

Lucius edges away from Joseph, then finds a safe spot from which to
listen to
Pixie.

Joseph chuckles and plops down on a puffy chair.

You say "MUSHes are a text medium. Roleplay is, even more than some
creative
outlets, a very emotional expression. The essence of good RP is to
be able
to react with your gut. To know right away how the character would
behave
and to translate it fluently to text. So it's almost inevitable
that in a
place where everyone is trying their very best to portray
interesting and
deep characters that emotions are going to run high. And
misunderstandings
will occur."

Pixie notes that she doesn't really want this seminar to be a
lecture. I just
want to point out some things and then we can turn this into a
discussion.

You say "So, conflict. That's especially going to happen when we have
a
situation like this, where characters are all cooped up and perhaps
forced
to RP with people they wouldn't normally RP with. People with whom
they
don't ICly get along. It is very hard to keep a pleasant attitude
toward
someone whom your character hates and whom you don't really know
very well
OOCly. Even if you know on an intellectual level that OOC != IC, it
can be
hard to detach."

You say "Obviously, the best thing to do if you start feeling snippy
toward
someone is to get away for a while. Log out. Go read a book, take a
shower,
eat some cake. When you come back, it'll likely seem way less
important and
you can just let it go."

You say "If it /doesn't/ go away, and you think that you really have
an OOC
problem with a person, the first thing you should do is to page
them and ask
to talk. Try to explain what your issue is and see if you can
resolve it.
This is really important: They are not going to know you have an
issue with
them. Trust me. No matter how obvious it seems to you, they are not
going to
know. You have to tell them before it will be fixed."

You say "A brief digression about venting, here. One outlet is to
vent to your
friends rather than to inform the other party of your problem. Now,
that's
fine, as long as you remember -- they still don't know if you
haven't told
them. It's also not good if your venting causes an entire /group/
of people
to be up in arms over something which only affected one of them.
Your
friends will be twice as outraged on your behalf than you are for
yourself."

You say "So, if you tell the person, you have a nice chat, and
nothing is
resolved. What's the next step? You have a couple choices. You can
ask for
someone to mediate between the two of you and try to broker an
agreement. Or
you can file an official complaint with the admins, and essentially
they'll
end up doing the same thing."

You say "There's been a lot of confusion about what constitutes an
official
complaint or even an official request to the admins. It's hard,
especially
on a game as small as this one has been, to draw the line
between 'this is
something the admins are doing' and 'this is X, who happens to be
an admin,
but is also a friend of mine'. To help keep /us/ from being
confused and to
keep it clear for you all, if you have something to say officially,
you need
to send it to all of us as a group. We have a hard time, if you
just page
one of us, knowing whether you're just venting or trying to talk to
an admin
on record."

You say "Ok. That's all I had to say officially, so I'll open it up to
comments and questions."

Christy raises her hand.

You say "Christy?"

Christy nods. "I teach interpersonal communication to college
students and
part of my curriculum involves a few class sessions on confict
management.
Would it be okay if I offer a few suggestions on what conflicting
parties
can do while discussing their conflict?"

You say "Sure, go for it."

Christy nods. "Okay, a few things that I tell my students when they
are
engaged in conflict is to keep in mind that conflict in and of
itself isn't
good or bad. Rather, how you manage or carry out the conflict in its
discussion stages will make all the difference in the world. When
one finds
himself or herself in such a situation, the parties involved should
try to
view the conflict as a joint problem. If the conflict is seen as
one-sided
(i.e. "So and so is being a jerk), then it opens the door for
hostility and
other attacks, which can further escalate the conflict..."

Christy says "...Rather, successfully managing conflict requires a
little
bending, understanding, and perspective taking on both sides. The
second
strategy, I think you touched upon quite nicely Pixie, involves
stating the
problem. While working out conflict discussion, my suggestion would
be to
'take the pulse' of the situation at regular intervals and make
sure that
everyone's talking about the same issue at hand. Often times, and
I've
already seen this happen here, conflicts spiral out of control
because
people keep shifting issues by bringing up other "beefs." Work on
one issue,
and then move on to the next...""

Christy takes a breath here. "Stop me if I'm too fast." :/

You say "So far I think everything has been very well put, Christy."

Christy nods. "Oh, and I need to backtrack...one way to diffuse any
possible
hostility when one is working out differences is to try to validate
the
other person, to understand their point of view. It gets the other
person
off the defensive and lessens the chance of hostility. Another
suggestion:
both parties should try to generate possible solutions, if at all
possible
and to implement them. If all else fails, agree to disagree and
walk away."

Christy whews. "I'm done."

You say "Thanks, Christy. :)"

Christy says "No problemo. :)"

Devyn stumbles in belatedly... ^^;

Whelan says "You missed all the yummy parts, Devyn. :) Ok, let's all
repose,
ok! hehe"

Christy says "Umm...no. ;)"

Echidna prepares to reprise her rendition of "I am the Very Model of
a Modern
Major General".

You say "Anyone else have anything to add or talk about? I do want to
point
out that you don't need to be shy about bringing your problems to
us all,
but you do need to send it to all of us! That's really important.
The admin
structure here is a committee, so there's not any one person at the
top you
should be trying to get to."

Devyn facefaults.. -_-;;

Joseph says "Devyn...I log will be posted. :) Well I think it will."

You say "Yep, it will. Eventually. :)"

You say "Great job with sending in logs, by the way, guys. We're
working on
getting them sent out."

You say "If we can clear out the queue, we'll have had over 100 logs
in
January already!"

Devyn says "Err, well.. are the ever-helpful admins free for a few
personal
questions afterwards, then? :) And you're doing good log-wise,
it'll be
nuts. ^^;"

You say "Oh, yes, Tengu reminds me of something."

You say "There may have been some confusion about the status of
Patroni. They
aren't junior staff, or OOC admins of any sort. They're our newbie
helpers.
They've volunteered to chat up Guests and new players and help
answer their
questions. They don't have any other special powers or authority.
We've
heard rumors that there may have been a few cases where this fact
was
obscured, but that's the situation. Newbie helpers."

Devyn says "Asukotto? ^^"

Pixie looks around. Drops a pin. I think we may be done, then? Anyone?

Lucius doesn't have anything to say? I've gotta dash, though! Take
care!

Joseph says "I guess."

Hermione picks up the pin. "Figures that it's an admin who just
littered.
Someone I can't take points from." ^.^;

Devyn giggles.

Joseph takes of his 'You Win' sticker and gives it to Hermione.

Marius acks hermione has a weapon!

Damien nods, at Marius, "We should run, before she transfigures it
into a
sword!"
--- End forwarded message ---