"Apolytonia fair play"

[zeit]

As those of you who checked the diplomacy scholia thread probably know, and perhaps those who read this idea of mine in the " whole lota bouncing going on" thread, i thought that some sort of approval of friendly play principals from the teams who play this game is needed.
This game is going to be about competiion, and tough one probably, with elements from real life dirty politics, but we ust not forget that we are all friends here, members of the Apolyton community, and we play mainly for fun (and since we got nothing better to do with ourselves...), i thought of an outline of a non-official document that is to be approved by the members of this team, and later on by member of all the other teams. Being such sort of declaration, it should not be written (at least IMO) in that serious manner of legal documents, but should be written eloquently, which is the reason i want everyone to make improvements and turn this draft document as something we can pass around team leaders and our first serious diplomatic achievements.

So, here it is, i ask you to make suggestion and improvements, i promise not to be offended... .


the "Apolytonia Fair Play" declaration

We, the members of the “X” team who participate in the Play The World Democracy Game, hereby announce our approval of the following principals, in an effort to ensure that this game will be fun, friendly and played sportively, as we realize the nature of the game will involve great deal of competitive behavior

1) We will refrain from hurling insults towards other members of other teams, and hold ourselves from succumbing to our natural instinct that drives us to humiliate and trample our fellow competitors.

2) Article 1 of this declaration should not be interpreted as an attempt to prevent us taunting and teasing other teams and members of this game, or role-playing in a manner that might otherwise be taken as a manner of insult.

3) Article 1 of this declaration should be interpreted as an attempt to prevent us from hurting other players feelings, insult or humiliate them, or act in an effort to hurt and offend them.

4) We shall be our own judges in this matter. This declaration is not an official document, nor does it give anyone any official authority to enforce any of what is stated in it.

5) We see this declaration as a base upon all the members of this game agree, and as a base for mutual understanding that this is just a game, and we wish to play it fairly and honorably and treat other players respectfully

[alva]

Very nice, with one exception :

1) We will refrain from hurling insults towards other members of other teams, and hold ourselves from succumbing to our natural instinct that drives us to humiliate and trample our fellow competitors.

OOoh c'mon, you've gotta to be kidding here that takes all the fun out of it !!!

No, just kidding good work Zeit

[Meshelic]

You've got my approval with the same exception that alva848 pointed out. There has to be SOME trash talking involved, otherwise ....well it just wouldn't be as fun ya know?

otherwise it looks good on my end!

[notyoueither]

I think if this is accepted by us it would be understood that a trash talking thread would be an exception to the declaration. Still, Apolyton rules against personal attacks, insults and attacks on ones' families would hold.

Before I say yeah or nay, I would like to know Sir Ralph's feelings on this, and those of others of course.

[Arrian]

I'm all for it. I just want to win - taunting is somewhat uncivilized, no? Sure, it would be kinda funny (in a "I'm 8 yrs. old" sorta way) to name our cities taunts @ another team, but I can see the potential for people to actually get upset.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

It looks good to me and I agree to that fair play charta. I'm not into trash talking at all and would never taunt anybody who lost, or would just ignore those who taunt me if I lost.

However, if we read the postings of the past few days in the main forum, it becomes clear that some of the other teams are not very friendly towards us, at least at the moment. Whether this is only jealousy of our recent recruitments or the critic of our methods is beyond me, but - right or not - to come right now with a proposal like this is a two-bladed sword. It can be understood as a hand of friendship towards the other teams (friendly interpretation) or as a sign of weakness (hostile interpretation). I fear, the hostile interpretation may gain more weight, at least for now.

I have mixed emotions, something between yes and no. But I'm not in the Schola of Diplomacy anyway .

[alva]

Very good point, Sir Ralph. One that I had overlooked.

Absoluteley sure, you don't wanne go Diplomatic

btw: I was kidding in my previous post on this page, that was clear, wasn't it

[Harovan]

Alva, I wasn't responding to your post, but expressing my feelings as NYE requested.

[alva]

I know, just that a few people made smallisch references to the corny joke in my first post.

At first I would have given two thumbs up to Zeit, but after reading your comments on it, I'm more hesistant too.
And the more I think about it, the more reluctant I become of releasing it . There's no harm done, if we wait a couple of days with it, I suppose.

Hope that clears things up

PS: good call from NYE too

[DeepO]

Well... how is this intended, as a fair play document that we will adhere to, or as a document we hope everyone will adhere to? There is a difference in focus here; I fully agree to what the first post says (I wasn't planning on anything else personally), but I'm not sure the other teams see it that way.

Plus, so far, the full focus is on name-calling, trash talking, and things like that, but what about in game fair play? Shouldn't there be a section in which we state that we will try to keep flexible to other teams (real life) problems? Like for instance that if they for some reason can't make the 24h deadline, we will not start yelling, but agree without too much fuzz about it? The starting location problem is something similar: I think that if any team thinks that they are disadvantaged beyond repair by their starting position, we should all consider restarting. Why don't we reach concensus on this here, and try to present that to all?

DeepO

[zeit]

At first I would have given two thumbs up to Zeit, but after reading your comments on it, I'm more hesistant too.
And the more I think about it, the more reluctant I become of releasing it . There's no harm done, if we wait a couple of days with it, I suppose.

Thank you NYE for your suppor. I totally agree that this is not the right timr for this charta to be discussed between other teams (after all, they are not that enlightened, and we should not except those barbarians to comprehend the meaning of honor code so early on... ), we need to let the dust settle, refine this declaration, perhaps add a few elements (like DeepO suggested), and so forth.

This initiative should be timed so it won't seem like some sort of response to those "concerns" raised by other players about the composotion of our team, BUT, i don't see this as a serious issue- depsite the fact that those who held claims against us are respected members and will surely be influencial in their teams, they seemed to recieve some sort of "gentle condemnation" by others who posted in our team's thread on the PTWDG board. And such an early display of hostility only plays against them, IMHO.

Whenever we feel ready, we must promote this initiative in the appropriate channels (PMs to team leaders and influencial members at first, than posting in the board), to make sure it won't be taken the wrong way, as some of you are (naturaly) concerned.

[Dominae]

Any trash-talking/taunting/whatever that is done in character is perfectly acceptable in my opinion. Hurling "insults" as Cleopatra would not only be funny but fun as well. I can't imagine anyone taking offense if trash-talking is done in this way. The reason this works is that it prevents anyone from making or taking anything "personal". Directly insulting Trip or whoever because you managed to nab his Settler isn't that cool; doing so in character actually adds to the game.


Dominae