Improbable Island, one of the largest and longest-running online text adventures(improbableisland.com)
improbableisland.com
Improbable Island, one of the largest and longest-running online text adventures
https://www.improbableisland.com
15 comments
A few years ago the admin Dan ("Caveman Joe") wrote a massive thread [1] about what he's learned about online communities, moderation, and dealing with users in general (both good-faith and bad-faith varieties). I thought it was worth a read for anyone thinking about creating or moderating any online community. It felt kind of like a peek behind the scenes of that code of conduct.
There were some hard-earned pearls of wisdom there, and I'll have to read through it again when I have some time.
1: https://mstdn.social/@ifixcoinops/109354147264054179
There were some hard-earned pearls of wisdom there, and I'll have to read through it again when I have some time.
1: https://mstdn.social/@ifixcoinops/109354147264054179
Yes!! What an amazing thread. That and the CoC above should honestly be read together. I've added a link with credit.
I'd rather my CoC not try to replace a mental health advocate or psychologist.
'Appendix A' is particularly egregious.
I understand the dark patterns of psychology that an administrator should be on the look-out for; it's another thing to task the player-base with the witch hunt through explanation.
P.S. I think it's noble that you read the CoC before product usage, and I wish more people -- including myself at time -- would do that.
'Appendix A' is particularly egregious.
I understand the dark patterns of psychology that an administrator should be on the look-out for; it's another thing to task the player-base with the witch hunt through explanation.
P.S. I think it's noble that you read the CoC before product usage, and I wish more people -- including myself at time -- would do that.
The CoC explicitly tells you to go see a mental health advocate or psychologist instead of taking it out on the game.
That aside, the general population absolutely must be educated on these behaviors. The admins can't be everywhere at once, and the amount of surveillance to replace players' eyes and ears would have to be enormous and the very definition of a nanny state.
That aside, the general population absolutely must be educated on these behaviors. The admins can't be everywhere at once, and the amount of surveillance to replace players' eyes and ears would have to be enormous and the very definition of a nanny state.
From running my own community for a while, the most important part is the community itself, not the rules or moderators or whatever; the best communities are self-policing, and give an atmosphere where people don't want to be trolls/dicks/etc. Content moderation does not scale.
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Id go further and say the CoC has 0 impact. The first rule by itself is absurdly long. No one is reading that. Its not shaping anything. It’s for the writer.
Well, the writer is the community manager, so at the minimum they are reading the CoC. That in itself shapes their moderation, which shapes the community.
However, in my experience core community members will read things like this CoC, at least partially. They also be fairly involved with discussions about it, which go a long way to shape a community.
However, in my experience core community members will read things like this CoC, at least partially. They also be fairly involved with discussions about it, which go a long way to shape a community.
> No one is reading that. Its not shaping anything.
That may well be the case.
But in any online community, eventually some people are going to get banned. And many people - even those who aren't getting banned - prefer it if the banning is conducted according so some sort of written document, even if they've never read that document in detail themselves.
Other online communities with far more lightweight rules are also available, for people who prefer that :)
That may well be the case.
But in any online community, eventually some people are going to get banned. And many people - even those who aren't getting banned - prefer it if the banning is conducted according so some sort of written document, even if they've never read that document in detail themselves.
Other online communities with far more lightweight rules are also available, for people who prefer that :)
Improbable island used to have more or less only one rule, outside of "underage shit will get you reported to your ISP", and that was "don't be a dick".
It worked well, on the surface, but as the CoC says, there were a lot of issues that cropped up that went mostly unnoticed, even as they were impacting a surprising number of players.
I prefer the new CoC. Lists of rules are never something that someone will regularly reference. You'll read through it once, get an understanding of the ground rules and community expectations, and then fit into the community and get up to speed by experience. Sometimes, people make mistakes, and someone can say "hey, maybe don't do that, Code of Conduct has a bit about that", and that someone can go "ah crud, thanks".
I prefer the new CoC. Lists of rules are never something that someone will regularly reference. You'll read through it once, get an understanding of the ground rules and community expectations, and then fit into the community and get up to speed by experience. Sometimes, people make mistakes, and someone can say "hey, maybe don't do that, Code of Conduct has a bit about that", and that someone can go "ah crud, thanks".
(Un)Just In Time Code of Conducting to be even more hilariously capricious: your "ban user" button has a "reason" field that then appends that "reason" to your Code of Conduct.
I disagree. I've never heard of this game before, but I just read the whole CoC and it made me want to give it a try.
I respect that the developer went to great lengths to outline their expectations in such clear detail. It sounds like a cool community to me.
I respect that the developer went to great lengths to outline their expectations in such clear detail. It sounds like a cool community to me.
In the 1000-active-user forum I managed, the small subset of ppl who feel ownership of the community (maybe 20 in my case) ABSOLUTELY read the CoC. it's a small minority, but those who read it are often prominent and engaged ppl, and they lean on it to make decisions and advocate for actions under their spheres of influence. Not everyone needs to read something in order for it to be impactful
How do you know it doesn't have an impact?
It's a text-based online game / community; if people don't read, why are they on there in the first place?
Wow, I'm the opposite. I probably sunk triple-digit hours into this game, and never bothered to interact with another soul on it. The code of conduct is great now that I'm reading it.
As you have played it, does it have player owned places/shrines which can be built via some drag drop interface? I couldn't find any more info on it except what's there on the About page.
It has player-owned places that are done with a fairly clunky interface, but the focus is far more on the writing that you put into your place. It's a callback to the MUDs of old, to my understanding.
I think the record for a group-written player-made place was something on the order of tens of thousands of words.
I think the record for a group-written player-made place was something on the order of tens of thousands of words.
Poke your head into Banter sometime! I'm almost the exact opposite, having barely touched the mechanical side of the game in ages, and I always like to say hi to other players. Especially if they've been around and love the setting!
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You are not kidding! I just sent a quick note to CMJ in recognition of what I must call a sustained, exemplary act of community management.
Reading that was gratifying.
That team should feel really good about their work.
Reading that was gratifying.
That team should feel really good about their work.
The best post in that thread is the (currently) last one: https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/10937670143...
A dissertation as CoC. Great. Impossible to read and then keep in your head. In their desperate attempt to be as inclusive as possible, they actually created a framework under which everyone will eventually become guilty of something.
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> Support of Gamergate, racial supremacist groups, the redpill/incel movement, or any other hate group - including, and especially, hate groups that have gained political power such as the Donald Trump administration - is a direct challenge to the lives and well-being of other players and will result in a permanent ban.
I don't know man, I don't care about your TDS, this is just eyeroll-worthy. Pure political soapboxing.
I don't know man, I don't care about your TDS, this is just eyeroll-worthy. Pure political soapboxing.
Setting boundaries or requirements for a community they manage is different from lecturing unwantedly on politics.
If a community intends to exclude certain political affiliations or classes of people, I’d want to know about it up front.
That's fair. If they make an arbitrary list of people to be excluded, well, it's their game, their rules.
Still, saying that "support of Gamergate ... is a direct challenge to the lives ... of other players" sounds a little bit hyperbolic to me.
But maybe that's just my privilege of having heard so many diverse opinions that their existence no longer feels like a direct challenge to my life.
Still, saying that "support of Gamergate ... is a direct challenge to the lives ... of other players" sounds a little bit hyperbolic to me.
But maybe that's just my privilege of having heard so many diverse opinions that their existence no longer feels like a direct challenge to my life.
You say it's hyperbole, but there's communities (like kiwi farms) who actively doxx people with the intent to cause harm. They are responsible for the suicide of at least three of their targets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms
No tolerance for intolerance. Your last sentence implies you've never been at risk or a target yourself.
No tolerance for intolerance. Your last sentence implies you've never been at risk or a target yourself.
That's a shame. I thought this much was progressive:
> Do not roleplay racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise bigoted characters in public-facing or semi-public areas (emphasis mine)
Too good to be true?
> hate groups that have gained political power such as the Donald Trump administration
That's not a hate group, that's the other half of the entire country that doesn't toe your party's line.
And it'll probably happen again because this sort of sophistry has made life an insufferable pain in the ass.
Like or hate Bush/Clinton/Obama, nobody was kicking you out of a community because of your political affiliation. I miss the inclusiveness of the 90s.
> Do not roleplay racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise bigoted characters in public-facing or semi-public areas (emphasis mine)
Too good to be true?
> hate groups that have gained political power such as the Donald Trump administration
That's not a hate group, that's the other half of the entire country that doesn't toe your party's line.
And it'll probably happen again because this sort of sophistry has made life an insufferable pain in the ass.
Like or hate Bush/Clinton/Obama, nobody was kicking you out of a community because of your political affiliation. I miss the inclusiveness of the 90s.
> That's not a hate group, that's the other half of the entire country
We have historical evidence from many countries that those need not be mutually exclusive categories.
We have historical evidence from many countries that those need not be mutually exclusive categories.
So why add the unnecessary category?
The CoC doesn't ban supporters of specific political agenda or party line but it is a banned topic. Anyone who's been on the internet in the past few years knows how passionate these supporters can get. That's a magnet for heated political discussion that very quickly gets uncomfortable for everyone else. It's impossible to be inclusive to certain minority groups while allowing promotion of politics directly against them.
> Like or hate Bush/Clinton/Obama, nobody was kicking you out of a community because of your political affiliation. I miss the inclusiveness of the 90s.
The 1990s weren't more inclusive, quite the opposite. But the groups you are talking about just all at least tried to work with the community. They actively sought out common ground and were willing to compromise. Today's populists, e.g. Trump, say the aforementioned community is not the real community, they are all crooks, or pests, and in fact only the populists and their followers are the real community and everybody else is the enemy and needs to be locked up, denied citizenship, or be exterminated. There can't be compromise. It is a big part of their sales pitch.
Witness how so called moderate Republicans are treated -- you know, the ones who seek to work within the community and are willing to compromise -- they call them RINO "Republican In Name Only", i.e. they are not _real_ Republicans. There are more examples you are probably aware of. I, for one, can see how this makes it really hard for all involved to find some common ground to work together, don't you?
The 1990s weren't more inclusive, quite the opposite. But the groups you are talking about just all at least tried to work with the community. They actively sought out common ground and were willing to compromise. Today's populists, e.g. Trump, say the aforementioned community is not the real community, they are all crooks, or pests, and in fact only the populists and their followers are the real community and everybody else is the enemy and needs to be locked up, denied citizenship, or be exterminated. There can't be compromise. It is a big part of their sales pitch.
Witness how so called moderate Republicans are treated -- you know, the ones who seek to work within the community and are willing to compromise -- they call them RINO "Republican In Name Only", i.e. they are not _real_ Republicans. There are more examples you are probably aware of. I, for one, can see how this makes it really hard for all involved to find some common ground to work together, don't you?
No tolerance for intolerance seems like a good rule to have. Eyerolling at it is an immature dismissal of their clearly cut-out boundaries.
they really listed "Gamergate" before "racial supremacist groups" lmao
I mean, it's not particularly surprising that it's a lot easier to manage a community if you just find every political split point, pick a side and then remove the people on the other side.
I think we used to call that sort of thing "gatekeeping"?
I think we used to call that sort of thing "gatekeeping"?
Gatekeeping is about group identity. You’re not a real A unless you x, y, z.
Choosing who you let in to your spaces based on criteria you choose is just the normal thing to do.
Choosing who you let in to your spaces based on criteria you choose is just the normal thing to do.
I don't think that's how the term has been actually used so far.
It's how I see it used.
There's even a large subreddit dedicated to pointing out and mocking gatekeeping and they pretty much all fit that definition.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gatekeeping/
There's even a large subreddit dedicated to pointing out and mocking gatekeeping and they pretty much all fit that definition.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gatekeeping/
Of all the things you could label as gatekeeping, I don't feel that excluding hate groups is one of them. We should never be tolerant of the intolerant, otherwise intolerance wins.
The code of conduct immediately made me realize that this place will be cliquey and run by rules lawyers who take delight in making a billion subcategories for the sake of empowering themselves to ban. I've never seen an instance where this was not the case.
Anything that needs to write paragraph after paragraph for what could be summarized in 4 to 8 rules, especially with weird, no doubt completely irrelevant to the game itself "DRUMPF GAMERGATE VACCINE" clauses on top of that, is not something anybody who values their time should involve themselves in.
Anything that needs to write paragraph after paragraph for what could be summarized in 4 to 8 rules, especially with weird, no doubt completely irrelevant to the game itself "DRUMPF GAMERGATE VACCINE" clauses on top of that, is not something anybody who values their time should involve themselves in.
Or it's a community that's successfully kept itself alive for a very long time and "simple" rules get interpreted wildly differently so over time you're naturally going to build up at lot of explicit rules around edge cases.
EXACTLY.
The game used to have one rule: "Don't be a dick."
The game used to pride itself on having banned fewer players than the number of players who met and got married in real life.
Eventually the community realized that wasn't a good thing. If you've banned almost nobody, it doesn't mean that everyone in your community is being nice and wonderful and not harming anyone else, it means that you've only been told about the most egregious and obvious cases.
It means a dozen different cliques can decide for themselves on how people "ought to" interact and play.
A big CoC doesn't mean everyone's a judgmental lawyer. Traffic codes in the US have thousand and thousands of words for different edge cases. But it doesn't mean everyone goes around with a camera and a lawyer in their backseat, people generally understand "hey don't speed and don't run red lights and don't drive drunk".
The game used to have one rule: "Don't be a dick."
The game used to pride itself on having banned fewer players than the number of players who met and got married in real life.
Eventually the community realized that wasn't a good thing. If you've banned almost nobody, it doesn't mean that everyone in your community is being nice and wonderful and not harming anyone else, it means that you've only been told about the most egregious and obvious cases.
It means a dozen different cliques can decide for themselves on how people "ought to" interact and play.
A big CoC doesn't mean everyone's a judgmental lawyer. Traffic codes in the US have thousand and thousands of words for different edge cases. But it doesn't mean everyone goes around with a camera and a lawyer in their backseat, people generally understand "hey don't speed and don't run red lights and don't drive drunk".
kazinator(6)
The game's wiki is amazing! It cleverly manages to avoid excessive spoilers while staying (mostly) useful by mandating that 20% of all content must be lies!
thats.... actually incredible?
I think more game wikis should strive to something like that. Whole genres of games have been irrevocably changed by omniscience.
This is cool. I really enjoyed choose-your-own-adventure books when I was a kid a long time ago, part of the fun being that as you were flipping to the page you were supposed to go to, you'd come across wild sections of text you hadn't quite visited, and it became a game to see if you could navigate all possible paths of the book. The really clever ones would have tantalizing pages that were unreachable paths just to frustrate you, or would trap you in infinite loops.
A while back, I had multiple people respond to my support request, with impeccable results, no back and fourth responding to automated messages. Which easily puts the game well above the bar set by many others.
I've never seen this before but I instantly love it! It has real Kingdom of Loathing vibes for me.
KoL really scratched an itch for me for many years. It's too much of a time sink for me these days (I've replaced it with other time sinks...), but the studios newer single player games are quite fun with the same charm!
My main complaint - choice buttons extend faaar too far to the right
I'm clicking the website to be sure it's in focus, but keep choosing an action
I'm clicking the website to be sure it's in focus, but keep choosing an action
Tried it, didn't like the feel of it.
Text adventures are wildly different from one to another and personal taste. This one didn't grab me.
Text adventures are wildly different from one to another and personal taste. This one didn't grab me.
Is this a MUD? Can it be accessed through telnet or a MUD client?
It's kind of got MUD energy to it from my understanding, but it's purely browser-based. There's a whole game to it, but the draw for me is the roleplay and the player-built places.
Does it have a map? Like with rooms connected to each other.
I tried a little but didn't find any part where I would go "north", "south" etc
Or there are rooms, but without directions?
I tried a little but didn't find any part where I would go "north", "south" etc
Or there are rooms, but without directions?
There are rooms but without directions, because they can be arbitrarily connected to each other by doors! Fun fact, rooms USED to connect only directionally because at the time I think they were implemented as linked lists. But now, it's arbitrary and you can do hidden passageways and shortcuts and cool little things like that.
No, it's a text adventure, an RPG, online, in a browser.
It talks about building your own shrine as a player owned place using some drag drop interface but I can not find any more info on that. Not in the wiki or image search on Google.
The wiki is very, very out of date and it's something that's undergoing an overhaul (when Dan can get time to do so).
Player-owned places are fairly straightforward to learn once you're in there, but the drag-and-drop is a reference to the programming aspects of a place. They're mostly conditional things, like being able to display different descriptions for different times of day... but they go all the way up to being able to set up logic chains sufficient to set variables based on past events, displaying different things depending on what room a player came into a given room from... there's a lot of depth to it that I've never mucked with.
Player-owned places are fairly straightforward to learn once you're in there, but the drag-and-drop is a reference to the programming aspects of a place. They're mostly conditional things, like being able to display different descriptions for different times of day... but they go all the way up to being able to set up logic chains sufficient to set variables based on past events, displaying different things depending on what room a player came into a given room from... there's a lot of depth to it that I've never mucked with.
From what I can tell 'shrine' is being used metaphorically to describe a player 'Place', and the drag-drop part might be a Place Program? There's not a lot of documentation without jumping in.
I haven't played but I've read way too much about it since following Dan on Masto/Fediverse. Someday if I ever have time and bandwidth again I've really got to get on there.
I haven't played but I've read way too much about it since following Dan on Masto/Fediverse. Someday if I ever have time and bandwidth again I've really got to get on there.
Some basic searching says this is based on an even older game called Legend of the Green Dragon. Looks kinda cool honestly. Anyone know if the writing is okay?
You can try the game without logging in.
The writing reads like tolerable fanfiction, so it's not stellar, but cringe moments and needless cussing are still present to some degree.
As someone who used to write room descriptions on MUDs, I can say I I remarkably difficult to strike a balance between immersive writing and functional prose that English speaking persons of different comprehension levels can engage with. We also had to be mindful of screen readers for sight-impared players, the idea being keep your descriptions informative and short without being boring.
I'm not a big fan of Impossible Islands writing, but they have my respect for it because it is quite the task to please an audience like that.
The writing reads like tolerable fanfiction, so it's not stellar, but cringe moments and needless cussing are still present to some degree.
As someone who used to write room descriptions on MUDs, I can say I I remarkably difficult to strike a balance between immersive writing and functional prose that English speaking persons of different comprehension levels can engage with. We also had to be mindful of screen readers for sight-impared players, the idea being keep your descriptions informative and short without being boring.
I'm not a big fan of Impossible Islands writing, but they have my respect for it because it is quite the task to please an audience like that.
I'm heavily biased, having been an avid player of the game for ages. It's got a very distinct style, and I can definitely see how it's changed over the years, but I quite like it. The world that's been built in it is a delightfully quirky and fun one, but the writing also delves into some interesting territory both in darkness and in philosophy.
I'm also somewhat biased because one of the most well-fleshed out stories hits a nerve for me in how it confronts the horror of the loss of one's identity, enough that I can't comfortably read it. I say that in an absolutely positive way, much like a horror movie might be so unnerving that I can't bear to watch the whole thing.
It's generally light-hearted, with some dark humor, odd humor and silly humor, and I highly recommend giving it a go. Meet the community! Discover the setting,! Fight your own tongue, an ambulatory pair of pants, your past self, and a Panthzer (50% jungle panther, 50% Panzer tank, don't ask questions)!
I'm also somewhat biased because one of the most well-fleshed out stories hits a nerve for me in how it confronts the horror of the loss of one's identity, enough that I can't comfortably read it. I say that in an absolutely positive way, much like a horror movie might be so unnerving that I can't bear to watch the whole thing.
It's generally light-hearted, with some dark humor, odd humor and silly humor, and I highly recommend giving it a go. Meet the community! Discover the setting,! Fight your own tongue, an ambulatory pair of pants, your past self, and a Panthzer (50% jungle panther, 50% Panzer tank, don't ask questions)!
I really just deeply do not care about the code of conduct but the game seems cool. I mean, the writing is very bad, but the thing's got spirit
Does anybody know what the total word count is?
Hundreds of thousands of words, and that's not counting the fantastic roleplay community and the places that they've built.
Some of which have programming.
Some of THOSE have created miniature games inside of those places, complete with events, character statistics, and a character creator. I've been on this site for ten years and never come close to that level of creative madness, and I will always deeply respect those loveable maniacs.
Some of which have programming.
Some of THOSE have created miniature games inside of those places, complete with events, character statistics, and a character creator. I've been on this site for ten years and never come close to that level of creative madness, and I will always deeply respect those loveable maniacs.
No.
Anyone hook this up with a GAN yet to keep it peaceful yet make it visual?
Plus translations.
Plus translations.
amazing.
Edit: HN user drewzero1 also linked a long Mastodon thread written by the admin, https://mstdn.social/@ifixcoinops/109354147264054179, which is equally critical reading. I cannot recommend both highly enough.