ban vocaroos

[DkKoba]

see title.

its not inclusive for deaf/HOH people
Some people can't understand spoken english
Gives advantage to hearing people in some cases

I forgot about this but since it was used in team mafia i wanted to push for it now that its over

I don't think this should be a controversial rule.

edit: for those that don't know what vocaroos are, they are a way to upload voice clips similar to how imgur is a site to upload images.

[DkKoba]

If so then cool but I think things like this should still be allowed for specific games if there's any demand for it.

should be explicitly mentioned in the signups then - but 100% banned from stuff like normals + normal adjacent events like team mafia

[DkKoba]

personally I have anxiety when it comes to listening to a vocaroo + feel pressured that I need to do one or i look scummy in a game.

[DkKoba]

What’s a vocaroo?

updated OP to answer this

[DkKoba]

aren't they also time limited?

i dont think so. but regardless an external post should not be allowed anyways, embed images and youtube links being the extent allowed.

[DkKoba]

sure, i guess, but this doesnt really come up that often (sounds like an epicmafia site meta thing) does it?

yeah i mean it just WAS used during team mafia 2021 so its one of those things that was never formally banned and thus technically legal

[DkKoba]

I don’t see a problem with it so long as a transcript is included tbh

thats extra mod work potentially and then the mod also may fall into the categories listed in why it should be not allowed so not a good solution logistically

[DkKoba]

I don’t see a problem with it so long as a transcript is included tbh

thats extra mod work potentially and then the mod also may fall into the categories listed in why it should be not allowed so not a good solution logistically

transcript by the player or by the mod? bc if it were expected of the mod to write transcripts for players' vocaroos, i'd blacklist everyone who has a habit of making them

a player transcript still has to be verified by a mod

[DkKoba]

images shouldn't be restricted if they are embed and dont have cryptography/are used to crumb imo.

[DkKoba]

this is strictly about the voice based media that has accessibility issues

[DkKoba]

the base assumption is if you're playing forum mafia, you don't have major issues with sight(i.e. being able to read a lot of posts in a reasonable amount of time).

[DkKoba]

That seems like a flawed assumption given the existence of text-to-speech programs

But even if we do make that assumption I think that now the issue has come up it should be addressing any other uses of sound in games like YouTube videos/songs etc. Idk, I’m not trying to derail this but I feel like if we wanna change the rules for inclusivity we should take into account other forms of media that could cause problems for people. Or if we’re not gonna do that then I don’t see how just time-limiting the vocaroos and/or requiring a transcript for them doesn’t solve the problem


Pedit: i also think it should probably be prohibited to put pressure on people to make a post which is like, revelatory of their personal identity

text to speech is a wildly inefficient way to play forum mafia when the games get huge. a Light game could surely have these kind of restrictions but we should not be looking at text to speech as a solution to Normal/Normal-Adjacent games that get extremely large.

[DkKoba]

I think images/vocaroos/other types of files that might be less accessible than text should be left for memeing or other non-serious posts - I'd say discourage them from being used to give reads or be used in strongly AI ways. I like memey images in posts but "MS Paint" Mafia is themey.

And if they are on something that is time-limited, consider that a violation of the editing/deleting messages in Mafia games rule.

External files also technically break the discussion of ongoing games rule - image hosting sites and youtube links should be fine for meme purposes.

Alt text can easily be abused to use cryptography.

tl;dr vocaroos and images are good for memes, not when they're heavily AI and not something you can comment out - also making vocaroos about ongoing games is discussing ongoing games and is not okay.

info graphs and funny meme diagrams are positive aspects of the forums. Do you want to take that away from Bingle?

[DkKoba]

I don’t see a problem with it so long as a transcript is included tbh

I agree with this. (Made by the player) I also don't think banning anything is helpful to solve any problem outright, seems more like a Band-Aid.

How is it a band aid?

[DkKoba]

are you just against the idea of banning things or do you have a counterpoint to make that hasn't been addressed?

transcripts would need to be verified by game mods and the same issues arise.


also the point about the game not needing the extra dimension is also a great point that i think collectively agreeing to in normal and normal adjacent games is great.

u can feel free to run games and ask mods of non normal games to allow them if you really want them but the reason im bringing it up is because it DID affect a game i played (in team mafia) and it shouldnt even be allowed in the first place here.

you're right it takes more effort - and its effort that doesnt need to be put on a game mod.

[DkKoba]

The solution is to play a text based game with visuals and not audio.

[DkKoba]

this is about banning them from normals - not sitewide.

[DkKoba]

I thought these would be fun to try out sometime but geeez I guess not huh

>.> the proposal is for normals only

[DkKoba]

the base assumption is if you're playing forum mafia, you don't have major issues with sight(i.e. being able to read a lot of posts in a reasonable amount of time).

I have a really dubious Internet connection, and have images disabled on the mafiascum forums to save on bandwidth. So when people post in images, that's part of the game I'm missing. (I can try to load them if I really want to see them, but very rarely actually do.)

So even when disabilities aren't involved, accessibility issues can still be a thing. (I've never looked at a video linked from / embedded in a MafiaScum game for similar reasons, and voice recordings would have the same issue.)

that's fair. images tend to be at least loadable for bad connections(i know, ive had to deal with one before lol), but videos + audio def bad.

[DkKoba]

if the reason you dont want it banned is for the sole reason "i dont like banning stuff" then please dont post because thats a useless reason thank you