Post by Cat on May 29, 2018 20:03:16 GMT -5
Identifying Emotional Abuse in Public Chats
Being a player in a game such as NationStates, you're going to encounter various degrees of conversation, either personally or witnessing them occur on a social platform. These interactions will either be in character (IC) or out of character (OCC). It's important to be able to distinguish what can be classified as IC or OCC, as sometimes they can be interpreted wrongly. IC is political gameplay, which can also include both political mistreatment and blackmail. On the other hand, OCC is casual conversation, these types of conversation happen frequently in public or personal chats.
When identifying emotional abuse in a public setting, what we are looking for is interaction between two close individuals that are either friends or have an online relationship. This can be hard to detect if you are looking from an outside perspective, as you may not always know who is friends with whom, or has a relationship with so and so.
Searching out or identifying potential critical situations before they develop into something worse is something that needs to be prioritized. Sometimes you can catch these signs before the relationship is close, or if it already is.
Down below you'll find a list of signs that you can use to identify a potential abuser in a public setting. Note that these signs don't directly indicate if a person is being abusive; you'll need to be able to identify a clear pattern of intent from a potential abuser before you can claim a prospective victim.
Yellow Flags:
- The potential abuser clearly claims another player in a manner that does not seem joking, stating that player belongs to them, etc.
- The potential abuser openly tells other players that they know what is best for the prospective victim.
- The potential abuser is publicly asking people if the prospective victim is online on a regular basis. This demonstrates an obsessive interest depending on the circumstances.
- Revealing a knowledge of personal information as a means of one-upping another player in regards to the prospective victim in a public chat.
- The potential abuser tries to order another prospective victim to do what they want in front of others, especially and most significantly if those orders verge on OOC in nature.
- The potential abuser is openly referencing private information about a prospective victim in a possessive manner.
- The potential abuser is arguing with the prospective victim in a manner that indicates a possessive attitude.
- The potential abuser takes a proprietary attitude about the prospective victim.
- The prospective victim often quiets when the prospective abuser states something in a passive-aggressive manner aimed at them.
- The prospective victim regularly becomes very quiet when the prospective abuser starts talking in the chat. This applies when they have a history of friendship or closeness, not if they have a history of conflict and discord.
- The potential abuser has arguments with the prospective victim in the nature of making something “theirs” or claiming that the prospective victim only needs the potential abuser.
Red Flags:
- The potential abuser openly states that the prospective victim belongs to them, would be best with them, or only needs them in a manner that is clearly not intended in a joking manner. This can be discerned by tone, phraseology, context, and history. This requires some research or background on the players involved.
- The potential abuser openly fantasizes about the prospective victim publicly in an OOC manner, without regard to requests for them to stop.
- The potential abuser goes to multiple chats to ask if the whereabouts of the prospective victim are known. This is especially potent if you are aware that the prospective victim has asked you or others not to give that information to this potential abuser.
- The potential abuser attacks other players who get “too close” to the prospective victim on a regular basis in public, citing that they don’t have any business getting close to said prospective victim.
- The potential abuser is threatening to drop private information about the prospective victim if the prospective victim does not agree to do something OOC, or to message them privately.
- The potential abuser is openly possessive about the prospective victim, namely by answering questions for them, dictating what they are going to do, telling them they are not going to do something even if and especially if they expressed an interest in doing so, and/or makes their decisions for them against the wishes of the prospective victim.
- The potential abuser asks the prospective victim why they did not message the potential abuser when they got online, and harasses them to message them privately. If the victim expresses to someone reluctance to do so, it becomes more noteworthy.
Thanks to Xoriet for letting us reference her identification signs in this guide