[arg_discuss] Disclaimers

[Wendy Despain]

I'll just throw in my two cents here.

1) I can tell you from experience, if you put a disclaimer on a page
or site, even if it's a huge colorful box jumping out at the reader,
some people will ignore/not see/not understand the disclaimer and will
call you or email you or whatnot with their complaints and concerns.

2) Players who see the disclaimers don't mind it and are willing to
pretend it's not there for the sake of the game.

My conclusions from these two points - put a disclaimer on there, and
prepare a plan/talking points for when you get complaints from people
who still think it's real.

I did a site for Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict that was a
PR site for "invading" aliens, who were convincing the populace they
were friendly. One part of their site included a "press clippings"
section with "fake" news stories from "real" news outlets like the
Chicago Tribune. One news story talked about how the aliens had
provided a cure for multiple sclerosis. In the very first line of the
story it said the cure was provided _by aliens_. And I thought that
would be enough to clue in readers that this was not a news story to
be taken seriously.

I was wrong. After a couple of weeks we got a torrent of hate mail
from a group of people with MS who thought we were peddling a snakeoil
cure for the disease. Or something. I never could quite grasp how they
were reading this news story. At any rate, someone had done a google
search on MS and cure, found our story, got mad about it, posted about
it on a message board and started an email storm.

We even got phone calls. Finally I broke down and put a disclaimer on
the page in a big blue box with bold letters explaining that this was
a work of science-fiction and we included MS because we had friends
and family affected by the disease and one of the things we hoped for
the future that a cure would be found somehow.

I expected players to express outrage at the disclaimer and the angry
emails to stop. (We were spending too much time trying to calm the
masses, and not enough time pushing the game forward, that's why we
decided to take the step and put up the disclaimer.)

What actually happened was that the players didn't mention it, and the
angry emails were only cut down by 3/4ths. Still, it was a huge
reduction and by then we had a form letter response we could send. So
the reduction in hate mail was a big bonus, but not what I expected.

I wondered if the players had even seen the disclaimer, so at one
point I pulled a player aside who I trusted and asked her in private
(via internet, not in person) if the disclaimer had been spotted by
the player base, and if so - why hadn't anyone mentioned it?

She responded saying yes of course it had been spotted, as they kept
an eagle eye on all the sites, but all the players surmised why it was
there and it didn't impact their play experience at all so no one
talked about it.

Yay for players!!

And that's my two cents, enhanced by an anecdote.

Wendy Despain
quantumcontent.com

PS. All our sites had copyright notices at the bottom with info on who
really created them, not faked. These also were spotted by players,
investigated, and they actually appreciated them because it convinced
them that this was "officially sanctioned" by the TV show and not
fanfic.




On Mon, September 15, 2008 10:17 am, Brian Clark wrote:

> So let me give you some advice from the "dark side" so to speak, as

> someone

> who has gotten those calls from men in dark glasses and still isn't

> afraid

> of managed controversy as a palette useful in some situations.

>

> In general, make sure that law enforcement doesn't have to solve any

> puzzles

> to figure out how to get in touch with you: domain registry

> transparency is

> a good first step. Not only does it send the message "nothing to hide

> here"

> but it helps ensure your first contact might be by telephone.

>

> In general, cooperate fully with their requests if you can as a good

> citizen: you want them to write "harmless prankster" in your file.

> This

> means if you CAN cease and desist, do ... that's the ultimate indie

> fallback

> on liability.

>

> Those two general rules will get you through most of your encounters

> with

> cyber-savvy law enforcement, but won't protect you from something

> silly or

> threatening utilized in a dead drop or live event. I keep assuming,

> though,

> that once they put "harmless prankster" in your file they stop

> calling, but

> that doesn't seem to be true.

>

> -----Original Message-----

> From: arg_discuss-bounces at igda.org

> [mailto:arg_discuss-bounces at igda.org] On

> Behalf Of David Flor

> Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 6:42 PM

> To: Discussion list of the IGDA ARG SIG

> Subject: Re: [arg_discuss] Disclaimers

>

> Hey everyone, got a question out of curiosity.

>

> For the upcoming game "Superstruct", I'm in the process of creating a

> new website and some other things that fit in to the game. My concern

> is

> that I'm designing it to be as realistic looking and plausible as

> possible (I'm going to have a hard time disbelieving it myself), which

> is fine for people who are aware of its existence in the game. But if

> someone chances across this not knowing it's a game and, well, they

> might panic. And I might soon be getting knocks from my door from men

> wearing dark glasses or lab coats.

>

> But I'm hesitant to put a disclaimer somewhere on the site because it

> violates the TINAG a mentality. Granted, given the choice of violating

> that or being taken too seriously I go for the former, but I'm curious

> how some of you handle situations such as this. How realistic is the

> fear of being taken literally and seriously, and what measures do you

> take to safeguard you and would-be believers? Or does it really

> matter?

>

> Thanks!

>

> Tnx & Rgds...

> David "Nighthawk" Flor ( dflor71 at gmail.com )

> Darklight Interactive ( http://www.dlimedia.com/ )

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Wendy Despain
quantumcontent.com