[arg_discuss] Disclaimers

[Wendy Despain]

Anecdotes, I got. :)

It was unbelievably easy to reach us via phone. We had veeeerry
helpful switchboard people who prided themselves in their ability to
get callers to the person who could help them with their problem. They
did a remarkable job.

To the point of connecting the disgruntled player right to my phone so
they could deliver the bomb threat to my voice mail. Also the
switchboard person confirmed where we were located. (I learned to let
all calls go to voicemail if I didn't recognize the number.)

Fortunately, along with the very helpful switchboard, we also had a
security team headed by an ex-fbi agent. There are a few benefits to
having an office within a big company.

He got the recording of the bomb threat off my voicemail and said he
"took care of it" and they escorted me from my office to my car for
about a week. When I asked what they meant by "took care of it" they
said, "don't worry about it." To which I said, "Um, yessir."

So don't exactly know how that turned out, but no one on my team (or
our office) came to harm. I suspect the caller had no idea how serious
a bomb threat could be. (This was pre-9/11)

Wendy Despain
quantumcontent.com



On Mon, September 15, 2008 11:37 am, Adam Martin wrote:

> Awesome anecdote :).

>

> Of course, by contrast, for perplexcity we made sure there was NO

> reference to who we really were on the majority of the sites, all

> domain regs were fully anonymized, etc. This was partly just to stop

> people from pre-discovering sites whose names would give away spoilers

> for future plot - which didn't always work, because when a domain had

> the word "perplex" in it somewhere, it was easy enough to discover

> without knowing who owned it.

>

> The only funny call I remember receiving was someone who managed to

> find the private cell phone number of one of the staff, and phone up

> to say that our main website had the default administrator

> user/password and anyone could hack in to it. Fortunately, even though

> it LOOKED like our website was running Movable Type, it wasn't (as

> most people do, we were statically imaging the live server from a

> private, offline, server that was running the real blog software).

>

> And one where someone apologized for crashing our servers (although

> IIRC that was a coincidence).

>

> 2008/9/15 Wendy Despain <wendeth at wendydespain.com>:

>> 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/ )

>>> _______________________________________________

>>> ARG_Discuss mailing list

>>> ARG_Discuss at igda.org

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>>>

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>>>

>>

>>

>> Wendy Despain

>> quantumcontent.com

>>

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Wendy Despain
quantumcontent.com