SIC Ghosts
A solution to Alias Hopping Small worlding

Both reducing the the small world nature of, "Why of course of the 77 million people here, you are of course BobySign, stop hopping motherfucker." While allowing you to have a reason to suspect that a person might be a hopper, because you would have alias' that couldn't receive messages after awhile.

Would also reduce it's use as an anonymous threat sending tool. While rewarding those who have the tools and such TO use it as such.

This is just... why?

Is it making it harder? Is it making it easier?

Fengshui says loudly, "I do not personally like calling out alias hopping."

Dethrow stands from their seat in the fifth row, and edges their way out of it into the aisle.

Fengshui says loudly, "You would not notice this unless someone is hopping aliases and messaging your specifically or directing messages at you specifically."

Fengshui says loudly, "I think we should CALL OUT in character, when people do this."

Fengshui says loudly, "I send a public sic calling out an alias hopper"

Fengshui says loudly, "You all reinforce that it is NOT OK to do that by being like 'what, how could you possibly know that just because that alias isn't one you saw recently' or 'there are 65 million people on sic'"

Fengshui says loudly, "Shit like that."

This is designed to reduce the calling out of Alias hoppers by making it harder to distinguish.

It's also designed to reduce its use, by allowing responses to be sent during the de-hop.

So both HolyChrome

Just nosedive into the sewer after your sic burn.

I'm trying to make a way for hopping to occur, to be less obvious from an OOC perspective. Also to be harder to accomplish for its current uses. While not removing it as a viable option.

You're being incredibly oversensitive.

Or does it more sound like I want the terms of SIC anonymity to focus less on alias and more situation and tools at hand? To reduce the meta inherent in watching a cwho that shouldn't be showing just the exact players around. But rather a vast list of a bunch of things.

I mean an alternate solution would be to populate the SIC list with about 10 for each letter of fluff alias' that don't actually do anything each time a cwho is triggered.

I can say personally, the last time I changed alias to shit talk someone directly outside of a situation where there was a very large situation or event going on SIC wise, was about 2 months ago. So this is more to address a problem I've noticed occuring around me than one that affects me myself.

And more correctly, to get to the root of my questions here...

Why do you so harshly defend the current status quo?

When that status quo has already caused one of the lead devs to encourage mobbing up on those who fall into this trap of small worlding?

Yes.

But am I reeeeeeaaaaaaally?

It's also annoying when people are meta and immediately assume alias hopping when there are millions of voices at play. Still, there are definitely times when you can suspect (and verify) that someone is alias hopping.

Keep in mind that some people have tools that allow them to know when someone is alias hopping, and that they might not be speculating about hoppers--they may legitimately know who said what and on which aliases.

Say I want to hire a smear campaign. I hire three unrelated SIC's to myself, and have them start smearing my enemy, occasionally chiming in with myself hopped as well.

"Oh, that's just RheaGhe, look at her hop, doesn't she know that her alias isn't there, she's trying so hard. Who'd you get to help you, CONTACT A, CONTACT B? Or maybe Crooknose?"

Boom, any momentum that is gained from this smear is turned around by what is in essence a barefaced metagame ploy. If the hoppers stop, then the enemy is correct, the enemy has gained a win, if they continue they have to address the meta, and then they just look like dickbags or liars...

"Huhdurr how would you know? Don't you know SIC twackers are iwwegal?"

There's a catch 22 that this meta enforces. And why it can't be structurally operated against ICly.

I've witnessed this happen now successively to multiple people besides myself. Enemies, friends, fuck people I didn't even know existed up to the point that this happened have gotten this meta used against them on pubsic.

It got to me so much OOCly that I basically stopped utterly engaging with public SIC, or trying to smear my enemies anywhere on SIC, what so ever, because it's a pointless endeavor to do so.

When all the enemy has to do to remove any traction from the conflict or chase, is to point and say, "Oh look that alias disappeared from a list at the same time... Must be them!" And it A: Deflects claims that they are engaging in illegal activity, and B: Makes the person doing the hopping and smearing, and actually fronting money to people to SIC hop and smear someone, look utterly fucking stupid when they get caught out by meta.

It's pointless. It needs to stop. And unfortunately, there's not an easy way to stop the suck without systemizing against it in some way.

There's the explanation. There's what's being missed, there's why I'm frustrated.

Because there's no counter to meta that works out in the favor of anyone other than the people being meta in this case.

I disagree. People can and should engage in more forms of conflict that just shooting or smacking each other about. SIC is a valid tool for conducting PR campaigns, smear campaigns, redirection efforts, data leaks and more. Things that do matter. Of course, they need to be done smartly but I 100% do not agree that using SIC as a tool for conflict is 'inane'.

no, it's not meta for JoeBaka to assume that RheaGhe is alias hopping when her alias is vacant for the few seconds while someone has been talking shit about him,

I also disagree here. The alias of someone I think doesn't like me disappeared from SIC and this alias I am unfamiliar with just insulted me on SIC does NOT mean they are the same person. The two bits of truth MIGHT make the conclusion true but it's a long shot at best. The person who you don't think likes you could be on any of millions of other aliases for any number of reasons. And the alias insulting you could be any of millions of people insulting you for any number of reasons. You need more facts and, yes, there are ways to get them.

Sure, if someone is super blatant or messes up with tags or something can and should be outed. But I feel that a lot of people lower the bar far too much in terms of what could be considered blatant and jump to small world conclusions because it is easier for them, more convenient for them or because they are frustrated. None of those are good reasons to ignore ambient population in my opinion.

I don't like the solution the OP suggested but I also feel that we could all take a moment and think about the problem and try and do things better on our end. Instead I feel that most are just outright declaring SIC conflict insignificant and lame and that there is no problem. Even dropping tactics that, as I read them, suggest they provide far more meaningful information then they really do in my opinion.

To say that one cannot use it as a tool to push skillfully crafted propaganda is very obviously not true, and a good portion of Sindome is information warfare.

You can use SIC to; Leak ”pay data” spread propaganda, control the narrative, throw your enemies off kilter so they say things revealing or act in a fit of anger, hell, you can be bored and instigate gang warefare at 9am so you can snipe some hanger you don’t like or hop in and grab a piece of gear when they’re down. It is a tool in your toolbox.

With that said, I echo the sentiment that it’s fine as is.

META IS NOT INHERENTLY BAD

When people say meta, it's automatically tied to negative connotations, but there is a -necessary- amount of suspension of disbelief needed so we're all not bogged down in semantics, arguing unnecessary details, and scratching the paint on the wall.

Why is meta sometimes good? Because the WHOLE focus of this game is conflict.

If you get your place robbed, you don't throw your hands up and shrug because...

"Oh well, could be one of 70 million people!"

Get creased on the street?

"Oh well, could be one of 70 million people!"

Is there some baka shittalking you on sic?

"Oh well, could be...."

If you want conflict, you -have- to assume one of the "usual suspects". Yes, there are some golden benchmarks and sacred things not to break. Like disguised people? No, you shouldn't automatically assume someone in a green hoodie is the same one who dipped you. But it also makes for a hilarious situation when someone -does- jump a guy in a hoodie only to find out he's an ace solo who'll kick your shit it.

Please, stop decrying meta as bad. There are instances where it is. And there are instances where it's -necessary- to keep the flow of the game going. What separates good and bad players is knowing when to push on it or to investigate more. The GMs will -never- punish you for investigating more, but there is a certain point where you've done all you can do and have to make the jump because...

"Oh well, could be one of 70 million people!"

When I get killed by a petite shrouded mona with a katana, I might have an OOC guess as to who that is. My character (had they survived) might have had an IC guess as to who that was. However, to then jump to the conclusion that such and such a person must have killed me because they're a petite mona who's known to use katanas is considered meta thinking, even though OOCly I don't know if it was really her or not.

Does that make sense? A lot of people who raise issues about meta are wondering, "Did my opponent do due diligence on this or are they just making an assumption based on small worlding?"

The premise of the thread is that everyone else is small worlding in a way that's detrimental to alias hoppers and needs to be corrected. The counter-argument that's being presented is, not ever instance of calling out hoppers is meta: there are IC tools to identify them and it's possible to use IC logic to reason about when someone might be alias hopping. Knowing when to apply that reasoning and when to play dumb is part of the learning curve of being a better player.