Given that every block in Red seems to be claimed by a gang, that would imply that ANYTIME you want to tag, you need to xhelp. Is that true?
If not, that leads me into the point of this post.
I will use gangers as an example because they are what comes up most frequently. There are millions of people in Red. When players complain about it not being IC for gangers to toll "everyone", the point is made that the streets are teeming with people. While a single PC ganger cannot toll everyone, there are hundreds or thousands of other gangers out there tolling NPCs day in and day out. We kind of hand wave it as PC Ganger A notices PC Non-Ganger B and A then tolls B.
My take away from that is although there might dozens or more gangers on any given "block" (MOO room), unless there is a ganger character object there, the gangers are too busy dealing with other NPCs to notice / interact with my character. Is that a correct interpretation of the way things are supposed to be?
Does the opposite hold true? If there are not any ganger character objects there, does that mean all of the ambient gangers are too busy doing other things? It's not that they aren't there. They just aren't aware of / don't want to be aware of my character at that point in time.
What I wrote above makes sense to me in the context of characters not wanting to attract attention to themselves. "Nobody" is going to jump up and down to attract the attention of the gangers in hopes of getting tolled and beat up. Therefore on blocks without ganger objects, those characters are successful. They manage to make it another block without being hassled and effectively "blend in" with the ambient population. The gangers are still there, they just aren't going to interact with the character. On the other hand, on the blocks with ganger objects, although characters might want to remain low key and out of the way, unless they intentionally "sneak" or "hide", the gangers are aware of / perceive them.
Which brings me back to the original question. At what point when tagging / doing things that gangers oppose, are the gangers actually "aware of" a character to the point than an xhelp is required?