EFP

[Qara-Xuan Zenith]

This question is for Rick (though if anyone else wants to weigh in, go ahead):

Some of us were wondering exactly what was going through your head when you saw my and Scarab's INSANE plan to draw you out, and our implementation of said insane plan.

[Scarab]

This question is for Rick (though if anyone else wants to weigh in, go ahead):

Some of us were wondering exactly what was going through your head when you saw my and Scarab's INSANE plan to draw you out, and our implementation of said insane plan.

I will be hiding throughout the majority of this question 'kay thanks bye.

[Rick Healey]

Well, the INexact thing that was going through my head was "Did they not pay attention to when Dana specifically said that this game would not involve edits to the wiki? That was put in place specifically so that people wouldn't be messing around and causing vandalism on TV Tropes related to this game. Well, time to abandon anything I might have done with them via EFP; that behavior can't be rewarded."

The exact thing that was going through my head was significantly less polite, so I won't repeat it.

[Qara-Xuan Zenith]

Well... in this one's defense, I hadn't seen that announcement; I'd only just joined and skimmed the Timeline, and hadn't been to the megathread. But still, yeah, that was poorly thought-out. Sorry.

[Rick Healey]

I won't be specific as to what would have happened, because it's moot now, but I may have chosen a different approach if you hadn't edited a wiki page.

All I'll say about it now is that I was thankful that I didn't get chewed out by any of the wiki mods about it; I was expecting Eddie to lay into me over it.

[Scarab]

I won't be specific as to what would have happened, because it's moot now, but I may have chosen a different approach if you hadn't edited a wiki page.

All I'll say about it now is that I was thankful that I didn't get chewed out by any of the wiki mods about it; I was expecting Eddie to lay into me over it.

Sorry... I really don't remember Dana telling us that... was it on her twitter? Because I only followed her later on. Anyway, that's no excuse, I know. Honestly I was one of the people who thought editing Wikipedia for Sweeney was a BAD idea, but I guess it made no difference in the end, and because the game was RUN by people who had wrked with TV tropes... I guess I figured it'd be okay, but... turns out it wasn't a game strategy that was smiled upon.

Thanks for the baking advice, though, I actually did use that. I still can't bake a descent coookie, but at least now patience has been shown to be a virtue.

[narrativedilettante]

Dana's announcement was very early on. September 18th, according to the timeline. I didn't see it; I was barely paying attention at that point. It was after players noticed an edit to a TvTropes page that looked like it might be a hint. (I missed all of that entirely, since for the first couple of days all I did was follow Mr. Administrator on Twitter.) I think players took it as saying, "Hey, don't pay attention to that thing you noticed, it wasn't relevant and there will be no clues in TvTropes edits." I don't think players got the other implication, which is "And we don't want you to play this game by making edits like that."

[Rick Healey]

Dana's announcement was very early on. September 18th, according to the timeline. I didn't see it; I was barely paying attention at that point. It was after players noticed an edit to a TvTropes page that looked like it might be a hint. (I missed all of that entirely, since for the first couple of days all I did was follow Mr. Administrator on Twitter.) I think players took it as saying, "Hey, don't pay attention to that thing you noticed, it wasn't relevant and there will be no clues in TvTropes edits." I don't think players got the other implication, which is "And we don't want you to play this game by making edits like that."

I realize that, which kept me from getting too upset over it. All the same, I basically nuked any suggestion I might have had in regards to increasing the scope of EFP in the ARG after that incident. It was basically a punitive measure; regardless of whether folks knew about Dana's announcement (or understood the full scope of said announcement), we couldn't allow folks to think that they could get results by doing acts like that. I wasn't terribly thrilled with the tacit admission that the blog was run by a puppet master (though a few of you kept guessing on that until the very end, which pleased me), but that's the thing about punitive measures - they're no fun for anyone.

I did consider one alternate course, though. I considered simply deleting the entry in question on TV Tropes with the edit reason "Not an example - the writer of the food blog isn't drunk." I decided against that because my real name is listed, if you know where to look, on TV Tropes. I didn't want to take the off chance that someone would be diligent enough to research that and discover that I was a puppet master. Also, I was afraid that folks would think that it was an ignorant deletion and put it back, which then starts to raise the specter of an Edit War on top of breaking the rules of the game/wiki. I ultimately decided that the course of action I took was most likely to result in no further issues.

[Krika]

...what was the insane plan, if I may ask?

[Scarab]

...what was the insane plan, if I may ask?

Uh... let's not go into it

Anyway the point is we apologise if we caused any trouble for misunderstanding things like that, we just didn't understand that exactly what we were doing wasn't within the scope of the ARG or would be allowed to get results: we're as new to ARGs as many of the GMs are, we weren't fully clear on the rules and requirements and what might be acceptable so I think our mistakes were understandable. I hate to think we did anything that actively broke the rules or made things difficult for the GMs.

[Tom]

Not your fault! Really. We made the game into a sandbox as a design choice. Not knowing where the sandbox ends is not your fault cause we built the sandbox on a beach.

If the metaphor is too belabored, let me try again. We can't blame you for not knowing where reality ended and the game began, since we deliberately blurred that line. I think this is us reaping what we sowed. I do not blame you for any of the "mistakes" where you ventured outside the game without realizing it, because we accidentally trained you to do that.

[Scarab]

Not your fault! Really. We made the game into a sandbox as a design choice. Not knowing where the sandbox ends is not your fault cause we built the sandbox on a beach.

If the metaphor is too belabored, let me try again. We can't blame you for not knowing where reality ended and the game began, since we deliberately blurred that line. I think this is us reaping what we sowed. I do not blame you for any of the "mistakes" where you ventured outside the game without realizing it, because we accidentally trained you to do that.

This metaphor apparrantly means weI get to build sandcastles. This makes me happy

[Rick Healey]

...what was the insane plan, if I may ask?

Well, the basics are this. They were convinced that I was sending out secret messages via Experiments in Food Preparation (not quite true; while there were allusions to The Wall Will Fall in that blog, all of the allusions were to things that were hinted elsewhere... yes, this includes the mention of Adam a couple weeks before you found him, because Cheshire is sneaky like that). As such, they'd send a message back. They ultimately decided to edit a TV Tropes page (specifically, In Vino Veritas, which is about how people start letting big truths slip when inebriated - note that this doesn't fit the blog in any way, shape, or form, as the alcohol baked out of everything I made), and leave a comment on the food blog to see what kind of response it got.

The response they got was a brush-off, with me outlining the reason above. This finally convinced them that it was a puppet master writing the blog, up until they basically all but said what they were trying to do.

It was at that point where I did a brunoise to the truth. I claimed that I got the blog as a gift, being a friend of the people running the ARG (true - I get along quite well with all of the other PMs), and that discussions with them put some of the ideas in my head (true - I thought of quite a few of these ideas while chatting with other leads about where we were taking story elements). I said that I wouldn't participate in the ARG because it'd be unfair for someone so close who could potentially get inside info to join on the players (you have to admit, not much closer you can get than a guy listed in no less than four places in the credits). And best of luck to those playing the ARG.

Not that in all of that, I never actually confirmed or denied BEING a puppet master.

This had folks waffling on whether or not I was a PM up until Qara saw my name in the credits. I know some were convinced I was, some were convinced I wasn't, and several who weren't sure either way.

Anyway the point is we apologise if we caused any trouble for misunderstanding things like that, we just didn't understand that exactly what we were doing wasn't within the scope of the ARG or would be allowed to get results: we're as new to ARGs as many of the GMs are, we weren't fully clear on the rules and requirements and what might be acceptable so I think our mistakes were understandable. I hate to think we did anything that actively broke the rules or made things difficult for the GMs.

As Tom says, it's fine. The situation resolved before any wiki mods noticed, and I was not censured over it (so far as I know, keeping my record on the wiki itself clean). I was admittedly frustrated at the time over it all, but it was a minor problem to fix, and it's kind of my job to fix problems. I'm mostly being matter-of-fact about it at this point; not much else I can do on the issue (honestly, if I said something like "you don't want to know," the power of Forbidden Fruit/Schmuck Bait would have overwhelmed you... just witness Qara going crazy trying to find the one hidden message on EFP).