As some of you know, I inactivated my account yesterday in Malivia. There were two reasons for this.
The first was that I do not feel able to continue playing this game unless I can at least pretend to myself to some degree that plagiarism is being taken seriously. I have still received no reassurance at all from the Moderation Team about this, despite having contacted them privately (my messages were ignored) and despite having been promised a response on the forum in two and a half hours (it has now been more like 16 hours). So on those grounds alone, I am hesitating to return.
The second reason I inactivated my account in Malivia is because a point has been reached where I find myself being told on a daily basis that I am OOCly behaving in a "racist"/"offensive" way because of how I am ICly RPing there. As several at least of you will know, this all began with a post Vesica made on the forum, which he later edited, but which nevertheless people got to see. From there, it has been repeated on Discord. Today, Rogue/Mr God came out with it on the forum.
It has always been my understanding that in Particracy RP, there is a dividing line between OOC (out-of-character) and IC (in-character), and that we are not meant to get the two confused. So a person who RPs a racist/sexist/homophobic/whatever party or character in-game, for example, is not assumed to be a racist/sexist/homophobic/whatever person. This is certainly the approach which has always been taken in the past. Now...it does not seem quite so clear.
There are two reasons why I am particularly concerned about this. One is that, particularly given a Moderator is the one who started all of this and that Moderation's and Wouter's apparent spokesperson is continuing it, I am worried Moderation is going to simply shut down my RP in Malivia. If that's the way it's going...there is not much point continuing it any further. From my experience, I have already come under pressure to self-censure my RP, including from Moderation. That is uncomfortable enough...but more formal/official censorship, I fear, will not be far behind.
The second reason is that frankly, it becomes tiresome and no fun to be getting these accusations every day, as is happening at the moment. If I am going to RP, I want to be able to enjoy it without being harried all the time with that kind of stuff.
So at this point, I simply want to ask the community and the Moderation Team what they want me to do. If there is enough enthusiasm for the idea of me going back to Malivia to continue my work there, then maybe I will, although as I say, if the OOC attacks carry on like they have been recently, I may end up giving up. Similarly, if there is a consensus that I should drop my work in Malivia, then I will do that. I really, really do not want to have to delete my Malivian RP posts, but if it gets to a point where that becomes necessary to draw a line under the whole issue, then I suppose I will have to do that.
Speaking more generally, I am having questions about whether it is a good idea to have poorer nations in the game, because it seems like there is an expectation that if you RP those nations, you have to RP them as though they are first world countries that do not have any of the human problems which poorer countries experience so much in the real world. I think the community needs to decide, fundamentally, whether it wants those nations, or whether they have just become "too hot to handle".