Author Topic: Accusations of abuse and general harassment  (Read 23510 times)

Bedwyr

  • Mighty Duke
  • ****
  • Posts: 1762
  • House Bedwyr
    • View Profile
Re: Accusations of abuse and general harassment
« Reply #15: December 22, 2012, 04:13:07 AM »
GoldPanda, while you did not (leaving aside the one comment about "old-fashioned" spying, which is extremely open to interpretation, as I read it the same way Tim did and think others did as well) accuse him of cheating, you did repeatedly, OOCly, publicly, accuse him of not playing fairly.  As DamnTaffer posted, that is accusing him of violating the Social Contract, in a way that is specifically forbidden.  Had you only done it privately, my opinion would be different, as there is only a specific ban on public accusations, but there was a public accusation.

Solari's responses were somewhat insulting, but he was starting in response to an attack on his personal, OOC character, which is one of the few things in this game that will really truly incense me.  And it's not like I have any particular reason to back Solari, I can assure you.
"You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til ya understand who's in ruttin' command here!"

Penchant

  • Honourable King
  • *****
  • Posts: 3121
    • View Profile
Re: Accusations of abuse and general harassment
« Reply #16: December 22, 2012, 05:01:22 AM »
Hmmm, yeah, I looked at it to see where/what the accusation was, and it does sound like an accusation, but I would say that Enri/Goldpanda does have evidence.
Quote
I will escalate the matter, and you will lose badly.
Though Solari clarified later, how do you lose badly from getting basically spam? You don't really lose badly its just annoying, but you can lose badly in a magistrate case, so as Solari's clarification was after the fact, I would say that Goldpanda had evidence/proof which does make the accusation allowed.
Quote
Do not publicly accuse anyone of cheating, abuses or violations of this contract without proof or evidence.
“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”
― G.K. Chesterton

GoldPanda

  • Mighty Duke
  • ****
  • Posts: 561
    • View Profile
Re: Accusations of abuse and general harassment
« Reply #17: December 22, 2012, 05:08:40 AM »
Please, call me Yangfan.

The only message that I could find that fits what you were talking about (in that it deals with unfairness) was this one:

Quote
Out-of-Character from Enri Kinsey   (4 days, 14 hours ago)
Yes, because CE and Carelia & Co. was so "mismatched" at the beginning of the war. Spying is a tool that you always deployed, not something that you reserved for desperate situations.

There is a difference between competitiveness and bad sportsmanship. There is a difference between playing well and taking unfair advantages over others. There is a difference between obeying both the spirit and the letter of the rules, and skirting around the edges and rules-lawyering. Like, oh, say, claiming that you are not realm-merging because there was still that lone stronghold left out in the middle of nowhere, and then throwing its duke under the proverbial bus when he merged with a neighbor. Was it against the rules? Technically, no. Was it a dick move that would have made Machiavelli blush? Yes.

This is supposed to be a friendly game. I find it sad and pathetic the lengths that some players, including Devs, will go to try to "win" unfairly. Sometimes they fall flat on their face anyways. I do get some schadenfreude from that.

"That's why I don't bother with spying, and haven't since leaving Carelia. Despite what you might think, and certainly despite what your character in D'Hara thinks."

... I have a theory about spying: You don't really need to gather intel using the old-fashioned ways anymore.  It makes you out of practice. You are a really bad liar, you know?

I'm not really interested in anything that you have to say at this point.
Yangfan Wang

I would like to note that this message was sent neither "repeatedly" nor "publicly". I was also very careful to never accuse Aaron (or anyone else in particular) of breaking the game rules or the Social Contract. My low opinion of certain unnamed person (or persons?) on the Dev team is out in the open now, but surely that won't come back to bite me in the future. ;)

If that was not what you were referring to, please show me where I repeatedly, OOCly, and publicly accuse him of cheating, or abuse, or breaking any of the game rules, or breaking the Social Contract. I'm not trying to be obtuse here. There is just a lot of messages to go through.

On the other hand, Aaron's response was to insult me, OOCly and repeatedly, and then publicly.
------
qui audet vincit

GoldPanda

  • Mighty Duke
  • ****
  • Posts: 561
    • View Profile
Re: Accusations of abuse and general harassment
« Reply #18: December 22, 2012, 05:17:04 AM »
Hmmm, yeah, I looked at it to see where/what the accusation was, and it does sound like an accusation, but I would say that Enri/Goldpanda does have evidence. Though Solari clarified later, how do you lose badly from getting basically spam? You don't really lose badly its just annoying, but you can lose badly in a magistrate case, so as Solari's clarification was after the fact, I would say that Goldpanda had evidence/proof which does make the accusation allowed.

That is true. I definitely interpreted it as a threat to go to the Titans or Magistrates. I don't see how I can "lose badly" from him spamming me with messages (which is somewhat harassing by itself, but I can always put him on ignore if it got really bad).

And if I may clarify, I never planned to drag Aaron in front of the Magistrates over his threat, as evidenced by the fact that I didn't. I'm not interested in getting him in trouble, despite what I may think of him. And "accusing someone of breaking the rules because they threatened to accuse you of breaking the rules" always seemed like recursive silliness to me. 
------
qui audet vincit

Bedwyr

  • Mighty Duke
  • ****
  • Posts: 1762
  • House Bedwyr
    • View Profile
Re: Accusations of abuse and general harassment
« Reply #19: December 22, 2012, 06:25:43 AM »
Please, call me Yangfan.

Yangfan it is, then, and I am Matthew.

Quote
I would like to note that this message was sent neither "repeatedly" nor "publicly". I was also very careful to never accuse Aaron (or anyone else in particular) of breaking the game rules or the Social Contract. My low opinion of certain unnamed person (or persons?) on the Dev team is out in the open now, but surely that won't come back to bite me in the future. ;)

My apologies, I misread the initial message dump.  I thought several of those messages were public, and only now on going back do I see that they were private messages.  I had initially thought you were stating them publicly, and he was responding privately, but now I see the "everyone in realm" text on a couple of your public messages, which suggests the others were private.

Which...Is a different situation altogether.

The IC incidents are not an issue except as they relate to OOC problems, so I am going to leave them aside.

Upon re-reading, what I am now seeing is only a public accusation of spying (which there is evidence for), a couple of public arguments that are well within the normal bounds of standard OOC disagreements, and some private messaging that, while nasty, do not violate the prohibition on public accusations.  Does everyone else read it that way (checking now since I so royally screwed up my first reading, heh)?

If that's true, then I return to what I noted in my first post, the threat to escalate the matter, which as Penchant points out and I agree, does not make sense in context of spamming requests, but does in the context of a Magistrates case.
« Last Edit: December 22, 2012, 04:22:31 PM by ^ban^ »
"You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til ya understand who's in ruttin' command here!"

Jim

  • Guest
Re: Accusations of abuse and general harassment
« Reply #20: December 22, 2012, 06:48:48 AM »
This wouldn't be the first time someone has accused Mr. Champion of unsportsmanlike conduct and I'm not even talking about the things I have said.

Penchant

  • Honourable King
  • *****
  • Posts: 3121
    • View Profile
Re: Accusations of abuse and general harassment
« Reply #21: December 22, 2012, 07:06:07 AM »
This wouldn't be the first time someone has accused Mr. Champion of unsportsmanlike conduct and I'm not even talking about the things I have said.
That helps in no way for the case and seems like you are only slandering his name. Though we are discussing how it seemed that he made it sound like he could have been threatening to do a magistrate case, that is merely to prove Yangfan innocent with his accusation, as Aaron later clarified what he meant.
“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”
― G.K. Chesterton

Jim

  • Guest
Re: Accusations of abuse and general harassment
« Reply #22: December 22, 2012, 07:14:23 AM »
That helps in no way for the case and seems like you are only slandering his name. Though we are discussing how it seemed that he made it sound like he could have been threatening to do a magistrate case, that is merely to prove Yangfan innocent with his accusation, as Aaron later clarified what he meant.

Sir, I believe Yangfan had some very valid points.

Vellos

  • Honourable King
  • *****
  • Posts: 3736
  • Stodgy Old Man in Training
    • View Profile
Re: Accusations of abuse and general harassment
« Reply #23: December 22, 2012, 07:23:16 AM »
IMO, we shouldn't totally disregard the IC things. We do have to ask why the IC assignments were given.

IC reasons do exist: as both Yangfan has said, and as I postulated.

BUT, the messages perplex me about whether the IC things were actually motivated ICly.

Example: If I OOC message someone and say, "I'm banning your character because of XYZ you said on the forum," but then the character also happens to be breaking some realm law, the ban is STILL a violation of the SC: because the existence of IC reasons is not sufficient.

IMHO, and I know I'm in a minority on this, players with negative OOC history have to walk on tip-toes around each other and go out of their way to play nice. As best I can tell, Aaron was doing this: making a new character playing in a new realm in a new crowd. Yangfan decided to haze the new guy to get him to go away, because he didn't OOCly trust him based on an OOC belief about spy networks that he regards as "fuzzy" in regards to their IC/OOCness. To me, that's wrong. And here's why:

If the alleged spy network was "bad," then a Magistrates case could have been filed. If its "unsportsmanslike" or not playing with friends, Magistrates can address it. Seriously– I'd love to have somebody bring up a case about a multi-continental secretive spy/patronage ring. It'd give me an AWESOME chance to soapbox about clanning again. But such a case did not appear. Such a case having not appeared, the existence of the spying activity, and especially its negative moral character, must be ignored for a ruling. Because, IMHO, if such a multi-continental secretive network did exist, it would be next to impossible for it to be acceptable within the Social Contract. Accusing someone of such a network IS accusing them of cheating, and then predicating your treatment of their characters on your (unproven) beliefs about their (possible) behavior that (may be) cheating is inappropriate.

Ultimately, it seems a mild violation to me. I don't see either party here as having done anything particularly egregious; just some ruffled feathers– but, to me, again, it still appears that Yangfan is the one who acted inappropriately first (I won't address the "escalation" thing here), in that it does not appear to me most likely that his choice of orders for Remi was really about IC family vendettas. It seems like it was about a semi-OOC alleged spy ring. And yes, the lines between IC and OOC get fuzzy here: but it's woefully insufficient to say, "I can think of an IC reason I might have done it!"

Even the IC message to Celestial Fury is a thinly veiled discussion of game mechanics, IMHO.

"A neutral humanism is either a pedantic artifice or a prologue to the inhuman." - George Steiner

Velax

  • Honourable King
  • *****
  • Posts: 2071
  • House de Vere
    • View Profile
Re: Accusations of abuse and general harassment
« Reply #24: December 22, 2012, 08:21:44 AM »
If a family is well known - IC or OOC - for spying, it seems perfectly reasonable - and perfectly sensible - to not put a new member of that family into a position where they can more easily spy on your realm until they have earned some trust. If a Leonidas appeared in my realm, for example, he would not be assigned a position from which he could gain knowledge of army orders because that family are well known spies and traitors. Assuming that character was allowed to remain in my realm at all.

GoldPanda

  • Mighty Duke
  • ****
  • Posts: 561
    • View Profile
Re: Accusations of abuse and general harassment
« Reply #25: December 22, 2012, 09:17:52 AM »
Thank you for taking the time to re-read, Matthew. I respectfully disagree that I was being nasty. If someone OOCly lied to my face, I believe I should be able to call them a liar. If the lie was not believable, I believe I should be able to call them a bad liar. Friends should not be lying to friends, and certainly not insulting my intelligence with obvious lies.

Lyman/Vellos, I apologize if I am misinterpreting you, but are you saying that you believe what Aaron did was against the rules, and because I failed to report it, therefore it is inadmissible? I apologize if that's not what you meant, but that seems to me to be a rather arbitrary way to remove parts of a case from consideration.

My OOC grumbles actually came after Enri's IC hatred. He learned about Thomas Solari's spying via IC means before I had any OOC knowledge of it happening. I suppose some of Enri's feelings could have rubbed off on me, but it definitely wasn't the other way around. Even if I did not object to it OOCly, Enri still would have done the exact same thing. It wasn't me thinking up an IC excuse after the fact.

Enri is isolating Remi because there is zero trust there. I told Aaron that I disapproved of his actions, hoping that he would stop it if enough people expressed their disapproval to him. Those are two separate channels. I should not have to censor myself just because they happen to point in the same direction.

And I have no idea what clanning has to do with this.
------
qui audet vincit

Gustav Kuriga

  • Guest
Re: Accusations of abuse and general harassment
« Reply #26: December 22, 2012, 09:24:02 AM »
Honestly, I don't like accusations of cheating/spying OOC, private or not. Either way, you aren't playing as you would with friends. I personally would have deleted my character right then and started somewhere that you weren't. I don't care if there has been IC spying (as long as it was done using only IC means), that is no reason to OOC'ly send messages of this nature to someone.

GoldPanda

  • Mighty Duke
  • ****
  • Posts: 561
    • View Profile
Re: Accusations of abuse and general harassment
« Reply #27: December 22, 2012, 09:48:43 AM »
Honestly, I don't like accusations of cheating/spying OOC, private or not. Either way, you aren't playing as you would with friends. I personally would have deleted my character right then and started somewhere that you weren't. I don't care if there has been IC spying (as long as it was done using only IC means), that is no reason to OOC'ly send messages of this nature to someone.

Aaron initiated contact with me by first joining CE, and then OOC messaging me. I expressed to him my disapproval of his actions as politely as I could mange. Had I tracked him down, joined one of his realms, and then started sending him nastygrams, then I would agree with you.
------
qui audet vincit

Fury

  • Guest
Re: Accusations of abuse and general harassment
« Reply #28: December 22, 2012, 09:50:45 AM »
Did it have to come to this?  :(

There were no public accusations of anything.
There were private statements of something.

Gustav Kuriga

  • Guest
Re: Accusations of abuse and general harassment
« Reply #29: December 22, 2012, 11:04:36 AM »
I don't care if it's public or private. That honestly doesn't mean much to me as to whether it's right or wrong. I could privately say someone is a stupid ass nigger, and just because it's private doesn't mean it isn't harassment.