The Airlock

In case you've been in a hole all day, there's been a bit of an uproar because of current CSM member Ripard Teg's blog post concerning the current culture in the EVE online community. Ripard uses an example - and a prime pick, I might add - to argue his case that we're sorely in need of a change. To rein in the 'evil' perception of the game. The example he used is none other than one of Erotica1's "Bonus Room" soundcloud postings where he and his friends mentally torture another player. Go read the blog, and listen to the recording. I'll wait. I'll go make a sandwich... you'll be at least 2 hours to finish listening to it.


After a spirited debate on Twitter this morning, I decided that I should put my money where my mouth was and added my post to the incredible Threadnaught that formed over this on the General Discussion Forum. At the time of this posting, it stands at a staggering 223 pages long. Teg says he "did NOT realize the extent to which that untapped river would flood" with that post, but he's followed it up with several more for clarity. And lets be clear: he's not back pedaling. He's steaming right into it head first into while backing up his argument. During times like this, I realize why I like this guy and read his blog.

For the hell of it, I'm re-posting what I had to say here and I'll give a few final thoughts below it (direct link):

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Dear Erotica,

Long time no see o/. Since I first joined EVE, you've been in the corner of my eye. You put Erotica1 in a noob HS Aussie corp that took me in and tried to teach me a little about EVE (I believe I was 1-2 months along? tops?). For their trouble, you spied out their POS's, had beancounter (alt) wardec them, and blew up my Cormorant. But, you also took me aside, explained that my fitting was bad and how to improve it, and kicked me ISK to help me along. This was an important lesson in the harshness I had heard about EVE, but also that - hey! maybe even the "baddies" are still respectful, well-meaning members of the EVE community, right? Right? Well sometimes yes, but...

Well, after that you still had me in private convo, so you bragged about your wallet. You flashed me a gif of the total. I asked how you managed to acquire so much. Then you start flashing me images of conversations you'd trolled out of ISK doubling schemes. Tons and tons of them. You seemed to drag these convo's out forever. I remember one I was reading, thinking at the time "Criminy... he's not preying on this guy's greed; he's getting off on this guy's loneliness and despair".

Since then, I've always kept your activities in the corner of my eye. Kind of the same way a person might keep an eye on the old neighbor that always seems to stare way too long out his bay window at the local children playing in the street. I heard about the mayo incident, the C&P threads you and your alts would troll until they were locked, the 'pod yourself to alpha clone' incident, the murmurs and rumors that you were behind scam websites like EVE-Bazaar.com, and countless other stories like these. I've seen the CODE nonsense you band about. Your CSM 'attempts'. I even saw your hissy fit when CCP restored that one guy's SP. I thought you quit the game at that point... guess that was too much to hope.

After that first encounter, you offered to take me in and teach me the ropes. I politely declined and went on my way. Why didn't I take you up on that offer? Because of those convo's you showed me. There's scamming... and then there's what you do. It's cruel. It's creepy.

Parting an idiot from his ISK? By all means - go nuts people. But that's not what you're doing. Sure, you do scam them, but as a means to an end. It's not about the scam. You want to humiliate them. Poke them. Toy with them. Make them cry.

That's not gameplay, and this behavior sure as hell has no place being 'acceptable' in my sandbox. If I'm not being clear enough, I'm saying that I agree you and your alt accounts need a swift and permanent ban.

If anyone doesn't agree with it, you are welcome to follow him out the airlock.
/ Coffee

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In regards to the Threadnaught, I think it is in itself a prime example of the very point Ripard is trying to get across. For the entire day, anyone that sided with Ripard on this argument, showed compassion for the victim, or simply failed to boast Erotica was subject to incredible amounts of trolling. I was very tempted to make a separate list of these people and suggest we throw their forum access into the airlock along with ALL of Erotica's account, but if you seriously go through that thread and choose 5 others at random, you can tell who the worst of the worst violators are. (Edit: Someone posted this EVE-Search link in the Threadnaught. I totally forgot about this stats tool. Neat.)

I made my statement, then a reminder post not to feed the trolls, and went away. General Discussion trumps Jita Local as far as "dens of scum and villainy" are concerned. It dawned on me later that Blizzard had a "3 strike" policy on forums... "2 strike" if you pushed it hard enough on a single post. I was perma-banned on those forums back in 2008-9, when I played WoW, for using words like "moron" and "idiot" in a post, if I remember right (I had a tendency to be more "Malcanis" than "Coffee" back then). I laughed at the time thinking "Christ - for THAT?" I can't help think of how many bans would be given out in the span of a day if the EVE-O forums were suddenly run by Blizzard's moderators. I'm just day dreaming, and definitely don't want it that bad ever again. But, hear me out: if you can't stop getting your posts deleted by the ISD's because you can't seem to stay within the guidelines, why NOT ban you?

Oh well, one giant pile of shit at a time, I suppose. As for me, I'm off to bed. Looks like I'll have to keep Twitter notifications on silent if I wanna sleep tonight. These folks get maaaaaad when you call them out ;)

7o