I've been quiet on this up until now, although it did spark my humorous Jita post from a few days ago, because I've been busy starting an Alliance - but mostly because this thing smelled like a rat from day one. It was easy to see what was going to happen, what did happen, and how it would all play out. There wasn't a need to address the shenanigans more than they were already being addressed.
People have been banned. A victim's name has been bandied about and his (and his wife's) humiliation has been made public. This is, I believe, the greatest crime of all. And I strongly feel it is the elephant in the room. No one is talking about it.
I have much respect for Ripard, I am a daily reader and have been since his blog started. We sometimes speak outside of blogging, I believe I've helped him many times and I know he has helped me many times. But on this issue I feel urged to call a spade a spade.
Mr. Teg is an elected member of the CSM and as such has access to CCP beyond that of us mere mortals. If he felt strongly that someone's actions in (or out) of game warranted a ban, then he could have easily have brought such actions to the attention of CCP and demanded special action be taken. I'm not a member of the CSM and yet, over the years, I have personally brought such actions to the attention of CCP - thru Petitions, Twitter, and email.
The victim was humiliated twice, once by the scammer, and once again by a blogger who should know better. I think he already knows this, the cancellation of his series and recent back-pedaling on his site would seem to indicate some wisdom in hindsight. I hope so. But the damage has been done. There was a way to get the results that needed to be gotten, without making the entire incident public. A human being is on the other end of that conversation, a human being who was verbally assaulted and then exposed to the wider Eve community.
I wouldn't have known about this had it not been for Repard's post. I could only bring myself to listen to small pieces of the Bonus Room audio. Perhaps I have to much empathy for the people on the other end of that conversation, for both sides. I feel for them all, because they are all victims in one manner or another. I have zero tolerance for such activity. Had I known about it beforehand I would have written CCP immediately and demanded action be taken. But I wouldn't have written a blog post about it. Just as I have never written one before about other incidents.
You have given the aggressor a platform and humiliated his victim.
For someone building to a point about bad behavior in Eve, I believe you exhibited some very poor judgement. At the very least.
Comments
But not everyone ducked the issue. FunkyBacon on the special he did on the scandal on Eve Radio Friday night confirmed that the victim was upset with Ripard because it reopened the issue. The victim's CEO confirmed that he kicked the victim from his corp due to fears, now that the victim's story was well-publicized, that his presence in the corp would draw war-decs with people thinking the corp was an easy mark. Listening to the victim, both on Eve Radio and on another Twitch stream, it appears that the victim feels that Ripard did more harm than Erotica 1. And when the victim tried to contact Ripard, the victim claims that Ripard ignored him.
I actually agree with Ripard about the need for CCP to police those that prey upon the player base beyond the shooting of ships or even scamming of valuable internet space pixels. But in this case, he really made supporting the effort hard.
My recommendation to you and others crying about this issue is to stop shooting the messenger (Ripard Teg) and start acting like human beings.
I doubt Jester wrote his series of blog posts on Eve behaviour as a smoke screen to cover getting CCP to do something about the Bonus room. Eve players, much like society in general, want examples/proof to back up a position. Some of the subsequent events should be viewed as an unintended consequence. To date Jester may have been reporting people, as you have, but felt another approach might also help with new player retention.
if we just dont talk about it, all will be way betterer
hell, just cover it all up, it will be like it never happened at all and everyone is shiny happy
it was way better when only the pervs who get off on this shit knew about the recording and sat there playing with themselfes while listening to it
tbh if the victim gets persecuted because of this it says way more about our beloved "community" than ripards posts ever could
However, Ripard did the right thing in bringing the issue as a whole to the public. He made some minor mistakes on the way to the public, especially reaching out (or the lack there of) to the victim he was going to make public. so 10 point for ripard making this public but -1 for not protecting the victim as best as he could.
If CCP would have taken action silently, one of these misbehaving players would be gone too but not many would have noticed. This discussion about human behavior is healthy for our community.
Note I am not supporting in any way what Erotica did, but in my opinion this whole thing stinks.
What Rippard did was bring a circumstance (that was already in the public domain) to the attention of a much wider audience. In doing so he forced CCP to take notice and to take action. Rippard didn't make something public that wasn't and he didn't add any extra humiliation to the target(s). Yes, it may have opened up some old wounds. However, by bringing it to the community's attention and forcing action from CCP he has probably saved numerous other victims that humiliation. I don't think anyone believes that any action would have been taken without Rippards public intervention.
Generally speaking, we call this journalism.
How about achieving action from CCP on the matter? This would never have happened if it hadn't been made public. CCP had access to all of the information available from the previous, smaller, forum-storm on the issue and chose to take no action.
Thought so.
In defense of Ripard, I don't think it was his original intent to have people focus so much on the example but on the underlying issue which has started to evolve in Eve. Unfortunately he has canceled his future posts on the subject and in my mind it's probably because the other posts will not initiate the discussion of a topic he wants to make public. All comments on future posts will constantly bring up this whole issue and continue to keep it in the lime light despite it not being the prime subject. I feel his original post was written with good intentions but clouded by fury and anger at what the community has gradually seen as acceptable behavior.
It's a real shame we'll never see those other posts which would address another Elephant in the room which nobody wants to address. From comments I have read in defense of this behavior (whether or not it breaks any rules) has caused me to lose a lot of respect for several players I know.
Having said that, I still do not believe it excuses the use of this specific example. These type of individual actions, that involve real people, need to be addressed in an individual manner. Blog posts are for generalities, in-game content, and opinions. Just as we need scammers and others to abide by certain boundaries, we should also hold ourselves accountable to those self-same boundaries.
Sometimes mistakes are made whether publicly or privately they all have varying degrees of consequences which may evolve over time. Some are expected others are not, some are fixed quietly (like adjusting your math homework) or others can be quite public, time-consuming, and impede options in the future (like declaring bankruptcy).
We live, learn and constantly battle the consequences we have caused or received from others. Every once-in-awhile we open a can and hopefully learn and move forward with what we've learned.