If you have anything to say about the AS situation please contact me.
Emailing cl4proze@cling.gu.se is the preferred form. Put SMR in the topic.
Do not make posts on webboard, etc.
I would especially appreciate if the people directly involved explained the situation as they saw it. Also, please keep it short and simple unless you really have something to say that hasn't been said in the related thread.
I will make a final decision no later than tomorrow around noon gametime so if you have something to say, hurry. If you have a good reason for me to delay the decision even more, please tell me and I'll consider it.
If you for some reason will want to complain about that decision, those complaints should be directed to me at the same address and not posted on the webboard.
The AS situation
I've received messages from all the usual suspects, plus some unusual ones (one email really surprised me) so I decided that no one’s interests would be served by delaying the decision even more.
To make a decision in this case I needed to answer a couple of questions. Some of them were easy, and some of them were not so easy.
1) Is the reason for Ammon’s inability to leave the sector relevant?
Here, the answer is simple: no. We can’t check what happened. We have no control over what happened. He is the one who has control, so he is the one who should be responsible, not the rest of the player base. Since he is a member of an alliance, his alliance will be affected by his actions or lack of those and that’s something the alliance should expect.
2) Is it illegal to pod an alliance member to make sure that an enemy doesn’t get the cash that is on that player?
As some people probably noticed, there are two sets of rules with slightly different wordings on that issue. The first one is available through the in-game User Policy link, and the other is posted in General Discussion section of the web board under the topic Updated Rules. I dislike that situation since it makes it slightly harder to both enforce and follow rules. Luckily for me, the rules are not mutually exclusive, which makes it easy for me to make a reasonable interpretation.
The rules available under User Policy are short and to the point: “2. Arranged Kills: 35 points.†No further clarification is given, which is probably an oversight. The other set of rules has a bit more explanation: “Arranged Kills: 35 points. Arranged kills include, but not limited to, an alliance member dropping from the alliance to allow another member to pod them for the collection of bounty money or for the kill credit, a player podded multiple times in a short period of time by another player.â€
Notice the words: “include, but not limited toâ€, they show that the listing in the rule is an example, and not the full list of possible circumstances. I find that the situation at hand is sufficiently close to the ones described in the rule. After all, isn’t amount the only real difference between bounty money and on-ship money in most cases?
3) Is it relevant that Ammon was unable to consent to being killed?
Yes. Ammon was not participating in the decision so he can’t be in any way responsible for the decision (his eventual responsibility for not getting to safety before getting disconnected is between him and his alliance). Is it relevant in any other way? No, the decision was made with his best (as a member of an alliance, his best and alliance best are the same on this issue), so there is no reason to view the case any differently.
4) Who is responsible?
Everyone who was in AS chat at the time participated in the decision, according to AS members that opted to contact me. I see no reason to doubt that statement. Does that make everyone responsible? No. If I tell you to jump out of the window and you actually do it, it’s your own fault (yes, there are obvious exceptions, like if the jumper is mentally retarded or something like that, but it’s not the case here).
Siege made the decision to boot. It was his decision and no one could’ve forced him to do what he did. He is responsible.
Two players stayed in sector to pod Ammon. Two players most likely to bring out the money (best action from the let’s help alliance point of view). They stayed because they were told to, but again, it was their decision to make. Both of them shot. One of them got the kill. The most just setup would probably be the shooter for the last shot getting the punishment. Unfortunately, this information is either unavailable, or very hard to get, and getting into a situation of “ban meâ€, “no, ban me†is not something I want. For those reasons the punishment should be placed on the one person whose participation is clearly documented, the person who got the kill.
5) What should the punishment be?
Both sets of rules are quite clear on that point and allow no margin for the person making the decision. 35 point each.
6) Should there be some kind of monetary compensation to reincarnation or any money removed from AS?
No. And this is not based on the facts of the case. I simply refuse to make that kind of a decision without very strong support in the rules and extreme circumstances. Decisions like that require a lot more work from Spock and Zool than I find reasonable.
In closing I would like to thank everyone who contacted me with his or her side of the story. I found all the messages very helpful, even those I disagreed with. Also, I am quite disappointed with the webboard discussion regarding the issue. While I find it counterproductive to name names, certain people who should know better made it so the thread had to be moved to the flame board. I hope this will not happen next time. Also, if you believe that rules should be clarified/changed feel free to contact me and I might help assuming you have a good plan.
To make a decision in this case I needed to answer a couple of questions. Some of them were easy, and some of them were not so easy.
1) Is the reason for Ammon’s inability to leave the sector relevant?
Here, the answer is simple: no. We can’t check what happened. We have no control over what happened. He is the one who has control, so he is the one who should be responsible, not the rest of the player base. Since he is a member of an alliance, his alliance will be affected by his actions or lack of those and that’s something the alliance should expect.
2) Is it illegal to pod an alliance member to make sure that an enemy doesn’t get the cash that is on that player?
As some people probably noticed, there are two sets of rules with slightly different wordings on that issue. The first one is available through the in-game User Policy link, and the other is posted in General Discussion section of the web board under the topic Updated Rules. I dislike that situation since it makes it slightly harder to both enforce and follow rules. Luckily for me, the rules are not mutually exclusive, which makes it easy for me to make a reasonable interpretation.
The rules available under User Policy are short and to the point: “2. Arranged Kills: 35 points.†No further clarification is given, which is probably an oversight. The other set of rules has a bit more explanation: “Arranged Kills: 35 points. Arranged kills include, but not limited to, an alliance member dropping from the alliance to allow another member to pod them for the collection of bounty money or for the kill credit, a player podded multiple times in a short period of time by another player.â€
Notice the words: “include, but not limited toâ€, they show that the listing in the rule is an example, and not the full list of possible circumstances. I find that the situation at hand is sufficiently close to the ones described in the rule. After all, isn’t amount the only real difference between bounty money and on-ship money in most cases?
3) Is it relevant that Ammon was unable to consent to being killed?
Yes. Ammon was not participating in the decision so he can’t be in any way responsible for the decision (his eventual responsibility for not getting to safety before getting disconnected is between him and his alliance). Is it relevant in any other way? No, the decision was made with his best (as a member of an alliance, his best and alliance best are the same on this issue), so there is no reason to view the case any differently.
4) Who is responsible?
Everyone who was in AS chat at the time participated in the decision, according to AS members that opted to contact me. I see no reason to doubt that statement. Does that make everyone responsible? No. If I tell you to jump out of the window and you actually do it, it’s your own fault (yes, there are obvious exceptions, like if the jumper is mentally retarded or something like that, but it’s not the case here).
Siege made the decision to boot. It was his decision and no one could’ve forced him to do what he did. He is responsible.
Two players stayed in sector to pod Ammon. Two players most likely to bring out the money (best action from the let’s help alliance point of view). They stayed because they were told to, but again, it was their decision to make. Both of them shot. One of them got the kill. The most just setup would probably be the shooter for the last shot getting the punishment. Unfortunately, this information is either unavailable, or very hard to get, and getting into a situation of “ban meâ€, “no, ban me†is not something I want. For those reasons the punishment should be placed on the one person whose participation is clearly documented, the person who got the kill.
5) What should the punishment be?
Both sets of rules are quite clear on that point and allow no margin for the person making the decision. 35 point each.
6) Should there be some kind of monetary compensation to reincarnation or any money removed from AS?
No. And this is not based on the facts of the case. I simply refuse to make that kind of a decision without very strong support in the rules and extreme circumstances. Decisions like that require a lot more work from Spock and Zool than I find reasonable.
In closing I would like to thank everyone who contacted me with his or her side of the story. I found all the messages very helpful, even those I disagreed with. Also, I am quite disappointed with the webboard discussion regarding the issue. While I find it counterproductive to name names, certain people who should know better made it so the thread had to be moved to the flame board. I hope this will not happen next time. Also, if you believe that rules should be clarified/changed feel free to contact me and I might help assuming you have a good plan.
