PA's View on Current Events

[Rusty]

Sure: I am very sorry for suggesting that JaydeMoon was the same person as FanaticusIncendi, or that JaydeMoon was blindly supporting FanaticusIncendi, or for otherwise defaming either JaydeMoon or FanaticusIncendi.

I upheld the Charter by the letter of the law rather than by imposing my necessarily one-person biased interpretation of the spirit

See now this is the problem: the letter of the law prohibits cheating. I think lying is cheating. The dictionaries all agree. I reckon most ALFAns agree. Every DM I've spoken to agrees. The spirit has nothing to do with it. But Wynna says lying isn't cheating. How can that be?

(Wynna and I do get on perfectly civilly, fwiw; this could be a sensible argument about principle, if we all wanted it to be.)

[fluffmonster]

My own view of things:

From what I garnered from my thread and Wynna's and FI's posts, there are 2 schools of thought in this dispute, and I think it's useful to notice that:

...

2) THe US-based members of ALFA (Wynna, Cipher, JaydeMoon, Rick, FI, fluff, excuse me if I forgot someone) do not refuse that an offense has been perpetrated and that it must be corrected ASAP as per the Standards procedures, but in the name of the longevity of ALFA, its Charter and for the sake of community unity, the whole story should be amended by adjusting the concerned violations without going further (aka inflicting any sort of penalties to the concerned PCs).

I will for the moment assume you did not intend this as an overt insult to myself, that I am in essence unprincipled, but that is in fact what has happened. To put this as a principle vs. practical distinction, and then attach my name to the *wrong* side, is grossly presumptive. And then to put a nationalist spin on it?

So far, there is no evidence that said lying has actually happened. My understanding is that an "I don't know" or "I don't recall" from a player isn't believed. The claim of lying is mere presumption, not fact.

Myself, I believe Rusty indulged a grudge against an individula with whom he has a well-known and long history of acrimony. Its not the first time he has done so. I can do so without being unprincipled or believing that lying to a DM isn't wrong, and I resent having my integrity questioned because I'm not 'siding with the euros'. You don't have to agree with me, but don't sit there and call me hypocrite because you don't.

[Hialmar]

I am the only Admin who voted with his heart here I think.

However, what is funny is that when I voted, the decision was already taken and Rusty had already quit Admin.

We voted on this specific case and everyone of the 5 polls we voted in included the name of the 'accused' person.

If I had to vote about if lying to a DM is a bad infraction I would vote that yes it is bad. I'm fairly sure that each Admin would have voted the same.

Now about why I voted with my heart: I consider every member in this community as a friend. Therefore I won't ban any of you gals and guys that's a fact. All the ALFAns who know me will tell that this is the truth.
I can have some differences of view with some friends but they are still friends. Yes even you Rusty.
Veilan can attest that even though I didn't like Andrew a lot, I tried to go against the decision of banning him for the better good of ALFA.

I won't ever candidate for a PA position because of this: I'm a carebear.
I wouldn't even ban Joe the player who is cheating in front of me. The truth being that I have seen, while DMing, people cheat and I have never ever reported them.
That maybe why I no longer DM and won't ever DM again in a PW.
This is also why I have given the Moderator stick to the Lead Admin after having taken bad decisions while I was Infra.

Now if you want to remove me from my admin seat because I am a carebear please do.

Edit: I must add that in this case, I'm fairly sure that no one cheated and as Mulu said it ought to have been managed through the wealth adjustments standards procedure.

[ThinkTank]

[Holy_Rage]

My own view of things:

From what I garnered from my thread and Wynna's and FI's posts, there are 2 schools of thought in this dispute, and I think it's useful to notice that:

...

2) THe US-based members of ALFA (Wynna, Cipher, JaydeMoon, Rick, FI, fluff, excuse me if I forgot someone) do not refuse that an offense has been perpetrated and that it must be corrected ASAP as per the Standards procedures, but in the name of the longevity of ALFA, its Charter and for the sake of community unity, the whole story should be amended by adjusting the concerned violations without going further (aka inflicting any sort of penalties to the concerned PCs).

I will for the moment assume you did not intend this as an overt insult to myself, that I am in essence unprincipled, but that is in fact what has happened. To put this as a principle vs. practical distinction, and then attach my name to the *wrong* side, is grossly presumptive. And then to put a nationalist spin on it?

So far, there is no evidence that said lying has actually happened. My understanding is that an "I don't know" or "I don't recall" from a player isn't believed. The claim of lying is mere presumption, not fact.

Myself, I believe Rusty indulged a grudge against an individula with whom he has a well-known and long history of acrimony. Its not the first time he has done so. I can do so without being unprincipled or believing that lying to a DM isn't wrong, and I resent having my integrity questioned because I'm not 'siding with the euros'. You don't have to agree with me, but don't sit there and call me hypocrite because you don't.

If that's all you understood out of all that I wrote, then feel free to think of me as a nationalist euro who considers the US ALFAns unprincipled individuals and hypocrites. My english is only so good; I can't convince you of the opposite.

[Valdimir]

For those not involved, I am going to try to provide an unbiased synopsis of the events. It presumes an understanding of motivations, which may be patently wrong. As my intent is to put things in a positive perspective, I am going to take this liberty.

For those I identify, if I am dead wrong, please correct me and accept my humblest apologies in advance. But if you have already stated your position and my observation only softens it, I will ask that you let it go as a step toward reconciliation.

I have had the unique opportunity to view much of this without being forced to take sides. I have been with ALFA since beta, starting out on the far periphery and slowing taking on more responsibility than I ever wanted. I have interacted with nearly all the people involved. I may sound naive, but I do believe noone here is trying to undermine ALFA here for personal gain or sport. So drama aside, this is what I think I've seen:

One DM, danielnm by name, reviewed the wealth of some players as part of an exercise last October aimed at teaching NWN1 DMs how to accurate price items and calculate wealth. He reported what he saw, focusing primarily on magic items. He did absolutely nothing wrong and in my mind, is a shining example of what ALFA is all about.

Two players (who had PCs since before Standards was more than a nebulous concept and had undergone multiple rebuilds) answered a question in a manner that was not entirely accurate. If it was intentional, it was dishonest. While not privy to the Admin vote, I think this is the "benefit of the doubt" rationale comes in.

The former DMA has long been a proponent for standards and is intimately familiar with them (obviously a good quality to have for a DMA). He cannot fathom how a player could not know that their PCs stats were inflated and believes the lack of disclosure to be cheating. He resigned on principle. I respect him for that. He too has done a lot of good work for the community, a fact often obscured by his very direct demeanor.

Lead Admin is very much doing what she feels is best for the community. Having survived one Quake, she damn sure doesn't want it to happen again on her watch, especially at such a critical juncture. I submit that it won't if everyone keeps this in perspective.

The new PA has faced her first big test. Another good person that places the community first has done her best to navigate through a tough situation with no legal training. She fails to mention that two of those involved are attorneys, which only makes her job harder.

The IA is a self-proclaimed "carebear" and has gone out of the way to avoid situations like this where he had to rule against friends. He works hard for ALFA and I cannot see how anyone can fault someone for being a nice guy.

I've had the least visibility on the TA, so I won't comment there.

H_R's attempt at simplifying this went too far. It is not a US vs Euro thing. I don't think anyone has a monopoly on principles or transparency here. Egos aside, everyone is doing what they think is right.

As HDM of the server where said PCs reside, I am working with all parties to bring the PCs within the most current version of the standards.

I think that by now, most of Admin has gone on record saying "lying is cheating." If ALFA is not satisfied with their ability to determine lying, there is a mechanism to replace them with someone more capable. It is called a 'vote' and happens twice a year for each position.

That's it. All the posturing and flaming aside, this isn't going to undermine the dream we call ALFA. No organization made of imperfect humans will ever be perfect. We'll do our best and carry on. I recommend everyone take a break from this thread and spend some time IG or in the toolset. It really is therapeutic.

Cheers,
Valdimir

[Mayhem]

Screw the egos and the personalities and the attempts at justification. Screw the specifics, and lets look at the general:

Answer these nice, simple questions with Yes and No answers.

1) Did the Admins hold a vote whose sole outcome was to decide "Is lying to a DM cheating?"

2) Did all admins know, for certain, that this was the sole intent of this vote?

3) Did the majority of admins then vote that lying to a DM is not cheating?

Three admins have posted since I asked these. Is there an aversion to answering simple questions?

[Swift]

While not being clued in on all the facts (this thread being the first i have heard of zomg drama) unless it can be laid down without a shadow of a doubt that the people in question knowingly lied to a DM then we are making a mountain out of a mole hill.

I absolutely echo the very first reply by Mulu though. Alot of people have spent huge amounts of time working out standards and pricing for every conceivable thing in this game, and yet we still get stuff like this happening? Ransack a house so all those pretty stat points dont mean squat, hit them with a massive blast a negative energy that knocks a few points clear away, have a golem walk up and smash them in the face (aint so pretty now!).

You can't possibly tell me that with all the rules and regulations in regards to pricing that this couldn't have been worked out in game between the player and the DM team without the need for interrogations, rage quits, and all around drama bogging people down and diverting time and energy away from pretty much everything else in our lives that is more enjoyable.

I repeat though, unless the players knowingly lied to the DMs (and can be categorically proven to have done so), we are all getting in a huff for no reason.

Edit: From Rustys storytime:

Now we happened to know that no other current PCs had any overall permanent ability score edits: it was just these two in the whole of ALFA.

I know for certain this is not the case as i am not one of the 2 PCs in question and yet my character has had a DM administered permanent ability score edit (-1 CON +1 WIS). Overall it evens out (and actually weakened my character by a fair amount), but unless you actually meant to say "permanent ability score increases" (an increase being different than an edit, such as mine) then it would fall into the same basket.

Are you absolutely certain, without doubt, you know of all edits to currently existing characters?

I upheld the Charter by the letter of the law rather than by imposing my necessarily one-person biased interpretation of the spirit

See now this is the problem: the letter of the law prohibits cheating. I think lying is cheating. The dictionaries all agree. I reckon most ALFAns agree. Every DM I've spoken to agrees. The spirit has nothing to do with it. But Wynna says lying isn't cheating. How can that be?

(Wynna and I do get on perfectly civilly, fwiw; this could be a sensible argument about principle, if we all wanted it to be.)

Considering the way Wynna explained it in another thread, this feels like a very selective way of putting your side forward in an effort to have it appear to be a very cut and dried, cased closed 'ban the players' way.

Just stinks of a witch hunt from all sides.

[Lusipher]

well, thanks to val we can assume one of them is our dearest Drow Matron. I only know of a few lawyers here and she be one. We also know that Rusty has some serious hate going on towards her. I can see why hes pressing the issue now. I still agree that lying is cheating, but I also am not one to know if this is just an oversight on a persons part or not.

I think the simpliest thing to do here is just fix the PC and go from there. I think the stupid charter should now include "lying to a DM is cheating" and go from there. Only the two people involved really know if their lying or not and we know how the "I dont remember" card is played in real life court drama, but thats for the Admin to decide and I guess they all agree but Rusty that they believe the individuals. So, what else can you do?

You could fix the PC like I said before and move on.
You could take the Pcs in question and have them deleted
You could also go so far as to Ban the Players in question

So, this all comes down to what does ALFA do? Follow its guidelines or give a person a break. I will say this in the past a lot of "cheaters" or "friends of certain DMs" have gotten get out of jail free cards because of who they are or who they know. I can name a few if you want me to go into those details. Do you make an example out of these people or continue to let things happen and "poo poo" them away?

Im glad im not making those decisions. It would be a hard choice regardless of how i feel.

[Swift]

So, this all comes down to what does ALFA do? Follow its guidelines or give a person a break.

The stupid thing is, we have guidelines for wealth reduction to handle cases like this and instead of them being immediately being put into action we have ended up with interrogations, investigations, the DMA pushing for their heads and the loss of good people over a glorified storm in a tea cup. Granted it is an extreme case, but they work just the same whether your 300 gold over or 300,000 gold over.

I am glad to hear that wealth reduction will be under way and that nobody got smacked with the ban hammer for not remembering the exact circumstances of a stat change that quite possibly happened long before standards existed.

[Valdimir]

well, thanks to val we can assume one of them is our dearest Drow Matron. I only know of a few lawyers here and she be one. We also know that Rusty has some serious hate going on towards her. I can see why hes pressing the issue now.

Out of respect for those involved, I deliberately avoided names with the exception of danielnm, who I think was wrongly victimized. I can name 3 or 4 ALFAns that practice law off the top of my head. More importantly, this issue transcends individuals. Everyone here was fulfilling their assigned role, the DMA included. Rusty was bound by the very charter he promotes and resigned when he felt there was a miscarriage of these rules. I personally don't think it was as dire as that, but he did what he felt was right. While everyone is free to speculate whether he overreacted based on personal grudges, I don't think it is fair to say this was simply a failed attempt to persecute someone he doesn't like. Regardless, Admin debated the issue thoroughly and made their decision. What's done is done. The imbalance will be corrected and the whole incident has reminded us to pay close attention to the rules we agree upon, as we are all subject to them.

[indio]

I'm having a nice holiday with the in-laws on their cattle farm (about 1,200 head), where a huge bushfire laid waste to most of their property last year, maybe 6 months ago.

The important parts of the property were protected, as provisions had been made to ensure that no fire could ever actually touch the home itself, or harm the cattle once moved to a safe place.

And as for the burnt out parts...well, I've never seen it look so beautiful. Regrowth, new growth, charcoal putting every colour in the most remarkable contrast.

ALFA is protected against the worst of the flames also, and the parts that get destroyed or scorched beyond recognition, they have a tendency to regrow, and to flourish in ways that during the fire never seemed possible.

Good luck.

[Rotku]

So what you're saying, indio, is we need more flames?

[indio]

/me smacks Alistair around with a burning brand.

I'm saying that we've set ourselves up to survive bushfires.

[Grand Fromage]

I would like to join indio in his call for more flaming.