Apology to the Community

[zarathustra]

Dear MECCG Community,

It seems that a conflict with both personal and impersonal aspects between Wim Heemskerk and me has become a matter of public concern. I apologize for antagonizing all those involved, and I hope that the issue can be resolved soon without further increase of animosity or schism.

As you may have read in a thread on this forum that has since been entirely censored, I -- along with Manuel Cabezali -- have recently edited electronic versions of the rules inserts for the 7 MECCG sets (METW, METD, MEDM, MELE, MEAS, MEWH, and MEBA). As this task neared completion, with more than 30 hours of work logged, I posted to meccg.net informing the community that a new electronic edition of the rules would soon be made public. The other members of the Judge Certification Program and I hoped that in completing this task we would help to end confusion amongst players about the rules. There is much work beyond this which we also intend to accomplish, such as the condensation of all 7 rules inserts into a universal rulesbook and the updating of the CRF, but that is beyond the scope of this discussion.

In my post relating the good news of our progress, I also responded to some harsh accusations made by Wim Heemskerk against the Council of Elrond. He claimed that the CoE had attempted to steal the rules documents from the Dutch Council's website at least twice in the recent past. He also claimed to have given up any hope of progress being made on the rules and/or rulings updates without some kind of official motion from the CoE saying that we would never make the rules documents available on our website. To this I responded by saying that there was no question of "stealing" in a case such as this: the rules belong to the community of players, and anyone who wants to work on them is entitled to do so. I may have put things less diplomatically than I should; in fact, I almost certainly did.

In any case, my post was followed with alacrity by a post from Wim himself, in which he said that the CoE did not have permission to do the work I described. He also accused me of trying to plagiarize his intermediate results on the same project, and said that he would keep all his rules knowledge secret. To this I can only respond with a question: In what sense can anyone be said to plagiarize the rules of this game? To my mind, they are no one's property, and thus should be accessible to all and able to be updated by anyone competent enough to complete the task. Regarding Wim’s intermediate results, I know nothing about them, and have never seen them. Obviously this means I have never attempted to steal them.

Wim also accused me of passing off my plagiarized work with "big boasting". I blush to admit that there is no small degree of pride in my estimate of my own contributions to the rules- and rulings-knowledge of this community, so let his claim stand. I am a boaster, perhaps even a big one. But as a professional academic I cannot accept the claim that I co-opt the intellectual work of others for my own benefit without citation.

At this point Brian Min asked a technical question: he wanted (as far as I can remember -- I cannot check his deleted post now to confirm) to know which documents were proprietary of the Dutch Council and which I could therefore be accused of stealing.

I responded by saying that the new electronic documents the CoE was about to make available (and which, incidentally, now are available) would be edited versions of the tiny rules inserts ICE had provided in each booster and/or starter pack. I distinguished three sets of documents:
(a) the ICE rules inserts,
(b) the electronic rules documents on the Dutch Council's site, and
(c) the new electronic rules documents on the CoE's site.
I said that (c) would conform to (a) better than (b) conforms to (a). This is in fact the case, as anyone willing to peruse all three sets of documents cannot fail to see. As I mentioned above, I worked on this project for nearly 30 hours. I know the failings of (b). Many are cosmetic, but some are serious indeed, involving the omission of whole sentences. In my post I thanked the Dutch Council for maintaining (b) for the many years they did. I also refuted the claim to plagiarism, as outlined in this paragraph, and I mentioned that the CoE was not just willing but elated for other websites to make available our rules documents -- a direct contrast with the hoarding attitude at meccg.net. Finally, I said that it was dishonorable on Wim’s part to keep rules knowledge secret. How does this benefit anyone?

This last ad hominem attack was immediately deleted by Jamie Pollock in the interest of preserving what harmony remained. Alas, this finger in the dyke was not sufficient. Wim signed onto gccg and told me to change my post. He did not say exactly how, or precisely what offended his sensibilities. I refused, saying I was happy with it as it stood. He said, "Have it your way, then," and immediately banned me from the site.

Since then I have been at great pains to inform the community that official rulings are henceforth not obtainable at meccg.net. Neither the rules documents available through the Dutch Council website, nor its Rules Forum, are good places for seeking such information -- the former because better documents are readily available at the CoE website, and the latter because I refuse to read and indirectly respond to questions on a website from which I am banned.

A number (5?) of community members posted in the same thread after I was banned, lamenting the state of affairs. Some went so far as to suggest that the ban be lifted. Presumably it was this latter suggestion that prompted the deletion of the entire thread. Now Alfons Van Impelen is putting up the “official” meccg.net story of the events. I will let you decide which story to believe, but I must make one factual correction to what he says: my ban was never lifted and then reinstated. Or rather, if it was, I was informed neither of the lifting nor of the reinstating.

I hope this does some work towards explaining what has taken place recently. Again, I apologize to the whole community for getting involved in what can only appear as childish internecine bloodletting. I would be willing to come back to meccg.net, but I refuse to apologize meekly and slip in the back door like a prodigal son. The days of censorship towards dissenters and censoriousness towards the CoE must come to an end.

Sincerely,

Mark Alfano
Chairman, Council of Elrond
NetRep

[Earendil]

Trust me, you have nothing to apologize.

Everybody knows it

[Sauron]

Actually he does, his actions were not right either. It's very nice to see this apology. Thank you Mark.

[Earendil]

Actually he does, his actions were not right either. It's very nice to see this apology. Thank you Mark.

Oh well... I'm not going doing some flame with you . I also think it is very nice to see this... But I also know how sometime it can be very difficult not to lose the patience.
In Italy we have a proverb (byword?) which say: "someone can cause even the saints to lose their patience"... Or something like this.

Bye!

[Ringbearer]

I think Mark did the right thing. I will not take sides in the conflict whatsoever, I just remember a Dutch proverb: "Where two argue are two to blame."

[Sfan]

Wise spoken, Bert!

[Wacho]

Again, I apologize to the whole community for getting involved in what can only appear as childish internecine bloodletting. I would be willing to come back to meccg.net, but I refuse to apologize meekly and slip in the back door like a prodigal son.

Mark, first let me say that I as a member of the community appreciate your apology. I think all of us would like to see you back on meccg.net. I don't think anyone is expecting you to crawl back on your hands and knees though. They've publically stated that they'll lift the ban if you promise not to engage in personal insults on the public forums. Is that really so much to ask? However, whatever you decide about that is really your own personal business and not ours.

What does concern me though is that the COE as a whole has seemingly entered into an adversarial relationship with the largest existing MECCG community. The council's refusal to make the rules digests available on meccg.net anymore, the sudden proliferation of forums that duplicate what are already on the meccg.net site, and the pointed advertising of the council's website and forums on meccg.net all lead me to conclude that the objective is to "take over" and to destroy meccg.net. The council is supposed to serve the community, not vice versa.

So I ask, is this really the course of action that has been voted on and approved by the whole COE? If not then the council can at least have someone cross-post the digests on meccg.net if Mark is not willing to return, and can work on cooperating rather than competing with meccg.net. If this really is the course of action that has been approved then I think there will be a lot more people like Adrian who will "vote with their feet" and leave the MECCG community.

[jhunholz]

Wacho,
I can some of your questions. The reason to move the ruling digest postings over here is indeed because Mark doesn't have access to post them at meccg.net anymore. As soon as that is ironed out, I'm pretty sure the digests will be posted on both forums.

As far as the similar forums on this site that are also on meccg.net: hopefully some of this will be temporary. We aren't trying to fracture the community, but instead we are trying to give MECCGers who don't feel comfortable on meccg.net anymore a place to post, rather than drop out of meccg all together. Because of this, the meccg.net mod team is working on their policy with warnings/banning so that we won't have the problem of one mod having an ichy trigger finger and banning a user without consulting the other mods. (I'm posting this here to answer your question...this info will be posted on meccg.net when things are all worked out there).

[zarathustra]

They've publically stated that they'll lift the ban if you promise not to engage in personal insults on the public forums. Is that really so much to ask?

At this point the issue is no longer about my ban. It's about the censorship and paranoia of (some of) the management of meccg.net. I have offered to return to the site (see above), but only with the assurance that the unhealthy environment there come to an end. So far, no such assurance has been offered.

[Earendil]

Again, I apologize to the whole community for getting involved in what can only appear as childish internecine bloodletting. I would be willing to come back to meccg.net, but I refuse to apologize meekly and slip in the back door like a prodigal son.

Mark, first let me say that I as a member of the community appreciate your apology. I think all of us would like to see you back on meccg.net. I don't think anyone is expecting you to crawl back on your hands and knees though. They've publically stated that they'll lift the ban if you promise not to engage in personal insults on the public forums. Is that really so much to ask? However, whatever you decide about that is really your own personal business and not ours.

What does concern me though is that the COE as a whole has seemingly entered into an adversarial relationship with the largest existing MECCG community. The council's refusal to make the rules digests available on meccg.net anymore, the sudden proliferation of forums that duplicate what are already on the meccg.net site, and the pointed advertising of the council's website and forums on meccg.net all lead me to conclude that the objective is to "take over" and to destroy meccg.net. The council is supposed to serve the community, not vice versa.

So I ask, is this really the course of action that has been voted on and approved by the whole COE? If not then the council can at least have someone cross-post the digests on meccg.net if Mark is not willing to return, and can work on cooperating rather than competing with meccg.net. If this really is the course of action that has been approved then I think there will be a lot more people like Adrian who will "vote with their feet" and leave the MECCG community.

We all know this is not the true point. The true point is not a problem between the community and the CoE, nor a CoE "adversarial relationship with the largest existing MECCG community", nor "taking over" or destroying meccg.net. It is not even a problem with "the mod group" (if any - group, I mean) of meccg.net.

The true point is that there is a single person, quite getting insane, who is really destroying and splitting the community with is own, personal paranoia and obsession. We all know this, notwithstanding someone prefer not to approach directly the matter.

Quarrels are not crucial. Reading PMs, banning some people and not others (well, not A other) upon request, notwithstanding quarrels are generally made by *two* people... THIS is crucial, because is the visible part of something that went terribly wrong. I repeat: we all know where this problem is.

The council is still here to serve the community. A lot of people (not only CoE members) thought the better way to serve the community was to find a solution about this problem.

Maybe our solution was not good, though now seems that things are moving quite in the right direction, as Mikko will confirm soon, I hope.

If you think this was not a good solution, feel free to run for CoE elections, next month. CoE will be at its best condition with all the point of view well represented. We all adore democracy, trust me.

Best regards, Sergio.

[Wacho]

We all know this is not the true point. The true point is not a problem between the community and the CoE, nor a CoE "adversarial relationship with the largest existing MECCG community", nor "taking over" or destroying meccg.net. It is not even a problem with "the mod group" (if any - group, I mean) of meccg.net.

The true point is that there is a single person, quite getting insane, who is really destroying and splitting the community with is own, personal paranoia and obsession. We all know this, notwithstanding someone prefer not to approach directly the matter.

I don't think we do all know this. I certainly don't know it. I know there is stuff going on behind the scenes, but I can only judge by what I see. From what I saw the council was acting in a manner designed to split the community, and I imagine I wasn't the only one to see things that way. Privately things might have been different but publically that the way it looked.

However, as I understand things have been worked out, for which I am very glad.

[Thorsten the Traveller]

I must agree with Wacho. Knowing one of the persons involved a bit, and knowing him quite capable of letting things grow out of proportion, I still can't judge in this matter, nor can most of us. And honestly, it's not that important. I hope it will all prove to be just an incident between two people, but I must share Wacho's concern. In fact, the tone of your comment Earendil only adds to that feeling, whether you're right about the questionable moderating activities at meccg.net or not.

It would be good to have a more open discussion about the role of the CoE in the community. It has been rather dormant for a long time, now people take initiative and that is good, but when they show a propensitiy to centralize things - which in itself might be good as well, it depends- they might step on other people's toes. Some people's feet are bigger than others, so you tend to step on them a bit easier, but the fact remains that there has been somewhat of a shift in the 'Balance of Things.' And we all know what that means: double Corruption Points...

Some people talk of leaders, I generously dislike that notion if it should refer more to 'showing the way' or 'deciding the future', than to taking initiative, because we're no sheep, so we don't need herdsmen. What applies to sheep however applies to the herdsmen alike, that good sense of loyalty, modesty and humility befits us all, and sometimes herdsmen tend to get a bit big headed or omnipresent. That's no good. But like I said, we are no sheep.

Now to throw a little rock in the pond, I'd propose to not have any forum on the CoE site. I don't fundamentally disapprove at all of having a forum here, but having two forums around sucks for obvious reasons, so I prefer the forum at meccg.net, for reasons
a) it has worked just fine until now (so the talk of people not feeling at home there seems really nonsense to me, at least I never heard of complaints about the mod.team before)
b) it has a big audience,
and c) checks and balances. Think of CoE as our government, then we prefer the forum to be in the independent media.
Though a forum here certainly has its uses, connecting rulings with rules-discussion, same with virtuals, or even UEP (what do these have to do with CoE anyway, more support for the Balance theory), I don't see them as essential (nor did previous councils).

To close off, thanks Mark indeed for this apology, I hope it all gets solved indeed and you can post it at meccg.net, but I hope CoE take the concerns Wacho/me have mentioned seriously.

[jhunholz]

You may have noticed that the number of boards here on the CoE site has changed a bit over the last two days. Talks are going on between the CoE and meccg.net's mod team over what each site will have, so that we're not competing for posts on either forum. Some things it just makes sense to keep here: projects the CoE is working on (JCP, Netrep team, internal CoE discussion boards, Virtual cards, etc.) while others are well developed at meccg.net and should stay there (Decks, Tips and tricks, Collecting Central, Events, etc.) The Rules questions will appear on both forums for ease of use. Some may think of going to the CoE site to ask the netrep a question, while others will prefer the meccg.net site because of the larger audience. The important thing is that the CoE and meccg.net are now working together to get this done!

[jhunholz]

The Rules questions will appear on both forums for ease of use. Some may think of going to the CoE site to ask the netrep a question, while others will prefer the meccg.net site because of the larger audience.

Just to clarify: I mean that both forums will have this section, so either place you ask the rules question, the Netrep will see it and can answer it if someone in the community doesn't answer it first. I didn't mean that your post will appear on both forums, but we are looking into this to see if there's a way that that could be implemented. Hopefully I didn't confuse anyone!

[zarathustra]

Now to throw a little rock in the pond, I'd propose to not have any forum on the CoE site. I don't fundamentally disapprove at all of having a forum here, but having two forums around sucks for obvious reasons, so I prefer the forum at meccg.net, for reasons
a) it has worked just fine until now (so the talk of people not feeling at home there seems really nonsense to me, at least I never heard of complaints about the mod.team before)
b) it has a big audience,
and c) checks and balances. Think of CoE as our government, then we prefer the forum to be in the independent media.
Though a forum here certainly has its uses, connecting rulings with rules-discussion, same with virtuals, or even UEP (what do these have to do with CoE anyway, more support for the Balance theory), I don't see them as essential (nor did previous councils).

A rock in the pond indeed!

Well, you're welcome to ask, but unless you and some like-minded people get elected to the CoE (elections coming up in a month, so look out for announcements asking for people to put themselves up as candidates), that's not going to happen.

You asked what the CoE has to do with the virtual cards and other such projects. Well, that's easy to answer: the CoE endorses them. Most of these projects have a leader who is a member of the CoE (e.g., the Newsletter and the Virtual Cards are both run by Joe Bisz). As you've probably seen already, the UEPs have disappeared from this site, except for a couple of threads tracking people's approval of them. That can't hurt, right? In general, the two websites will not overlap, except on minor matters. Semi-private projects and their results will tend to group around the CoE, while the more public stuff will tend towards meccg.net.

As I said above, if you don't like this, well, this is a democracy! Just run for CoE office; get elected; and make a motion to change it.