In Praise of NCI that was

No, I'm asking a question. Some of the people who originally quit over this. Were they quitting because they were in WU, or because they didn't believe WU membership was a reason to kick someone from NCI?

I thought this was over a mentor, not someone in "a position of authority".

Are there any non-public-face-of-NCI positions in NCI?

This is like demanding an ACS receptionist leave the communist party.

(not the taliban, WU is not an illegal organization in SL the way the taliban is an illegal organization in the USA)

I disagree. The issue ultimately wasn't about the person in question until she MADE it about herself by going toe-to-toe with Prokofy AND NCI management, both in public AND private. It may have been the final catalyst which prompted the ill-fated edict, but it certainly wasn't the sole reason it was done.

WU member's AND officer's activities (or lack thereof) make WU a griefer group, by definition, and Carl was well within his rights to want to distance NCI from any association with members of griefer groups, WU *AND* any others. Regardless if she did anything or not, she was given a fair choice that thousands of other groups from across the grid give their officers all the time.

If she WAS present and DID participate, then NCI would have been severally within its rights to dismiss her for that by itself. However, THAT wasn't at issue in what happened.



You would have to ask Prok's witnesses but, apparently, the person in question has admitted elsewhere to being present when WU people were griefing Prokofy.



According to Prokofy, she was at "several", one of which had witnesses other than her.

Note that Prokofy didn't ban her for being "her", she banned her for being a member of a known and documented griefer group.

Did she do that before or after Prokofy banned her and posted the blog post attacking her?

Indeed. I fully agree.

If not, then it comes down to "does being a member of WU mean you're a griefer"?

And participating?

I was "present" at the penis-costume-in-the-zindra-opening incident that Prok blogged about. I'm even in the picture. I certainly wasn't participating.

According to what I have read, Carl's edict was not specific to WU, but to "griefer groups". The situation came about because Prokofy banned someone (from HER land) who sported a public title belonging to a group which CONSTANTLY harasses and griefs her. The problem is the land in question is rented by NCI FROM Prokofy, and the person in question was an Officer of one of the NCI groups. Prokofy was well within her rights to do what she did, especially since the person in question has, in the past, at least been present with those who have come and griefed her, wearing the same tag.

After that, the ensuing drama flames fanned by the person in question led Carl to make an edict about group associations for OFFICERS of NCI with respect to being PUBLICLY affiliated with said groups. Something which had apparently been long considered due to concerns of NCI partner groups and organizations. Something which is a COMMON CONCERN for MANY groups across the grid.

So, it was turned into the dramafest from hell, allowing people on all sides to show their true colors and out all their hidden skeletons from their closets. Ultimately, this all lead up to Carl's departure, which is the REAL tragedy here.

No.

Prokofy does not appear to have claimed that she was wearing the WU tag, just that WU was listed in her groups in her profile.

All this goes to what I believe to have been the heart of the issue for Carl: the question of potential harm to NCI caused by public association of NCI staff, officers, and helpers (all those who might be said to be 'the face of NCI', as opposed to people who are merely members of that open-to-all group) with a group strongly associated with griefing.

I think your remarks trying to distinguish mentors from Board members, etc., miss the point that anyone who has some NCI tag other than 'member' IS the public face of NCI. Just as that hypothetical ACS receptionist might very well be asked to remove his Facebook mention of membership in the KKK. (I don't think 'communist party' a good analogy because, frankly, membership in that group isn't something that would create much interest in 2009.)

Membership in the KKK, however, would be seen by most reputable organizations such as the ACS as an undesirable association. The receptionist's tie to the KKK could very well harm the ACS. And on that basis, yes, they would probably expect him to remove the public notice (in Facebook) that he is a member.



(Making analogies to those over-the-head tags we wear in SL isn't an exact science, of course. But the overall question---the potential harm that can come to one organization through the group memberships of people who are publicly associated with it---holds whether we're talking about SL Group tags or RL publicity.)

My tag was "Darkly Cute" at the time, which is almost always what it says.

I had arrived alone.

I was helping people navigate the freebie wall. I asked for a TP offer to visit there because they were talking about "All these cool free textures" in the Forum Cartel group.

I won't name names.

Again, I think you're trying to make a distinction that isn't useful.

Whether membership in a group that could muddy the reputation of NCI is worn over the avatar's head or merely listed in the Profile, in either case, onlookers can see the NCI position-higher-than-mere-membersip coexisting with membership-in-suspect-group.

This has to raise questions in people's minds over what NCI stands for. Does NCI stand for lulz and drunken-bus-riding (phrases used in defense of WU in another forum)? Is it really in the best interests of the work NCI was formed to do, to promote a public image such as that?

What? Start the drama fest itself? After, obviously. What's that got to do with anything? Are you saying this WHOLE debacle is justified, just because Prokofy did both what she was well within her rights to do (ban someone with obvious ties to a griefer group that has specifically targeted her in the past), and what she does normally to people she is at odds with (*gasp* blog about them!)?



No, it comes down to "does AN OFFICER OF OUR GROUP being a member of a known, documented griefer group tarnish our image/reputation? Do we want this?". I don't know about the groups you run/participate in, but all of the ones I run/participate in, the answers to those questions are "Yes" and "No", respectively.



You know how griefers operate Argent. Stop being obtuse.

When you are present WEARING THE SAME DAMN GROUP TAG as the rest who are there and harassing/griefing someone else, or because you are "hanging with your buds" whilst they are doing the same, what does that say about you? You're there deriving entertainment from watching them torment someone you all don't like, or just to get some "lulz". Even if you just stand there, silently watching, you're part of the problem. That's where you get "gangs" from, ya know. The more people from the group present, the more the ones doing the acts are emboldened to go through with it and/or continue. "You don't have to do anything, just hang around."

If the person in question doesn't want to be associated with that element, she shouldn't be hanging around with them whilst they ply their odious trade, or should try to dissuade them or report them for their misbehavior to both LL via AR, and to the group management (which, of course, would have meant nothing, since the group managers are sometimes present PARTICIPATING). Worse comes to worst, she should have left the group, because it would eventually come to this. *I* sure as hell would have.

So I have to ask: What part of them GOING TO PROKOFY'S LAND AND GRIEFING HER SPECIFICALLY makes it OK? What part of a CLOSED GROUP which regularly still invites the SAME people and their alts into the group, and still continues to grief people, is difficult to understand? I don't know if it is true, but if the group managers actually invited someone with an obvious racial slur for a name into the group, that manager would get the assreaming of a lifetime from me AFTER I booted them from the group PERMANENTLY, and probably from the school itself, if he/she was student/faculty there.

I'm making a distinction between actively representing WU and simply being a member of a group. Between deliberately acting in a manner to bring disrepute to NCI and not having thought it was necessary to hide her membership in WU. I think that's an important distinction.

This isn't like putting your KKK affiliation into your Facebook page. In SL, group affiliation is on by default. It doesn't take a deliberate act to make it visible, it takes a deliberate act to hide it.

I would not pay one moment's attention to something like that. I can't imagine that there's ten people in SL other than Prok that would have even noticed. I don't believe that it would have raised any doubt in anyone's mind about anything if he hadn't decided to harass her over it.

This is the overall principle that's bringing many to this thread. (Okay, many others are coming hoping for drama.)

Each side can formulate a position that seems reasonable. Of course, 'judge people by their actions not their associations' SOUNDS like a perfectly reasonable---even righteous!---stand.

But it ignores the fact that associations that are volitional (not accidental) actually do mean something.

It's meaningless if you live next door to a KKK member. It's NOT meaningless if you join the KKK.

If we say 'sure, that candidate for District Judge is a member of the KKK. But since there are no photos or witnesses to him having burned any crosses, we shouldn't assume that he'll treat cases involving black people any differently than cases involving white people'----------then we are not exercising intelligence.

Assuming that what you are saying is correct, considering the crap that your WU cohorts put Prokofy through, and the complete lack of concern/action on the part of WU admins to do ANYthing about it, do you blame Prokofy for not wanting anybody who is in the WU group on her land, including you? You weren't the only one in WU she has banned, ya know.

I've personally witnessed the harassment that WU people put Prokofy through, and it was that tame ONLY BECAUSE a Linden was present early on, due to Prokofy immediately ARing the lot of them, and asked the rest of us to do the same. Minerva showed up on her off time to make sure the shenanigans were kept in check.

Did that happen? Not even Prokofy has claimed it did.

Nothing, if that's what happened. But it doesn't seem that's what happened.

In my 'candidate for district judge' analogy in post 161, the person running for judge was 'simply' a member, not an Active Representative.

And the argument still holds.





I can't see how this could be considered a meaningful distinction. If you have a group listed in your Profile, then you have a group listed in your Profile. You accepted membership in the group. That's what matters.






Ah yes, the human tendency to assume that what's true for oneself either 'is' or 'should be' true for other people.

Talarus, the problem with your referenced post on another forum which I don't intend to reply on is fairly straightforward:



There is the problem, in a nutshell. Poster acknowledges that the shared traits of WU members are ambiguous (not clearly defined).

Therefore, his conclusion:



...is meaningless as applied to the case at hand.



In this context, this is an example of an irrelevant conclusion, most likely of the red herring variety.

We are not disputing that conclusions can be made about group members (such as: "vegetarians don't eat cows". We dispute the underlying assumption that anyone who is a member of the group in question is a griefer (and about which the poster even admits uncertainty!).

WU is not a grief/hate group. Tizzers has made a public statement on SLU:

http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/general-sl-discussion/33422-we-human-we-griefer-25.html#post776558

Considering the lies applied to me in nearly all the recent situations, I must believe that the integrity of our mad blogger is in much deeper doubt than anyone else I've addressed.

Considering my saying "Hi" was falsely described as a griefing involving "bobbing and weaving avatars with particle spammers and replicating cubes" ALL integrity of said person's harassment and grief is lost and the events blogged about are based on lies.

But aren't you doing the same thing?

In what way?

I mean, specifically, what have I said that demonstrates an assumption that other people see things the way I do---and most importantly, that policy should reflect this supposed commonality?

I think that there should be a new term, like "Godwining", for when Al Qaeda shows up in a thread, don't you? Reductio ad terrorism seems to me to indicate that a discussion has gone on too long. And, in any case, I see no praise of NCI for the last many posts. As OP, I'll request that this thread be closed.

As usual, let me plea that any discussion of Prok's opinions and foibles be moved to a venue where he can respond - his blog or Second Citizen.
.

I understand the distinction you're trying to make, but it simply doesn't work when the reputation of an organization is at stake.



Joining a SL group is most certainly a deliberate act.



I don't generally judge people for myself based on their group affiliations, but as a Guardian, whose job comprises protecting my home from people who seek only to disrupt and destroy, I have to consider it a necessary factor when dealing with them. When people sporting certain group tags, or having certain groups in their profiles show up, we may follow and watch them at discreet distances to monitor for shenanigans. There are even some groups which are "ban on sight". This isn't persecution, it is prudence, as we've nipped quite a bit of nonsense in the bud from the practice.

In addition, people affiliated with known "bad reputation" groups will simply not be allowed to be on staff. It isn't meant to be a judgment of them, it is simply an integrity-protection defense mechanism. We simply don't want to be associated with people who are publicly affiliated with things we consider antithetical to our community. I don't think it is unfair at all; it is well within our rights to choose with whom we associate. Likewise, I think NCI doing the same thing is also just as fair. No one is denying anyone anything to which they have a right. Being a member/officer of NCI isn't a right.

A mentor isn't a candidate for district judge, she's a receptionist.

Do you know if I'm a member of the KKK in RL or not?

You are assuming that anyone seeing a group in a profile will attach significance to that group membership.

The reputation of the organization is not just at stake because one person was a member of a group, it's also (and even more) at stake because a blogger wrote a long screed harassing her for being a member of a group.

Do you know if I'm a member of the KKK or not?

Certainly NCI has the right to restrict membership on any basis they want to. But whether THIS basis makes sense is not at all clear, considering that at least three members of NCI, including one member of the board, quit over it. You make it sound so simple, so cut and dried. I'm saying it doesn't look at all simple from here.

Actually quite a few posts in that thread contain comments heaping scorn on the idea that 'conclusions can be made about group members.' Three examples:

.......................
Judging people based on their group memberships is *so* 2006.
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There are a few racists who pop up now and then on these very SLU forums. Does that make us all racists?
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If a person in the group does racist things or griefs and they get banned, then fine. That's pretty different from saying "we have identified these people as doing racist/griefer oriented things, therefore we are going to torch them and the other people in the group, even though the other people didn't partake."

Do you really not see how guilt by association is a fallacy?
.........................



...Sure, after the post pointing out that "Guilt by association is a fallacy" was being misused in criticizing Carl's decision appeared, people stopped typing the sentiments contained in the above examples, and moved on (as in your post to which I now reply) to the question of whether it's reasonable to assume that ALL members of WU are griefers.

But as has been argued in recent pages here, the point is NOT whether all members of WU are griefers. The point is that enough of them have that reputation so as to make WU membership a potential threat to the above-reproach reputation that NCI needs in order to do its work.