In Praise of NCI that was

I've already !!! in great detail in previous messages.

Ah, the traditional 'I got nothin'' concession.

(I posted ??? to you on two entirely different topics, by the way.)

Ah, there appear to be contradictory statements on that point.

I'm arguing about the accusations against the person Prok attacked.

I have been away from the forums working hard at my RL job the last few days. I hate when I miss things.

I just wanted to say that I think NCI has done a wonderful job. They actually stepped in and did something at a time most just mumble about something needing to be fixed. Of course they are not perfect. No large organization ever is or can be.

I have had a few dealing with Carl (I am sure he won't even remember me). He was always helpful and polite to me. Much more then I can say of many. I hope that whatever way it works out he will remain proud of what he helped to accomplish.

Maybe, but I was more inclined to support the person "attacked", until I found out more about what happened, and crossing that with personal experience with said group (in the blogger's presence, as well as experience with similar ones as a Guardian), I "saw the light".



What does that matter? No one is going to see you join a group the instant you join but you and the person who invited you. Then you can hide it. Big deal.



Yes, and RL isn't SL, so?



She didn't campaign for the option. She campaigned against the Executive Director himself. No one wanted to sit down and discuss it; everyone wanted to whine and quit over it.



To you.



I think NCI was exercising its Freedom of Association, when it got cut short. It chose NOT to associate with griefer groups. So much for its Freedom of Association, eh?

Regardless, FoA isn't a right here any more than Freedom of Speech is. We are all going to be constrained by any private interests with which we CHOOSE to be involved.

Elaboration: the "guilt by association" refutation has no legs because it is based on a confusion between an example and the general rule. It is treating a continuum as something that has merely two extremes and no gray area in between. I have (as I said) !!! about that in great detail previously. Not wanting to repeat that isn't a bloody "concession".

Hmn; it would be nice if we could get that point settled. Maybe it's not possible.







Well, that's nice, but since you were addressing me, and I WASN'T arguing about that, then we seem to have been at cross purposes.

No; but they obviously believe griefing is okay, since they belong to a group dedicated to griefing.

Of course, it may not matter to you whether or not somebody thinks griefing is okay, and that's fine; but it matters to the reputation of a group like NCI.

"It's okay for our leaders to support griefing, just as long as no lolcubes are rezzed in OUR sandbox" is a spineless, wishy-washy and soft position to take, and it's why I'm no longer visiting NCI. Especially given that the place teaches a course on how to deal with griefers. Perhaps the course material should be revised to something like "don't ruin other peoples' fun by ARing them for griefing; that's intolerant."

If you have no reason to assume that someone is going to go medieval on you because you were a member of the group, why would you need to hide it?

The negotiations were opened by a blog post attacking her. Her response was perhaps excessive, I don't know, but it's certainly understandable.

As I said, there are people within NCI's board who don't agree with you on that point.

Well said.

It's difficult to understand why people can't comprehend these simple truths.



(And to anticipate: yes, WU does not include the words 'we're dedicated to griefing' in their charter. But the fact is, that group is so strongly associated with griefing as to make the words unnecessary.)

You were.



You've been arguing several, actually.

I think it is a perfectly valid consideration to enable Freedom of Association for people and groups to choose with whom they want to associate, and with whom they do NOT want to associate. You can label it "guilt by association" all you want, but if you're going to harp on that as a freedom, it HAS to swing both ways.

To me, it is beyond simple.

WU members regularly grief Prokofy.
WU admins won't address the griefing, and actually participate in it.
Prokofy responds by banning all WU members to her land. Since she can't ban the group directly.
Someone whom she hasn't banned who has been around when she has been griefed shows up, and she bans her BECAUSE of her WELL-KNOWN policy, then (OHNOES) BLOGs about it.
The resulting dramafest damages one of SL's most respected Resident organizations, probably irreparably.



Your hyperbole aside, I would say she has every reason to do so, and yes, people do regularly go to her to wave what is in their pants in her face "for the lulz".

You might as well go ahead and characterize me similarly for "inspecting people's pockets as a matter of course", too. I look at profiles, and I act on what I see, because I am obliged to, and it has PROVEN to be a prudent practice.



Lucky you. We'd rather not take the chance, thanks.

I would say that they do not believe that griefing is so serious a problem as to require them to leave a group associated with it. That doesn't mean they think it's OK. I get along with people who believe in Creationism and all manner of similar nonsense, religious and political. That doesn't mean I think it's OK, just that it's not a "litmus test" for friendship... and the relationship I'm talking about here is even more indirect than that: I don't have a litmus test that requires that the people I associate with have such a litmus test.

You'd find very quickly that PN doesn't maintain a constant inworld group. They get banned too quickly. They maintain a website. There is no active constant PN group in SL. They make new groups for each griefing event.

What, operating without the facts yourself, eh?

Asking for them from others, but not for yourself. Good show!



You're arguing all sorts of things.

Prokofy feels attacked by ALL WU members, because that's the only kind she has ever been exposed to. As such, she has responded in what she feels is the most appropriate way. If ONE PERSON representing WU would do their damned job and put an end to the WU griefing bullshit, AND offer an olive branch to her to "mend fences", she'd likely respond favorably and change her stance. You know what, though? IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. Why? Because WU is a griefing group which has NO reason to change. It is their raison d'etre.

Indeed. It swings both ways. BECAUSE it swings both ways, it's not the simple cut-and-dried situation you're making it out to be. You're laying the entire blame on the person who was, in this specific instance, the one who was attacked.

And who is to blame for starting the drama fest?

So you're saying that Prok has a reason to go looking in people's pockets for red rags, and consider that they taint everything else in their pockets by being there. OK, I'll grant that for the sake of discussion.

Now if we go back a few exchanges, remember that I was saying that simply having the group in there wouldn't taint NCI except to a small number (I think I said ten... certainly not more than a dozen) people in SL. You pooh-poohed that. Obviously, Prok is one of the people who care. Are there as many as a dozen others who would notice, even if they happened to "look in the pocket"?

If you wrote these specific reasons for your belief that the post was refuted somewhere, and I missed them, then I apologize. (In which post do they appear? I really didn't see them and this is a long thread to re-read.)

(I do think you'll find, in general, that 'I already answered that' with not so much as a post number indicating where That was allegedly Already Answered, IS taken by many as a concession that the writer has no idea of how to counter an argument.)


Anyway, to your two claims:

"confusion between an example and the general rule"
....what confusion, specifically? Is it your claim that any writer of a post that contains an example intends that the example be taken as the general rule? If so, that seems to be an odd claim to make. A post on an entertainment message board is naturally going to emphasize examples over "If A then B"-type rules.

If that's not what you meant, then what did you mean?

"treating a continuum as something that has merely two extremes and no gray area in between"
....I see no evidence in that post of a claim that only two extremes, with no gray area in between, is the state of affairs in relation to anything under discussion. In which sentence or sentences of that post do you see such a claim?

If you are a member of a known griefer group, and have been witness or heard about their shenanigans via group chat (if you don't think this stuff is echoed through WU group chat, you're insane), you can't claim that neutral middle ground anymore. PLUS, if you are hanging around someone whose hatred for that particular group is WELL-DOCUMENTED, including banning anyone associated with that group from her land when she discovers it, then you better consider hiding it, or reaping the consequences.



Maybe. We don't know what transpired in words between Prokofy and Immy/NCI after she was banned and before Prokofy blogged about it. Typically, there's a lot of vulgarity and drama that gets passed between the banned and the person/group that banned them. You say that her response was perhaps excessive, but certainly understandable; I could say the same for Prokofy.



..and there apparently are people within NCI's board who DO agree with me on that point. The entire board didn't quit, though a supermajority of them did.

I don't know the affiliations of the ones who did, but there is speculation that they are somehow tied to WU.

I'm at least going by what one of the principals said. The claim that she was wearing the WU group tag was made by someone who wasn't even there, and who it turned out was using an idiosyncratic definition of the term. None of the principals, Prok NOT excluded, made that claim.

I'm RESPONDING to all sorts of things. Perhaps I should just ignore irrelevant comments instead.

For example, I'm not going to defend WU.

Yes, they do, and they are banned on sight from many places when they do.

That fact doesn't alter the issue in the slightest.

The example of "Hitler and the vegetarians" is an extreme example that is commonly used to illustrate the case because it's SO obvious and extreme that anyone can see it. That does not mean that the fallacy of "guilt by association" is restricted to extreme cases, but the post referenced depended on the argument that "guilt by association" is only a logical fallacy in such extreme cases. In the real world such extreme cases are vanishingly rare.

To establish that "guilt by association" is not a logical fallacy in a specific instance, you have to establish that the association is strong enough that you can predict a person's behavior from the fact of the association. For example, if one was a card carrying member of the Communist Party in the decades following the Russian Revolution that meant one had agreed to accept party discipline. Is there any similar requirement in being a member of WU? Alternatively, you might establish that the associated group is so notorious and tight-knit that it is unlikely one was a member except for the purposes of planning or engaging in unsavory behavior.

But simply saying "here's an extreme example, and anything that's not such an extreme example can be ignored" proves nothing.

I get along with people who don't believe there is anything larger than themselves. I don't trust them as much as I otherwise might, unless they show humility and empathy in other ways, but I don't rule out the possibility they might be fine people based on this one thing. But if any of them turn out to be bullies or vandals then we'll have a problem. I don't believe you can find pleasure in harming others and still be a good person. I don't believe you can tolerate such behavior among your friends and still be a good person.

I'm not a psychologist, but it seems to me that tolerating psychopathic behavior is an indicator of psychopathy.

Curious that I consider humility and empathy markers of trustworthiness when they pretty much define the opposite of psychopathy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy

That doesn't mean they agree with you, that just means that whether they agreed or not their disagreement or agreement was not strong enough to make them take that strong a stand. But either way, this emphasizes that things are not as clear as you want to paint it.

Bullshit. I'm laying blame where it belongs, ALL around. However, some people have more share in it than others.



Ultimately? The admins/owners of the WU group for not doing their fucking jobs, and being part of the problem.

In this instance? I'd say Immy has more share of it, because Prokofy is a known quantity and only posts about it on her tiny little corner of the internet, where the VAST MAJORITY of SL users will NEVER see it. The fact that Immy posted it in several places where LOTS of people would see it smacks to me of grandstanding. Worse, it gave not only some amount of validation, but more importantly, ATTENTION to Prokofy's ranting. If Immy hadn't posted, I wouldn't have known about it, either.



First, profiles aren't "in pockets". They are publicly visible for all to see. You don't have to approach the person and violate their "privacy" to examine them. You don't have to even work hard to find out. Hell, all I do is click a link that pops up in chat for anyone who shows up at my place, and I do. As such, your analogy to "pocket searches" is fatally flawed on that point.

Second, YES, Prokofy and ANYone who has had to deal with griefers and is worth their salt has a reason to look at profiles and groups to look for threats. For some groups which are KNOWN to the person so looking to be problematic, yeah, I think it is fair to consider them "tainted". I don't give someone in a Nigras group the pleasure of hanging around. That's what BAN ON SIGHT means. I carefully watch people who have other less-threatening griefer/hate groups in their profiles.



I dunno. I talk to various estate admins and land holders at different times, and WU has come up as a "concern" for a number of them. Probably less than 10 -- AS FAR AS I KNOW -- but that is JUST ME. You claim 10. How many others have 10 people that might be keeping an eye on the WU group? After a while, those numbers add up.

Well, I think it is only fair that if you're gonna require proof from others, you should be prepared to provide it yourself. Care to cite your sources?



Only irrelevant to you, I assure you.

It's never a good sign when the participants start arguing about what they're arguing about.