Jita Park Speakers Corner

Well to take your point seriously and turn this into CNN, for when it matters most.

There have been murders or physical fights over games before, so you can study them and apply them to CSM. From my memory a CSM member would have to steal a lot of ISK or many titans from a player before they would have to worry. Or if they are online with players that use a lot verbal abuse and let it get to them or so. There is also the flip side, you spend too much time away from family or work because of the CSM position, and end up divorced or fired from work or depressed.

Unless you can find different articles it doesn't seem like they risk much from coming out with their real name, unless they plan on doing those above mentioned items. ( Or if you are Darius III and do it anyways, he should be our canary in the coal mine, how far you can go, before you really don't want your real life name public.)

So now your recognizing there would be a time when anonymity would be appropriate. Rather than force CCP to do a case by case basis blanket anonymity for CSM members becomes the simplest solution. It encourages more people to get involved, removes participation bias, promotes safety and hedges against serious legal liability.

Counterpoint: Darius III went to that much effort twice. Running on an alt hardly ups the threshold very much.

You can even ignore the "personal safety" stuff if you want. Take a look at Issler's situation - someone found RL info about her and tried to use it to creep her out. Definitely not "personal danger" stuff, but very easily "disturbing your life" stuff. Let's say that happens to you - now you have to think about how far this idiot is going to go. Prank calls? Work calls? Death threats? All of the above? Sure, a prank call isn't going to make you immediately be ~unsafe~, but it's bullshit that you now have to deal with because CCP decided to publish your name.

So now we get back to the real crux of the issue that keeps getting avoided - WHY does CCP have to publish your name? Let's stick with Xhagen's own justification from the minutes for simplicity's sake:



I'm going to ignore the logical stupidity of "we can't guarantee anonymity so we're removing it entirely" and focus on the real issue, which I've bolded.

Creating accountability. Xhagen's amalgam of vigilante justice and just world fallacy rolled up into one purely psychotic idea.

Willingly giving RL information to a playerbase that can, has, and most likely will go too far with it if they are so inclined as a method of policing behavior? For an unpaid consultant volunteering great amounts of their time to help you as a company succeed? There just aren't words for that level of disrespect. That any of you are lining up lockstep and saying "well, I personally haven't felt it's a problem" is just an extra layer of sad on top of all of it.

Thank you all for a lively discussion on this topic. While I appreciate that this is being discussed, CCP's stance on the matter hasn't changed.

Why you ask? Because the privacy matter is the strongest factor - characters are not running for the CSM, real people are where your character name gives you the EVE reputation (and you can run with whatever character you wish). IF CCP would not publish the RL names and country of residence, it would be implicitly stated that we would keep them a secret.

That we cannot promise.

In fact we would be opening up for potential liability - even though we would go the route of not actually confirming that we would keep that information secret, we would still be implicitly promising something we cannot keep as everyone would be interpret it that way. I'm no lawyer but a liability lawsuit of this nature could have dire consequences for CCP as a company and subsequently EVE (now I'm travelling down a slippery slope, but the consequences MUST be kept in mind).

That is why it was decided to go the much cleaner way of stating that we will disclose this information and leaving the participation in the CSM up to the person who wants to run - they can then make an informed decision. That also allows us to use the CSM, and pictures and names of those members, for PR purposes. Additionally RL laws and protection applies to the people on the CSM and CCP is not making any promises that it cannot keep.



When talking about human nature (which is not the real issue, as you mistakenly conclude), the street goes both ways.
Not only does it deter people who are worried about their RL names being linked to their online behavior but it also deters people who would use that information to harass CSM candidates and members - both have potential RL consequences.
And this has nothing to do with 'vigilante justice' or 'just world fallacy' - most countries have laws that protect the citizens and police forces that can be contacted if a person believes that those same laws have been broken.

I can't say that I'm all that happy about having my RL name published but I can't help feeling that you're making a bigger deal out of this than it actually is.

I'm pretty sure you won't need to hire body guards unless you start stealing titans or giving speeches at the summit advocating for more money in CCP's Incarna Fashion budget.

Y'know, I'm with Malcanis here. I'd just as soon remain anonymous, but Frying Doom's tasteless predictions are pretty damn unlikely, and I can deal with some crankpot stalkerish crap on its own. Frankly, the exposure would probably do me some good overall - I share a name with a famous harvard professor and a disgraced college athlete, so the bump in google search results ranking could be a benefit.

If I get elected as a CSM and I do something you don't like, then you're absolutely and 100% entitled to gank me in game for it. Indeed, I would encourage you to make the attempt.

I've been doomsdayed for advocating the Titannerf. That killmail is a badge of pride for me.

I'm fairly certain he's not "threatening" the CSM here but rather pointing out that having your real name on the line should act as a strong deterrent to gross misconduct.



I mean has this actually ever happened?? CSM members being tracked down and harassed IRL because of a disagreement in policy? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the strongest example we have of harassment in recent history is that of Alex G. following the incident at FF, but this was in response to misconduct that had nothing to do with whether The Mittani likes to mine or pew. It is highly unlikely that the media would waste their time and money to call out a CSM member for taking a stance on an in-game political issue....but actions such as harassment, NDA breach, or other things that a -person- does, not a character, carry RL consequences of their own, and its kind of ridiculous that we have built a game around understanding the ramifications of one's actions and yet people are seriously advocating shielding the CSM from risk at the same time.

The white paper (and everyone else that has ever sat on the CSM) can testify clearly that no one is running simply as a character with a set of policies and preferences, but as an EVE online player with a responsbility to advocate and protect the interests of the entire community. This work goes beyond the scope of character and involves a host of legal responsibility and liability, and CSM members are entrusted with sensitive business information. Combined with the fact that the CSM also exists to hold the company accountable (remember T20?) a lack of transparency with regards to CSM identity calls into question the integrity of the institution in the first place.

Seeing as how the new Senior Producer, CCP Seagull, has proven she can very clearly identify and distinguish between the two (player vs character) and wants business decisions to be made with this in mind, the idea of "but its just space stuff with space people!" is unlikely to go very far.