General Discussion > Moderation Discussion

Re: the Thing

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Jev North:

--- Quote ---Having owned two Discord servers previously (one for a corp, one for an alliance), I am well aware that the server owner and moderation staff do not have any more dangerous access to your personal information than I do here as an admin on the forum.[...]
--- End quote ---

I think this is a bad motivation for closing the thread. Triss isn't making an argument about the technical risk of being on a Discord server, but about the character and behavior of the people moderating this particular instance. On the face of it, it's an unsubstantiated smear that may itself be against the rules, but then it should be engaged with and dismissed on that axis. Nixing the discussion based on a misreading of the argument, as well as an apparent need to talk up Discord and your own experience with it, is doing all parties involved a disservice.

Havohej:
Thread isn't locked.  It's stickied and remains open for comment discussion.

Tressith's comment did not explicitly violate any rules.  It was binned based on the second paragraph of the FAQ, where we talk about how Backstage isn't a place for the ventilation of personal grievances.  Given no supporting evidence to substantiate the claim that was made, then it looked to me that the comment could serve no purpose here on these boards aside from causing a flame war between people commenting in defense of the Discord staff and people who also have personal issues with same.

I've seen that before.  I won't have it here.

It is my understanding from 4 different people who've been asking around about this incident that was alluded to (and can find not a single person who knows anything about it) that the claim remains unsubstantiated.

I don't believe I've misread anything.  I have no "need" to "talk up" Discord.  I am not involved in their development and am receiving no income from the promotion of their app.  Would you like to suggest a more appropriate venue to address issues having to do with the app's security than Discord's security page itself?

If you would, feel free.  Otherwise, I believe the matter is closed unless and until related shitposting resumes.

EDIT:  New information has been received.  We're looking into it further.  At any rate, it's clear that any doxxing that occurred did not involve Discord.  They did not pay me to say that, either, fwiw.

Tressith:
The EVE Online roleplay community is not a court of law. Its members and participants have no training or professional experience. There are a great many individual skills that are counter-intuitive and specialised in such a way that there is no cross-discipline equivalent that can adequately substitute for them - but many instances where experience in other fields will actively cause more issues and blind the untrained to their consequences. This can include but is not limited to:

*Knowing that questions are relevant to ask.
*Knowing how to ask them in a way that does not make the victim more vulnerable to physical and emotional damage.
*Knowing who to ask questions of.
*Evaluating answers.
*Connecting answers together into a larger, coherent story.
*Regulating personal feelings and opinions in such a way that they do not interfere.

We hold professionals to a higher standard because these things are difficult, and the consequences for doing them poorly are grave. Improperly asked questions especially can make a vulnerable party a target and allow people to inflict more physical, mental, and emotional pain upon them than any individual can reasonably be expected to tolerate. Even then, the actual act of speaking about harassment, about doxxing is emotionally costly; it forces those that have been harmed to revisit that pain, to dwell in it, to make themselves vulnerable to complete strangers who then have greater power over them, for knowing their vulnerability, for being able to weaponize that pain or give that vulnerability to other people, who can then do the same. Without recourse for the vulnerable party.

 There are many reasons why these kinds of attacks are under-reported to professionals with the prerequisite training and experience who actually *have* the power to affect change.

At most, the EVE Online roleplay community might ban someone from one channel. They cannot prevent mails from being sent. They cannot keep someone from following another person system to system. They cannot remove a person from a corporation or alliance. They cannot prevent the repeated pinging of a conversation request. They cannot even adequately identify alts who might be used to continue to pursue a person.

The question as to what the community *will do* is a different matter. In cases where people have demonstrated a willingness to chase a person, who have had restraining orders filed against them and criminal charges - well, those people haven't been banned nor ostracized. We still hear from them, but we don't hear from the people who they've hurt.

Acknowledging that harassment and doxxing happens in the community - and it does happen - is not a commitment to take action against it. Neither does talking about the harassment and doxxing that happens in the community. Believing someone who comes forward to speak about it doesn't, either. There are publicly available numbers on who harasses and who is harassed; these are actions taken, largely, by men against women. A man can interact with another man who does harass and doxx and never be at risk, never need to know there is a risk. This is true for a great many other actions that have such a gender disparity, such as sexual assault, domestic abuse. Their presence and prevalence is invisible.

People often think that men who do these things are "angry nerds" who are "losers," who are just "lashing out" because they "can't get laid." This is how abusers are insulated within the systems they claim membership to. People who don't fit that archetype cannot possibly be complicit in harassment and doxxing. It also characterises the acts of harassment and doxxing as being driven by passion or desperation. It is, usually, neither. The point and ultimate goal of harassment and doxxing is to silence and isolate. It is an exercise of power.

Let's examine that a little more carefully. How does one doxx? Someone mentioned IP addresses, but doxxing through that method is actually more difficult and less effective than alternatives. I'm going to explain, instead, the more usual process.

"Hey, do you know what timezone <name> lives in?"
"Do you know when <name> will be online?"
"Hm, this person uses a word that's from a dialect in this area."
"Hey, when is <name>'s birthday?"
"This person does this thing as a hobby."
"What's <name>'s favourite restaurant?"

Then, into public chats. Have they shared pictures? Look at the backgrounds in those images. Do they include notable landmarks? Google key words, like usernames, nicknames, in combination with dates and information gathered from elsewhere. This is a very social process. It takes a level of fluency and fluidity if not outright charisma that does not match the caricature of an angry loser slamming their fists on a keyboard. Even someone who is paranoid, who is careful in the extreme, can be undone with a stray comment here, a stray comment there, accumulating over the course of years.

A person can be complicit in the harassment and doxxing of another person and be completely ignorant of the fact. How many times has someone stopped talking with you, with no warning, no explanation? Has ignored your conversation requests, and you're left confused, feeling hurt? There is only one defence to being doxxed, and that is being silent. They leave channels shared with those who have abused them. They avoid public channels and cannot meet new people. They stop talking to friends in common, who in their ignorance, can become risks. Even if they take that great risk of staying in public community spaces like the Summits, Backstage, the IGS, discord - they can never afford to relax again. They have to curate their behaviour differently, more strictly.

And they're not able to connect with other people who have been hurt in the same way. They're not able to warn others when and where to keep your guard up, they're not able to reassure others that they're not alone, they're not able to seek out comfort and support from each other. They're cut off. In a community that has suffered more than one suicide, I should think people could appreciate the value in that. At least, by putting a warning out in the open, the people who have been hurt and understand this dynamic know ahead of time that it is not safe to relax.

People in public positions of trust like moderators are given, well, trust! If they ask questions, they get answers. Especially questions that, on the surface, appear innocuous- like the example I gave above. Some people in positions of public trust feel entitled to answers, and can make life much less pleasant for people who do not comply - no "benefit of the doubt" for people in borderline situations with rules, for example. Voicing negative opinions about people who, by virtue of being isolated, cannot defend themselves - and being listened to when they say such things, because they are in a position of public trust.

No one is entitled to hear an explanation of someone's experience with doxxing, with harassment. A person who has been doxxed and harassed should not be expected to put themselves at additional risk, physically, emotionally, conducting a full investigation of what's been done to them, and all of the concerns about training and experience apply here, too. There is no "evidence" that would persuade people who have something to gain from not being persuaded, even if the person speaking was beyond reproach: logs can be manipulated, screenshots can be doctored, recordings of voice can be faked. And for what gain? Being subject to hostile attention? Getting more nasty mails from more unkind people? Having total strangers debate the fine points of one's life beyond the one incident, devoid of context, devoid of meaning? Or, worst of all - those who would look upon a person who has been hurt in such a way and decide, "They had it coming."

If a person finds nothing to sympathise with in the above, think selfishly. There is a missed opportunity cost for the community, in the loss of cis+trans women's engagement. The community gets smaller, when people become discourage and quit because of doxxing and harassment, because the mere mention that it happens generates such hostility for the speaker. Less player fiction, for example. Even if someone makes it, how likely are they to promote it? Put it where other people can see? Less elevated player fiction, too, so the canon becomes weaker. Less publicly available roleplay, more clique-restricted roleplay. Less inter-clique mingling. Fewer people able to engage with live events. The act of clipping out all personal tidbits from conversation prevents bonding, prevents frienships. It saps energy that would otherwise go towards making interesting roleplay posts, or cool videos, or art.

Separate from the incident I referenced in my original post and the one referenced above, I know of several other instances of doxxing and harassment. Zenariae was a friend of a friend who I will never be able to meet now. She and Aedre made gorgeous things together.

http://wiki.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?title=Tsuubi_and_Baaken&oldid=189785
http://wiki.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?title=Black_Tsuubaaki_Flowers&oldid=188187
http://aedrelafisques.tumblr.com/post/143349265126/simongannon-aedre-and-zenariae-real-books
http://aedrelafisques.tumblr.com/post/111876605006/jan-22-yc117
http://wiki.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?title=Monoliths&oldid=189195

You can see the value her presence added to the community. Zenariae was harassed and chased so intensely that she not only quit the game, she tried to delete all evidence that she had ever been here. Her player fiction is blanked out. Her RP blog is empty.

https://zenariae.tumblr.com/

She left no contact information for the friends she left behind, she was so scared and hurt. The community lost something real and valuable, when she disappeared. And that's only one example. There are others. Morwen can tell you of the time a well-known troublemaker followed him into a system to yell slurs and obscenities at him. I believe a great many people know someone who received unwanted, destructive attention and, over time, logged in less and less, until they stopped trying at all. I think everyone knows someone who just disappeared, no warning, no explanation, and there will never be one. Because there are such negative consequences to publicly acknowledging harassment and doxxing happens.

At least, in the future, people know speaking about these difficulties on Backstage will be punished. And they have seen how a number of members react, and they can judge who to trust better for themselves.

Ukeko Ahrzi:
I still haven't heard more than a vague accusation. You have yet to say who did what to whom.

If unclear and ominous warnings are enough to smear entire groups then you have set the most dangerous precedent.

Alex Hinkelmann:
Vague accusations are better then outright finger pointing at this stage. I agree with some of what Tressith is saying, doxxing has happened among roleplayers in eve. Most the time the victims stay silent because it's easier that way, there are no stressful arguments between the culprit's friends and nay sayers who will look at most the evidence as pooky.

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