Rules Team Rulings - 22-APR-2013

echiang wrote:

As DeathInaBottle eloquently explained, it's more about trying to understand how the process works, rather than trying to change it or get a reversal.

I understand that some forumites only care about the end product (i.e. "ends justify the means").

I'm doubting that the VEKN will be doing anything at all to get to the "ends". I'm very much doubting that the means used involve taking people into darkened rooms and beating them up. It's the VEKN, not an international spy agency.


I think that Hugh explained fairly carefully what the process is:
- If you have a beef with a card in the game, you contact Pascal.
- If you think a card needs revision, you contact Pascal.
- If you have found a problem with how a card skews the metagame, you contact Pascal.
- If you think others agree with your wish to nag Pascal, you put it on the forum and nag Pascal that way.

And in many ways, it seems that Pascal is the Chief Officer of Rules & Cards and his word is VTES law. If you don't like that system, then I suggest you pester the IC. If they think it works fine, then you'll just have to suck it up and deal with the fact that Pascal makes the decisions.

The decisions for cards and rules is not a democracy it is effectively a monarchy.

Reyda wrote:

here is the definition according to the merriam webster online.

1 : to talk in a noisy, excited, or declamatory manner
2 : to scold vehemently

Where is politeness involved in this definition ?

A rant is impolite because it's noisy or vehement, to use the language from that definition. Polite conversation is not noisy or vehement.

Reyda wrote:

Can you tell me what made you jump on that post because politeness has no relation whatsoever with what you wrote.

Sure. I reacted to it because you used the word "rant," said that the posting strategy was "not smart," and accused Eric of "foul play." All of that is insulting and unjustified. I think that kind of language is bad for forums like this one because it makes conversation difficult and creates an inhospitable environment. It's also bad for discourse, which is the lifeblood of volunteer organizations.

Reyda wrote:

I know he has 1500 posts. It's written somewhere under his name.
But what difference does it make, really ?

In the first post I took issue with you said you "couldn't see Echiang on the forum for ages," and in the post referenced here, you said that there's "suddenly an avalanche of posts." I was just pointing out that he's an active, even voluminous contributor to the forums, so it's not like a string of posts is out of character.

Reyda wrote:

I said it politely. I used the infamous "ffs" in another post, but of course you jumped right on it, as planned.

"For fuck's sake" implies exasperation, which combines with the rest of your language to make your posts aggressive. Which is to say impolite.

Reyda wrote:

Well, he wants explanation about bans, then that's cool. One or two post would have been ok. No need to be all over the place.

Maybe. You're making a good point here: it might be the case that continually posting requests and explanations and responding to everything that everyone says can be counterproductive, since it runs the risk of irritating people. That said, I think it's worth running that risk when you think that there are important issues at stake that would otherwise go unaddressed, since the conversation will at least be on people's minds. It's akin to standing in front of city hall as a protester and requesting a meeting with the mayor: you're going to irritate some people, but at least those people will know that others think there's an issue that needs to be addressed.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

The decisions for cards and rules is not a democracy it is effectively a monarchy.

Leaving aside the question - which is worth asking - about whether or not the VEKN should operate "monarchically," I'll just point out that the monarch doesn't lose anything by at least explaining his decisions to his vassals. Why not make it standard practice that, when cards are banned, the reasoning for their banning is stated?

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

I DON'T CARE

Why do you care what method is used if it gets the results we want Eric? Don't we all want a good strong game that is fun to play?

If you don't care, why are you chiming into this conversation? You are saying that because it doesn't matter to you, it shouldn't matter.

Eric's points have been very well presented for the most part.

- It's true that we don't know who is ultimately responsible for banning cards.

- It's true that Johannes complained about the lack of transparency in the card-banning process about 10 years ago well before he was the chairman of the IC.

Personally I don't care either how Lilith's Blessing got banned, because I like the ban. However, Eric's points are informative and reasonable. Nonetheless, his thorough and intense - yet polite - verbal sparring on the VEKN forum will probably not get the organization to change in the way he seems to want, but you never know.

They can if they want.
They can not do it, if they want.

If everyone is doing the process suggested (sending messages to Pascal, talking about cards in the forums and so on) then who needs to even ask why? Shouldn't it be obvious?

People have nagged Pascal enough about LB + Villein to consider taking action.
People have nagged Pascal enough about Girls Will XYZ (which frequently contains LB) to consider taking action.
People have nagged Pascal enough about the S:CE + XYZ to consider taking action.
People have nagged Pascal enough about what can happens with a Combat Ends to consider taking action.


System is transparent (it often happens here on the forum).
System works, because it has resulted in a number of modifications to the game and rules which will clear things up in the future.

It seems that most of this is "The System made a controversial decision". Same from Eric. Same from many others.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

It seems that most of this is "The System made a controversial decision".

Right. So why did "the system" make that decision? Again, I don't see that there's anything to be lost by explaining the reasoning behind it, and there are definitely things to be gained. At a minimum, a statement included in the RTR would be useful to those people looking back on these rulings in the future, when the game will have changed. They won't have access to the kind of knowledge that we, as participants in the debates that informed the ruling, allegedly have.