Rules Team Rulings - 22-APR-2013

Ashur:
The easiest answers are:

Commercial-in-Confidence A lot of what the VEKN does involves the copyright held by others.

Never done it before The VEKN has done little in the past except maintaining the Rankings and a few databases. (Yes I am sure they have done more but a lot of the things now done by the VEKN used to be done by WW employees who weren't required to explain their actions).

Never been asked for The demands for transparency are recent. Mostly spear-headed by Eric and mostly occurring after he was ejected from the Inner Circle. Most players seem to run with the theory that if new cards come out and they work well, then that's good enough for me.

VEKN is not a Democracy Eric has admitted this. The VEKN is NOT a democracy. And as a result, we should not expect the same transparency of decisions by default. While we may nominate some of our representatives (i.e. your local prince is nominated by at least 5 players) the NC is not directly elected by players and the Inner Circle is also not directly elected by players. It is NOT a democracy, and hasn't ever been one.

AaronC wrote:

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

I am responsible for the whole RTR. And for all of its subsections.

I didn't flip a "Ban Lilith's Blessing" / "Don't ban Lilith's Blessing" coin, I took several arguments into consideration (including thoughts from other people). Does this unmake me responsible for the RTR? I'll leave it up to you.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

Just like I don't think the minutes of every VEKN IC meeting need to be public knowledge, the details of every thought of the RTR Process don't need to be justified heavily in public. If you'd like the level of transparency you want regarding RTRs (past, present and future), then we should also make public IC-Meeting minutes back to when VEKN got hold of the game. There isn't much point in insisting on one aspect of the VEKN being highly transparent and open to extensive scrutiny without doing it to the rest. That however, is a decision for the IC, because they would then have to consider how much of the rest of their activities should be highly transparent especially considering the chance for Commercial in Confidence items to appear on agendas and in the minutes.

Straw man argument using slippery slope reasoning to portray that greater transparency would lead to an extreme situation.

I recognize that there are some commercial issues that the IC may not want to reveal. But there are also plenty of other areas (such as explanations for the rulings, or how the rulings are decided) which don't fall under that purview so that excuse doesn't really apply.

As an additional example, I applaud Szewski for posting the EC 2012 minutes last week. But given that the EC 2012 was in October 2012, I really don't understand why it took 6 months to release it, especially since it was apparently already typed up (and sent in an e-mail to the NC's). Maybe a few of the details regarding POD could have been temporarily redacted but most of the information could have been made publicly available earlier. The lack of transparency during those 6 months is a problem IMHO.

Similarly, there have been multiple cases when a VEKN official has posted on the forum promising an update "in a few weeks" and then never followed up at all. In these cases the expectation for more information/transparency was created by the VEKN official but just not delivered.

And this is a fairly cynical thought, even deliberately cynical, why is this important to you now when it was not important when you were on the IC as Storyline Coordinator?

Oh it was certainly important to me then as well. When I was on the IC, I viewed the VEKN as a very flawed organization but one that could be improved and I was hopeful that I could help in improving it. I readily shared that personal opinion to people I talked to.

And in fact, after being on the IC, I have an even better understanding of the problems with the VEKN than I did before I was on the IC. I still think the organization is very flawed and can be vastly improved. However, I'm now doubtful of what I can actually do in that regard, though that won't stop me from at least trying.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

Never been asked for The demands for transparency are recent. Mostly spear-headed by Eric and mostly occurring after he was ejected from the Inner Circle. Most players seem to run with the theory that if new cards come out and they work well, then that's good enough for me.

No, the demands for transparency are *not* recent, as seen with Johannes, Hugh, and Mike who asked for more transparency almost 10 years ago.

And this is another example where means and process is important, not just ends. Hypothetically, if I was only concerned about the end result (as you are in your "I DON'T CARE" about process post) of VEKN being more transparent, I could actually force a greater degree of transparency simply by sharing every single detail I have available of my time as an Inner Circle member (for which I am *not* under any sort of non-disclosure agreement or confidentiality agreement). I choose not to do that because I believe that forcing it is less effective than trying to encourage it to organically develop.

To use DeathInABottle's analogy I'd rather stand in front of city hall as a protester requesting a meeting with the mayor, even if I could achieve what I wanted through heavy-handed tactics.

VEKN is not a Democracy Eric has admitted this. The VEKN is NOT a democracy. And as a result, we should not expect the same transparency of decisions by default. While we may nominate some of our representatives (i.e. your local prince is nominated by at least 5 players) the NC is not directly elected by players and the Inner Circle is also not directly elected by players. It is NOT a democracy, and hasn't ever been one.

Yes, I have admitted it and you have admitted it.

Too bad all of the NC's can't admit it nor most of the IC members. If they would acknowledge that the VEKN is a monarchy, as you argue, and not a democracy, that would actually make things a lot clearer and simpler.

Also I want to point out that here you're saying that since the VEKN is not a democracy, we should not expect too much transparency but in your other post you argue that the system already is transparent. Maybe you could please clarify the apparent contradiction.

Pascal wrote:

AaronC wrote:

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

I am responsible for the whole RTR. Annd for all of its subsections.

I didn't flip a "Ban Lilith's Blessing" / "Don't ban Lilith's Blessing" coin, I took several arguments into consideration (including thoughts from other people). Does this unmake me responsible for the RTR? I'll leave it up to you.

Thank you for the clarification Pascal.

I think time and energy of elevant people is better served in making balanced decisions that make the game better than getting bogged in edlesss forum discussions on minutae details of the decisionmaking and the decisionmaking process. Which come to haunt you back even 10 years afterwards.

If awful decisions were made I'd be among the first to cry wolf.