Comments on: Discussion of Alphaville Herald being censored on Sims Online Stratics Message Boards?

By: urizenus

urizenus — Sun, 21 Dec 2003 20:38:06 +0000

Wow, it only took me two weeks but I was finally able to track down and verify the deleted “Free Urizenus” thread on the Stratics Boards. Following is the residue of it (just the post headers, actual posts have been deleted). Thanks to everyone for trying to discuss this matter. Sorry I wasn’t able to participate.

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Subject Posted by Posted on
Free Urizenius! Cocoanut 12/13/03 11:00 AM
Re: Free Urizenius! TSO Holiday 12/13/03 01:31 PM
Re: Free Urizenius! TonyCeponi 12/13/03 01:33 PM
Re: Free Urizenius! willinglabrat 12/13/03 02:03 PM
Re: Free Urizenius! TonyCeponi 12/13/03 01:05 PM
Re: Free Urizenius! Bae Is Me 12/13/03 03:16 PM
Re: Free Urizenius! willinglabrat 12/13/03 03:48 PM
Re: Free Urizenius! CherryBomb 12/13/03 08:06 PM
Re: Free Urizenius! Walba 12/13/03 05:44 PM
Re: Free Urizenius! Katheryne 12/14/03 12:55 AM
Re: Free Urizenius! KithKanathalasan 12/14/03 01:02 AM
Re: Free Urizenius! Bluegurl 12/14/03 08:09 AM
Re: Free Urizenius! Katheryne 12/14/03 08:08 AM
Re: Free Urizenius! Lilly_Lopez 12/13/03 06:10 PM
Re: Free Urizenius! bunnyklerz 12/13/03 07:44 PM
Re: Free Urizenius! TonyCeponi 12/13/03 08:37 PM
Re: Free Urizenius! Enilk Libb VI 12/13/03 08:45 PM
Re: Free Urizenius! Donavan 12/13/03 06:26 PM
Re: Free Urizenius! Cocoanut 12/13/03 02:15 PM
Re: Free Urizenius! TonyCeponi 12/13/03 02:28 PM
Re: Free Urizenius! Cocoanut 12/13/03 02:51 PM
Re: Free Urizenius! willinglabrat 12/13/03 03:02 PM
Re: Free Urizenius! willinglabrat 12/13/03 01:09 PM
Re: Free Urizenius! willinglabrat 12/13/03 11:53 AM
Re: Free Urizenius! Bae Is Me 12/13/03 12:15 PM
Re: Free Urizenius! willinglabrat 12/13/03 01:00 PM
Re: Free Urizenius! SaraFunnyweather 12/13/03 12:55 PM
Re: Free Urizenius! Bae Is Me 12/13/03 11:34 AM
Re: Free Urizenius! Willa@TSO 12/13/03 11:14 AM

By: urizenus

urizenus — Fri, 19 Dec 2003 19:00:12 +0000

Hey Coco, thanks for posting. I wrote to you in the stratics system apologizing for what must have looked like me carping at you, but I was really P.O.ed that everyone was allowed to opine about what happened except for me. I understand that you were only trying to help.

Now, if it is the case that links to links to illegal sites are o.k., as they told you, then a link to the AV Herald should be legal and they had absolutely no grounds for suspending me in the first place.

How they can terminate me 11 hours into a 72 hour suspension (11

By: Cocoanut

Cocoanut — Fri, 19 Dec 2003 17:49:48 +0000

I am the one who originally posted the link to the Salon article, having been given it by someone else.

I didn’t keep a copy of my post, but I was careful, I believe, not to mention, myself, that the banning had occured. As a result, the thread was able to continue on as long as it did, while we tried to piece together what had happened. The mods were good about letting it go on, too.

The most headway those who posted after me made was to determine that there were links on the Alphaville Herald to sites which are not supposed to be linked to, and that there was some problem in the amount of time given the professor to comply.

As to the links to links to links question someone brought up above, I made myself quite unpopular, no doubt, to the mods a week or so ago (before the Professor case) in insisting on – over the course of many waffling responses – to an answer to that question. I made a very big deal of it. The answer I finally got was that you could not link to a banned site, but you could link to a place that itself had a link to a bad site (assuming, I presume, your apparent motive was not getting to the bad site in the first place).

I pressed for this answer due to another player who had been banned through an unfortunate and not compassionate series of circumstances. He has since been reinstated. I was working along these same lines on behalf of the professor. Because I have this belief in and need for fairness and justice.

Yes, you are correct, that most of us who were sympathetic could no longer stand up for the professor once it was determined that rules had been broken at some point (regardless of the remaining question of how many hours had been given to comply). But I was still working along the lines of the hours he was given to comply, under my general desire for compassionate justice. Until he ticked me off, lol (you can ask him about that if you like).

Meanwhile, since all this with the professor, we have had another situation on the boards which leaves me no longer posting to them after a year of posting as a regular and well-known and reasonably regarded poster. We were raked rather hysterically over the coals by a mod who stated that she was “100% disgusted by most of the people on this site.”

She felt this way because (1) of the heated arguments that had gone on over the SARP discussion (Sims Against Ridiculous payments), (2) nasty PM’s the mods had gotten from some posters, and probably (3) the professor business.

A game representative came along later to take up her cause, and to add that since we on the Stratics Sims boards were only 1% of the players, we couldn’t expect to effect any change anyway.

I got on at that point to stand up for us, pointing out that most of us had not sent any offending PM’s to the mods. (Nor have most of us acted ungratefully to the new goodies put in the game.) I also pointed out that we should not be held responsible or chastized by what a few posters do. And that we did represent the players.

I was told that I was just reading it wrong. An apology for the “disgusting” remark was never made. The thread was locked.

You can go read the thread about it if you are interested in what all I pointed out (but you better hurry in case it disappears). You can also read my comments on the thread about “changing the ROK rules” or something to that effect, started by the Stratics person herself, Breckies, in response to yet another earlier post of mine, in “how can we make this a better community.” That ROK thread has been locked, too. (I don’t know about the community one.)

I am no longer a happy Sim camper.

coco

By: Mr. Smith

Mr. Smith — Wed, 17 Dec 2003 12:22:26 +0000

The Stratics rule about no discussion of bans or suspensions is enforced pretty consistently, so I could tell the “Free Urizenus” post was going to get pulled. Other rules, like no posting of commercial URL’s or exploit discussions, seem to be enforced only when the post itself might be unpleasant for Maxis, though. I could almost tell when they made the decision to kill off the auto-maze. It was probably the exact moment Stratics stopped instantly removing any posts about it. Don’t nobody tell me they are independent.

The same goes for game warnings and suspensions. The rules that are easy to document, like naming violations, are strictly enforced. The ones that are harder for them to prove, like going through somebody’s web links or catching them cheating (which wouldn’t be all THAT hard), are only pursued if the offender is causing some embarassment. Almost everybody that plays has done something at one time or other that could be interpreted as a TOS violation by somebody looking for an excuse to punish you for your opinions.

In general, I think they try to be fair, but Maxis has absolute control over the game accounts. Any human with absolute power can’t help but be tempted to use it once in a while.

By: Texas Carnie Roadshow

Texas Carnie Roadshow — Wed, 17 Dec 2003 04:10:07 +0000

This doesn’t have much to do with the topic, but I thought it was funny.

“‘…Maxis acts like a classic despot, using its powers to single out individual critics for the dungeons and the firing squads. The usual real-world justification for this kind of arbitrary action is the need for a strong central hand to protect public safety and common welfare.’

Is this not why we are in Iraq?”

I can just see it now, 4th ID and 10th Mountain storming the offices of Maxis. That is just funny.

By: Dyerbrook

Dyerbrook — Tue, 16 Dec 2003 14:45:26 +0000

You probably noticed that the posts made by Urzenus, me, and other players on SimStratics last night have all been deleted by moderators. So please don’t bother to discuss anything there, it will be take out. Any reference to being banned in the past is itself banned, so even indirect hints are not allowed. I believe that being banned from the game also means automatic banning from the BBS, so you might check that out.

By: zach

zach — Tue, 16 Dec 2003 01:36:11 +0000

Not contract is legal if it’s unconstitutional or agianst the law. I submit that several portions of the EULA wouldn’t stand up in court.

By: RB

RB — Tue, 16 Dec 2003 01:28:54 +0000

“Urizenus was not banned because he was giving TSO a bad cover”

Continue to live in dream land. It’s partly because of that. you can’t tell me EA like any other mega corporation would’nt squash bad PR that reached the mainstream by taking action on the originator do you??

By: urizenus

urizenus — Tue, 16 Dec 2003 00:13:51 +0000

My my my, Robert, but you *are* the selective quoter. Why don’t you finish quoting what I said? That’s ok, here is the part of my post on Stratics that Robert elided:

“Can Maxis do this? Of course. TOS says they don’t even need to warn. There is a matter of selective enforcement, however. There remain thousands of sims that still link to these “illegal” sites. The passion and agressiveness with which Maxis pursued this termination, as well as the timing, is what raises questions of fairness (not necessarily legality, but who knows). In the realm of human intentions, we can only speculate. I know what I think. YMMV. “

By: Robert

Robert — Mon, 15 Dec 2003 23:32:42 +0000

Allow me to quote Urizenus as he speaks on the Stratics boards:

“I understand the Maxis position on why they don’t want links to sites that link to such sites, and I indeed removed all such links from my bio when I received a warning. I plum forgot that the URL was included in my property description, which apparently led to the 72 hour suspension. 11 hours after being notified of the suspension my account was terminated.”

This isn’t an issue of child abuse and prositution, this is entirely different and is about the censorship that Maxis and EA supposedly placed upon Urizenus. While child abuse and other issues that are both disgusting and illegal are topics that deserve conversation, this is not about that.

To sum it all up, despite what various sources say, Urizenus was not banned because he was giving TSO a bad cover, he was banned for his irresponsibillity. Ignorance is not an excuse.

Best regards,
Robert