Scandals and Speculation

Jul 8

Council of Stellar Management, Eve Online

There has been a fairly large amount of speculation about the removal of Ankhesentapemkah from the fifth CSM. As is the way of these things people are trying to fill in the missing information and in doing so have distorted the truth of an NDA breach into some kind of witchhunt against a plucky CSM rep who dared to stand up and tell CCP their game sucks.

Lets lower the level of paranoia a bit and instead look at the published facts (from Eve-o and various blog posts).

Disclaimer, I have very little additional information about the NDA breach and what I do know I can’t share..

What has been made known by CCP and a few CSM reps who have risked their own position to correct some of the wilder speculation is that.

There was an NDA breach by Ankhesentapemkah
It wasn’t related to the CSM5 summit or any subsequent blog posts
It relates to confidential data that CCP do not wish to discuss
Other CSM reps disagreed with CCP during the summit to a similar if not harsher degree and some made forum posts and blogs about it without being removed.
CCP think the damage done by not disclosing more information is better than letting the full details be known.

In detail

CCP state a breach of NDA occurred and that Ank has been removed from the CSM. Ank (through a massively article) disputes that any breach occurred.

Sok and DV post on various forums that the breach didn’t relate to the CSM5 summit, though having thought better of it have (in at least DV’s case) edited that information out again. Other CSMs posted some limited details on blogs and forums which has not resulted in further NDA issues.

The type of breach and the data it relates to are such that CCP are refusing to give any details. This is a different situation to Larkgate when more detail was provided to state insider trading of market commodities, though leaving the actual item types out of the details.

Eva was certainly not the only CSM rep to strongly disagree with CCP during the summit. The minutes will hopefully be out this week (though with today’s events I expect a further delay :(). The idea that CCP would go to the trouble of removing one member of the CSM on a fake NDA breach to shut them up is laughable.

Confirming a breach occurred but neglecting to give any details of what type of breach and when it occured is, IMO, likely to cause more wild speculation but that is the route CCP have decided. CSM5 have been in contact with CCP over this but unless CCP issue a statement nothing can be discussed.

No matter whatn the damage has been done. It is yet another blow to the CSM process just as it was regaining credibility after the CSM3 scandal last year. Eva will likely not be allowed to run for CSM again (assuming her appeal fails) and her take care party will be viewed with suspicion in future.

I read a company motto once which said “The good we do reflects on you”.
Sadly the reverse is also true…

Tea

none

Comments

CSM Member Removed For Breaking NDA | I Am Keith Neilson

July 8th, 2010 at 2:10 AM

[…] TeaDaze […]
Aineko

July 8th, 2010 at 7:09 AM

Thanks for summarizing that. I wonder if we’ll ever know what happened…

Anyway, can’t wait to read the summit minutes and your report, Tea.
Eva so tragic « the hydrostatic capsule

July 8th, 2010 at 2:06 PM

[…] TeaDaze Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Ankhesentapemkah removed from EVE’s Council of Stellar Management […]
Mynxee

July 8th, 2010 at 5:24 PM

Thanks for your always rational and cool-headed take on things, TeaDaze. It’s unfortunate that people love to spin drama so much on the forums and elsewhere.
Billy

July 8th, 2010 at 6:02 PM

Just because the NDA violation charges may not be invented does not eliminate any suspicion that CCP is acting in a manipulative or under handed manner . It could be the case that CCP knew about the offense in question ahead of time and only used it as an excuse now because of her vocal opposition . It could be that they could not dig up any dirt on any of the other critical delegates .

CCP’s refusal to offer any explanation can only serve to prove the suspicions are likely true . The fact the the alleged offense happened before her term as CSM makes it even more suspect .

The fact of the matter is that she is an elected representative of the consumers of CCP’s product . For them to remove her without any explanation shows that CCP has no respect for the position, or the players that it represents, and has no intent of responding to any issues brought up by the CSM unless they happen to agree with CCP’s agenda .

If a police officer walks into your restaurant and request that you give him a free cup of coffee and you refuse and then gives you a ticket the following day for stopping at a stop sign for 2.9 seconds instead of the 3 seconds required by law, just because you actually did break the law by 0.1 seconds does not negate the fact that the ticket is frivolous and intended to send a message to comply in the future . CCP does not need to fire all of the vocal opposition, that would actually only make their jobs more difficult. Sending a message to the remaining delegates that if you step out of line you will be removed is a far more effective method of controlling the CSM indirectly.
Tea

July 8th, 2010 at 6:28 PM

You make a fair point but ultimately I feel you’re looking in the wrong direction.

Firstly CCP have given a valid reason why a member of the CSM has been removed. It is due to a breach of the NDA which is a legal document all CSM reps have to sign to take up the post. CCP further added that the information is of a confidential nature and they can’t comment further. Ok, so that is pretty light on details which leads to the speculation that they are hiding something. Well they are hiding something, they don’t want to disclose the nature of the information. There are any number of valid and not underhanded reasons why they have decided to keep the nature of the breach secret. It might even be to protect Eva from legal repercussions! (I have no proof of this, I’m just counterpointing).

Secondly there is the current speculation that she must have been removed because she was vocal in her criticism of CCP during and after the summit. Well she wasn’t the most vocal opponent of CCP during the summit, not by a long shot. She was actually pretty quiet in many of the sessions. As to her blog post, it was certainly no more scathing than various other reports posted by other CSMs. The last point on this issue is that both Sok and DV stated that the breach occurred before CSM5. You can speculate as to why this has only just come to light but it is possible that investigations took a long time and it is unfortunate timing. Yes that does sound convenient, but that leads to…

Thirdly is the most important point (and is me reading between the lines). Would CCP rather kick up a shitstorm by removing Eva from the CSM without giving a detailed explanation or would they instead prefer to “suffer” some negative criticism from the CSM?. I don’t believe for a second that CCP wanted to take this route if another option was available. If you think about this for a moment they were happy to disclose the precise nature of Lark’s NDA breach so this breach must be far more severe for them to not give a full account of what happened.

I and the rest of CSM5 are unhappy with the way this has been dealt with and we have requested CCP be more forthcoming with information but again they seem more willing to ride out the current drama than comply with the request…

We will see what happens next.
Bridge of Sighs » Blog Archive » CCP And Ankh’s Removal

July 8th, 2010 at 9:42 PM

[…] substantial information about the charges against Ankh. Luckily, TeaDaze, another CSM member, added some in order to help tamp down the speculation. Disclaimer, I have very little additional information […]
Xeross

July 10th, 2010 at 11:36 PM

I can’t recall anything like this to have happened before and if that’s the case CCP doesn’t have the experience of dealing with this properly, so that might be why they aren’t disclosing anything.

We’ll see how this turns out though.

Regards, Xeross
Billy

July 17th, 2010 at 3:52 AM

Just because you can come up with legitimate reasons for CCP doing this does not mean that they did it for legitimate reasons and just because I can come up with underhanded reasons does not mean that it was done for those reasons either. My point was that secrecy in and of it’s self is usually an indicator of underhanded reasons and openness is usually an indicator of legitimate reasoning. What ever type of NDA breach my have happened they can certainly come up with some type of explanation that gives details but does not give the secret information.

Look at how the U.S. government has used National Security as an excuse to protect secrecy that was there because they commited some very serious and heinous war crimes and do not want to be held accountable for them. More often than not when some one is in a position of absolute power as ccp is in this case and chooses to keep something secret it is usually to cover their own ass from something that the paying customers would not be happy about. If that were not the case they would likely give some vague description as to why. Transparency and accountability go hand in hand and together those produce honesty, the inverse can also be said.

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