Loose Ends: The Curse of the Red Pen

Some miners take the Code seriously. Others do not. In the future, I would like to see no less than 110% of all highsec miners in total compliance with the Code. In the meantime, the occasional punishment is necessary. After all, though I am merciful, I am also just. The most severe violators of the Code are put on the Red Pen list. Again, some miners take this seriously, while others do not. Today, I present you with the story of one miner who suffered the consquences of being Red Penned.

A few weeks ago, we heard the tale of Carbuilder Hemah, who engaged in extreme and profane acts of resistance when confronted by Agent Arden Elenduil.

Carbuilder had become infuriated when Arden exercised a perfectly valid kill right against one of Carbuilder's corpmates.

Eventually, Carbuilder's corp made him pay Arden 420 million isk to get the corp into compliance with the Code. This was much more money than would normally be paid, because Carbuilder's profanity had gotten him Red Penned by Arden.

Further controversy resulted from the MinerBumping post itself. Carbuilder had been in a private convo with Arden. During the convo, Carbuilder secretly insulted members of his own corporation. They weren't pleased to hear about it. When Carbuilder learned that the private convo had been displayed for all to see, he fired off an angry EVEmail to Arden:

Re: Re: Re: the wardec?
From: Carbuilder Hemah
Sent: 2013-07-11 21:03:00
To: Arden Elenduil

no problem btw i dont recall you asking if you can place our conversation on a public website you know that is against eh law? Its considered defamation of character I shall ask you to pls remove it. As you can see im not a some dumb miner i do know my rights. For you to place a private conversation between myself and you, you have to ask my permission. you can post what was said in public chat all you want but in the private conversation that is another story.

Not satisfied, Carbuilder went to the MinerBumping post and left some comments there, as well:

I was stunned when I learned about these comments. Carbuilder may have been many things, but I never took him for a space lawyer.

When other commenters gently reminded that he was being foolish, Carbuilder doubled-down on the space lawyering. He was now guilty of another grievous violation of the Code. Then things started to get interesting.

Enter Erotica 1. She is perhaps the most famous isk-doubler in Jita. With 24 billion isk invested in the New Order, she's also our biggest shareholder. One day, as she was doubling isk for a customer, she opened a special bonus room for him. Every hundredth customer gets the chance to win big--as long as they follow the rules. You might recall the case of Hydra Fire, who tried to deceive Erotica 1 during a bonus round, and ended up losing all of his in-game assets.

Now it was some other lucky customer's turn. It just so happened that the customer was none other than Carbuilder Hemah himself. After one successful doubling, Carbuilder handed over 400 million isk to Erotica 1. She invited him to a bonus room. But he wasn't sure about whether he should take the plunge or not. To help steel his nerves, Erotica invited him to join her TeamSpeak server. Fancy Space Tourist recorded the entire event, and posted the recording to SoundCloud. Here's what happened.

At 14:40 in the recording, after supplying Erotica with the necessary API information, Carbuilder had second thoughts about the whole thing. He noticed that there was someone he recognized in the crowded bonus room. By coincidence, Arden Elenduil was there. This prompted a conversation in which Carbuilder explained why he didn't like Arden or what he stood for.

Eventually, however, Carbuilder was coaxed into participating in the bonus round. Thus began the process of Carbuilder handing over all of his in-game assets, including all of his ships:

By 46:00, Erotica was able to calculate a sizable payout that Carbuilder would soon receive. It suddenly occurred to Erotica that Carbuilder would win even more money if he got his hands on some corp assets and turned those over, as well. But Carbuilder wasn't comfortable with this, since his corp was still upset about "the MinerBumping shit". Carbuilder went into greater detail about the incident covered by the MinerBumping post. He revealed that he was actually in control of the Hulk when Arden destroyed it. He confessed that his corp engaged in systematic acts of account sharing. Erotica recommended that Carbuilder file a petition to CCP to report his CEO for account sharing. However, Carbuilder said that it was only "a one-time thing", which he did because he needed PLEX.

By 1:01:45, Carbuilder was ready to receive his payout. Erotica explained that there were a few traditions for bonus room winners, including the singing of a song. Reasonable enough. But Carbuilder was reluctant to sing, because his wife and three small children would overhear him. Undaunted, Erotica urged the other bonus room occupants to find an appropriate song for Carbuilder to sing.

At 1:08:50, Carbuilder was asked to sing the theme song to "My Little Pony". No brony, Carbuilder hotly refused. As a grown man, he was disgusted by the idea, especially since his family would hear it. As a compromise, Erotica asked him to read, aloud, a Wikipedia article about Saint Olga of Kiev, a fascinating woman who lived in the tenth century. Carbuilder agreed, and it took several minutes for him to get through it.

At 1:19:00, Carbuilder finished reading the article, but once again refused to honour Erotica's rules and sing a song. In response to Erotica's request, Carbuilder offered a brief summary of how he had given away all of his in-game assets. He confessed that with his bonus room winnings, he would buy a few months of PLEX. Erotica then asked Carbuilder to entertain a hypothetical situation: What would he do if it was all just a scam?

"Just log out of EVE and never log back in, 'cause I don't have nothin' left."

Erotica reassured Carbuilder by telling him that he would still win big, if only he would sing a song, as the rules required him to do. Carbuilder grew silent. He explained that his wife was "chewing him out" for making a fool of himself. Sadly, he would not comply with the rules, and all of his assets were forfeit.

Finally, Erotica 1 reminded Carbuilder that she was the New Order's biggest shareholder, which Carbuilder already knew. She asked if he would give his permission for the recording of the day's events to be posted on MinerBumping. Carbuilder refused. Luckily, Fancy Space Tourist, the owner of the recording, was more than happy to have it linked here.

In the end, we all learned something, I think. The Red Pen is a pretty big deal. Those who follow rules are richly rewarded. Those who prefer to break rules--whether the rules of the EULA, the Code, or of Erotica 1's bonus room--end up like Carbuilder Hemah. Dear reader, are you a rule-follower or a rule-breaker?

Training Day

Don't let the title of this post mislead you. This isn't a post about skill training; it's about how to train miners to mine properly.

I came across an ice miner in highsec. She appeared oblivious to my presence. Another teachable moment!

The new recruit started chatting from her alt, telling me what to do. Rookies, am I right?

As the locals became aware that the Sultan of Bump was in the system, they gathered around to ask questions about the Code. I guess they've learned by now that you can't trust a space lawyer to interpret the rules. You need an expert.

Never underestimate the importance of the face-to-face interaction. Ninety-nine percent of questions about the Code are answerable simply by reading the Code. But people always want to hear it from a person.

My approach is simple and compassionate. I give them the answer, if I feel like it, and afterward I remind them to reread their copy of the Code.

It amuses me when miners think they can tell me how to do my job. After all, I don't tell them how to mine. Although, I do tell them how to mine. That's part of my job.

It takes two things to be a good highsec detective: Instincts and experience. I've got both, so when I bump someone, you can reasonably assume the perp is guilty.

...Case in point.

It's a classic trope to have the hero walk into the sunset after he saves the day. In EVE, you can spin the camera angle around and have your ship fly toward the system's star whenever you want. This is useful for me, because I often save the day multiple times within a 24-hour period.

Meanwhile, space lawyer-aspirant Arcaliel Veryamahtar wanted me to run through hypotheticals.

As long as they're reasonable, I'm not unwilling to entertain these kinds of scenarios.

I think people make a mistake when they consider theoretical life-and-death choices between following the Code or saving their roommate's life. By all means, leave your keyboard for a few seconds and save someone's life. But you've still violated the Code, and you still owe me 10 million isk. Afterward, you can ask me for a pardon, or you can ask your roommate to reimburse you.

The phrase "tough, but fair" gets thrown around a lot when people describe me. Actually, I'm a big ol' softy. I don't Red Pen nearly as many miners as I could.

That having been said, I am the Father of the New Order. Miners can't give excuses for not noticing my presence in a belt, like they could with some of the lesser-known or new Agents.

I still remember what it was like to be a new player, so I always take great care when dealing with them. I want them to feel welcome in highsec. So I say "welcome", and I send them a link to a website where they can download a copy of the Code for free.

How to Fix Supercaps

As highsec's head of state, I'm often called upon to give advice to my neighbors in lowsec, nullsec, and wormsec. In anticipation of being asked to give advice on how supercaps (titans and supercarriers) should be rebalanced, I wrote an essay on the subject for TheMittani.com.

A couple weeks before war broke out between the CFC and TEST/N3/NCdot/PL, I also wrote an article for TheMittani.com about the myth of the "blue doughnut", for which I neglected to provide a link here. As always, links to all of my TheMittani.com articles are available on our multipurpose Links page.

Just in case you need a little extra James 315 in your day! (And honestly, who doesn't?)

Bio Shock: CCP Responds to the Controversy

It's the question that everyone in EVE has been asking.

Several days ago, the EVE community was stunned the revelation that CCP deleted my bio. There was nothing offensive or out of the ordinary about my bio. I had not changed it recently; it was the same bio I'd had for several months. Since my character profile is among the more widely-viewed profiles in EVE (given my status as a rock star), a lot of people were confused. So I went straight to the source, and filed a petition in response to GM The Doctor's notification about the bio deletion.

GM Pyro took up the matter and read me in. It all started a month ago, when the New Order was euphorically celebrating its one-year anniversary. It was a simpler time. The New Order was on top of the world, indulging in fast bumps, fast ganks, and fast permit fees. It was a time when anything seemed possible.

As part of the celebration, I wrote a post about the secret origins of the New Order. In that post, I unlocked secrets that had remained hidden for an entire year--secrets, some said, that should have stayed buried. The post highlighted screenshots of the exchange that took place between myself and GM Banana on the eve of the creation of the New Order and its blessed Code. MinerBumping readers were awed and amazed. What they saw there reinforced the idea that the New Order was propelled by destiny.

Fast-forward to a few weeks later. Some anonymous individual filed a petition, notifying CCP that a MinerBumping post contained screenshots of GM communications. Actually, MinerBumping has a history of being read by GMs and CCP employees, and it's not unlikely that they were already aware of the post. But because it was now the subject of a petition, they couldn't turn a blind eye. They investigated the matter.

This wasn't the first time that CCP had been asked to investigate a MinerBumping post, and it wouldn't be the last. When a GM accesses MinerBumping directly from their petition-reading website (i.e. when someone links the site in a petition and the GM clicks on it), it sometimes shows up in MinerBumping's blogger traffic referral stats. However, this was the first time CCP acted on one of those petitions.

As anyone who reads EVE-O is probably aware, CCP is very persnickety when it comes to the publication of GMs' responses to petitions. On EVE-O, they'll delete the quotes. Sometimes this makes it a bit tricky to know exactly what the policy is on something, because you can't use past GM decisions as precedent. Last year, carebears spent months petitioning about bumping. The petitions were rejected, but no one could quote the rejections, so the carebears just kept on petitioning until the GMs came out publicly with an official answer. (The carebears continued petitioning after that, of course.)

Though you won't read GM communications on EVE-O, you can occasionally read them on third-party sites. CCP doesn't typically take action to censor anything outside of their own websites. For example, there's nothing to stop you from reading the famous exchange between Remedial (the founder of Goonfleet) and GM Sunshine (who was complaining about spam in local). If you were so inclined, you could even read copious private logs of CCP and CSM7, because one of the CSM7 members leaked them. Nevertheless, publishing GMs' responses to petitions is theoretically against the EULA, regardless of where they're published.

My decision to post screenshots of the pre-New Order exchange with GM Banana was pretty straightforward. The exchange was a year old, and was of historical interest to the New Order and MinerBumping community. There was nothing confidential revealed in the conversation, and GM Banana didn't say anything that reflected poorly upon CCP. (Arguably, the thoroughness of his answers reflected well on the effort he put into the job.) Nor was there any issue with his words being used as precedent, since the bumping issue had become public and the GM team made an official ruling on it.

But after reviewing the matter, the GMs decided that it was a violation of the EULA for me to publish those screenshots, and I was given a warning. Now, as anyone who spends any time with me or my Agents knows, I have the utmost respect for the EULA. I would never do anything to break the rules; I have too much honour. As Father of the New Order and Saviour of Highsec, whenever I interact with other EVE players, I make certain to treat them properly, and I don't do anything that would come even close to a "gray area". My Agents are the same. Aside from a handful of warnings that I've gotten over the years for things outside the scope of this topic, I never run afoul of CCP.

So I'm not saying that it was acceptable for me to violate the EULA. What I'm saying is, when the Saviour of Highsec does it, that means that it is not a violation.

GM The Doctor probably realized that it wouldn't do him much good to simply give me a warning for publishing the GM communications. It's not as though there's more than one "secret origin" of the New Order. So he took it a step further. He retaliated by deleting my beloved bio. According to GM Pyro, the reason that my bio was deleted is that it contained a link to MinerBumping. This may come as a surprise to my readers, since MinerBumping is linked all over the place. It's probably the most frequently-linked website in bios across EVE. GM Pyro told me that once I deleted the screenshots of the GM communications, I would be cleared to link MinerBumping again.

At this point, I filed another response, officially requesting permission to publish the GM communications, based on the same reasoning I described earlier. This request became the subject of intense debate at the highest levels. Unfortunately, GM Pyro had to inform me that after consultation with multiple senior GMs, the request was denied.

This put everyone's favorite blog into a precarious position. Though only one post out of several hundred contained an alleged EULA violation, the whole website was suspect. The fact that I had a link to MinerBumping in my bio got the entire bio deleted, not just the link. If I deleted the screenshots, all would be well. If I didn't, MinerBumping would become a rogue website, and I could be permabanned for linking it again.

Though I'm not convinced that I actually broke the rules, and though I am convinced that CCP made the wrong decision, I decided to restore MinerBumping's squeaky-clean EULA status by removing the screenshots in question. Since this issue arose only after the "secret origins" post had been up for a couple weeks, most everyone who was going to read the post has already read it anyway. For those who didn't read the post, you have even more reason to envy those who have been reading MinerBumping longer than you.

Am I thrilled by this development? Of course not. Each MinerBumping post is a precious child, not unlike a highsec miner, and I hate to delete anything. I intend to reopen this matter again, once tempers have cooled a little, and am confident that CCP will eventually see reason. At the end of the day, the decision I made was based upon my principles for founding the New Order. I am not driven by pride, or ego, or the desire for fame or fortune. The New Order exists to help people. It's my belief that by restoring MinerBumping's status, I will be able to reach and help more highsec miners than I would if I were placed under additional restrictions or permabanned.

Then there's the matter of the anonymous individual who filed the petition in the first place. Years ago, CCP t20 was caught spawning tech II BPOs and giving them to members of the Band of Brothers alliance in exchange for promoting his alt to command of BoB's capital fleet. CCP t20's alt was known by BoB leadership to be a member of CCP, because he registered for the BoB forums with his CCP e-mail. They were completely aware of the cheating. Nearly all of them kept this secret, but one anonymous whistle-blower reported him. CCP t20 wasn't punished (then), but his alt was removed from BoB. CCP t20 went to EVE-O and complained about this and made his own version of an old World War II-era "somebody talked!" poster. CCP t20 then used the resources at his disposal to attempt to identify the whistle-blower so that he could retaliate, but he failed.

I'm not going to do that today. I don't engage in witch-hunts or perpetrate petty acts of vengeance. Instead, I would like to ask that the petitioner come forward of his or her own free will and apologize, and pay me the 30 million isk Red Pen fee that he or she now owes. I don't want anyone to have to live with the guilt that they no doubt feel.

Finally, my bio. It was destroyed in a terrible, senseless attack. People of highsec, I share your grief. But this isn't the old highsec. We belong to the New Order. When we are unjustly persecuted, we don't give up. We overcome. We prevail. We rebuild. In due time, my bio will be rebuilt, bigger and more beautiful than ever before, so that future generations will be able to look at it and say, "Yes. He made a brand new bio after they deleted the old one."

Thank you.

Strike First, Strike Hard

Feast your eyes upon Casanunda's latest masterpiece, a work of art that's sure to become an iconic image:

Click here for full-size version

Isn't that beautiful? Yes, it is. And if that only whetted your appetite, we've got some bonus art: Seven Koskanaiken passed along an ad from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Asteroids. Ordinarily I would have a preview image here, but this particular piece of art is potentially not safe for work, or "NSFW" as the kids say. Personally I don't see the problem; I would think that anything on MinerBumping could only boost one's productivity. Still, I don't want anyone to lose a legitimate income source and resort to RMT. So you can click here for full-size version.

Permanent links to all supporter artwork may be found on the Links page.

One Hundred Eight Billion in Shares Sold

In celebration of the one millionth hit to MinerBumping, Cato XIII swooped in like a superhero and purchased 1,000 shares. That brings us over the 108 billion isk mark. Cato earns an appropriately-timed Supreme Protector's Tip of the Hat™ as a result. That's what the New Order is all about: Ordinary people doing extraordinary things. What an inspiration.

The Lost Legion, Part 4

Previously, on MinerBumping... Aliosis II of the elite nullsec alliance Black Legion. had an alt declare war against me for bumping his miners. In a deft stroke, I won the war, but Aliosis didn't seem to be aware of it. I told him that I voided his wardec by closing and reopening my corp. Aliosis logged another alt, one he claimed had valuable information from a GM...

Out of nowhere, another corp declared war against me. As far as I could tell, the belligerent corp didn't have any association with Aliosis or his alt.

With split-second timing, I performed a hair-raising maneuver. It was high risk, high reward: I won the war, and the Experimental Fun Times Corp rose like a phoenix from its ashes. It was the eleventh war won--550 million hostile wardec fees down the drain.

I demanded to know who was behind the latest act of aggression, but it only got me another petition threat from a random local.

Things were heating up. It looked like another late night for the overworked GM staff. The New Order is good for Iceland's economy, though--they'll need to open up a new branch at CCP just to handle all of the New Order-related paperwork.

Out of nowhere, a gentleman named Peter Fajl appeared, vowing to get me expelled from the EVE galaxy for good.

Peter was the CEO of Dirty Bastards, the corporation that Aliosis had gotten to wardec me in the first place. Judging by Peter and Aliosis' character portraits, they were one and the same.

I couldn't help but notice that Dirty Bastards had closed and reopened its own doors a few times over the last year and a half. Carebear hypocrisy at its finest.

At my urging, Peter went into a little more detail about the "exploit" that I had allegedly used. He couldn't understand how my corp had "surrendered" without his permission. I guess he didn't realize whom he was dealing with. I'm the Saviour of Highsec. I don't ask for permission, I take what's mine.

I invited Peter to a private convo so we could discuss our problems in a more casual setting, but he was a man on a mission. He immediately closed the chat and resumed work on his petition.

Finally, Peter announced that he had completed the missive. Now it was up to CCP.

I've occasionally gotten good results by asking carebears to forward me a copy of their petitions, but Peter was like a rock. He wouldn't budge.

Meanwhile, I tried talking to Aliosis directly, but we were no longer on speaking terms for some reason. It may have had something to do with a wardec that didn't go well for him, I don't know.

After a long time, a lightbulb went off. He finally got it. For any aspiring Agents out there, this is the moral of the story: You may encounter a "problem" student who doesn't seem capable of learning. Don't you believe it. If you keep at it, eventually you'll achieve a breakthrough. Sometimes the slowest pupils can be the most rewarding to teach. No miner left behind.