A few things- Concerning NPH, up until the stoneforge/jace ban, there wasn't much room for any of the rares from the set in standard outside of batterskull. There was more buzz locally at least over the "free spell" uncommons that cost 1 phyrexian mana, and dismember. So, technically, yeah, the spoilers hurt, because people who otherwise might have bought/preordered sealed product didn't do so, however, it wasn't simply the spoilers that caused this to happen, it was the spoiling of a set whose rares didn't seem poised to compete with the overwhelmingly dominant deck of the time. A deck which had many people completely uninterested in playing even local tournament magic for the first time since ravager affinity.
On the subject of the intellectual property discussion, yes, WotC owns it and has the right to go after those who would use their work to profit. No, they are not in the right for going after people who discuss or simply are privy to information that will soon be public knowledge when those people have signed no NDA or otherwise agreed to keep that information under wraps. Leaks are not the responsibility of the judges or the players unless they were given access to the information directly from Wizards/Hasbro/whatever printing/distribution companies they are using keeping in mind that such granted access always comes with some from of NDA.
I will reply in the form of a spoiler as this is side tracking the thread from the suspension of judges to sales.
Oh I see.
*Facepalm*
1) WotC thinks their marketing is well-planned and the community will react exactly as WotC wished.
2) Players should be responsible as not to view leaks ahead of spoiler season.
3) Judges should be responsible to prevent leaks.
WotC NEED to control and prevent information theft on their end and not punish their consumers. Players and judges are not under WotC's code of conduct as we are not employees of WotC. Will WotC take legal actions against websites which released the leaks next? Will WotC take legal actions against players who viewed the leaks and participate in sanctioned tournaments next?
"An employee of WotC is walking around naked"
What WotC says to 'players': Dont look!
What WotC says to 'judges': Clothed him!
What 'players' and 'judges' should say to WotC: Maybe you should stop your employee from walking around naked?
Now, what WotC says to 'judges': Its your fault not preventing my employee from walking around naked.
Wizards' saying that leaks hurt NPH's sales is a bit of word smithing, I think.
To the best of my knowledge, when one is considering releasing a new product, one can make sales forecasts to try to predict how many units will sell and how much money will be made. This is just a forecast. For Wizards to state that the leaks hurt NPH's sales, that would only mean that Wizards didn't meet their forecasts. It's unclear if actual sales would have been lower. The best Wizards can say is "it appears that leaks may have had an impact on actual sales, because actual sales were lower than our forecasts. We base this conclusion on post-launch customer surveys which indicated that the cards were not 'exciting' to them after they saw the leaked cards."
To really validate "leaks hurt sales" for Wizards, there would have be a real statistical experiment with a control group and that experiment would have to be repeated many times. Even then, the experiment would be difficult, since it involves people with biases and emotions, so a group reacting or not reacting to a product may not be a true indicator of the population at large.
---------
The bottom line is that Wizards has become extremely good at wording their written statements in such a way to imply an outcome or illicit a response, when the actual data is not revealed or says otherwise.
I do not get this New Phyrexia hit-by-low-sales thing. At the time Esdevium (te main UK distributor) sold out for about 2 weeks. We had to draft other sets as we could not get NPH in. The Euro resellers sold out too. They did restock, getting hold of NPH a year later was much harder than MBS or SCARS, which lingered with resellers and wholesalers much, much longer.
Maybe it was a US based low-sales thing, or a pre-release numbers thing, but if sales were lower than expected over here, then actually having no product to sell may have played a part.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
I don't think that anyone is saying WotC did it out of spite; I think everyone is saying (myself included) that WotC is so out of touch with reality that they legitimately don't understand why a group of dedicated unpaid volunteers should not be expected to act as their own internet police force.
Especially after they just made their rewards for doing so much much less.
I do not get this New Phyrexia hit-by-low-sales thing. At the time Esdevium (te main UK distributor) sold out for about 2 weeks. We had to draft other sets as we could not get NPH in. The Euro resellers sold out too. They did restock, getting hold of NPH a year later was much harder than MBS or SCARS, which lingered with resellers and wholesalers much, much longer.
Maybe it was a US based low-sales thing, or a pre-release numbers thing, but if sales were lower than expected over here, then actually having no product to sell may have played a part.
That can be more supply chain issue though. Look at the BFZ release in EU.
The sense of entitlement in this thread is absurd. Wizards has intellectual property that they have every right to protect. Removing associations with people who knowingly violate the confidentiality of that IP (regardless if those people are volunteers or paid employees) is well within their rights.
I ... don't think that is what any *reasonable* person has issue with. Really. My impression is that the issue lies with how big a net they cast, that some of those caught in the net may have had nothing to do with that. That's something I don't think should be taken lightly, and can be taken seriously while still taking leaks seriously/going after actual leakers.
Not to mention the perception that is now propagating, accurate or not, of "WotC will suspend you anyways, even if you are reporting the leak." That cat is out of the bag, and pretty damming, IMO. Again, this is irrespective of if it is an accurate perception or not .
Did they form for anything beyond the bottom line?
This rhetorical question you ask cuts strongly against the argument you are making as well as highlighting that you missed the point of the post you replied to. You are saying that this is some extreme overreaction that WotC clearly hasn't thought through. But, as you so graciously pointed out, Wizards still has a bottom line to meet. So, this decision most likely went through a lot of people and looked at their bottom line. In the end, the company did what it though best for its own bottom line, again, as you so graciously intoned. Whether it actually is the best choice remains to be seen, but Wizards is a successful business, so my pre-information hunch is that long-term this was the right thing for Wizards. Maybe not, but saying the sky is falling and this is Wizards making terrible business decisions still has a long time to prove.
1) WotC thinks their marketing is well-planned and the community will react exactly as WotC wished.
2) Players should be responsible as not to view leaks ahead of spoiler season.
3) Judges should be responsible to prevent leaks.
1) Wotc pus a lot of time, effort and money into their marketing plans. Spoiling cards means all/part of what they put into their plan was just wasted.
2) No clue where this comes from (I haven't read everything in this thread or about this case).
3) It seems that WotC wants judges to report leaks to to them rather than doing nothing an letting them spread. There a big difference between that and asking judges to prevent leaks.
I’ve been following this for awhile now, on twitter, reddit, here, etc. Here is my opinion:
1. The long suspensions given to two judges for directly disseminating proprietary information were completely justified;
2. The 3 month suspensions given to many judges that Wizards believes did not disseminate proprietary information were unjustified.
3. The lack of transparency on this matter is highly irritating and unfair to the community, especially to the judges.
#1 is pretty clear, no need to really discuss it.
#3 is also pretty clear. Wizards hasn’t exactly been a paragon of transparency.
#2 is the main problem. The statement from the Judge Manager to the judges explained- “Individuals believed to not be directly distributing proprietary and confidential information were given shorter suspensions as opposed to longer suspensions provided to individuals who we found were directly engaged in distributing materials to third parties.”
We cannot infer with certainty that these judges did not directly disseminate proprietary information, but Wizards overtly stated it believed these individuals did not do so. Therefore, Wizards’ reason for suspending them must have been something else. Initially, this reason was not transparently communicated.
Later, Helene Bergeot, Director of Global Organized Play at Wizards, updated Wizards’ initial statement to help clarify. Here are the relevant portions regarding the suspensions from her post.
“One of the concerns in the community about these suspensions is that many people see and discuss cards and other information prior to official release. Discussing information that has reached the wider community is not the issue, and discussing or accessing threads you see on public internet forums will not result in sanctions. That is not what occurred here.
The people suspended were members of a private group receiving stolen confidential information about upcoming sets before this information was available in any public forum on the internet. This happened over multiple sets and well ahead of preview season for the sets in question. Viewing never-before-seen Magic cards in a private group — and not seeing these cards anywhere else on the internet — should be a red flag that the information you see is likely stolen. If you come across information like this, you should immediately report it to Wizards. Major leaks in the past have been prevented by other members of our community reporting similar situations to Wizards.”
Thus, these judges were banned for not reporting the leaks they were privy to in their private forum.
I’m not here to argue whether Wizards can ban people for this- Wizards can ban people if it feels like it. That does not mean it should.
The issue I have with allowing the lack of reporting a leak in a private forum to warrant suspension is that this may have extremely problematic implications. Wizards is placing an affirmative burden on all players to report leaks, or face suspension. Yes, all players- Helene tweeted out that “judge status” had no bearing on the suspensions whatsoever. So this applies to all of us.
So, anytime we see a card, we must ask ourselves:
1. Is this a private forum?
We haven’t been given a clear definition on this. Does “private” mean merely that there is restricted access? Would a restricted access forum consisting of 300,000 members qualify as “private”, or is there some quantity limitation to the “wider community?”
2. Is this proprietary information, i.e. “never-before-seen” and not seen “anywhere else on the internet?”
So, we must scour the internet in order to determine that this information has not already found its way to the “wider community.” What if the information was posted on reddit and then redacted. Does this still qualify?
Now in practice, the whole private forum thing is a nonissue. If you see a spoiler on say, MTGS, reddit, twitter, etc., you are clearly dealing with the “wider community.” And if not, it would be wise to assume the opposite conclusion- that your forum is private.
So, anytime we see a spoiler in one of these “private forums” we now have an obligation to go check the internet to see if the information is already out there. And if it is not, then we must report to Wizards or possibly face a suspension. Even without complete knowledge that the information was indeed illegitimately obtained.
Have you ever seen an email with a privacy disclaimer at the bottom? Those ones commonly found at the bottom of emails from attorneys or higher-level corporate employees- here is an example of the typical language:
Information in this transmission is intended only for the person(s) to whom it is addressed and may contain privileged and/or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying or dissemination of the information is unauthorized and you should delete/destroy all copies and notify the sender.
The difference is that upon receiving such an email you immediately know with certainty that there is confidential information. In our case, we have the added responsibility of making sure that such information is indeed confidential/privileged first. Every single time.
The reasoning for this added burden? “Viewing never-before-seen Magic cards in a private group — and not seeing these cards anywhere else on the internet — should be a red flag that the information you see is likely stolen.” - From Helene's article on the mothership.
I’m sorry, but the assumption underlying the reasoning above isn’t persuasive enough to justify requiring me take time out of my schedule every time I see a spoiler in a private forum. If I am certain I have obtained proprietary information through an illegitimate means, then sure. Anything less than certainty seems too high a burden on the community.
This sort of thing really makes me question whether or not wizards still deserves my money. As a player who will probably feel the effect of these bannings I just have to shake my head about their increasingly questionable corporate policies. Having over 20 years invested in this game makes it difficult to do anything else though.
"The people suspended were members of a private group receiving stolen confidential information about upcoming sets before this information was available in any public forum on the internet."
1) Who stole and distributed the 'confidential information' to the judges only? Were they punished? Reasons?
Not relevant to the suspended judges, and potentially a criminal investigation so they can't talk about it.
"This happened over multiple sets and well ahead of preview season for the sets in question."
"The issue with the passive participants is not a one-time affair; this information was shared within the group for multiple expansions."
1) WotC was ignorant about all the previous leaks?
2) Why is WotC executing those involved now? Are the previous leaks acceptable?
Their investigations in the past haven't brought enough evidence to light to take action before now.
Are you saying that because they didn't act in the past with zero evidence, they shouldn't now when they have some?
"Major leaks in the past have been prevented by other members of our community reporting similar situations to Wizards."
1) Seriously.. I feel WotC is doing a sloppy job at preventing stolen / leaked information, counting the known / prevented leaks which reached a private public domain. What is WotC doing to prevent information theft then?
Tons. If they were doing nothing they wouldn't have NDAs with people they spoil cards to, they wouldn't have any security on their web servers, etc...
If you feel they're being sloppy you don't know what corporate espionage is like.
"An additional concern raised by some individuals is that the suspended parties were not contacted for a statement."
1) Is it that hard to setup an online chat group to understand the stories on the judges' side?
2) I feel WotC is simply doing whatever feels right in this situation as it can.
Yes, it's hard to have a calm discussion over a text based media when something like this happens.
They're doing what is reasonable to do with IP theft.
Seriously, I feel WotC's interactions with the community are dumb. (similar to certain dictatorship state(s))
Even this clarification feels like bits and pieces of information.
I aint siding with either side but WotC could have done better in my opinion. (instead of 'leaks = poor sales', but 'banned judges = less events = ?good sales?)
Of course it's bits and pieces of information. Just like the banned people shouldn't talk about everything prior to the appeals process, WotC shouldn't either.
And they might not be able to for legal reasons anyway.
I quoted one person, but multiple people have had the reaction of "Well, if this leaked they suck at protecting their stuff and deserve it." which is so far from true it's almost delusional.
So, anytime we see a spoiler in one of these “private forums” we now have an obligation to go check the internet to see if the information is already out there. And if it is not, then we must report to Wizards or possibly face a suspension. Even without complete knowledge that the information was indeed illegitimately obtained.
Have you ever seen an email with a privacy disclaimer at the bottom? Those ones commonly found at the bottom of emails from attorneys or higher-level corporate employees- here is an example of the typical language:
Information in this transmission is intended only for the person(s) to whom it is addressed and may contain privileged and/or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying or dissemination of the information is unauthorized and you should delete/destroy all copies and notify the sender.
The difference is that upon receiving such an email you immediately know with certainty that there is confidential information. In our case, we have the added responsibility of making sure that such information is indeed confidential/privileged first. Every single time.
The reasoning for this added burden? “Viewing never-before-seen Magic cards in a private group — and not seeing these cards anywhere else on the internet — should be a red flag that the information you see is likely stolen.” - From Helene's article on the mothership.
I’m sorry, but the assumption underlying the reasoning above isn’t persuasive enough to justify requiring me take time out of my schedule every time I see a spoiler in a private forum. If I am certain I have obtained proprietary information through an illegitimate means, then sure. Anything less than certainty seems too high a burden on the community.
It should be noted that those email disclaimers are not binding, and do not protect you if you send confidential information to the wrong person. You are still responsible for the protection of the contained data if you are transmitting confidential information.
That said, it strikes me as odd that not only do they seem to believe that the "if you see something, say something" mentality is going to suddenly manifest in a community that constantly craves spoilers, but that suspending those who have seen something (even if they alert the authorities) is going to somehow help their cause.
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If information is leaked and we find it, the onus is not on us for viewing it, but that does not make the leak wrong. As a private business, WotC is within their rights to keep their information confidential, and we are by no means "entitled" to know information before they want it released. If you really want to support the attitude that having all information at once is better for sales, I can give you the all the plot points to Star Wars the Force Awakens right now and see if I do a better job exciting you about seeing it that the marketing did.
Wizards should punish those responsible for releasing confidential information early, whether judge, printer, office staff, or janitor, because it is foolish for any of us to believe that they give access to that material without the quid pro quo that it not be distributed. What is really at issue in this instance is the number of people who have been punished that might have only been tangentially involved at best, if at all, in the cards being made public.
As a community, the battle we should be picking is for the judges who were punished by association.
I'm fine with the sanctions as they've been described, and as for the "collateral damage," I'm fine with that too. Three months is practically nothing. Having said that, Wizards clearly needs to work on keeping a tighter lid on their information.
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Can you name all of the creature types with at least 20 cards? Try my Sporcle Quiz! Last Updated: 6/29/20 (Core Set 2021).
I'm fine with the sanctions as they've been described, and as for the "collateral damage," I'm fine with that too. Three months is practically nothing. Having said that, Wizards clearly needs to work on keeping a tighter lid on their information.
Some have been suspended for two years or more. Three months was the minimum suspension. They're being treated like a player who got caught cheating at a GP.
I'm fine with the sanctions as they've been described, and as for the "collateral damage," I'm fine with that too. Three months is practically nothing. Having said that, Wizards clearly needs to work on keeping a tighter lid on their information.
Some have been suspended for two years or more. Three months was the minimum suspension. They're being treated like a player who got caught cheating at a GP.
No, I get it. The ones that actually did the leaking get 2 or 3 years while the ones that "had no idea, but were still in the group" got three months (hence the "collateral damage" part of the original post). I'm 100% fine with all of that. In essence, they were in possession of stolen property, and I can't think of a plausible defense. They knew they weren't allowed to have it. Actions can and should have consequences, as far as I'm concerned.
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Can you name all of the creature types with at least 20 cards? Try my Sporcle Quiz! Last Updated: 6/29/20 (Core Set 2021).
I think that it'd be hilarious (in a sick sort of way) if this ended up being a marketing maneuver. "Hey kids, spoilers hurt our sales! OGW just had some massive spoilers released, and we don't like it. In fact, we're thrashing around like a Wumpus trying to quash the leak. If you don't like the direction in which we're headed, vote with your wallets - make OGW the best-selling set of all time, so that we can realize that spoilers actually improve our sales!"
Definitely not funny to the people involved, but if Marketing plays up "being the bad guy" enough, they might actually make it work. They'd just need someone to plant the idea in the community.
leaks wouldn't/would less occur if they released cards earlier.
How is that even relevant? And no, they'd still occur at the same rate. There are official spoilers every what, 2 months now? 3? And that's too long to wait? Get over yourself.
Leaks occur because they take long time to release cards.
Entitlement at it's best.
You heard it here folks - companies aren't allowed to keep anything secret for any amount of time.
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On the subject of the intellectual property discussion, yes, WotC owns it and has the right to go after those who would use their work to profit. No, they are not in the right for going after people who discuss or simply are privy to information that will soon be public knowledge when those people have signed no NDA or otherwise agreed to keep that information under wraps. Leaks are not the responsibility of the judges or the players unless they were given access to the information directly from Wizards/Hasbro/whatever printing/distribution companies they are using keeping in mind that such granted access always comes with some from of NDA.
Oh I see.
*Facepalm*
1) WotC thinks their marketing is well-planned and the community will react exactly as WotC wished.
2) Players should be responsible as not to view leaks ahead of spoiler season.
3) Judges should be responsible to prevent leaks.
WotC NEED to control and prevent information theft on their end and not punish their consumers. Players and judges are not under WotC's code of conduct as we are not employees of WotC. Will WotC take legal actions against websites which released the leaks next? Will WotC take legal actions against players who viewed the leaks and participate in sanctioned tournaments next?
"An employee of WotC is walking around naked"
What WotC says to 'players': Dont look!
What WotC says to 'judges': Clothed him!
What 'players' and 'judges' should say to WotC: Maybe you should stop your employee from walking around naked?
Now, what WotC says to 'judges': Its your fault not preventing my employee from walking around naked.
To the best of my knowledge, when one is considering releasing a new product, one can make sales forecasts to try to predict how many units will sell and how much money will be made. This is just a forecast. For Wizards to state that the leaks hurt NPH's sales, that would only mean that Wizards didn't meet their forecasts. It's unclear if actual sales would have been lower. The best Wizards can say is "it appears that leaks may have had an impact on actual sales, because actual sales were lower than our forecasts. We base this conclusion on post-launch customer surveys which indicated that the cards were not 'exciting' to them after they saw the leaked cards."
To really validate "leaks hurt sales" for Wizards, there would have be a real statistical experiment with a control group and that experiment would have to be repeated many times. Even then, the experiment would be difficult, since it involves people with biases and emotions, so a group reacting or not reacting to a product may not be a true indicator of the population at large.
---------
The bottom line is that Wizards has become extremely good at wording their written statements in such a way to imply an outcome or illicit a response, when the actual data is not revealed or says otherwise.
Maybe it was a US based low-sales thing, or a pre-release numbers thing, but if sales were lower than expected over here, then actually having no product to sell may have played a part.
Especially after they just made their rewards for doing so much much less.
That can be more supply chain issue though. Look at the BFZ release in EU.
I ... don't think that is what any *reasonable* person has issue with. Really. My impression is that the issue lies with how big a net they cast, that some of those caught in the net may have had nothing to do with that. That's something I don't think should be taken lightly, and can be taken seriously while still taking leaks seriously/going after actual leakers.
Not to mention the perception that is now propagating, accurate or not, of "WotC will suspend you anyways, even if you are reporting the leak." That cat is out of the bag, and pretty damming, IMO. Again, this is irrespective of if it is an accurate perception or not .
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1) Wotc pus a lot of time, effort and money into their marketing plans. Spoiling cards means all/part of what they put into their plan was just wasted.
2) No clue where this comes from (I haven't read everything in this thread or about this case).
3) It seems that WotC wants judges to report leaks to to them rather than doing nothing an letting them spread. There a big difference between that and asking judges to prevent leaks.
1. The long suspensions given to two judges for directly disseminating proprietary information were completely justified;
2. The 3 month suspensions given to many judges that Wizards believes did not disseminate proprietary information were unjustified.
3. The lack of transparency on this matter is highly irritating and unfair to the community, especially to the judges.
#1 is pretty clear, no need to really discuss it.
#3 is also pretty clear. Wizards hasn’t exactly been a paragon of transparency.
#2 is the main problem. The statement from the Judge Manager to the judges explained- “Individuals believed to not be directly distributing proprietary and confidential information were given shorter suspensions as opposed to longer suspensions provided to individuals who we found were directly engaged in distributing materials to third parties.”
We cannot infer with certainty that these judges did not directly disseminate proprietary information, but Wizards overtly stated it believed these individuals did not do so. Therefore, Wizards’ reason for suspending them must have been something else. Initially, this reason was not transparently communicated.
Later, Helene Bergeot, Director of Global Organized Play at Wizards, updated Wizards’ initial statement to help clarify. Here are the relevant portions regarding the suspensions from her post.
“One of the concerns in the community about these suspensions is that many people see and discuss cards and other information prior to official release. Discussing information that has reached the wider community is not the issue, and discussing or accessing threads you see on public internet forums will not result in sanctions. That is not what occurred here.
The people suspended were members of a private group receiving stolen confidential information about upcoming sets before this information was available in any public forum on the internet. This happened over multiple sets and well ahead of preview season for the sets in question. Viewing never-before-seen Magic cards in a private group — and not seeing these cards anywhere else on the internet — should be a red flag that the information you see is likely stolen. If you come across information like this, you should immediately report it to Wizards. Major leaks in the past have been prevented by other members of our community reporting similar situations to Wizards.”
Thus, these judges were banned for not reporting the leaks they were privy to in their private forum.
I’m not here to argue whether Wizards can ban people for this- Wizards can ban people if it feels like it. That does not mean it should.
The issue I have with allowing the lack of reporting a leak in a private forum to warrant suspension is that this may have extremely problematic implications. Wizards is placing an affirmative burden on all players to report leaks, or face suspension. Yes, all players- Helene tweeted out that “judge status” had no bearing on the suspensions whatsoever. So this applies to all of us.
So, anytime we see a card, we must ask ourselves:
1. Is this a private forum?
We haven’t been given a clear definition on this. Does “private” mean merely that there is restricted access? Would a restricted access forum consisting of 300,000 members qualify as “private”, or is there some quantity limitation to the “wider community?”
2. Is this proprietary information, i.e. “never-before-seen” and not seen “anywhere else on the internet?”
So, we must scour the internet in order to determine that this information has not already found its way to the “wider community.” What if the information was posted on reddit and then redacted. Does this still qualify?
Now in practice, the whole private forum thing is a nonissue. If you see a spoiler on say, MTGS, reddit, twitter, etc., you are clearly dealing with the “wider community.” And if not, it would be wise to assume the opposite conclusion- that your forum is private.
So, anytime we see a spoiler in one of these “private forums” we now have an obligation to go check the internet to see if the information is already out there. And if it is not, then we must report to Wizards or possibly face a suspension. Even without complete knowledge that the information was indeed illegitimately obtained.
Have you ever seen an email with a privacy disclaimer at the bottom? Those ones commonly found at the bottom of emails from attorneys or higher-level corporate employees- here is an example of the typical language:
Information in this transmission is intended only for the person(s) to whom it is addressed and may contain privileged and/or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying or dissemination of the information is unauthorized and you should delete/destroy all copies and notify the sender.
The difference is that upon receiving such an email you immediately know with certainty that there is confidential information. In our case, we have the added responsibility of making sure that such information is indeed confidential/privileged first. Every single time.
The reasoning for this added burden? “Viewing never-before-seen Magic cards in a private group — and not seeing these cards anywhere else on the internet — should be a red flag that the information you see is likely stolen.” - From Helene's article on the mothership.
I’m sorry, but the assumption underlying the reasoning above isn’t persuasive enough to justify requiring me take time out of my schedule every time I see a spoiler in a private forum. If I am certain I have obtained proprietary information through an illegitimate means, then sure. Anything less than certainty seems too high a burden on the community.
Relevant links:
Statement from the Judge Manager to the suspended judges: https://twitter.com/ahalavais/status/679201528096296961
Helene’s update on the mothership: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/statement-concerning-recent-suspensions-2015-12-21
Helene’s tweet that judge status was irrelevant to the suspensions: https://twitter.com/HeleneBergeot/status/679648429723631616?lang=en
Um, didn't they already do this to Rancored Elf?
Not relevant to the suspended judges, and potentially a criminal investigation so they can't talk about it.
Their investigations in the past haven't brought enough evidence to light to take action before now.
Are you saying that because they didn't act in the past with zero evidence, they shouldn't now when they have some?
Tons. If they were doing nothing they wouldn't have NDAs with people they spoil cards to, they wouldn't have any security on their web servers, etc...
If you feel they're being sloppy you don't know what corporate espionage is like.
Yes, it's hard to have a calm discussion over a text based media when something like this happens.
They're doing what is reasonable to do with IP theft.
Of course it's bits and pieces of information. Just like the banned people shouldn't talk about everything prior to the appeals process, WotC shouldn't either.
And they might not be able to for legal reasons anyway.
I quoted one person, but multiple people have had the reaction of "Well, if this leaked they suck at protecting their stuff and deserve it." which is so far from true it's almost delusional.
It should be noted that those email disclaimers are not binding, and do not protect you if you send confidential information to the wrong person. You are still responsible for the protection of the contained data if you are transmitting confidential information.
That said, it strikes me as odd that not only do they seem to believe that the "if you see something, say something" mentality is going to suddenly manifest in a community that constantly craves spoilers, but that suspending those who have seen something (even if they alert the authorities) is going to somehow help their cause.
One would have thought the results of the God book leak would have been a strong enough precedent imo.
Wizards should punish those responsible for releasing confidential information early, whether judge, printer, office staff, or janitor, because it is foolish for any of us to believe that they give access to that material without the quid pro quo that it not be distributed. What is really at issue in this instance is the number of people who have been punished that might have only been tangentially involved at best, if at all, in the cards being made public.
As a community, the battle we should be picking is for the judges who were punished by association.
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Some have been suspended for two years or more. Three months was the minimum suspension. They're being treated like a player who got caught cheating at a GP.
No, I get it. The ones that actually did the leaking get 2 or 3 years while the ones that "had no idea, but were still in the group" got three months (hence the "collateral damage" part of the original post). I'm 100% fine with all of that. In essence, they were in possession of stolen property, and I can't think of a plausible defense. They knew they weren't allowed to have it. Actions can and should have consequences, as far as I'm concerned.
My 720 Peasant Cube
You mean, like you just did?
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There's a difference. One is official and acceptable, the other isn't - and leaks are what caused the problem here.
How is that even relevant? And no, they'd still occur at the same rate. There are official spoilers every what, 2 months now? 3? And that's too long to wait? Get over yourself.
Entitlement at it's best.
You heard it here folks - companies aren't allowed to keep anything secret for any amount of time.