Shadow of Cerberus EVE Community Forum

QOTW: Don't post angry

Quote of the week honors goes to CCP Logibro, who this week removed CPM member Nova Knife from that body. He had two versions of the post doing so:

First version:

Effective immediately, CPM member Nova Knife has been removed from the Council of Planetary Management. He has been removed for gross incompetence and an inability to professionally and diplomatically work with other council members and CCP.

Second version:

Effective immediately, CPM member Nova Knife has been removed from the Council of Planetary Management. He has been removed due to an inability to professionally and diplomatically work with other council members and CCP.

In a word, whoops! Don't post angry.

A hint about writing: it's nearly never a good idea to go with your first draft. Out of the thousands and thousands of words that I've written on this blog, I've written thousands and thousands more that have never seen and will never see the light of day. Whenever I write a post, particularly a "message" post, I always write it then set it aside and let it ferment for a day or two. Then I pull it back up and I rewrite the thing. In addition, I've written at least a dozen full blog posts that on review, I decided not to publish at all.

Most of these are rejected because on the rewrite they still come off as too aggressive, too negative, or too insulting. As the first version of Logibro's post did. Yes, it came off all three.

Now I've worked with Logibro and there are few nicer people working at CCP. It seems clear that he's taken over for CCP Dolan in the responsibility of overseeing the CPM and he's a logical choice. In particular, he did a fantastic job at the CSM Winter Summit earlier in the year and as a result, got terrific exposure to how a player council should work. So I have no doubts that over time, he'll be terrific at the CPM coordination job. But a good start this is not.

The most obvious issue with this post is that someone who has been on the CPM for 13 months can hardly be accused of "gross incompetence". And later in the thread, Logibro addressed that and changed his first post to the "second version" above:

The incompetence referred to in the first post is due to an inability to professionally and diplomatically work with other council members and CCP. There's no actual incompetence beyond that. I've reworded it a bit to better reflect the actual situation.

Er... no. This hardly makes it better. It would have been better to simply say "the accusation of gross incompetence was made in the heat of the moment and for that I apologize." This attempt to spin it... not so good.

Logibro goes on to say that "this action was not taken in response to a single incident, but instead actions over a longer period of time." Now rumor has it that the catalyst of this action was this post written by Nova Knife in response to a "farewell to DUST 514" post by CPM member Kain Spero. Nova's post begins with the word "Snark" and then escalates from there to this:

[Kane] could be described as a mindless parrot regurgitating the opinions of those he speaks to who are much more intelligent than he is... even if he doesn't fully understand those opinions. This has led to him rapidly changing position on key issues throughout the year, to the point where he even argues against his own points when one turns around and switches perspectives.

Yikes! OK, that escalated quickly. And yeah, this ripping to shreds of a colleague is clearly uncalled for. And it's certainly true that Nova has never been shy about sharing his opinion of people...

All that said, did Nova deserve this? In my opinion... no.

I've interacted with the guy on and off for the bulk of the CPM term. And while he's aggressive and as sharp as his name in dealing with people -- that much of Logibro's accusation is certainly true! -- he's also been a knowledgeable and valuable member of the team. This guy has served with honor on CPM0 and I've seen him reap some really nice compliments for it from people right up to the most senior members of CCP management. Is he tough on them? Hell yes! But does he celebrate their successes when they get it right? Yes, that too!

Nova could have been slapped down and made to apologize for his conduct toward Kain (who I also respect for his CPM work) without this public smiting. In particular, it's pretty clear that Nova also posted angry when responding to Kain. The guy, after all, was announcing his departure from DUST 514 and I strongly suspect that colored Nova's perceptions when he replied. There wasn't really any need for Logibro to rush to judgment here; sitting on it for a day or two wouldn't have made any difference. That's something Dolan always got right: he sometimes made a tentative decision, then set it aside to think about it for a day or two. And then, sometimes, he changed his mind. I wish Logibro had taken the time to do that. Nova could have been removed from or sidelined from the CPM without this public display of anger.

In the big picture, Nova deserved an honorable discharge from his CPM duties and now he won't get that. I really like all three people involved in this mess. But how this was handled was definitely not ideal.

And that's a real shame. Don't post angry.
Source: QOTW: Don't post angry