Quote:
Originally Posted by Subreal
So.. I can lie and say that you were in a crew and claim your crew lost Illmania and you aren't allowed to expo and simply say that it's not true or you get banned?
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I was answering the question about whether fake personals should result in an auto-loss only. The question didn't include what to do if a battler disputes the fake personals in the comments.
Like I told Nicholas in the staff forum, I personally wouldn't have banned you, but we have two facts that need to be respected but seem to be in conflict which we need to figure out how to better resolve from now on.
1) Making comments about an open battle that may influence people who haven't voted IS swaying and shouldn't be allowed.
2) A battler (or anyone) should have a right to dispute lies and inaccuracies that may have been said about them and defend themselves against such accusations.
If the same comments had been posted by anyone else, it wouldn't have been considered swaying because only people who have already voted would be able to see them. But because you are actually one of the battlers on the page, people CAN see your comments before voting, and your comments can "sway."
My conclusion: The notion itself that a comment made by one person can sway another person, betrays a lack of faith in the person who is supposedly swayed. While it may be true that people can be and are sometimes swayed, it is probably wrong to take the approach that people generally can't see comments made by self-interested parties and recognize that for what it is and still come to independent assessments.
I think we should look into relaxing some aspects of our policy against swaying so as to allow for certain things like respecting a battler's right to defend themselves against fake personals. If it's okay for people to lie against you (which it is), it should definitely be okay for you to defend yourself somehow.