I hear some people use “I was ganked in lowsec” to describe an encounter.
Do you think ganking is a fair term to use for encounters out of highsec that have nothing to do with suicide ganking?
Your questions contain inherent bias in their wording.
Rather than saying “fair” it might be better to phrase it as “accurate”.
But yes. A gank is any time one or more players perform actions that give them as large as an advantage as possible in a PvP encounter. Be it attacking people twenty to one, or camping gates with bubbles and insta-lockers.
You just invented that definition off the top of your head. Given that one side is always stronger than another, even if only by a small amount, then according to your definition all combat is ganking.
Does a mining vessel or pod make a popping sound when they explode if there's nobody around to hear it? (Especially through the vacuum of space.)
OP, Your post is troll bait, given that your poll answers contain language that is both stereotypical and slanted.
I’ve flown a lot in Lowsec and have never heard of any PvP there called ganking, even when I was hunting explorers in relic sites, when discussing with other lowsec inhabitants.
Who are these people?
Edit: if they’re actual new players in your corp (yes we all know you have a lot of newer players out mining in the Lowsec near Dammalin) then that might be why you added the word „noob“ in an answer — but I would still say no bueno. It is possible to educate people without calling them names.
Typically what a gank-aspirant botter would claim just to hide the fact.
(Disclaimer: yes this is just a joke.)
@Komi_Valentine To the degree that Ganking is effectively an ambush where the attacked pilot has nothing to do but wait for his ship to explode then yes, I think that the word “ganking” can be used for general purposes.
On the other hand, and to satisfy the purists, Ganking, as far as EvE is concerned, only happens in hisec. In other security space it is merely a fight.
It really comes down to semantics as the results of a “fight” is the same as the results of a “gank” with one caviat: CONCORD gets involved in hisec.
One could say that CCP profits more from Ganking than from Fight since in the first instance both ships are destroyed while in other sec space only one is destroyed while the other pilot wins the fight and docks up.
I believe ganking is unique to HS.
In any other space you are “camped”/“deleted”.
It helps me mentally to keep ganking unique to HS.
Depends how you perceive it. I would not call people noobs who think otherwise lol…
I don’t like how the choices were worded. 
Using the word ‘Ganking’ to describe only suicide ganking in high security space is a form of jargon. You can not expect people who use the word in accordance with its generally accepted meaning to use it only in the specialized way people who know Eve jargon do. If you want a single word that means exclusively suicide ganking, then someone will have to invent that word. The word “ganking” is already being used to describe other things in other contexts.
Regardless, no one can enforce on others how they use language to speak amongst themselves. Overhearing people who speak to and understand each other then butting in to say they’re using the words incorrectly would rightly be considered ridiculous by most people. Or I would hope so, at least.
This debate is as old as EVE.
This, to me, is what seems unreasonable. Why would that be considered ridiculous in any hobby or professional setting? If you want to integrate with a community, learning the jargon is part of it. Why would Eve Online be the exception?
If you’re with a bunch of homebrewers, people making a big deal about how they want to use the word “attenuation” to only mean the “general signal attenuation” and never for the alcohol conversion would be ridiculed. If you’re with a bunch of nuclear engineers, people making a big deal about how they want to use the word “barn” to only means the “general” word for “that big red farm building barn” and never for the unit of barn would be ridiculed.
Jargon isn’t bad, and exists for a good reason: it conveys a community’s specific meaning and is a distinct signal of the community culture. What is bad is when outside groups that are not a part of the community insist upon erasing jargon that they do not like, and when new members of the community insist upon erasing jargon rather than learning it it is then a form of gentrification and erasure of the community’s distinct identity. This isn’t something to celebrate and it is certainly not cool to point to that community and ridicule them for defending their jargon when it happens to overlap more general terms.
I said you can’t expect people talking among themselves to use your jargon. It does not make a claim on whether jargon is itself good or bad.
If you believe that you can tell people how they should talk among themselves, then I think you are wrong. If you don’t believe that, then we’re not differing in our opinion.
Inside the Eve community, I use the word ‘ganking’ as jargon to mean suicide ganking and other people I talk to understand it as such. This is what I would prefer. However, I do not feel it is right to force other people to speak according to my preferences.
If someone says ‘I was ganked in lowsec’ then I know what that means. If I am speaking to someone new and they say they were ‘ganked’, then I know that’s ambiguous and I can get clarification if necessary. If I’m speaking to someone I know is an experienced player, then I can interpret the word as I normally would: as Eve jargon for suicide ganking in high security space.
A gaming community can’t claim authority over an already existing word’s meaning by their own fiat and force people to abandon the meaning it already had. I don’t have a problem with people of a community adding nuance to the word when speaking amongst themselves. Like I said, nobody has the authority to tell people how to speak among themselves. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
This is the part of your characterization where I strongly disagree: in 2003 and the mid-2000s, there was not an “existing word’s meaning” for ganking. The word was generally unknown in the wider gaming world and it only arose for very specific games with very specific meanings for each of those games. Getting “ganked” in Ultima Online had one specific connotation. Getting “ganked” in RunEscape had another. And getting “ganked” in Eve Online had yet another.
The word “gank” did not enter the general gaming community’s vocabulary until long after the established jargon in Eve Online. So when you say:
I think of “Eve Online players meaning suicide ganking” and
I think “Exactly: the general gaming community” can’t come in and try to erase it to mean “any PvP”.
Fundamentally, I see three groups here.
Those using the word supposedly ‘incorrectly’ who are placing no demand on how others use the term.
Those using the word as jargon and placing no demand on how others use the term.
Those using the word as jargon and demanding others do the same.
I still think that third group is in the wrong. The first two are not claiming ownership over anything because they’re not trying to control how anyone outside their group behaves. The third group is trying to force others to conform to their way of doing things, and this is what I have a problem with. That is what I mean by ‘force people to abandon the meaning it already had’. (If there were a fourth group trying to tell people they can’t use the term ganking to mean suicide ganking specifically, I’d have a problem with them as well, but I have not seen any who fit this description.)
If there is a group that has the consensus that a death in low or null security space is a gank, then it is, at least among that group. That is not what I’d call it, but that doesn’t matter. I am still capable of knowing what it is they mean. I can convey to those people the meaning I ascribe to the term so they know what I mean when I use it. We will both understand each other without having to enforce any behavior on anyone else.
I don’t care If another community arises that changes the most popular meaning of the term within the larger Eve community. I do not think the term or culture as it exists today is sacred or worthy of protection to preserve it if it falls out of favor. I’d adapt if I had to, but most likely I could just tell people what I mean when I say ‘gank’ and they would accept that meaning out of a natural desire to understand and be understood, while I would accept their intended meaning for the same reasons.
See…this is why the term ‘PvP’ was invented. Precisely so that people could not split off their own little sub-category that they deem to be ‘unfair’ or whatever. Because let’s face it…the real reason people try to move the category of ‘ganking’ into lowsec is to wail about PvP there too.
It’s far less about what words people use and far more about the intent behind doing so.
That is fine.
This is not.
The culture that gave arose to make Eve Online a compelling, engaging universe was one that embraced PvP and embraced the diverse forms it could take, including station camping, gate camping, shooting explorers, hunting ratters, hunting supers, and ganking (aka „suicide ganking“).
@Altara_Zemara is astute: the people who do not like PvP fundamentally in Eve Online are more than happy to hijack it’s most extreme negative connotation („ganking“) and paint everything in the game as being „ganking“. These people are a very vocal minority but are purposefully misusing the jargon as a psychological ploy to change the nature of the game that many have fun with.
On the other hand, people who don’t know better might accidentally misuse the term. That’s ok, they get corrected, and carry on as usual, now knowing the jargon to embed themselves better in the game and better embrace it, and the mentality helps that players retention. And in most discussions, that’s it. The end. Jargon shared, people educated, move on. Most people don’t care, it just takes once to get the knowledge out there. (Edit to add: so for most people, getting corrected on jargon is an absolute non-Event, and this whole discussion we are having appears to be just a pedantic conversation amongst ultra-nerds with too much time on their hands). Are such third-group people really that awful to be „in the wrong“ to offer jargon knowledge?
The problem is when people in the anti-PvP psy op folks hit people like me who want to educate and share jargon. I would like to submit as evidence this very thread: Komi aka Tankbuster is a notorious anti-PvP person who has been booted from various chill Discord communities (including the Roleplay discord of all places) for generally being toxic towards anyone doing PvP against them. It’s an endless battle (hence why „certified Komi moment“) is a thing.
Learn to recognize the early symptoms of the obsessive condition called “Gankophobia” before advancing to stage 2: suggestive forum narration.
Therefore, we suggest that “Gankophobia” be added to the list of EvE related conditions associated with the ownership, use and operation of space ships in New Eden’s environment.
The current list contains physical conditions like “pod rash” and “plug hole inflammation”, as well as mental conditions like “jump fatigue related insomnia”, “structure timer narcolepsy”, “time dilation induced attention deficit”, “daily opportunity OCD” and the more common forms of “loot box angst” and “booster withdrawal”.
Get help early!
/sarcasm
“Ganking” in low sec is just normal PVP. Low sec and Null sec are free for all areas where you have to expect unfavorable conditions working against your activities all the time. That’s part of the gameplay loop there and fundamentally different from high sec. “Ganking” is used loosely by people in the sense of the “Yes” option to describe the dunking of less experienced players, unhealthily overconfident tryhards and everything in between. However, since you have to expect ship PVP all the time, it’s not the same as Ganking how it happens in high sec. People who try to use it legitimately in the same sense as high sec ganking are indeed “noobs”.
Those are the ones I saw last week. Additionally there are people referring to ganking in this weird non-highsec way all the time ingame as well “oh, I got ganked in a wormhole” and stuff like this.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/1948wcl/can_lowsec_gankers_answer_me_honestly_genuine/
