Before we start, I’d like to first bring to your attention a law IRL that concerns this topic
Ex post facto essentially means a new law can not be applied to any action before the law was implemented.
It’s honestly ethical because nobody wants to live their life completely obeying the law and out of nowhere they’re a criminal because the laws changed. Granted if they keep up their now illegal actions of course they should be in trouble, but it’s unethical to apply that to their previous actions that were legal at the time.
Here’s my situation. Read through it before you judge me please. It’s not even that long.
Zkillboard recently (1 month ago) introduced a very noticeable “cheater” label to people their algorithm feels like are trying to game the killboard. They are aware they may be harming innocent people with this label so they threw in a “we know but don’t care” statement in saying “The kills may or may not be legitimate”
The cheater label looks like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/9a1ni4/zkill_re_killboard_padding/
I’m in a weird situation right now.
If I join any corp with auto kill mail upload, it will retrospectively upload my kill mails even before joining the corp. Doesn’t seem right but it is how the eve API works.
I have previously done some insurance fraud (It’s where you blow up a ship on purpose to collect insurance money) over a year ago. I had no intention of killboard padding whatsoever, which is why
I’ve never even uploaded these kills and they’re still not uploaded to Zkill! (It’s been over a year)
That should prove to everyone I have no intention of killboard padding. If that was my purpose I would have uploaded the kills. No, my intention was to make money by insurance fraud.
(and just a clarification that insurance fraud is completely legal as stated by CCP because it’s just an ingame mechanic, I personally encourage you to take advantage of it even if not for profit, such as if you don’t want to risk hauling your minerals to jita from your nullsec location, build a ship, blow it up, and collect the insurance) (But I guess I can’t encourage this anymore because Zkill will flag you as a killboard padder and ruin your killboard)
The next thing I want to address why I care about my killboard despite hating Zkill for their unethical labeling.
Actually I don’t really care. Except the people who I care about care. I can’t join any nullsec or PVP corp if I have a bad killboard, which I actually don’t right now. I actually have a good killboard but if I get the cheater label applied to me I will 100% be rejected from these corps. That’s why I’m forced to care. I honestly wouldn’t give a sh*t what a 3rd party site thinks about me except it’s having practical consequences applied to me.
I don’t care what Zkill thinks about me. I don’t even care what others THINK about me, I care what others DO to me because what Zkill THINKS about me.
So here’s the really weird part about my situation. If I join a corp that auto uploads killmails to Zkillboard (most of them do), these old kills before I even joined the corp would be retroactive uploaded to Zkill. Zkill would then retroactively apply the cheater label to a time (1 year ago) when this behavior was not considered cheating. I currently have a clean and good killboard, but if I join a corp with auto km upload, I will instantly get a cheater label.
IRL laws say that ex post facto is illegal. On top of that it is just plain unethical. The reasonable thing for Zkill to do is to say “We don’t like killboard padding, from now on anyone who displays killboard padding patterns will be labeled, this applies even to other behaviors that the algorithm flags as killboard padding, you’ve been warned”. That would be fair. If I still insisted on insurance fraud, then it would be my fault if I get a killboard padder label and I’d own up to it.
But that’s not what happend. I’ve never been concerned about joining any corp before because I wasn’t concerned about the corp automatically uploading my kills, because I wouldn’t get a cheater label from doing it.
So now I’m living in a limbo. If I join any serious hard core corp I’ll get kicked instantly when they see the cheating label on my killboard. I’m assuming most serious hard core corps auto upload killmail, which is probably correct. Until then, my killboard is clean and good. But for the rest of my EVE career Zkill has made it impossible for me to join corps.
In real life, you can’t just accuse someone of rape and put that on their record without due process. That is, the ability for the accused to defend themself legally to the accusation. What zkill has done to me was, put a rapist label in my legal record, and then tell me “not our fault companies won’t hire you, they were warned this label may or may not be accurate”. If this were IRL, I’d sue them.
I did contact Zkill support. They ignored everything I wrote, linked me to the “we do not remove KM” FAQ, and shut down my ticket. They seriously have the worst customer support I’ve ever seen.
Those of you who have seen my other thread calling for the shutdown of Zkill for legal reasons, now know my personal bias why I hate zkill. I’m not ashamed to admit my bias, because my reasons for Zkill’s legal infringement still stands independently and logically.
Speaking of legal issues, congress (just Republicans this time) is trying to pass laws regarding free speech that, should a neutral medium platform make its own speech, it will lose its neutral medium platform status and thus many benefits and protections associated with it. Honestly before this Zkill has never made its own “speech” maybe except for the “you must be a spy” thing that was later removed. It was a purely neutral platform until a month ago, and I’m now a victim as it breaks its neutrality.
Now Let me predict and answer some of your comments. Some of you will respond genuinely, and others will respond without reading. And of course there are trolls as well.
So for the trolls and people who didn’t read my post. I’ll answer some common questions I predict from you:
“Take it up with Zkill”
A: They linked me to their “We don’t remove KM” FAQ. Wanna bet they didn’t even read what I wrote? Also shut down my ticket which shuts down my chance to reply.
“You’re just bitter you have an all red killboard”
A: My killboard is good in my opinion, decent at least. I’m bitter because of potential cheater label not because of a bad killboard.
“You’ve committed insurance fraud you deserve it”
A: You were literally taught to commit insurance fraud in the 3rd combat tutorial where you suicided into a building to collect insurance. Insurance fraud is a legitimate thing in eve. It’s called “fraud” as a meme to be honest there is no fraud involved here. Also don’t make me repeat this, CCP has Ok’d this many times.
“You’ve cheated now you don’t want a cheater label”
A: It’s perhaps fair to give me a “insurance fraud” label, but definitely not fair to give me a “Killboard padder label” , and in my opinion insurance fraud is not cheating.
“Why do you kill what some 3rd party site thinks of you”
A: I don’t, I really don’t, but all or at least most of the corps in eve do. If I want a shot at joining any corp this is an issue.
“Take it up with CCP”
A: I’m currently considering this. Although I don’t really see how this is CCP’s fault and almost completely Zkill’s fault, maybe perhaps for giving Zkill way too much power and influence over the game.
“If you don’t want the KM you shouldn’t have generated it to begin with”
A: I generated these KM at a time (1 year ago) where I am ok with. Even if a corp published them on my behalf I’m ok with. I am not ok with the rules changing and Zkill applying retroactively that rule to old kills where there was no cheater label
“You’re a killboard padder and that’s exactly the reason they have this label”
A: I am not! I can prove this. It’s been a year and I’ve never uploaded these kills because I have zero intention in padding the killboard. This proves it ironsolidly. My only motivation was the insurance profit.
“It’s common for rules/laws to have unintended side effects”
A: First of all I think it’s none of Zkill’s business passing such judgement, as they have always been a neutral platform that displays killmails. Secondly there was no fair warning as this was applied to retro KM. Anyone intelligent enough would know not to generate any more KM that looks like padding now, if I did this now I’d own up to it instead of ranting on the forums about Zkill violating ex post facto.
“Don’t join any corp then”
A: …
“I do not understand/Can not relate to this retroactive rule thing you speak of”
A: One day when you get screwed by this in game or in real life you’ll completely understand. Until then I don’t blame you if you don’t understand.