Every time I think Jagex can’t be more out of touch with community relations, they pull another move and surprise me. As you can read above, Jagex revoked the “gold” status of a fansite after one of its operators was “discovered” to be registered on the sex-offenders list in Tennessee. So instead of discussing the matter privately with the fan site operators, Mod SteveW (pictured above) decided the best choice was to head over to the Runescape official forums and publicly oust the person in question to tens of thousands of people who had never even heard of the fan site, let alone visited and knew this person. The result was that RuneVillage was forced to shut down its registration due to the virtual lynch mob that had formed on Jagex’s behest.
I’ll be the first in the blogosphere to call out Jagex (or at least the Community Management Team) as bullies. The way that this information was disseminated, with warnings and safety tips making up half of the statement, throws the whole situation completely out of context, making it appear as though the website was being used as a front for some sick predator looking for another victim, which according to outside documents has absolutely nothing to do with the actual charges.
For the record, I’m not against Jagex removing the fan site in question, they can do whatever they like. That being said, if Jagex had gone about this in a professional manner, most of you visiting this website tonight would still not know what Rune Village was, let alone the criminal background of one of its operators. Instead Jagex used the “we need to protect the children” route to portray a fan site as some kind of breeding ground for predators, accomplishing nothing more than harassing the members of the community and actually putting more people at risk due to the inherent risk of vigilante justice.
But for the guy at Rune Village, nothing says loving like being publicly shamed on a multi-million dollar company’s forums for a mistake you made two decades ago.
MMO Fallout 