by Katie » Fri Jul 25, 2014 1:34:27 am
OK - so this will be the last I ever mention of the whole ID scandal and my hopes in laying all of this out are to, firstly, provide a bit more detail into the thought processes I was having at the time but also secondly to discuss some of the other aspects around the event that I found difficult to understand for future reference/help improving the series.
First I want to address the matter of my "multiple warnings" in regards to ID-related incidents in the game as having this announced publicly to the cast I felt framed me in a more negative light than is fair when you look at the incidents that caused these warnings to occur.
1. I mentioned Crashcourse to Coby (my out of game friend) in a PM. We had both just come from completing Crashcourse Korea and it was through Crashcourse that Coby and I even had any kind of relationship and it was this game that directly led to me being cast. Coby and I were obviously known-ID to one another and no other players were involved in this discussion and yet I received a formal warning for the mere mention of another ORG to a fellow open-ID player. This struck me as odd, tantamount to saying you are only allowed to talk about being on Survivor when you're on Survivor and that no other discussions about any other outside endeavours are welcome, but I shrugged my shoulders, accepted the call and moved on.
2. The second warning came in the form of an admonishment from Brenda in my confessional for joking about something I said I planned to say to Caryn at the merge (that would have, respectfully to Brenda, totally given away my ID in one fell-swoop but was not something I ever seriously planned to say because it was awful and clearly a joke).. To hear later that you can be formally warned for anything you write about in your confessional. ID related or otherwise, was gob-smacking to me. Especially considering that, after my ejection, it was mad explicitly clear to all other players that any ID-related talk was welcome in confessionals. I guess that just didn't apply to me?
So, those were the circumstances around my prior warnings. Again, this is totally subjective opinion from me and an attempt to share my POV but I am open to any additional info on how these two things were interpreted if I have misunderstood the gravity of those actions. Now to the PM-gate with Caryn.
Caryn PMed me immediately with one of her "who are you bitch?" type PMs and I knew right away I was just not going to want to deal with the way Caryn treats strangers (or Shane or whoever). My goal in what I was trying to do was hint to Caryn that I'm not some rando bitch and get her to keep her lid shut so as not to blow up her game early in case I needed her to be around. I didn't really plan on working with Caryn long-term, I was pretty well set up, I just didn't want to have to deal with Caryn treating me like some insignificant scab when I knew Caryn and I had an, at least, amicable relationship. Caryn and I are NOT friends outside of this game, we have had pleasant enough exchanges in PMs on ORGY and the like but we do not keep in touch often or anything like that.
I had thought the initial PM I sent Caryn was vague enough. In retrospect, I shouldn't have even responded to her at all until I'd gotten all my IRL shit done and had a proper think about where I was at. Had I done that I would have remembered that Vytas and Caryn were actually at one another's throats so my idea of keeping Caryn around to help Vytas by proxy was completely unnecessary as Vytas didn't give a shit about Caryn anyway so we could have just pushed the easy target on her and enjoyed the weekend.
Anyway, so my PM hinted to Caryn that if she managed to shut her mouth we wouldn't have to sit in jury. All I gathered that Caryn could assume from this was that, at some stage, we were both pre-merge boots or we both sat on a jury together in a game. Caryn said herself, she is out early 90% of the time so this left the field right open.
Caryn's response seemed to indicate that she had IDed me on that info alone. No mention of me being an Aussie, nothing even remotely Crashcourse related.... But Caryn has apparently immediately IDed based on the little info she had.
I've heard that it is the opening line to my response that is the most incriminating, where I reply by telling Caryn to shut her gob. This was not a "sssh, let's keep our secret here in the PMs where only all the hosts can access and read it" - this was a "don't make me say anything that I think will actually cross the line and don't go being an arsehole, shut up" thing. However, I was also in a rush to leave my desk so, perhaps, didn't get the chance to choose my words very carefully but I basically just wanted to wrangle and subdue Caryn and yes, I took the shortcut to doing it.
I do believe though - that at this moment, the integrity of the game is still fairly intact. I had not told Caryn "it's me, Chris D from Crashcourse, your really close ally (we weren't). Let's never vote each other off and use the knowledge of our identity to win the game (like heck). Had I had a chance at this time, I would have pleaded temporary insanity and accepted a punishment along the lines of a PM ban, losing a vote at TC or even handing in my Immunity Idol. I believe that, at this very moment in time, there had been no repercussions to the game and no conclusive evidence Caryn was certain of my ID or that knowing my ID benefitted Caryn and myself to the point of detriment to other players. Coby knew my ID, Coby knew Caryn's ID and Coby had to know I knew Caryn's ID and it would have been within the rules of the game for Coby to use this additional ID knowledge to his benefit but other players are handicapped by the very nature of the twist which only allows them a percentage of the ID knowledge of other players. The same goes for all the returning players, who knew the IDs of all the vets as well as the ID of at least one of the noobs but I understand that is the nature of such a format.
Anyway, I digress slightly. I first became aware of the fact I may have overstepped the line when Ashley Skyped me in the office to say "what have you done?". The second I saw that things clicked in my brain and I realised that I had made a grave mistake, I could not drop everything I was doing at the time though and rush back to the board to do damage control/reason/plead my case because it was important I complete the task I was on so I chatted to Ashley a bit about it and tried to parlay that I was not attempting to gain an advantage in the game over any other players, I just goofed, having spent the last few weeks chatting to Caryn as Shane and didn't mean for my ID to become obvious - I honestly did not think Caryn had positively IDed me based on the information given and that she was just gong along with acting like she was sure of who I was. However, I could do nothing about it then or even later that night due to plans for dinner with my family and getting drunk with my brothers.
Later on, I heard about the public announcement made to all the players alerting them to what had gone down, given without the proper context as to the lead-up to the PMs and also declaring I had been given multiple warnings about this behaviour in the game so far. This is where I have a few things to say on the matter as it was this action that caused me to become very upset personally and I believe this was where the entire incident became a very poorly managed mess.
1. I am of the belief that never, ever should a players personal messages be made public to other players in the game under any circumstances whatsoever. Despite the fact that we sign up to play fully knowing and understanding that all of our written statements will be monitored or read to some degree, I believe all players still should retain the right to knowing that there is a line drawn where they can enjoy the privilege of a certain amount of privacy in regards to the things they say to another. I felt that broadcasting my personal messages to Caryn completely broke my trust in the hosts' ability to maintain and respect the small amount of privacy I should have retained in this game, no matter what my intentions were when having a conversation with Caryn. This would be the equivalent of showing the rest of the tribe someone's taped conversations in private on the TV show and I just do not think this should ever be the method that is resorted to when dealing with any behavioral incidents in the game. No matter how you felt about my actions, stripping away my privacy and leaving me feeling embarrassed and exposed did not help matters at all.
2. If my PMs to Caryn weren't enough to destroy the game's integrity (despite the incident still being completely self-contained at this point and controllable) - then this public announcement sure was. Admonishing a player for an action that has the potential to destroy the integrity of the game whilst simultaneously performing an action that definitely does so to an even larger degree seemed incredibly counter-productive and even slightly hypocritical to me. The worst part of this was that it implicated Caryn to a much larger degree than seemed necessary when, if it came down to it, I would have happily withdrawn quietly had the hosts made it clear that the game had been damaged irreparably by my actions (as I had said to Ashley on Skype at the time).
3. This post completely tanked my game, no matter what. More than that though, this post frightened me and left me concerned that it had tanked my entire ORG reputation as it painted me out to be a massive cheater. I came into this game having known, played for, played with and gotten to know 90% of the hosts to varying degree. I also came in here under the impression that I would be the only member of the Aussie community who would be representing and knew how important it was for me to do a good job and fly the flag to make them proud the way Ashley did in Namibia. I knew I had a lot of people I wanted to make proud with how I did in this game and carried that on my shoulder, managing to put myself in the best position I had been in at a merge point in an ORG yet. I knew Sophe read every PM anyone ever sent in this game and joked about it on occasion with Ashley in confessionals. In short, I had a lot to lose if I were to decide to blatantly cheat as it would cost me the respect of all my host friends as well as the entire Australian Community. If I was going to cheat, would I be so daft as to do it right under your noses in a way that would result in me being caught 100% of the time? There were ways to contact these people off-board.. I could PM someone asking them to PM someone asking them to PM the person I wanted to get a message to across both the AusBoard and ORGY to make it difficult to trace back. People have one another's Skype accounts (as this series knows all too well). The list is endless.
What I did was not thought out properly by any sense of the imagination. But to then go to the Standed forum on ORGY and see Caryn and others making totally open ID posts about the game, getting to make sure her opinion is heard because she was cast on the open ID side of the cast, seemed blatantly unfair as well. The responsibility of maintaining the integrity of the game is put solely on the shoulders of the new players while the old players are free to do and say as they please. This alone creates an unbalance in the game that favours the open ID side as it is only the newer players who need to restrict themselves in terms of what they say.
That's pretty much it. Again, sorry the incident ever occurred and I do hope this hasn't tarnished me in the eyes of too many players this season.
