Since I was accused of "jumping on a hate train" for simply pointing out that meme names are against the rules and defining what memes are, I feel I have to clarify my position on this new ZA proposal, as it's in fact quite contrary to the people who actually have been posting hate against the original Zoner Alliance by calling them lolwhuts. It also seems that some people don't understand (or pretend to not understand) the reasons for the criticisms.
The Zoner Alliance was a group of relatively inexperienced players who got into conflict with "powerful forces" (faction leaders, popular members, and people who jump on every opportunity to join a mob so they can kick vulnerable players), mainly because of their lack of understanding of role play and the community's inner unwritten rules and mechanisms. It ended up with the ZA being shot, mocked, and humiliated, and certain parts of their role play like "Zoner marines" and "we're at war no RP anymore" was turned into memes. Although the Zoner Alliance was certainly wrong about a few things, I personally found the way parts of the community behaved towards them and similar groups to reflect rather poorly on the community itself.
I have no problem with Zoners being allowed to be aggressive. I'm very much for that and find that the pacifism forced on them is not only contrary to vanilla lore as well as logic, but also detrimental to game play.
I have no problem with creating more Zoner IDs that have different rights and diplomacy in different regions of space. I've also advocated that before.
I have no problem with fun in the form of having characters who behave like idiots or are trigger happy. I have a few of those myself.
The two problems I have with this is that:
1. It takes someone else's names and role play without their consent, which is a form of power-gaming (that's why I asked who was behind it)
2. It makes a mockery of someone else's role play in the form of memes (which was openly admitted by the person who named the faction), which is not only against the "no meme" rule, but is also a form of hassling of members or ex-members that is unfortunately widely practiced and accepted by parts of the community.
The lore that was posted today only strengthens this impression:
(03-29-2018, 10:41 AM)New Zoner Alliance Wrote:
The Zoners claim that around fifty thousand individual personnel, including station crew, Alliance Marine Guards, Order and Core paramilitaries, and Corsairs, became casualties of the ensuing diplomatic nightmare. This figure is certainly a result of the Zoner habit for exaggeration; the true number is likely no higher than Five Thousand, including the entire crew and civilian compliment of the Mobile Colony ship, the <ZA> Tel Aviv. Following a massive unilateral defunding regime by their backing bodies, the ZA faded into relative obscurity.
It appears popularity for the pariah movement has increased of late, in part due to the neverending Order/Zoner influence exertion attempts over Freeport 11, the threat of WMDs against civilians as issued by groups such as the commune, along with opportunistic unlawfuls such as the Unioner Reichsarbeitergesellschaft and the Liberty Separatists.
Their battle-cry resounds, till even the vacuum quakes.
"Remember the Fifty Thousand, that gave their lives for our sakes."
This is clearly "taking a piss" at a member called Tel Aviv (he renamed later to escape the hassling) and the original Zoner Alliance.
The only way I would accept this faction proposal was if you either stopped doing that, or got permission from Tel Aviv to use his name, faction name, and role play. From the look of things this is not the case, but if you answer my question of "who else is behind this", I'm willing to be corrected.
