I listened with interest to MS9's 'Mindstar9's Message to the Community' podcast on her website (which I came across only via a link posted on EF, and surprisingly not here on PCF which is where the discussion has been ongoing).
Some points I would make:
1. Whether or not MS9 personally holds any CLDs, or indeed has an ingame assets whatever, is not the issue. Nor are her professional or personal integrity being questioned.
The issue of concern is that of
any 'player' having advance knowledge of information contained in press releases, and still being able to keep their ordinary avatar within the game. An issue that
MS9 herself described in 2010 in a similar context as the "perception of potential impropriety".
2. I am somewhat flabbergasted that MS9 states that her signing a non-disclosure agreement is presently only 'in discussion' between herself and MindArk's PR agency. This should surely have been one of the most basic of precautions taken by them at the beginning of any arrangement and before any work was undertaken.
I note also that it seems that MSM staff are similarly not yet bound by any non-disclosure agreement.
3. MS9 says she has 'no clue whatsoever what I could have done in that short period of time'. This seems somewhat naive. 'Skype > copy/paste a paragraph > broadcast to a select group of EU friends with substantial investments' springs to my mind immediately, and that's without giving it more than a few seconds thought. Again, it's the "perception of potential impropriety" issue. Noone has suggested
actual impropriety.
4. MS9 is surprised about the increased traffic to her personal website. I'm not.
I'm not privy to whatever arrangement exists between 711 and MS9 as to the use of a sponsored sub-forum here and on EF, but - as MS9 only posts the first paragraph of the article here with a link to her website - perforce members here (and on the other forums where she posts) are required to go to her site to read the full article.
So, articles that are described as being 'to make sure the Entropia community gets the news first, even if it's only an hour prior to it hitting the news wires' can ONLY be read on MindStarMedia - MS9's personal website. I can see the benefit to
her, especially given that she says that they are in the process of developing advertising on the site - advertising needs traffic to be viable.
I'm not entirely sure that I yet see any advantage to the EU community in general, at least insofar as the media releases that MindArk publish on the entropiauniverse site, or the planet partners publish on their own sites, and which up until now have been available to be picked up by ALL websites/forums (including society ones, foreign language ones etc) at exactly the same time.
5. There are also practical considerations that became obvious as soon as BerthaBot here picked up the RSS feed from entropiauniverse.com an hour or so after MS9 posted her thread. Suddenly there were TWO threads containing member discussion of identical news, which were not amenable to being merged - one in MS9's sponsored sub-forum and one in the EU News forum. One way around that might be for 711 (and all other forum owners with similar newsfeeds) to change the BerthaBot so it no longer picks up RSS feeds from planetcalypso.com or entropiauniverse.com - henceforth all news would come only via MSM and be discussed here in her sponsored sub-forum. But do members really want that ? And what happens with VU release notes, announcement of VU server down times, etc?
(Note: The other articles MS9 develops herself, such as the ones on WoF results are not of issue here. Those types of articles, I agree, add to the diversity of news coverage within EU
)
6. MS9 says she has 'no issue with my MS9 avatar being restricted from withdrawing funds, so long as I am able to continue to deposit and interact with the community to give out prizes at MindStarRadio events and activities, and compensate the MSM staff for their work.'
It is not clear what the contractual arrangements (if any) are between MS9/MSM and the various entities involved (MindArk, MindArk's PR agency, various planet partners), but I would suggest the relationship is in practical terms at least as close at that of a sub-contractor/employee, even if financial considerations have not yet been arranged.
And therefore I would suggest that her personal avatar should be held by MindArk to the same stringent monitoring as that of any MindArk or planet partner employee.
As SpikeBlack once put it:
...all we need to know is that all active players employed by your [business] are totally banned from withdrawing cash / gaining financially by playing, from transferring assets to non employees other than as a reward in an event, that any loot they may get is put back into the system, no insider information is passed to non employees i.e. they're under an nda so that prior knowledge before an official announcement that allows them to gain financially that isn't passed to all players of [Entropia] at the same time ... and that their avatars are monitored in the same way that the [planet partner] ones are.
Or perhaps to use
MS9's own words (in relation to FPC staff):
... official avatars are definitely restricted, and I think this should be the standard for all ... development staff, no matter what position you hold in the company...
Should the onus be on the player involved here, or on MindArk/PR Agency/Planet Partner to think these things through before the start of this or any similar arrangement? Personally I'd say MindArk etc.
Yet given MS9's long history in the game, and her championing of standards to be enforced on others, she should have been aware that there could be a "perception of potential impropriety" in her own case, and acted accordingly.
