Pre-warning before reading this for anyone involved: This is my opinion and journalism at best. I have a voice and platform and I'm choosing to use it.

The people who actively find faults in others are the same people who are completely blind to their own. — Kristen Butler

Blacklist History

Believe it or not, there was an era when whitelist blacklists were practically non-existent. The largest case we've known was the DRS/JSM conflict which had a severe impact on game owners and other people in the community. We have reached a point where your whitelist provider is now enabling you to add flames to a fire through an automatic, no effort blacklist.

A lot of people can argue that this "protects the products". Quite literally, it does not. IF it was protecting the products, the products wouldn't be in the game to begin with. Having products from multiple groups in a single game is a healthy thing, it prevents absolute monopolisation of how assets are sold to users throughout the community and allows everyone a fair chance at creating and sharing something to an audience.

IF a group does not own the game that their products are in, they should NOT have ANY control over what YOU do in your OWN game. You are being limited and controlled based on drama which does not include you—and providers such as Vault are fueling that.

Overview

Quite recently a community I've trusted and been apart of had been blacklisted by another group. Their drama is not my business, nor should it be anyone else's but their own. Unfortunately, an external power is enabling said group to cause issues within the community by pushing the ability of a global blacklist. Competitor-obsessed Vault¹ provides a built-in blacklist system which lets any user or group put a block on users who are in a community related to, and they're proud to provide this.

Without diving into the drama of the communities which sparked my interest in sharing this, it's important to note that the community in the wrong blacklisted the community in the right. In other terms: Vault is handing random individuals the power to punish thousands of users (who did not cause the drama) because they don't agree with someone else. You are allowing users to police entire communities on a global scale because of their emotions. If you see nothing wrong with this, you should not be in a position of power or influence.

As of Jan 29th, Vault does not push any form of moderation on their platform if this tool is abused.

Though, the last thing I'd want to do is push a narrative that Vault does not control their platform in a manner which protects harmless individuals and groups from wrongful punishment—so why not ask the man himself.

Direct from the source

Playing devils advocate, I truly found it hard to believe something so powerful wouldn't have any limitations whatsoever, but the following conversation proves this wrong.

"Could you explain why you believe its absolutely important that vault supplies a global blacklist tool behind product whitelists for people to use and weaponise against other people/groups with?"

Vault (apparently wont) enforce their own blacklist to all products, but does provide user/group specific blacklists to users who purchase access to Vault. From the sound of that response, I had every reason to question why Vault was relying that "Groups should use it responsibly". The same groups that are quite literally ran by children.

What now?

All you have to do is vote with your money, attention and morals.

1. Owned by @britdev (1048877744693456966)