An ounce of self control is worth a pound of censorship

The Comic Code still works and needs no revision in our modern comic books markets. The Comic Code, written in 1954 and revised in 1971 and 1989 was created to set an industry standard by which all comic books and similar media should adhere to. The need for this code was to reassure both the public and the government of the ability of the industry to police themselves and provide morally responsible content in its products that were marketed to youth.

In part, what made the Comic Code unique was that it was written, drafted and enforced without legislative or judicial oversight. What the industry feared was censorship and lack of control over their business and its products and marketing to the youth of the United States. Although there were some in comic book writing and publishing that dared to push the bounds of public moral acceptance, most of the industry were very aware of public outlook on their work and quickly adopted the Comic Code into their business and marketing practices.

Over all, most who adopted the code found that their business did not suffer and they were able to not only maintain a morally and ethically sound product but also one that maintained writing and publishing quality.

Since the adoption of the original Comic Code, there have been two revisions. Although these revisions are different from the original code, they maintain many of the same concepts and standards that were acceptable in the 1954 version. Also, the code has remained in the control of industry peers since its beginning.

The Comic Code needs little to no revision. The code is not a law or governing authority over the industry to dictate its content. The code, enforced by only a mark of approval on a product cover is merely an indicator to the consumer that a particular product falls in line with a certain standard. When the code was first written, the vast majority of comic consumers were youth. Today, the customer base of the comic industry spans many generations. The code still protects the integrity of authors and publishers as they cater to youth.

The code, enforced against material written with adults in mind would damage the profits and hinder the creative reputation of popular adult publications. Many consider comic books a form a creative art and the writers, artists. Some of the unhindered content contained in comic books is not considered suitable for children. However, the code would indicate that these adult oriented publications are not recommended for youth by the comic’s lack of the Comic Code Authority’s (CCA) seal of approval.

If a new code were demanded by anyone other than the customer base or the industry, it may risk involving government to dictate its creation and enforcement. The United States Constitution provides for freedom of speech and press. By denying an industry who has demonstrated the ability to govern themselves in the past to continue to do so allows for a censorship of all of its materials. The Code was neither demanded for nor forced on the industry. Rather, the industry invited it upon itself and allowed each other the choice to either utilize or ignore it. It is up to the public to either accept or avoid the products that do not wish to use the code rather than force the comic industry, and further, the comic community to accept a standard dictated by those who do not participate in the community. If the Comic Code ever requires revision in the future, the CCA with the help of its customer base, as demonstrated in the past will likely police themselves or suffer damage to their own industry.

A Bit of Required Reflection!

I have to say that this last assignment I did for school was rather interesting. I was able to attend a military ball recently with my wife, Blondie and it was a first for both of us. We were really spoiled by it. We had a stimulating speaker, memorable ceremonies throughout and got to dress up for the occasion.

My college writing course required me to write an essay of a memorable experience (in which I chose the ball) and then write a blog entry response to it the work.

I had to sit for a while and write down all I could remember and how it was that I recalled it best (sight, sound, smell etc.). The wife and I also looked over the program from the evening that was provided to us. It is different how much you can remember just by looking at the menu and remembering tasting the food you had in the past. I had a flank steak that night as opposed to chicken. Remembering the taste and feel of the food in my mouth is a different way to recall memories. We as a society are mostly stimulated by sight and sound and we usually rely on only those senses.

I also recalled much more of our speaker, Gene Kranz’s speech and his meaning and message behind it. If I did not ever again have to recall his speech and take notes for school I may have lost a lot of the experience from my memory.

In writing a reflective writing piece, you could find it difficult because much of what you are writing about is not necessarily documented. Also, it is more often than not a non-fiction piece rather than fiction. Fiction is very easy at times because it is aimed at not being entirely true leaving much of its creation to a writer’s imagination. The difficulty in my piece of writing was just gathering and reorganizing all of my experience of one single event. At the time of the event I had no idea that I would have to put much of it onto paper. Had I known that I might have been more attentive that night. But the good thing about that was that I had the opportunity to research and in a way inwardly interview and interrogate myself for information.

I have to say that in a few ways I was challenged by this last assignment and that I was able to learn a bit by required reflection on my own life experiences.

Is buying WoW gold that bad?

Many often wonder what effects the farming and reselling of WoW gold does to the over all World of Warcraft gaming experience. Before I get into my rants, raves, preaching and educated opinion sharing, I would like to take a moment to educate those of you non-geeks out there on a bit of vocabulary.

WoW: World of Warcraft

Gold, WoW Gold: basic currency used in WoW

Farming: Spending countless hours utilizing ones online game time in the pursuit of gathering as much of this gold into ones account.

Chinese Gold Farmer: A Chinese person (still residing in China) who acquires multiple accounts and runs them around the clock for the sole purpose of farming gold for resale.

Hacking: to illegally and unethically acquire access to another players account for any number of reasons.

Bot: an automated computer program designed and written to run the WoW game in a specific pre-determined manner in the absence of the account holder.

Now that we have that cleared up, I would like to share with you the reason why our purchasing gold is having an adverse effect on the WoW virtual economy. There are only a few ways to create money on WoW. I do not in any way mean “make” or “earn” money. I literally mean, “create”. When we all get started on the game, the first thing we learn after moving our character and attacking is usually that finishing off an adversary and looting its corpse provides us with a bit of pocket change. It is not long after that we learn where we can and have to spend this wealth. Another thing we quickly learn is how to complete quests so as to earn a greater amount of currency.

All of the currency earned in these two manners account for 100% of all of the gold “created” in WoW. A server will literally generate money out of no where to pay you for your services to a quest giver and also make sure that a majority of the victims of your fighting skills, especially humanoids grant you a bit of their pocket change upon their death when you loot them. Now some may say, “Geek, there is a third way to generate gold: sell the items you loot back to a vendor.” In this you are partially right. Yes you can do this and get gold from an item that is unneeded by selling it to a vendor but it still comes from looting the dead for financial gain.

Now, for how gold disappears… it is done by repairing, training, buying reagents food and crap we do not need like extra mounts and pets. Basically if  you walk up to a vendor and hand over money in any way, you are making the gold vanish forever. “But Geek, I just spent several thousand in the AH (auction house) over the last several weeks on gear, mats and an over-priced haunted memento. I will never see that again.” You may not see it again but Banktoon of <Bank Alts R Us> who sold you most of that is still enjoying the fruits of his sales ventures. That money all went to him (minus the small amount taken by the AH as their cut which forever disappears). The money never really went away.

Now that we have all of THAT covered, here is how the reselling of gold works. Chinese gold farmers purchase several accounts to run non-stop to generate this gold, they farm it through killing/looting, a bit through questing, but mostly through farming various natural mats and selling them on the AH. This money is in turn gathered into a single or few control accounts and distributed to paying customers. Now when I say Chinese I mean not to be racist, it is just the truth that many of these unethical farmers are in fact Chinese nationals.

Now recently some have taken to hacking accounts. This is because the work of leveling a toon has been done already by you and I; therefore opening up many more places for that toon to farm. The time investment that the farmer needs to make ready the toon for farming is minimized. Also, you may have things of value in your bags and banks ready to be looted. Your toon looks legit, your guildies and friends know you, you are generally geared and your professions are of a higher maintained level. Your account is perfect.

Now to further streamline their time investment, (new term) Hack&Farmers are now using bots to control our hacked accounts and kill/loot or resource farm their way to financial success. While these bots are running rampant around Azeroth, the actual people themselves are busy setting up guest accounts to advertize their business of selling gold to you.

“Slow down Geek. I have never bought gold nor had my account hacked. I have the authenticator.” That is good. However, you are still affected. Here is where it affects us as a total MMORPG population. Blizzard Entertainment is a company that makes money and provides jobs to people. They have hired many mathematicians and theorists to sit down and brain storm and work up an online system that will maintain a balance as we play it from week to week. You cannot fault them for their primary goal of making money. The more time it takes us to reach our own virtual goals in their world, the more months of subscription we pay. If we are hacked and set back, we owe more money to get things fixed and back on track. Also, their formulas do not take into account several dozen bots or more per realm running around and spending hours or days generating and hording money. It can and will ultimately upset the virtual economy of WoW by distributing resources (money, gear, mats) to those who pay real tangible cash for it all the while robbing some of game time they have paid real money for.

It falls upon us geeks, the off-time citizens of Azeroth to check ourselves. If we do not want our virtual economy to go to the Harpies, we need never to purchase WoW gold anywhere. If you do, you can never complain of the demand for others to hack your account and those of your friends and guildies. You can never again bawk at a bot racing to a titanium vein that you are fighting next to and steal it before you get to mine it. It is these and other problems that stem from purchasing WoW gold that through our greed we allow to happen.