Griefer U
by prokofy on 22/04/07 at 10:48 pm
By Prokofy Neva, Dept. of Community Affairs
The Herald has been deluged lately with indignant complaints about weird goon goings-on in what is supposed to be an educational sim, Woodbury University. As usually with all the Eddie Haskelling and word-salad alibi-Ike sort of stuff involved, it’s hard to get at the truth — and as Uri always says, we’ll have to hope it emerges in the comments.
If you blinked, you missed it, but on April 12, the Lindens’ police blotter had this note:
Date: Thursday, April 12, 2007
Violation: Community Standards: Harassment, Soliciting Abuse
Region: Woodbury University
Description: Organizing abusive attacks on regions.
Action taken: Suspended 3 days.
In fact, oddly, googling the terms “Woodbury University” and “Second Life” gives you that police blotter item first, then somebody’s blog about visiting the island campus, and little else. This lack of hard information about the strange edu sim has spawned a persisent rumour that the U.S. government has funded this RL university, located in…Burbank, California (nee-noo, nee-noo, LL is in California!) to create a fake griefer group and launch simulated terror attacks on the unsuspecting SL population to study responses.
Our stringer, Aging Hippie Random Unsung, the Eternal Student, went out to Woodbury last night and came up with a different diagnosis. After being challenged by notorious Patriotic Nigras griefer Mudlips, on security detail but unable to boot anyone, Random concluded: “I figure the professor who bought this sim is on leave, and the Trustifarians have taken over,” he said.
When he arrived at the sim, it was being rebuilt, evidently after a griefer trashed it and caused what one source says was close to $1000 US worth of damage (?).
A hodge-podge collection of kids in motley uniforms and costumes of different genres greeted him, and despite the title “Woodland Security,” didn’t have the ability to eject Unsung on sight.
A frequent flyer griefer of the Ravenglass sims was seen in mufti sporting the faux “security” title, and it was either that the inmates had taken over the asylum, Unsung concluded, or the manager, one Tizzers Foxchange, described as “Woodbury Admin,” figured that the best way to guard a sim from griefers like the Patriotic Nigras in Second Life, was to hire the PNs as your security goons. Great concept!
Tizzers seemed very eager, while the others were word-salading and free-associating and clanging, to show that she has an exemplary record with LL, and does not engage in, or condone griefing. But we’ve seen it all in SL, and we know that one of the first things griefers do is make all these plausible-deniability groups like “Concerned Griefers of America” or go and donate to the cause of fighting cancer via the American Cancer Society to try to cleanse their tarnished image.
An avatar named MC Fizgig is described as the “Woodbury Professor” but there is almost no activity showing on his avatar, i.e. no picture, comments, First Life info, groups except “Woodbury” itself. So he may be AFK, and not realizing what’s happening, and not at all have a gig with the Dept. of Homeland Security — or he could have invented the PNs to test stuff. Who knows?
The Lindens used to have strict rules for any researchers coming into SL to study people, but with the corporate invasion and marketing explosion, all of that’s been thrown overboard, in part due to the bitching of the Herald about oppression of academic freedom. So it’s not known if there is anything remotely like this experiment claimed, or if LL knows anything about it. It is likely that Woodbury got the usual educational non-profit discount, however, of $150 for the sim instead of $195 (or a discount off the new tier of $295).
The rag-tag ranks of security at Woodbury consisted of one avatar running around crying “Sieg Heil!”, goose-stepping, and making “Heil Hitler” type of salutes in her Nazi regalia; another strange cat semi-dressed with a fez covering his private parts, and various other “hello kitty” sorts of avatars. If anybody interested in researching this chaos further, contact me for the chat logs.
By her own admission, Tizzers regularly reads 4chan’s site, which she described neutrally as a site for “Japanese image preservation” or some such nonsense, though everyone knows that it is Griefer Central for some of the worst marauders of SL. I’m not going to have to prove this in just a minute; watch the comments fill up with the worst kind of crap. Tizzers is also in some of the classic /b/tard groups like “Gay 4 Philip”.
Somebody needs to write Woodbury’s Board of Trustees or President and complain about these goose-stepping griefers who have indeed caused a lot of damage and lost business and down-time in SL for a number of sims — though the facts there aren’t confirmed, either, and it is hard to know who’s snowing whom on all this. The Lindens prove curiously unable to stop this, though rumour has it that they cull the PN alts every once in awhile and also infiltrate their groups to see what they’re doing.
I might add that if Homeland Security or for that matter any other government or university agency wishes to study simulated terrorism in SL, they don’t need to buy an island or have a special campus. Just come fly around the mainland with us on Governor Linden’s Estate : )
mootykips
May 7th, 2007
Who said I wasn’t 21 yet?
burning the wrong person
May 7th, 2007
Eh, from your photo you look under 21 or just shy of it. Could be old or I could be wrong about your age. Doesn’t matter though. Nexis is defiantly under 21 but not under 18. There’s more but you don’t get the luxury of being tipped off that much. G2/Bed Mootykips.
Tizzers Foxchase
May 7th, 2007
“The shrine will soon be gone for good soon so you two little lovebirds can argue all you want.”
Who on earth do you think you are? MC Fizgig has spoken with Robin Linden (the vice-president of Linden Labs) directly. The Woodbury University sim is not going anywhere soon, and the shrine will remain with it.
“Tizzers, playing BOTH sides is now starting to unravel on you. Nobody likes a fence sitter or one who tries to play sides against each other so they can storm in after the battle is done and claim victory for themselves. Your act is starting to fall apart.”
There is no fence sitting. I flat out believe in the principles that PN represents. Power to the people, viva la revoltuion, all of that jazz. It’s disturbing when the people turn against their own with impulsive, unfounded reactionism. It’s really like a mob of uneducated sheep. Tizzers is bad! Tizzers is evil! Let’s bomb Tizzers!
I know PN. Their main reason for doing anything is “for the lulz”. I guess I’m just their new flavor of the week.
mootykips
May 7th, 2007
the JLU photo is of Jake Brahm, a notable 4channer who got partyvanned for posting bomb threats.
see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Brahm
aka, not me. sorry, JLU fails again. also, I don’t live in puget sound, I’m not the administrator of digibase, and I’ve never met nexis.
and am I right in assuming you’re not intlib but Jim Schack, e-security expert, closet furry, and internet lawyer? if were intlib, you would have called me on my IP ban story, as I had a chat with intLibber under a proxy a couple days ago.
also tizzers, saikyou has suggested we have a group meeting on vent or irc to get this shit sorted out. if you want to do that contact me. you know how.
Wisdom
May 8th, 2007
You will know a tree by the fruit it bears, and the fruit produced will either nourish or poison the eater.
Hazim Gazov
May 11th, 2007
Silly, silly Prokofy, posting under different names so that people won’t ridicule her. Pathetic. I don’t need to be in the people list to crash the grid, and I don’t need that shitty ShoopedLife either (really, not all that great folks, don’t shit yourselves over it). I’m on ur grid, shottin’ ma web. BTW, Operation : Aggregation Regeneration is now underway, you know what to do.
P.S :
>>Hazim has a vast record as a serial griefer, it all just finally caught up to him.
I require this record for scrap-booking purposes. Please paste a link in the comments.
mootykips
May 11th, 2007
“Operation : Aggregation Regeneration”
Our upcoming operation kicks your operation’s ass. :p
Hazim Gazov
May 11th, 2007
Now don’t be mean, I’m gonna steal stuff and crash the grid this time. I’m Plastic Duck, surely I have nothing better to do than to make you miserable and be Plastic Duck, because I am Plastic Duck.
Wisdom
May 11th, 2007
Wisdom calls aloud outside…
She raises her voice in the open squares.
She cries out in the most populated of places
At the openings of the gates in the city She speaks her words:
“How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity?
For scorners delight in their scorning,
And fools hate knowledge. Turn at my rebuke!”
Surely wisdom will give to you without measure…
Wisdom will make her words known to you.
Because Wisdom has called and you refused,
because she has stretched out her hand and no one regarded,
because you disdained all her counsel, and would have none of her rebuke,
I will laugh at your calamity.
I will mock when your terror comes, when your terror comes like a storm,
and your destruction comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you.
Then they will call on wisdom, but wisdom will not answer.
They will seek her diligently, but they will not find her, because they hated knowledge,
and did not choose wisdom, because they would have none of her counsel and despised her every rebuke.
Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled to the full with their own fancies.
For the turning away of the simple will slay them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them.
But whoever listens to wisdom will dwell safely, and will be secure, without fear of evil.
Hazim Gazov
May 11th, 2007
Did you just call me fat?
Wisdom
May 11th, 2007
Be careful how you hear. For those who have knowledge will more be given, and from those who do not, even what they think they have will be taken away.
Tizzers Foxchase
May 12th, 2007
Wisdom calls aloud outside…
She raises her voice in the open squares.
She cries out in the most populated of places
At the openings of the gates in the city She speaks her words:
“How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity?
For scorners delight in their scorning,
And fools hate knowledge. Turn at my rebuke!”
Surely wisdom will give to you without measure…
Wisdom will make her words known to you.
Because Wisdom has called and you refused,
because she has stretched out her hand and no one regarded,
because you disdained all her counsel, and would have none of her rebuke,
I will laugh at your calamity.
I will mock when your terror comes, when your terror comes like a storm,
and your destruction comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you.
Then they will call on wisdom, but wisdom will not answer.
They will seek her diligently, but they will not find her, because they hated knowledge,
and did not choose wisdom, because if anything I could say that this cab was rare but I thought nah, forget it, yo homes to bel-air. I pulled up to a house about seven or eight and I yelled to the cabbie Yo homes, smell you later. Looked at my kingdom I was finally there to sit on my throne as the prince of Bel-Air.
mootykips
May 12th, 2007
fuck, i was going to do that. oh well.
Wisdom
May 15th, 2007
How long will you simple ones love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge?
The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice.
Every prudent man acts out of knowledge, but a fool exposes his folly.
Hazim Gazov
May 16th, 2007
Well said, Wisdom.
*tosses wisdom a chocolate chip cookie*
Wisdom
May 16th, 2007
You cannot eat the chocolate chip cookies of riteousness and the chocolate chip cookies of evil too; you cannot stand in line at Popeye’s Chicken and Kentucky Fried Chicken at the same time.
Esahcxof Srezzit
May 17th, 2007
O lawd chickunz?
Also, there’s now a KFC in the shrine.
Also, dongs.
Also, sup /b/?
Hazim Gazov
May 17th, 2007
Wisdom, that’s why you pay a hobo five bucks to stand in one of the lines, but take his booze as collateral.
Wisdom
May 17th, 2007
In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the hobo, who is caught in the schemes he devises. He boasts of the cravings for chikunz; he blesses the greedy and reviles Wisdom.
In his pride the wicked does not seek Wisdom.
Wisdom hears the desire of the afflicted; Wisdom encourages them, and listens to their cry…defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may be terrified no more.
Anonymous
May 17th, 2007
Esahcxof Srezzit, rules 1 + 2 u damn nigger
Leepe
Jun 26th, 2007
Sent an email to Woodbury University, this is what they said.
Thank you for contacting us. Woodbury University has no official affiliation with Second Life or any on-line gaming community.
We are looking into getting any offensive or any material that misrepresents Woodbury University removed from the Second Life site.
Never Mess with Football
Sep 22nd, 2007
DON’T MESS WITH FOOTBALL DON’T MESS WITH FOOTBALL DON’T MESS WITH FOOTBALL
Lyman Reference
Feb 17th, 2008
It seems seriously unlikely that Woodbury is promoting or aware of anything at all. That kind of bland response is really to be expected from the dark bowels of administrata.
Additionally, I support Prokofy’s right to write a damned opinion piece. Some of her methods might be flawed but we’re all human here, aside from the duck guy.
Fail
Aug 26th, 2008
Fail.