The Broadly Offensive
by prokofy on 09/06/07 at 4:11 pm
Prokofy Neva, Dept. of Community Affairs. Op-Ed.
Last night, we met at the Sutherland Dam for the Friday evening salon (will try to post the transcript on my blog soon) to discuss how to respond to the May 31st Daniel Linden Edict which threatens not only to take away cultural and political freedoms in Second Life, it seeks to enlist a nation of police informers in that dubious effort to do the nasty job of ratting out their fellow residents to determine what is “broadly offensive”. We all need to opt out from that exercise — pronto.
Various protests groups have gotten started around this as is always the case in SL — each with its own agenda, and one even calling itself “United” to try to “unite everybody”. I personally don’t think the solution to the Lindens artificially uniting us into a fake “community” — one that they falsely invoked as justification for their Edict — is for us then to be artificially united and holding hands across the sea singing Kumbayah. I don’t want to hold hands and sing Kumbayah with people that I personally find broadly offensive and it’s mutual, I’m sure — and I don’t *want* the notion of “broadly offensive” itself to be lost, and for me to have to chloroform my response to it — merely to have freedom of speech in SL. I refuse. I want an overarching, content-free principle here at stake.
Thus, like anyone, I can surely concede that one man’s “broadly offensive” is another man’s “narrowly-attractive” fantasy. And the sum parts of those disaggregated narrowly-attractive fantasies is what makes up Second Life as a place of freedom and creativity we can all appreciate. I think that even 1,000-strong BDSM movements mainly about trying to validate and legitimize BDSM for the RL mass media and the mass SL public are not a horse that is wise to back in the overall struggle for free speech shaping up this summer. I don’t want distinctions to be erased and judgements forcibly suspended; I’d like them merely not to have the force of law in guiding the Lindens. Because we need free speech for *everyone* as a *universal principle* — not just BDSM, not just “ageplayers” who wish to resist EU laws about simulated child pornography — and not just Prokofy Neva or the Toxic Twenty who loathe him. Free speech by its nature has to move away from content examinations; it has to be for all concepts, including the right to call another “offensive”.
So what is to be done? I think the *action* we can all agree on — unlike the forms and content which we cannot agree on — is that WE ALL MUST STOP ABUSE REPORTING TO THE LINDENS. Abuse-reporting in and of itself is already a concession to the police-informant state. It’s so often used to settle scores, and to harass people disliked. We should never abuse something on the basis of “content we find broadly offensive” — and leave the Lindens alone with only those reports that are clearly trumped-up — or the odd newbie report of a struggling new resident who hasn’t figured out how to combat griefers.
So I propose a group which you can find open and inworld called The Broadly Offensive.
See, it’s a double entendre because even when you refrain, even when you abstain from action, to get it seen, to get the idea to spread, you have to give it an action-oriented sound.
I was thinking how this time of Linden Edicts calls for one of those “don’t just do something, stand there” type of activities to refrain from legitimizing the all-powerful Linden system — and Onder Skall proposed a slogan: “Do Good by Doing Jack”.
What is involved by joining The Broadly Offensive and Doing Good by Doing Jack?
Merely agreeing never to file a single other abuse report to the Lindens. Not to Live by the Lie and determine what is “broadly offensive” and give them ammunition to make a skewed reference to “the community”.
It does not involving making a judgement — or being forced *not* to make a judgement! — about any content. It means that one does not *act upon* judgement by pushing one’s finger on the Abuse Report button.
What’s the down side?
Giving ammunition to griefers? Well, at this point, if you are a landowner, you have the tools of ban, mute, no object creation, no object insertion, etc. to flip on or off. Determined griefing groups make alts faster than the Lindens can ban them anyway, and so you have to respond on your own most of the time as it is.
We all know that abuse reports not only “go nowhere” and get only automatic responses, only a tiny portion of them show up on the police blotter.
For some people, I’m the most Broadly Offensive person they know, and they loathe my writings and find them broadly offensive. So surely they’ll find me an appropriate initiator of this response : )
If they don’t, they can join one of the many other protest groups forming or create their own — it’s always good to have lots and lots of groups with many members and constituencies – but what we could possibly agree on is this tactic of ceasing the abuse reports.
Worried that this sounds like the sort of civil disobedience that can get you banned from a game? Hardly. The Lindens won’t care. They are dismantling the AR system anyway. Soon, in another 2-3 patches, they will have a system where all abuse reports devolve to the island owner anyway, unless he opts to route it to Lindens — and on the Mainland, there might be something even as ghastly as a master Governor Linden ban list. Ceasing the abuse reporting mania to the Lindens, weaning oneself from this odious KGB-style police informants’ system they created, is good practice to take up your own AR system!
Some will want to replace this with Ban-Link — I can’t endorse ban-link as I’ve explained on my blog, as I see it as a very blunt weapon that has rampant opportunity for misuse.
Whether you are BDSM or not, whether you support the rights of “ageplayers” or not, whether you subscribe to Ban-Link or not, whether you read the Herald or the Second Life Insider or the Avastar, you can passively do your part by doing nothing: don’t report.
Don’t let them determine by your participation what is “broadly offensive”.
bolshev!k
Jun 9th, 2007
Lenin approves of this idea
good work, comrade
Tizzers Foxchase
Jun 9th, 2007
That was a very informative meeting Profoky.
I particularly enjoyed the part where you banned me for doing absolutely nothing. I think I find YOU broadly offensive.
csven
Jun 9th, 2007
“WE ALL MUST STOP ABUSE REPORTING TO THE LINDENS” says the person likely to be the most guilty of using and abusing it.
Ian Betteridge
Jun 9th, 2007
Of course, what you’re suggesting would hand all power squarely to land owners – who would, after all, still wield considerable power thanks to their ability to ban people from land. It would in effect, make landowners the final judges in world, with no right of appeal to anyone.
Gorean Furry
Jun 9th, 2007
How nice of you to use family photos to illustrate your articles.
Prokofy Neva
Jun 9th, 2007
*Horse laugh*. “Absolutely nothing” is not what voter-5 does, “Tizzers”. The fact that other avatars in this group with the title “Woodbury Security” arrived after you were banned and began to a) spew ugly particles everywhere including the hallmark pool’s out v-5 particles with Bill Cosby; b) try to insert giant objects on to the land; c) unleash clouds of stuff everywhere — is proof of the event-griefing that these goons do every time. Your “doing nothing” while you signal to these types of “security” people is in fact doing something, hon, and we can see right through it.
There is a group called “Anti Voter 5″ of which you are a member that has already had at least 3 people banned permanently from it for direct, documented griefing. You are part of the substrate of that griefing by aiding, abetting, providing alibies for, claiming that you “do nothing,” claiming that “this group shouldn’t all be tarred with the same brush” — blah, blah, blah. I see right through it, I call you on your bullshit, and you are banned from my events.
We all need to use land tools more effectively and make judgements on groups based on the actual documented behaviour of their members, rather than run to the Lindens, who are not effective.
Ashe Whitfield
Jun 9th, 2007
A very good idea.
Prokofy Neva
Jun 9th, 2007
Of course, what you’re suggesting would hand all power squarely to land owners – who would, after all, still wield considerable power thanks to their ability to ban people from land. It would in effect, make landowners the final judges in world, with no right of appeal to anyone.
The Lindens made a propertarian world and governance system, not me. I would rather have groups make assemblies or parliaments based not only on land ownership but on affinity groups or themes or whatever, any one with some kind of social standing/legitimacy from numbers/stake — all of these things can be discussed.
The reality of code-as-law is that we only have land tools to work with — or we must beseech Governor Linden to send her minions to deal with griefers as we fly around the world of open properties. Well, God is in His Heaven and the Tsar is far away, as the Russians say. I don’t want to be waiting for them, and they are moving to a system that devolves mainly to land owners now as it is. Everyone will be forced to rent, buy, or seek a protectorate in a theme or something, I guess. Not my ideal world, but one we’re forced to deal with.
The Lindens haven’t made any system of appeal for this concept of abuse reports coming to sim owners and not them, so you need to complain to them, not me. You might try buying a 512, Ian, so you, too, can become Lord and Master of All You Survey and see if you can find some followers for all your ideas. Actually, a 16m2 might do nicely.
dandellion Kimban
Jun 9th, 2007
I simply don’t believe this, Prok.
After all, you are now becoming aware that free speach is a good thing, even for your business. And now you are proposing some kind of unity to all the people that protests for weeks. What made a turn over, if we may know?
You don’t like UP so you do some lorem ipsum stuff to disqualify them, then want to make “natural” (?) union by calling to tolerance and citizen’s disobedience.
You call for a tolerance! Have you noticed that most of the lifestyles that are already protesting, and which you address now, don’t have problems with other people’s lifestyles? Can you say that for yourself. No you don’t.
And that idea of citizen’s disobedience! No matter how I do like to excercise citizen’s disobedience, this one is stupid. What is the point of doing something in protest if Lindens don’t care?
Prokofy Neva
Jun 9th, 2007
>”WE ALL MUST STOP ABUSE REPORTING TO THE LINDENS” says the person likely to be the most guilty of using and abusing it.
I hardly find this statement credible, coming from the person who harassed me and my tenant over his swingset. What a dick. No, I will leave Csevn to do all the abuse reporting on my sims because he’ll be more obviously isolated as an abusive reporter in that event.
I find it hugely hilarious that Csven has been forced to change his profile lately. It used to have a statement about me, thinly disguised, and a link to a photo that said “Prok’s Kiddie Land”. Now it’s missing. Gosh, I wonder why?
In its place is:
“Mostly an observer.
Note:
- I ban neighbors with adjoining land who block access first; I do not initiate but will respond in kind.
- I will abide by Linden Lab’s request to report “broadly offensive” material as I can best define it. If you don’t like their policies, don’t take it up with me (especially Ravenglass customers whose landlord supports LL policy)
- As I’ve been banned from Ravenglass property, I’m returning the favor to all Ravenglass customers renting property bordering my land.”
I support LL’s judgement call on what they find offensive — the promotion of ageplay. I suppose the TOS — I signed it. I suppose their effort to indicate some possible boundaries that people need to think about coming from REAL LIFE law and authorities.
What I don’t support is pressing us into service as police informants. I’ll make my own polices and not abuse report to LL. That way, if someone doesn’t like my policies, they’ll have other options with other landlords.
Prokofy Neva
Jun 9th, 2007
>I simply don’t believe this, Prok.
Gosh, why are we not surprised? Possibly that could have to do with the fact that you troll everything I write, instantly lol?
>After all, you are now becoming aware that free speach is a good thing, even for your business.
I’ve “been aware” for nearly 3 years, bub. I’ve lived it. I’ve been banned. What you have YOU done? spout on forums behind a nick?
>And now you are proposing some kind of unity to all the people that protests for weeks. What made a turn over, if we may know?
I don’t propose any unity whatsoever. I don’t want to be in someone else’s group; I wanted to start a different one with other people that I first had a chance to discuss this with. If it’s small, that’s ok. I just discovered there’s another group that is called “Broadly Offensive” with a funnier charter – you can be offensive, or just broad to join their group — and which also used the hear-no-evil meme as an icon. Great! But I don’t want to be in their group because they want to fight people that they say are “tight-asses”. I’m fine with there being “tight-asses” in SL. I just don’t want them legislating morality.
>You don’t like UP so you do some lorem ipsum stuff to disqualify them, then want to make “natural” (?) union by calling to tolerance and citizen’s disobedience.
I actually don’t think that NOT doing something is civil disobedience, which usually involves like a sit-down protest, but not doing the duty the government has called you to do might be viewed as civil disobedience in some settings. I think the United Front people are probably busy disqualifying themselves now that they’ve decided to breast-beat and kick out people who are self-identified pedophiles. Always a dog to kick! I’m against pedophiles too. I don’t know if I’m an expert, however, such as to go around judging enough to blow them into the Lindens — and risk dinging merely a person who has a child av on a swingset. If I see them on my own property engaging in the *action* of sexualized ageplay, then I’m happy to boot them. I want to keep this sort of thing local, however.
>You call for a tolerance! Have you noticed that most of the lifestyles that are already protesting, and which you address now, don’t have problems with other people’s lifestyles? Can you say that for yourself. No you don’t.
Tolerance means not outlawing. It doesn’t mean validating. And we can agree on that, and not abuse report other people.
Let’s not give the Lindens the police state they wish to build on the backs of police informers.
>And that idea of citizen’s disobedience! No matter how I do like to excercise citizen’s disobedience, this one is stupid. What is the point of doing something in protest if Lindens don’t care?
Because if enough people don’t abuse report, they cannot point to us as any “community” that “found something broadly offensive”.
There’s no Moral Majority. There is only YOU abuse reporting, and helping the Lindens point to a fake majority. Don’t do it.
csven
Jun 9th, 2007
“I hardly find this statement credible, coming from the person who harassed me and my tenant over his swingset.”
Says the person who claims to have AR’d pictures that name no names, show no avatars and make no claims on a third party website: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8686061@N06/
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“What a dick.”
Been spying on me again?
Which makes me wonder, how many chat logging devices do you put on your rental land. You know… to keep tabs on all those tenants whose lifestyle choices you hate so much?
If they only knew how easy it is, right Prok?
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“I find it hugely hilarious that Csven has been forced to change his profile lately. It used to have a statement about me, thinly disguised, and a link to a photo that said “Prok’s Kiddie Land”. Now it’s missing. Gosh, I wonder why?”
“has been forced”? Who lied to you? Or is that more ProkLogic?
The truth is I change it when I feel like it. And now, because I feel like it, it says pretty much what it said when you claimed to have AR’d it.
Just for you, Prok:
“An observer wondering how people can ignore real child pornography inside SL and *not* report it to the authorities:
This resident links to their blog in their SL profile – http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2007/05/the_pedophiles_.html
“…*real-life very graphic child pornography” off their walls — they were photographs imported from real life porn … I took a few shots … nobody felt like following up … I forgot about the subject…”
I removed *this* one to post the other one which really wasn’t that big a deal afaic (even though your curious tenant seemed to get all worked up about it). They won’t both fit on the front, so the link to the Flickr images is now under First Life.
No need to thank me. It’s my pleasure. And now I WILL wait until Linden Lab “force” me to remove them.
Obscure Doodad
Jun 9th, 2007
It is of some value to point out here that Abuse Reporting is a mistake on LL’s part and encouraging its use is something they did not think through.
People, you need to repeat this to yourselves every day. Everything LL Is Doing Is About Shifting Civil Litigation Liability Elsewhere. Wanting landowners to police themselves is part of that. Having people AR adult content is also part of that, but that was not well thought through by them. By accepting ARs and acting on them they declare to the court that LL is the final arbiter of what takes place on that land and this undercuts their hoped for legal position that they have no liability for what takes place on that land.
So, I think ceasing to AR is a bad idea. It helps LL transfer legal liability for what happens on your land to yourself. A much better approach would be to create bots from the open source client and avalanche their AR system to render it useless. This way they still have the system on record and will have to show its existence to the court. And when landowners are sued for what happens on their land, they will have a much better argument of transferring that liability back to LL.
Fromage Ferdais
Jun 9th, 2007
Whew this discussion is all a bit sad really – are the regular commenters here overweight, ghost-skinned losers who haven’t intereacted with society in a year or four?
dandellion Kimban
Jun 9th, 2007
Prok, it is just that some other people formed groups and doing what you ceased to find profitable at the moment (actually, it took you much more than a moment). Now, instead of joining you want to form your own group and lead your own protest. That is your right. But, it is also considered bad behaviour. Just as you said: “I don’t want to be in someone else’s group.”
Lot of people, myself included, are doing all the things we can think of against censorship and abuse of the abuse report system, and doing it for the better of second life. And we are doing it for more than a month. I am glad that more and more people are getting the point of all that. But, you just have another crazy idea in your head (probably driven by your own profit) and you want to proclaim yourself as a leader of the group that should take the protest. Well… nobody can prohibit you to try.
Jessica Holyoke
Jun 9th, 2007
Prokofy, a very nicely written article. I support your position here in regards to not using the AR system.
Prokofy Neva
Jun 9th, 2007
Obscure, I agree the Lindens are limiting their own liability, and transferring it to us. I refuse to be backed into a corner where I have to pre-emptively start abuse-reporting everywhere in order to imdemnify myself. I have the power to remove content and people from my land — it’s not perfect, but it’s sufficient for most purposes.
I don’t believe in trying to jam systems by trying to deluge them with fake complaints. Witholding legitimacy is an easier and more legitimate thing to do that trying to bomb a system.
dandelion, my, you are tiresome. I’ve been making protest group and lobbying and protesting my entire Second Life, before you were born. I suggest you Google me or something. There’s no profit-seeking in what I do, if I were interested in profit-seeking soley in SL, I wouldn’t be an outspoken blogger and reporter for the Herald : )
Morgana Fillion
Jun 9th, 2007
It’s a miracle. I agree with Prok!
I wish I hadn’t read the comments though – they make me want to bounce marshmallow penis off the heads of both Prok and csven. Can’t you two just IM each other about your eternally tedious war?
dandellion Kimban
Jun 9th, 2007
Yes, Prok, we know you are old. Problem is, you don’t get wiser with aging.
Your plan is counter productive:
If we all boycot abuse report system, then the consequence is not free-speach world. The consequence may be other abuse system which is not related to users. Is that what you want? Or you just want your group and your protest to be the leader?
Prokofy Neva
Jun 9th, 2007
I don’t see how “another” abuse system can come into being when the Lindens are fazing out this one, making private island owners soon to have the option of having most ARs come to them (apparently ARs on that island owner himself will go to the Lab) and in general trying to make people assume responsibility for their own fate.
SL was always vulnerable to RL law. The idea that it was some suspended place beyond the reach of the law was utopian. The way it’s turned out, by their extremism, some lifestylers have made it so that the law has become interested. LL is saying they will not take the rap for this, and devolving responsibililty to the owners.
Of course, as we only rent; as we don’t have complete control; as we don’t even have *information* we can’t possibly judge all this.
So this is one of those times when you have to play Bartleby the Scrivener and say, “I prefer not to”.
dandellion Kimban
Jun 9th, 2007
Yes, I agree about most of that. But, we are not talking about that.
Point is: There is no point in boycoting AR.
And hence the question:
Why are you calling residents to do something that will do no good to community?
csven
Jun 9th, 2007
“We should never abuse something on the basis of “content we find broadly offensive” — and leave the Lindens alone with only those reports that are clearly trumped-up — or the odd newbie report of a struggling new resident who hasn’t figured out how to combat griefers.”
“clearly trumped up”? According to whom? And based on what? ProkLogic: “A statement I believe to be true *is* a fact until it is *disproven*”?
Looks like a loophole to me.
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“It does not involving making a judgement — or being forced *not* to make a judgement! — about any content.”
Behavior isn’t “content” afaic, and if I’m not mistaken it’s the behavior that’s at issue.
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“We all know that abuse reports not only “go nowhere” and get only automatic responses, only a tiny portion of them show up on the police blotter.”
Actually, I don’t know because in the 2+ years I’ve been in SL I’ve AR’d maybe two or three times (and can’t even remember the last one).
So what this really means is that for those who are *already* more tolerant and reluctant to use the AR system, those who use it repeatedly will stop. Maybe. Depending on the situation. And we have to trust them. The one’s who seem to be the most intolerant.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Lem Skall
Jun 9th, 2007
We are not in the Soviet Union that Prok gets his inspiration from. We are not an oppressed people under a dictatorship. We are instead one half of a bad relationship and relationships need to be fixed through communication, not through more fighting or even just antagonizing. Otherwise, we might as well break up the relationship. We still can and should continue to make our voices heard instead of just not cooperate with the “regime”. We need to continue to communicate with LL and to make LL listen to us. We need to maintain an intelligent dialogue in order to achieve that.
And THIS is not an intelligent dialogue.
Prokofy Neva
Jun 10th, 2007
Oh, it’s plenty intelligent, Lem. And yes, we’re in a situation that has the same totalitarian aspects of the Soviet Union, although of course in quirky virtual form you can log off from any time so obviously it’s different in at least one essential way.
The Lindens are always peeling us off. Get rid of events grants, get rid of first land, get rid of the forums, close the blog off at 100, etc.
And say, did you hear they are having ANOTHER SL Views — this secret all-expense-paid trip for just 8 or so of their special friends — on June 29th? I just heard about this by accident.
So they do what they want, and shed us — and I think it’s good if we shed them, too. They have more abuse reports than they know what to do with — and the system rots, as it has no credibility — the police blotter isn’t a real record; there’s no memory or searchability — and that’s deliberate.
I think it’s high time we end this informants’ network that keeps this police state in power.
You know they’re planning to put abuse-report buttons on the Events Calendar, too, there are always some net nannies to be found who want to harangue their fellow man, especially if he’s selling something they can’t control.
dandelion, it’s only in your mind that there’s no use to having a boycott of the AR system. other people find it of value. Each to his own.
Economic Mip
Jun 10th, 2007
I have never viewed abuse reporting as a successful way of doing anything. Yes I have filled one in my time in Second Life. But it was an issue which was of no consequence due to a mutual misunderstanding of English by both involved parties. My biggest gripe with Second Life is that Linden Labs has claimed that the grid is not capable of being policed by its creators, due to (insert excuse of the week). The fact is that most “broadly offensive” people will respond to polite requests for change, and a dozen (or fewer) “Linden Police” around the grid would have a profound impact. Case and point, a police department recently held a recruiting session in Second Life, and to the best of my knowledge the event had all the land settings griefers drool over, and an incompetent “security force”. However, the knowledge that real cops meant real life consequences to griefers was likely what kept them at bay.
Myrrh Massiel
Jun 10th, 2007
LIBRE SECOND LIFE
We’d like to extend an invitation to all interested parties to join the group ‘Libre Second Life’ in an open, inclusive expression of solidarity supporting our creative liberties.
OUR GUIDING PRINICIPLES FOR A FREE SECOND LIFE
We pledge, in keeping with the original Community Standards, and in the spirit of free, creative expression on which Second Life was founded:
- We will stand up for the right of PEACEFUL, FREE expression. We will not Abuse Report anyone for actions that do not clearly involve harm to others, or do not interfere with the ability of others to use and enjoy Second Life.
- We will be TOLERANT of the lifestyles and activities of our fellow Second Life residents. We will grant them the same rights to continue existing and expressing themselves that we hope they would grant us.
- We will respect the PRIVACY of our fellow residents. We will not become a deputy of any amateur thought police. We will not spy on nor inform against others for what they do in private on private land. We recognise that not all residents have complete control over their own privacy, but we will respect their privacy nonetheless.
- We will not participate in any HARASSMENT of or ASSAULT on the private activities of others. We will not support the efforts of any moralistic mob to drive out our or persecute any group within Second Life.
In this we express our moral values and commit ourselves to DECENCY toward our fellow residents. We believe we are upholding the values Linden Lab set forth in their community standards over the past four years. We hope that Linden Lab will endeavor to continue these values as well, protecting ALL the communities of Second Life and the wonderful world we have created together.
ninjafoo Ng
Jun 10th, 2007
Silence and obscurity are bound to accomplish … um …. well anyway …
VIKINGBEZERKER Bobak
Jun 10th, 2007
ok fine prok you want us to do what?
personally i don’t report ANYTHING to the sky pixie lindens…. why because the way they work it reminds me of praying and i’m not religious.
they have better things to do … like FIXING SL than to sit there and deal with whining people.
if i were a linden i would have 1 PERSON to sort this shit out….. and give them ultimate power.and the only instruction they get is to get the terminally bad people out of the game ONLY IF PROVEN BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT.
now that’s that… all you’re doin now is the usual….
blow smoke out your arse and big yourself up….. do us all a favout and STFU.
Hypothetical Avatar
Jun 10th, 2007
“WE ALL MUST STOP ABUSE REPORTING TO THE LINDENS”
Reality check. According to a LL quote, LL receives 5000 ARs in a day. Anybody can check from the police blotter that they solve 2-3 ARs in a day. Read again the LL standard bullshit you get as a reply to AR.
LL doesn’t get money from pondering ARs, thus they do not do it.
I suspect that the source Linden doesn’t know numbers either but the ratio is about right. In practice your ARs are not processed.
I recommend a compromise: NSA, CIA and FBI could take care of moving people behind “broadly offensive” avatar terrorists called greifers(*) to Guantánamo, because Siberia is nowadays owned by billionaires.
“We are not in the Soviet Union that Prok gets his inspiration from. We are not an oppressed people under a dictatorship.”
I too live in a good country unlike PN, but think about all those poor people in Bushland nowadays. God save their souls before it is too late!
(*) as they spell themselves
dandellion Kimban
Jun 10th, 2007
yes, I see… It is brilliand idea. It shuold be. It took you three weeks of deep meditation to come out with it. C’mon, Prok, don’t be silly.
Lewis Nerd
Jun 10th, 2007
“You know they’re planning to put abuse-report buttons on the Events Calendar, too”
The problem with that being…? It’s clearly listed in the rules what does and doesn’t constitute an event, and it’s very frustrating for those of us who do run REAL events to see people spamming it with 24 hour back to back sales (that aren’t), grand openings that last a week, *.ingo where the only thing that changes is the person running it, and land/property for sale that can’t be called an ‘event’ either. If it makes it easier for people to flag things for Linden review that shouldn’t be in the events calendar, to clear out the crap, and more importantly, deter people from spamming, then I’m all for it, and damn I’m gonna use it. People have been asking for the events calendar to be cleaned up for a long time.
It seems clear to me that if residents can’t be trusted to follow a few simple rules, then Linden Lab have to take action and enlist the help of those of us who care about SL and improving it.
If you don’t care enough about Second Life to see it improved, then you know where the door is.
Lewis
Nicholaz Beresford
Jun 10th, 2007
I like the idea. Since that “Together” post, I’m running around with a title tag of “Broadly Offensive” anyway
And I am quite impressed by the underlying philosophy in your post. I guess it’s always there but usually not (or less) visible, but I’m impressed nonetheless by your expression of seeing the “bigger picture”.
It’s hard to describe, but despite the fervor with which you fight for your causes, you seem to acknowledge the basic right of everybody to express views different from you.
Pie Psaltery
Jun 10th, 2007
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” -Edmund Burke
Bryn Voight
Jun 10th, 2007
I think Prok’s idea here is at least partially a good one. Reporting people for ‘broadly offensive’ behavior is indeed replicative of systems of control in authoritarian systems. It behooves us all to not legitimize a statement from the Lindens which is dangerously ambiguous. The opposite strategy would also potentially be effected, that is agreeing upon a single thing the lindens couldn’t possible deal with and than having tens of thousands of people report it as broadly offensive(my vote is for Platinum Blond Prim Hair… I know I find it broadly offensive…) In seriousness though not reporting Broadly offensive behavior at all does at least limit the capacity of the lindens to demonstrate legitimacy.
What it does not do it deal with the problem. Legitimacy will never be an issue for use of this ‘policy’, because the Lindens have already claimed said legitimacy. We can demand to know how they determined what the ‘community’ finds ‘broadly offensive’ till we’re blue in the face, but we will only receive obfuscations and misdirections. Such policies are put in place precisely because they are ill-defined, thus enabling them to institute new policy without claiming it is new policy. One sees this all over the place, from needlessly broadly worded ‘terrorist’ or ‘criminal’ statutes in places like the PRC, right down to school codes of conduct with such imprecise words to basically enable the bouncing of ‘undesirables’ when they ‘need bouncing’. What will be the result of this policy is the lindens Claiming ‘community support’ for actions they later find necisary to take, and their ability to point ot this broad policy so that there new polices are not actually new. Like in Animal Farm we are left to wonder if the painted rules on the side of the barn always really said what they now say.
Prokofy Neva
Jun 10th, 2007
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” -Edmund Burke
It’s always easy to apply a facile proverb on such a notion as this tendentiously. In thinking about this plan, if I was going to draw on Edmund Burke, I’d say that in this case, *NOT* participating isn’t “doing nothing” but is actively engaging in creating an alternative to the evil of a police state filled with informants.
My inspiration for this comes from Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s concept of “Live Not by the Lie”. Of course, he’s a controversial figure and I generally don’t support his take on Russia and his solutions (right), I’ve always been more of a Sakharov (left) supporter. But on this, he was right, and he inspired millions. The concept is this: you can’t stop the Gulag, you can’t stop them from arresting you, sometimes merely for being a relative of someone else arrested, but what you can do is not cooperate. They can’t make you inform on your neighbour. They can’t make you speak up to be the one to denounce your co-worker in a “self-criticism circle.” And by withdrawing from the false and even sinister civic space created by a police state, you begin to create the alternative that some day might supplant it.
In our case, there is no community except what the Lindens define, or what we define occasionally negatively by opposing them. These fake “community of educators” or “community of content-creators” that they artificially induce and fete into being (and whose members are therefore aggressively obedient supporters) aren’t really what natural communities are. They think they are social engineers as well as platform engineers. We need to resist that but also be about making alternatives.
I don’t think we need to find ourselves in this situation in the Animal Farm analogy. Because we should be doing two other things simultaneously: one, making lots of protest groups, getting names, getting support for them, etc. and two, making alternatives that begin to work without the Lindens. That’s what I’ve been busy doing for months with my Police Blotter for Ravenglass.
While they Lindens may claim they have “community support” for some action, once there is a group of non-supporters and protestors watching this, when they *do* invoke some banning or removal as “broadly offensive” and it strikes most people as either *not* offensive or *illegitimate without due process*, then there will be people to protest.
Of course the policy is overbroad and ill-defined, and of course it makes false invocation of a community that no one can check up on. I think it’s our job simply to make sure there *is* some kind of visible non-supporting community that can be checked up on by more and more newcomers, the media, and authorities, should they be turning their attention to the world.
Lem Skall
Jun 10th, 2007
Prok, as you note yourself, one huge difference between SL and a totalitarian country is that we can leave. Another huge difference is that we can speak without being punished for it. We should use this freedom of speech that we have and communicate with LL.
The tactics that you suggest are designed to undermine a totalitarian regime and take it down. But taking down LL would mean taking down SL too. The only way that would make sense would be to make room for another, better, virtual world to take its place. But I don’t think we want that, at least not yet.
As for intelligent, the public fights between you and csven (or any of your “enemies”) are never that.
Prokofy Neva
Jun 10th, 2007
No, Lewis, smarmy little fanboyz need to keep their paws off the abuse-report buttons. The Events List has filters. Use them. If a tringo shows up under “discussion,” write and ask them to remove it or ignore it and move on.
Now the entire list doesn’t return at all (it doesn’t on any of the searches which is hugely annoying but may be a feature, not a bug). So you HAVE to use key words and filters. USE THEM.
People use the events list because advertising is so severely limited and expensive.
The Lindens need a conscious billboard policy where they ban all 16m2 sign extorters from all locations except 256 m2 from any Linden road. And the Lindens need to work at creating advertising capacity at the roadside themselves with Linden billboard space they sell, just like they sell the classifieds. They’re capable of making tasteful and useful billboards, some of them could even be educational or with networked public service announcements. They need more real estate for messaging, and so does everyone else. When they’re ready to grow up about this, and shake off the minority of hysterics on the forums driven by anti-capitalist ideologies, they’ll be able to fix up this problem a lot better. Ditto the welcome areas.
The answer to any ugly advertising problem in Second Life is to regulate it chiefly by making more capacity that people will find easy and productive to use, not by banning it further.
eventful.com doesn’t scan for whether an event is really an event under the Lindens’ definition — that’s absurd.
There needs to be bulletin boards in SL like in RL. In RL, when I put up a tag sale notice, I’m not asked if I will be present during the entire duration of the sale, or told I can only have it from 3-5 pm or prevented from keeping the notice up the entier week.
The attacks on the Events list is merely yet another arena for people like Lewis to vent their hatred of capitalism and what they imagine to be the evils of commerce. And precisely because this minority of people is not only rabidly active but has some Linden secret-sharers, they get more ugly commerce, not regulated and productive commerce as a result.
Prokofy Neva
Jun 10th, 2007
I won’t be joining Libre Second Life; the fact that your pal Csven Concord, an abuser of the system who terrorized his own neighbourhood over swingsets is all the evidence I need that this group isn’t the one to join.
>- We will stand up for the right of PEACEFUL, FREE expression. We will not Abuse Report anyone for actions that do not clearly involve harm to others, or do not interfere with the ability of others to use and enjoy Second Life.
You’d be better off simply ceasing the police-state informants’ system. You are not qualified to judge what “clearly involves harm to others”. Obviously, your pal Csven thought that he could bully and intimidate me and my tenant over a swingset by publishing a specious and tendentious picture, and keeping up a vertible jihad on all forums, even leading to the banning of both me and him. That’s not tolerance of free expression and its not good judgement about what constitutes “harm” — it’s harmful itself, and is like pouring kerosene all over every forum.
There’s nothing more vague and ill-used than the “interfere with the enjoyment of Second Life”. It would be great if the Lindens had a good track record on this to make what seems overbroad at least have a good record. But…they don’t. They couldn’t accept that this phrase met the ruination of views, property values, and second lives on thousands of sims perpetrated by the Bush Guy. They can’t see their way to developing a sign policy that would help freedom of expression not only for 16 m2 sign griefers and extortionists but all advertisers and those who have bought new properties only to see them devalued.
I simply do not trust that you’re an arbitrer of what is good for SL, and having you at the helm of the AR button can only be oppressive.
>- We will be TOLERANT of the lifestyles and activities of our fellow Second Life residents. We will grant them the same rights to continue existing and expressing themselves that we hope they would grant us.
These “rights” don’t include extending and taking over the public space, and perpetrating the tragedy of the commons. You don’t have a good solution for that. You merely wish to protect the sexual extremists for now because you’re thinking they are in some kind of beleaguered minority, but if they can trample the civic space, they won’t be, and then we can be sure you won’t be around to help extend back the rights of everybody else who didn’t want to be coerced in this fashion.
By saying “the same we hope they grant us,” you’re going to be waiting in vain. Gors will not suddenly start letting furries on their sims. W-hat will not suddenly cease the bloody execution of furries. And so on. You can’t wait for illiberal forces to become liberal due to your misguided liberal notions (i.e. like about Hamas, that only if you have democratic elections, why, they’ll come to power and…*be democratic. Not!)
Instead, you need a policy that protects minorities but doesn’t let the majority become overwhelmed by them, either.
>- We will respect the PRIVACY of our fellow residents. We will not become a deputy of any amateur thought police. We will not spy on nor inform against others for what they do in private on private land. We recognise that not all residents have complete control over their own privacy, but we will respect their privacy nonetheless.
If that’s the case, what are you doing making determinations that someone has interfered with the enjoyment of Second Life? How are you making that judgement?
>- We will not participate in any HARASSMENT of or ASSAULT on the private activities of others. We will not support the efforts of any moralistic mob to drive out our or persecute any group within Second Life.
The only moralistic mob we have right now are legions of screaming BDSMers demanding “rights” for their “fuck you” hedonism, who are prepared to bully, harrass, intimidate, and shout down anyone who criticizes them or asks them to restrain themselves. The only “casualties” of any “censorship” so far are those banned from third-party sites too lily-livered to stand up to trolling bullies when they first occur in order to keep the space free in fact for broad public discussion.
Inigo Chamerberlin
Jun 10th, 2007
Jesus H Christ – WHAT is all this about?
Just set your own rules on your own land and shut up! That’s ALL that’s EVER been necessary.
Abuse Reports have NEVER been anything except a meaningless toy to keep the idiots amused.
Making them is a waste of time, always has been, no action ever occurs as a result.
Though thinking about it, I suspect LL finds ARs a useful indicator of trouble makers – not those reported though… I suspect that a certain level of ARs over a predetermined time span causes the INITIATOR of the ARs to be flagged!
Outraged by the prospect of an inworld corps of resident informers?
I’m not.
I can see those who join that select group being the very ones to be ‘disappeared’!
Think it through – what LL doesn’t need is any more bad publicity on ‘public morals’ issues. The sort of people who go running to inform on others are EXACTLY the types to cause just that bad publicity.
Remove them and, from Linden Lab’s point of view, you remove the problem.
Prokofy Neva
Jun 10th, 2007
Inigo, not everybody is a land owner, and a lot of the abuses that occur, occur on Linden land or in public spaces not always watched over by owners.
The Lindens are promoting corporate and sanitized welcome areas now that they hope will take over the headache of screening newbies and removing griefers.
They don’t have a plan yet for the mainland but we should make sure that the plan doesn’t involve making Governor Linden join Ban-Link and making that worse.
And that means we need effective alternatives — local alternatives — and we need to opt-out of an ineffective and even abusive machine.
The police blotter is especially important to get started as an autonomous third-party site.
I don’t expect that the fanboyz who go and report every swingset they see and every poseball they see for sale at an event on the calendar will be likely to join this campaign I propose. Some might.
Rather, I’m appealing more to those who are already organized, but who still view themselves as making abuse reports — either proactively, to avoid being abuse reported themselves and being misunderstood, or selectively, in the belief they are arbitrers — as Myrrh’s group is now setting themselves up to be.
I think there’s a group of probably no more than 10,000 people in Second Life who are the vocal types who make blogs or work for the media or are in corporate communications or have some role in shaping the public image of SL, somewhere. So these people have to make sure that they opt-out and do not become that “community” that Daniel Linden falsely invokes.
Let them sit with a pile of abuse reports filed by smug and smarmy fanboyz screeching at every swingset, and let them not only realize what they have wrought, but let them take the consequences of their actions. If they didn’t mean to ban these things then…let them face what it means to now be deluged only with those kinds of reports. If anything, if the Lindens really claim they consult not only ARs but blogs and such, an organized, significant community of thousands of people who say that they will not report AT ALL, either because the system is corrupt or because they don’t find it offensive, then the Lindens actually do have a source of legitimate organization of “community” they could reasonably point to.
csven
Jun 10th, 2007
“I won’t be joining Libre Second Life; the fact that your pal Csven Concord, an abuser of the system who terrorized his own neighbourhood over swingsets is all the evidence I need that this group isn’t the one to join.”
I’d be more than happy to leave the group so that you can join. I’ll do that now, in fact. Check my profile and join them. If I join after, feel free to use that as an excuse to leave the group.
Can you do that, Prokofy? Can you *not* be the one in control? the one that doesn’t call the shots, ban the dissenters, and seek the attention of the media to bolster your ego?
-
And as Prokofy can’t answer real questions and insists on lying about what’s gone before…
“Obviously, your pal Csven thought that he could bully and intimidate me and my tenant over a swingset by publishing a specious and tendentious picture, and keeping up a vertible jihad on all forums, even leading to the banning of both me and him.”
The truth: http://secondperspective.blogspot.com/2007/06/metaversed-comment.html
-
“That’s not tolerance of free expression and its not good judgement about what constitutes “harm” — it’s harmful itself, and is like pouring kerosene all over every forum.”
Then why are you spreading it?
And who are you to lecture anyone about “harm”, when you, Prokofy Neva, “the Infamous Antagonist of Second Life”, digger of private details of personal lives (behaving just like the griefers who dug into yours), and all-around media whore, *ignored* real life child pornography inside Second Life???
-
“I simply do not trust that you’re an arbitrer of what is good for SL, and having you at the helm of the AR button can only be oppressive.”
And you have a track record indicating you *wouldn’t* be “oppressive”? Why should anyone trust you?
-
“The only “casualties” of any “censorship” so far are those banned from third-party sites too lily-livered to stand up to trolling bullies when they first occur in order to keep the space free in fact for broad public discussion.”
I agree. You should be dealt with when you first spit your bile on those other forums and not after hundreds of overly-aggressive posts filled with foul language and needless insults which only prevent others from participating in the discussion. And if trading whinescraper for whinescraper is the way to get them to ban you, I’m happy to oblige.
Inigo Chamerberlin
Jun 10th, 2007
Mittellos…
Prokofy Neva
Jun 10th, 2007
Here’s a Blingsider post about how groups always form, unite everybody, enforce ideological discipline, split, just when they’re trying to meet the Lindens, throwing the movement into disarray, and giving the Lindens — I might add (Tateru Nino didn’t) a sense of relief that once again, they had used a Stalinist “divide and conquer” type of strategy
http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/2007/06/10/disunited-protest/
Lenin said, “Before we can unite, we must differentiate”.
And I’m fine with differentiating, and looking for common actions but not having to strait-jacket myself in any other group. When I see that other groups have open and transparent procedures, like the ability to make notices, chat, vote, etc. in the group, I join them if they seem relevant, like the anti-Ashcroft local governance group.
I see that the United people’s first action was to ban chat in their group. Right, form a protest group, and then the first thing you do is ban chat. Right!
I don’t mind being in really small groups, because I’m not interested in commandeering the masses as these other folks are.
One thing I think is vital to these groups is that they not be destroyed by griefers who try to defeat the group process itself. It’s ok to seek like-mindedness and not be defeated by griefers.
With Metaverse Justice Watch, Consumer Advocates, Second Forum, and other groups I’ve been in, a huge problem becomes hecklers and griefers who try to defeat the purpose of the group. I don’t mean dissenters who wish to argue about the overall common cause; I mean people like jauani wu, who came into MJW and kept starting deliberate grief chat and flipping officer recalls, etc. (thank God the Lindens removed that feature after I and others campaigned against it, it was a destroyer, not a builder of democracy). Or the w-hatters and v-fivers who destroyed other groups by either heckling or outright land-griefing with objects and particles.
So as this group The Broadly Offensive, although broad, has a very narrow purpose — stopping the reporting of abuse — and as it is not only open and will remain open, and as anyone is free to spend $100 and make their own groups, I simply refuse to have *yet another* group griefed by voter-5 and their fronts like Tizzers Foxchase.
So she and all the new alts with the name “Bury” and the “Woodbury Security” who griefed the meeting the other day will be summarily removed each time they join and expelled from any meeting. Of course, they’ll come again and again as the group is open, but that’s ok, you can at least send the message.
Everybody sat and watched what they did when they came to the Sutherland Dam Friday night: particle blasting, racist avatars like a fake black woman carrying a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket and spewing pictures of Bill Cosby, trying to insert giant claws, etc. These were all v-5 with the title Woodbury Security whom Tizzers controls and encourages, even as she bats her eyelashes and feigns non-involvement in griefing.
I was alarmed to see how Tizzers has infiltrated herself into all kinds of groups lately related to IntLibber Brautigan, like the WSE, Hope Capital, Brautigan & Tuck landholdings, etc. Well, Hope Floats. Hope springs eternal that people who are griefers with ideologies of the hard left will reform themselves and be good citizens and be an excellent source of intelligence against their allegedly formerly griefer buddies. It’s an attraction that only the hard right would find attractive. The rest of us see through it as a fake gambit — any group called “anti-voter-5″ that falsely claims I’ve endorsed it on its charter and fills up with v-5 alts that then grief me and tenants and everyone else in SL and *are banned by the Lindens permanently and disappear from the people list* is obviously a front group. DOY!
The Broadly Offensive group is open, and anybody can hold meetings, and if they’d like to play with griefers who particle-blast them, they may. I refuse to disable the group and make it closed, and I refuse to endlessly bog down in thumb-suckers about the need not to remain endlessly open to griefers just for the sake of having democracy.
Time was, I’d rush to the Lindens to abuse-report the latest v-5 alts and griefers. Now, I expel them and soldier on. I’d advise others to do the same.
Tenshi Vielle
Jun 10th, 2007
>- I will abide by Linden Lab’s request to report “broadly offensive” material as I can best define it. If you don’t like their policies, don’t take it up with me (especially Ravenglass customers whose landlord supports LL policy)
Prok, you can’t tell people to not report broadly offensive material and then say you WILL report it as you see fit…
Nicholaz Beresford
Jun 10th, 2007
)) I see that the United people’s first action was to ban chat in their group. Right, form a protest group, and then the first thing you do is ban chat. Right!
I don’t mind being in really small groups, because I’m not interested in commandeering the masses as these other folks are. ((
I’ve been in that group (recently left) and had the impression that from some point the owner (Jez) was more concerned about numbers, i.e. mostly concerned about people leaving the group because of group IM chat and an ego thing about having the biggest group. Which is a bit in line with what happened with that recent post over “United Potest”.
Cletus Fartereetus
Jun 10th, 2007
I got something to report!
(lifts leg and farts loudly)
Hahahaha! Now *THAT’S* Funny! You guys don’t know teh funneh – big farts are hilarious! Phoooot!!! Hahaha!
What? Oh, now you’re gonna AR me? Damn! I knew I shoulda went with the cockpunch instead. Damn. So much for intellectual discourse – I just can’t get a break in this town. I guess it’s back to Scranton for me – where “broadly offensive” isn’t just a crime, but a way of life.
csven
Jun 10th, 2007
@Tenshi – that was from my profile.
By way of example, “broadly offensive” to me is someone who admits to seeing *real* child pornography in SL and then ignores it; turning a blind eye to something which harms real children. I consider that “broadly offensive” and believe it should be a banning offense.
Onder Skall
Jun 10th, 2007
*** BEGIN ARTICLE SUMMARY ***
Sorry it’s just this is soooo much text, and I thought it might be handy to sum it up:
The Abuse Report system, as it stands right now, does more harm than good. Ultimately, the thought here is that the only use for the current Abuse Report system is for griefing. The proposal is to get out of the habit of using it and find other ways of dealing with our troubles. This has the dual benefits of:
A) allowing the residents, rather than Lindens, to decide which policies are valid and which aren’t.
B) keeping personal conflicts personal.
If you’re interested in showing your support for this notion you can join “The Broadly Offensive” group, whose slogan is “Do Good by Doing Jack”. Well ok, that was my suggestion… not really sure if they took me up on that or if they’re just laughing at me. I think both. Anyhow…
Most of the rest of these comments are arguments about that because arguing is a great way to show that you can form sentences out of words. Your call on whether or not that accomplishes anything. My opinion is most likely clearly implied.
That’s it.
*** END ARTICLE SUMMARY ***
Prokofy Neva
Jun 10th, 2007
>*** BEGIN ARTICLE SUMMARY ***
>Sorry it’s just this is soooo much text
And BTW, cut it out, Onder, it’s not a long article. It’s very short. A first screen full and a short bit after the fold. Seriously, no longer than anything you’ve written. That’s the kind of TOTALLY gratuitous punch that I punch *right back at*.
You don’t need to cmoe in on no. 50 on a comments thread and write that kind of crap. You can just make the point you need to make — if any.
csven
Jun 10th, 2007
“arguing is a great way to show that you can form sentences out of words”
As are poorly researched blog posts.