Interview With Woodbury University’s Edward Clift
by Pixeleen Mistral on 03/07/07 at 8:39 am
“Universities should be made aware that Linden Labs maintains global surveillance on all the activities of their student members and monitors them both on campus and off-site” – Edward Clift
by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk
Over the last two days, I conducted an interview with Dr. Edward Clift via e-mail, seeking his opinion on the Linden Lab deletion of Woodbury University island from the Second Life metaverse.
I will give Dr. Clift points for affecting a certain style – his Second Life avatar goes by the name MC Fizgig. In real life he is the Deputy Director, School of Media, Culture, & Design and Chair & Associate Professor, Dept. of Communication at Woodbury University, so we can assume a certain level of media-savvy, and perhaps an interest in those that hack the media to advance their own meta-messages – such as the goons and griefers. Here is a transcript of our conversation
pixeleen mistral: Did you pre-pay for the use of the Second Life island? Has Linden Lab refunded the money?
Edward Clift:We did pre-pay for the first six months of the island and have not received a refund.
pixeleen mistral: Do you plan to fight the Woodbury University sim closure?
Edward Clift: Our plan is to fight the Woodbury University closure by a) appealing to Linden Labs and b) speaking out on behalf of academic freedom.
pixeleen mistral: Apparently, Linden Lab felt that there were problems with the activities taking place in the region and with Terms Of Service violations by troublemakers. Were you aware of any of these sorts of problems?
Edward Clift: Woodbury University is a minority-serving institution whose students are often relegated to the margins or unjustly castigated as troublemakers. The fact that Linden Labs waves Terms of Service violations around with no details or supporting evidence reminds me of the Salem Witch Hunt Trials. If people come to an educational island, they seem to say, then we know you are guilty! Let’s burn you at the stake! Look, one of the 11,000 daily visitors wrote a nasty script… Let’s turn their island to grey goo! The truth is we worked diligently to institute a security force including members of the Justice League in an effort to keep problems in check. There was never any communication from Linden until the disconnection as to whether they thought we were doing a good job or not and certainly no chance to take corrective measures in any kind of cooperative fashion.
pixeleen mistral: any other comments?
Edward Clift: The faculty here believes in its students and the positive differences they can make in society. I’m not going to turn away students because they don’t meet Linden Lab’s dress code or because they speak with a Spanish rather than English accent. More importantly, I’m not going to let Linden Labs dictate how students should be educated or what they should be allowed to know. The destruction of the Woodbury 2.0 campus is, in my view, an egregious shot across the bow of academia. All institutions of higher education are now put on notice that they better not do anything too ambitious or “enlightening” unless they want to risk being shunned and eventually expelled from the Holy Grid.
Universities should be made aware that Linden Labs maintains global surveillance on all the activities of their student members and monitors them both on campus and off-site. You will never see this tracking data but you will be held accountable for everything they say or do. Monitors at Linden Labs, by the way, will draw their own conclusions as to the meaning of any speech artifacts, scripts, or student activities. Power over the grid and possession of the surveillance tapes automatically makes them right and it is nearly impossible to dispute incorrect or arbitrary determinations. Meanwhile, the venture capitalists behind SL sit on their yachts off the coast of Panama enjoying the spectacle of hapless academics begging not to be expelled (so much for tenure!).
I urged my student group to engage the primum materium of SL and not simply recreate the traditional ivy-covered buildings and chalkboard lecture hall classroom found elsewhere. The invisible “matter” of SL is the creation and interaction of alters and apparently we were the first to study and creatively experiment with these social relationships in an educational setting. Such an approach, as we have seen, can potentially antagonize the owners of a media channel seeking to naturalize its own operations. The Terms of Service agreement used to vaporize our campus is a distraction designed to hide the insufficiency of the technical architecture of Second Life itself. Isn’t it time to stop blaming the customer?
pixeleen mistral: Were you aware that other members of the “security force” are alleged members of some well known trouble-making groups in Second Life?
Edward Clift: There is no way to know whether someone is a member of one of these trouble-making groups until they demonstrate it in some way. The “security force” actually became our “road crew” and was responsible for building features of the campus. They built a stunning campus in a matter of weeks. About 10% of our “road crew” was banned when it was discovered they were members of a trouble-making organization known as p/n. We did not tolerate, support, or condone p/n on our campus and were, in fact, attacked at one point by this group for our “zero-tolerance” policy. A second “secret service” team was constructed to monitor SIM use and maintain order on a nearly 24/7 basis. The members of this team were drawn from recognized security personnel in the world including the JLU and a variety of private islands.
pixeleen mistral: So you were not contacted at all after the initial warnings in mid-april?
Edward Clift: That is correct. The only other contact was a telephone message I received in late April from Robin or Nicole Linden reiterating their threat to discontinue the island. No action was taken, however, and a bill was sent to us shortly thereafter so I assumed everything was running smoothly again.
pixeleen mistral: How would you respond to the second life residents that say Woodbury acted as a rallying point for gangs of troublemakers? Do you feel you have a
responsibility to the SL society as a whole to police your sim?
Edward Clift: I think people may be misinterpreting the events based on the hyperactive spin machine created by certain reporters and residents with vested interests or connections to the Lindens. We take very seriously our responsibility to police the SIM and instituted every reasonable security measure we could without taking the island completely private.
it is unreasonable to invite universities into the world and then ask them to stop acting like a university
pixeleen mistral: So your concern here is the lack of due process and a clear appeals process?
Edward Clift: To say the least!
pixeleen mistral: Assuming that immersive social spaces are a new media and a place where many people will spend significant time and energy, do you see any alternatives to Second Life? What would you hope for from a metaverse service provider?
Edward Clift: I think it is unreasonable to invite universities into the world and then ask them to stop acting like a university. I am deeply repulsed by the eagerness of otherwise smart, well-intentioned people to try to solve all the underlying tensions of SL by banning residents or entire islands at the drop of the dime. This strategy needs to stop at the doors of academe whose whole existence is founded on the idea of educating others (presumed a priori to be lacking in the knowledge they seek) and exploring new ideas together in the open communication forum known as the classroom.
We created a living campus in Second Life where people of all stripes got together, shared ideas, and learned from each other. An art gallery had just been built that was going to house a student show on homelessness in LA and powerpoint lectures on Darfur were planned. Metaverses are a burgeoning phenomenon, and rightly so, but their controllers will need to assume a more relaxed stance before users give them full credibility. I see them in the future functioning much more like a utility or internet hosting company as more people become accustomed to living out their fantasies– and realities– in these worlds.
Prokofy Neva
Jul 3rd, 2007
Kudos to Pixeleen for finally getting the interview with Clift, which has been the missing piece of this puzzle for a long time!
I do think it’s important to note that when I wrote him a perfectly straightforward email months ago, asking for him to comment about the allegations, back when I had done the first story, “Griefer U,” he was extremely hostile, and refused to give an interview, because he felt that the Herald should have first contacted him (waited for him to find time to respond) and only much later run with this story. I disagree — when numerous people were clamouring to know what was going on with this sim, when we even had wild accusations that it was a government experiment gone awry, it was important to get the ball rolling. What Clift is doing now is merely venue-shopping.
He didn’t give me this interview because he would have faced far more probing questioning based on direct knowledge of the actual griefing witnessed by me, my tenants, and the participants in events I arranged. So clearly he has a Marxian notion here of “certain reporters and residents with vested interests or connections to the Lindens” which is a veiled reference to me being “an evil landlord” (I certainly don’t have any connections to the Lindens). Given what we know of the Lindens’ property rights, being a mainland rentals agent is hardly a “vested interest” lol but it’s enough for him to take a decided ideological bias toward any effort to probe his disgregard for the privacy, integrity, and property values of everybody on the grid outside of his “artists”.
Basically, what’s happened here, is Pixeleen has set him up to make a propaganda speech — and that’s important, and a key part of the story, but still a propaganda speech. And he’s rung all the chimes. He’s claimed that the promotion of minorities that Woodbury itself evidently engages in is somehow reflected on this sim, though as we’ve heard from Alyx Stoklitsky, the /b/tards and co. are “mainly white males”. By invoking minorities, he’s shut off probing by guilty liberals. They shouldn’t wilt, and keep probing. This story isn’t about minorities — except insofar as the griefers involved also used racist activities among their repertoire.
How do they reconcile this alleged stance in favour of minority rights and tolerance with these grossly racist avatars and hijijnx they’ve indulged in, with the black avatars carrying Kentucky Fried Chicken buckets and dispensing Bill Cosby Jellowned particle blasts?!
>The destruction of the Woodbury 2.0 campus is, in my view, an egregious shot across the bow of academia. All institutions of higher education are now put on notice that they better not do anything too ambitious or “enlightening” unless they want to risk being shunned and eventually expelled from the Holy Grid.
Where is the academic activity? Where are the other academic groups in SL standing up for this sim? Unless somebody is willing to really, really stretch it, I fail to see how griefing posses and fooling around with builds that they themselves destroyed or were supposedly infiltrated and had distroyed (very murky story there) can be construed as academic. Self-expression perhaps, but then the kind of self-expression that fails to realize that your right to swing your fist ends at someone else’s nose.
>An art gallery had just been built that was going to house a student show on homelessness in LA and powerpoint lectures on Darfur were planned.
This is really specious. This outfit had six months to produce activities like this. Their good intentions don’t count. During that period they messed around, crashed the grid with weapons scripts, harassed other people, and went on griefing posses. They didn’t work on homelessness or Darfur, and it’s an insult to those students who *do* do that work in SL to claim otherwise. The notion that some wondrous altruism and creativity was cut off in the bud here is completely false.
One thing I agree about, due process should be invoked, and if there was an advance payment, that should be refunded. I’m all for due process, because I have no doubt that more of the real facts, intentions, and methods of this group will emerge.
Due process will not be coming from LL, however, Therefore, I think it would be good if some kind of committee could be formed of both observers from academia and the media, as well as victims of the attacks of this group. If such a group were to convene and take testimony and try to arrive at some unbiased report, it might help establish whether LL is in fact guilty of any obstruction of “academic freedom” and help compel LL to say more about what it knows here.
Some months ago, I had asked Urizenus to take an interest in this case and try to talk to Clift, since I felt as a peer, he might be able to challenge some of the ideological propaganda.
Finally, I have to ask: where is the director of this department? And can we hear from the dean of the faculty or the president of the university as well?
Alyx Stoklitsky
Jul 3rd, 2007
Ah yes, after the first wiping of the sim by LL, several PN’s offered their helping hands to rebuild it. They did this, and constructed some rather nice buildings. …However, when their alts were banned by LL, the buildings apparently vanished with them.
About a month later, a PN got into Carigorp Matzerath’s account and proceeded to distribute his inventory and L$ to people – not for financial gain, but simply to make Carigorp suffer.
Tizzers recieved some 3000L from this PN, and promptly reported the account hack and returned Carigorp’s money once he was back in-game.
In retaliation to Tizzers’ actions, some of the PN started raiding Woodbury.
After negotiation, Tizzers managed to convince PN to stop the constant raids, which they did – although they did still occasionally drop by to crash the sim every couple of days, right up until the final day when the plug was pulled.
shockwave yareach
Jul 3rd, 2007
If by minority he means Grid-crashing, foul tempered, sadistic little griefers, then yes, the Woodbury Sim served them.
Honestly, why should I care that this school has a good function in the real world or not, when their sim is being abused and used to launch attacks on others? Would Mr. Clift be as understanding if other groups actively sought out blacks/asians/hispanics/$minority and crashed THEIR sims and prevented THEM from working/teaching/building/$activity ? Why then should the rest of SL put up with Woodbury and the thugs protected under its wings? And if Woodbury is such a great organization, then why does it allow these troublemakers to use its systems so freely?
anon
Jul 3rd, 2007
While it may be the case that these folks needed to do a better job at keeping to the terms of service, the larger picture seems to me, to not be such a good business decision on the part of Linden Labs. Why? Because they have for quite some time stated that they have no control over what sim owners do on “private” islands. I have such emails.
Linden cannot have it both ways. They cannot allow the fraud and protect the perpetrators of such to collect the tier money of land baron scammers while at the same time running off those that do not have a large enough investment in sims to make the alternate decision. Linden is hand picking and running off single/few islands sim owners. If Linden wants to play by the rules and the law, they need to crackdown on those paying the big monthly bucks to them.
How can it be that Linden takes the stance that they have no part in private island law, then when they feel the need, take action as they do.
As mentioned, and while it just may be that the above named sim was not doing a great job monitoring the issues, I still believe the larger issue is the way Linden goes about doing business. Fraud is against the terms of service as well, we don’t see anything being done about that.
If Linden is going to police sims, then they are doing the opposite of what they claim when someone turns in fraud cases.
You cannot say that the sim owner has control and ownership of virtual space and remove them as they are doing in the name of TOS. Where are the virtual rights of the individual in this case as an owner? Should there not be formal certified letters sent by Linden describing the issues and asking for resolve? In the US, you cannot just oust people from their property. There are formal ways and laws that protect even those that may or may not have done a misdeed.
Anonymous
Jul 3rd, 2007
“I’m not going to turn away students because they don’t meet Linden Lab’s dress code or because they speak with a Spanish rather than English accent.”
Looking around SL at all the oddly dressed people who speak Spanish.
I think that may be the stupidest thing I’ve heard about SL, ever.
This reads like a class lecture – set up a social ‘experiment’ and push until the inevitable happens and then lecture about the wrongness of it. I think this was the hoped for result as it allows the social response of outrage and cries of discrimination that are entirely irrelevent to the Sl environment. How very cutting edge ‘radical academia’ it all is…. except it isn’t since it’s in Cartoon Land and could be equally accomplished by any bored resident with a computer and too much time on their hands.
I don’t think it’s necessary that educational sims look like museums – I think there are millions of interesting, engaging things they might be doing with their virtual space that need not resemble a lecture hall. But if you experiment is to find out what happens when you shove pass the TOS deliberately, don’t be surprised if the result isn’t favorable to you.
Meanwhile…. omfg! the shock – a 3D network provider can monitor your actions and words!? And this is a surprise to someone who is on the staff of a Media college? Isn’t that noted as a matter of course in whatever passes for the 101 course in that Program?
This mock outrage is doing Woodbury no favors. Here’s another newsflash – we are not idiot enough to fail to see through this and if you’re students are, then that does not speak well for the education you’re providing them.
But happy experimenting! I’m sure this result will keep you busy for at least the next couple of semesters patting yourselves on the back for sticking it to the virtual Man.
LH
Jul 3rd, 2007
Curiously, the only time I visited Woodbury I was banned from the sim within seconds because the admin at the helm, “Didn’t like the way I looked.”
It’s good to see that the WU crew is more tolerant than LL.
Anonymous
Jul 3rd, 2007
>Prokofy
>He’s claimed that the promotion of minorities that Woodbury itself evidently engages in >is somehow reflected on this sim, though as we’ve heard from Alyx Stoklitsky, the /b/tards >and co. are “mainly white males”.
I thought they were Asian males? Make your mind up, Prokofy! Or are you simply changing your words to suit the occasion?
I still fail to see the racism in a Jell-Owned particle or a man with an afro hair-style. I’ve used both myself, and I harbour no hate to black people or any other ethnicity.
Also, give the references to communism a rest – it’s getting tiresome to read.
Anon
Jul 3rd, 2007
I love this part:
“The only other contact was a telephone message I received in late April from Robin or Nicole Linden reiterating their threat to discontinue the island.”
So they PHONED him, REITERATING the threat… so he’s saying he got at least a second warning, but didn’t get a third, so they figured everything was OK. Moron. You deserve for your island to be deleted.
Ceeq Laborde
Jul 3rd, 2007
Ditto comment above by Anon. Received numerous warnings including a phone call. Ridiculous sensationalism by the Heral in relation to a perfectly acceptable enforcement of ToS by LL.
urizenus
Jul 3rd, 2007
Well, first of all let me say kudos to Pix for getting this interview, and to Prok and others on the Herald staff for watching this story develop for months now.
As to the claims and counterclaims it is really hard for an outsider to judge whether Clift is the postmodern offspring of Ma Barker and Eddie Haskell or is an academic trying to do something interesting. And the problem, as usual, is that the only people with the answers are the Lindens and they are cloisetered away making whatever decisions they are making without any transparency whatsoever, without any established due process whatsover, and without any trust from the community that they can be counted on to do what is right.
This is just one more fucking reason why the Lindens need to come up with some sort of transparent mechanism by which these cases can be adjudicated in the public (if the parties which them to be public of course).
Jessica Holyoke
Jul 3rd, 2007
This may be a relevant time to ask, but it is there a better police blotter report somewhere other than the Second Life website? I go there occassionally only to see ‘banned for alt abuse, reason alt abuse’
Bobby Troughton
Jul 3rd, 2007
“You cannot say that the sim owner has control and ownership of virtual space and remove them as they are doing in the name of TOS. Where are the virtual rights of the individual in this case as an owner?”
Yes they can say that, as sim owners do have control over their own sims, they can ban and ban again, disable building and scripting of griefers, report them and MORE importantly NOT intentionally enable support, lead and provide logistics to griefers. And what the hell are “virtual rights”?
A fake college with false laments of “rights” being taken away. Boo hoo! One less sandbox for griefers.
Prokofy Neva
Jul 3rd, 2007
>I thought they were Asian males? Make your mind up, Prokofy! Or are you simply changing your words to suit the occasion?
Some of them *are* Asian males? Most definitely. But how can you tell what ALL of them are, when they’re wearing goofy SL costumes? Alyx is the one who said they are “mostly white males”. He’s one of them, engrossed daily with them in SL and on IRC and such; he should know. I figure they’re mainly white males, with some Asians among them?
So far, those sporting “Pool’s Closed” iconic pictures of PN black dudes with Afros on the profile, like MC Fizgig, haven’t established *what* they are, but of course Dr. Edward Clift himself is white in RL as can be seen from his picture.
>I still fail to see the racism in a Jell-Owned particle or a man with an afro hair-style. I’ve used both myself, and I harbour no hate to black people or any other ethnicity.
The use of the Jellowned picture of Bill Cosby, an icon of black culture, is indeed racist. It’s part of a whole repertoire of wierd and obsessive use of black iconic pictures and songs and cliches by this group which is most decidedly NOT black from everything we’ve heard. Real blacks don’t go around sporting 1960s Afros and spouting 1970s TV songs of black actors. They don’t put such cliches in their profiles. I imagine blacks sitting at an event where the Jellowned texture is blasted around would be made to feel decidedly uncomfortable. You only have to ask whether you would hang up such a poster at work, especially if you had black colleagues to understand that no, you would not. It’s not funny. And using it as a griefing device, so that people come to associate the black iconic picture with an unpleasant experience and loss of access to SL means it’s used to fuel racist cliches.
>Also, give the references to communism a rest – it’s getting tiresome to read.
I’d be happy to give it a rest if it didn’t seem relevant:
“Edward M. Clift, Communication, Woodbury University
Premonition as profit: Hyper-capitalism and the cultivation of anxiety”
Prokofy Neva
Jul 3rd, 2007
Uri, I agree that the root of the problem is the Lindens’ lack of transparency about disciplinary actions in general, and on this in particular. It’s absolutely correct that the Lindens monitor everything, and have the capacity to mine a tremendous trove of information, yet we have no idea what they *do* have on these people on Woodbury U island.
But I disagree that you have to wait for the Lindens to come up with the mechanism. You can’t; they won’t. So you have to make your own commission of inquiry and demand accountability — that’s what I would do.
>They cannot allow the fraud and protect the perpetrators of such to collect the tier money of land baron scammers while at the same time running off those that do not have a large enough investment in sims to make the alternate decision. Linden is hand picking and running off single/few islands sim owners. If Linden wants to play by the rules and the law, they need to crackdown on those paying the big monthly bucks to them
This anonymous poster is artificially contrasting the ostensibly evil rich scamming land barons with the innocent poor victimized Woodbury U owners.
Land barons who’ve been identified with scams in SL are individuals; this is a corporately owned sim paid for out of a department expense account.
Huh?
The scammers are just kids, not wealthy people, and who knows, or perhaps even the very poor minority people that Woodbury supposedly promotes, and perhaps they’ve been misunderstood! How can we know?! There isn’t transparency.
And as with other stories, like Bragg, it’s very important to grasp two dynamics:
o resident-to-resident disputes about which LL has information but won’t disclose what it knows and won’t intervene to avoid liability
o resident-Linden disputes about which LL has more information and will intervene but won’t disclose what it knows.
Everyone keeps affirming the right of Woodbury to test weapons and crash their island. But…they’re leasing it from LL and LL doesn’t like you to deliberately crash their servers in constant “tests”. It’s a misuse of the equipment, and the TOS clearly states that. You have to wonder if these goons would crash a server they themselves hosted and paid more for, or would crash the Woodbury U’s own servers in the same callous way.
Coincidental Avatar
Jul 3rd, 2007
“Second Life is a 3D online digital world imagined, created & owned by its residents”
Source: the front page of http://secondlife.com/
It sounds like griefers have a sanctuary in SL.
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What comes to crashing sims, LL has a partial liability here because of missing QA. I think that this obvious conclusion didn’t occur earlier in the threads, because peeps don’t want to think that they are paying for a defect product. Sim crashing techniques seem to be valid for months and it is unclear if LL has any plans to fix the holes in SW.
maximilian goldflake
Jul 3rd, 2007
“I still fail to see the racism in a Jell-Owned particle or a man with an afro hair-style. I’ve used both myself, and I harbour no hate to black people or any other ethnicity.”
Maybe you can ask an African American about it, if you ever meet one.
Keenan Torok
Jul 3rd, 2007
For the past two months now I have been working to rewrite a previous report at my university on the prospects for education within virtual worlds. Part of this was looking at all of the public regions used by universities. Here are some main points:
1. There was educational work (although minor) going on at Woodbury. The sim did however dedicate the majority of its space to free expression of griefer groups (on average about 60% of prims were used in this manor).
Claims that the sim was monitored seem absurd, but I have little doubt that Clift believes this was the case.
Overall Woodbury’s island was interesting, and I believe they will somehow manage to return, although that may be a bad thing for the community.
anon
Jul 3rd, 2007
Posted above:
“I love this part:
“The only other contact was a telephone message I received in late April from Robin or Nicole Linden reiterating their threat to discontinue the island.”
So they PHONED him, REITERATING the threat… so he’s saying he got at least a second warning, but didn’t get a third, so they figured everything was OK. Moron. You deserve for your island to be deleted.”
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I disagree. I’m not sure if you have owned a sim or two, or if you have managed such, but I assure you that controlling what others do is not an easy task when you have the type of traffic that some sims do.
My guess is the sim is burning up the bandwidth and not a profitable sim
for Linden. While no bandwidth statements are made to my knowledge, this
is certainly a possibility. The issue, if indeed this is true, is that the sim owner has no access to raw logs or data and could not prove one way or another why their sim was removed.
Even if this was not the case, I do not believe that such “Investments”, and yes they are “Investments”, should be disregarded and the sim owner thrown out because of the issues described. There are active measures that can be taken over time to eliminate the problems. Removing a sim is not the answer and in fact shows how Linden reacts to the believed trespasses against their TOS. Immature in my opinion and certianly not professional. Even if previously warned about issues on the sim, the owner of the sim should have the right to administrate the sim as he or she feels necessary to curb such issues. This could happen on any sim. Linden knows this. It just so happens to be happening on this particular sim. At any rate, the sim owner should have rights and apparently they do not.
It was mentioned the traffic that moves through the sim. Anyone having such traffic will have issues, just as I have had issues with no where near the traffic.
Linden needs to re-instate the Universities Island and refrain from disregarding peoples rights to work towards progress. An apology would be in order as well.
I do not believe that Linden can claim Second Life to “NOT” be a game, then turn around and play with peoples virtual assets and investments claiming TOS violations every time they see fit to do so.
If there were no work involved, no investments, no monies exchanged, that would be one thing. But when large amounts of real work and dollars
are on the line, I don’t believe the TOS should be an easy out for something the Lindens claim to not be in the best interest of Linden.
To state so boldly as they have, to claim “private island” as they have, and to remove the works and investments as they have over proclaimed TOS violations should be illegal.
You don’t have to go far to find nut jobs, griefers, and harassment in SL. All you have to do is login anywhere on the grid. What makes the Universities sim any worse than the rest of SL?
Obscure Doodad
Jul 3rd, 2007
Follow the money. Follow the liability chain.
LL is capricious. They will say they are “just an ISP” and all content is the RESPONSIBILITY (they will say it with emphasis in the hopes that the court will add the word “legal” in front of it) of the sim owner. But when it suits their purposes, like in other court cases, then LL is the owner of the land and can invoke their TOS to do what they please.
So there is mentioned that this University rec’d a bill. One wonders if they paid the same tier all sim owners pay. Hard to believe LL would chop off a tier influx source rather than just ban people they think are the trouble makers.
I think there is more to the story, and I suspect that “more” is money.
Veronique Lalonde
Jul 3rd, 2007
This guy might have a point, especially about due process, but he undercut it with histrionics and bafflegab. He’s a university professor? Coulda fooled me. Oh, and what Prok said. I was hoping for a few probing questions about specific activities. This interview didn’t really supply much real information.
DaveOner
Jul 3rd, 2007
“So you were not contacted at all after the initial warnings in mid-april?
Edward Clift: That is correct. The only other contact was a telephone message I received in late April…” That’s like having the “service engine soon” light come on but not doing anything about it because the driver’s expecting a “this time we mean it” light to come on for more serious problems.
You’re supposed to be an authority at a University. Handle your shit the first time!
“…a bill was sent to us shortly thereafter so I assumed everything was running smoothly again.” Has this guy ever had cable or phone service before? Pretty naive for a professor.
“There is no way to know whether someone is a member of one of these trouble-making groups until they demonstrate it in some way.” Uh, can’t you check the group listings in the person’s profile?
This guy is a professor and a major administrator for an educational institution?! Is WU a community college or something?
Raz Welles
Jul 3rd, 2007
It’s a breath of fresh air to read the words of someone with stature and tact- with a hint of latin in their background no less. I believe the reason Clift chose to answer this interview in particular was that he felt he might be better understood with more objectivity with this particular set of questions rather than any others. There -are- ways to ask a question in such a way that any answer is incriminating whether the respondent is guilty or not. He is a professor of communication, after all. (http://www.woodbury.edu/woodbury2.aspx?pgID=1614) He probably even took a gamble, replying at all- knowing full well how his answers would be received.
Overall, what I get from this, is that when he references to Linden’s dress code, he means there seems to be a code of conduct that is biased in one direction rather than the other. Tolerance seems to be a selective issue, and there are misunderstandings abound.
When you perceive in smiling insult, I may perceive an admission to acceptance to a sphere of influence. It’s all about what preconceptions you have attached to the physical manifestation of some thing’s constitutional parts. The greater human being will try to understand first the insult, and help the other party to understand your point of view. Again, I admit we have our bad days, and we sometimes haven’t the energy to respond with tact, but when we constantly fail to try and understand the other party, and continue to miscommunicate, we continue to widen the gap that the other party uses bridge the idea that we are human beings to our actions. The name calling becomes a tool to further dissociate someone from what we see as human– and then it becomes okay to act inhumane towards them..
I think a sense of humor allows us to dismiss those things we can’t seem to understand from another’s point of view- sometimes people have too much humor
sometimes we don’t have enough.
P.S., I think I’ll try to make it a point to avoid examples because using an inadequate representation to help picture an idea ends up in engaging the unintended and inherently attached flaws and meanings of the example itself and losing the idea entirely.
——————————-
>>Finally, I have to ask: where is the director of this department? And can we hear from the dean of the faculty or the president of the university as well?
Who’s to say that this matter is even of enough importance to so much as bother such authority figures? =\ Sadtly, money still talks in the real world, and a budget of several thousand dollars (such as perhaps paid for the SIM), to a university, is akin to the lunch money given to a university club, much less a classroom. The bruised ego’s of a small collective audience participating in an online computer game and the leak of a comparitively small sum (just for comparison though, a few thousand is still a hell of a lot to me, lol) is not likely to catch the attention of the president of a university. The student government alone probably handles roughly hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on the school- just for comparison.
I think the only way to get such people involved would be for the matters to extend beyond a simple ban or ingame disturbance, and into the realm of actual legalities, and there’s where it gets tricky. It’s hard to actually claim any type of damages in the game because as we’ve demonstrated before in the TOS- we don’t actually own anything of value- and perhaps this is where the imbalanced CS comes in, because that’s all that’s left to extend into the real world. How we act towards one another, and so.. roundabout Woodbury comes back into the equation, we’re all perceiving each other differently and is it fair to call one action good and another action bad if both had equal amounts of good intention?
Time for a break, I’ve looked over this post too many times, I just wanna hit “post” now c_c;;
Bob Dobbs
Jul 3rd, 2007
“it is unreasonable to invite universities into the world and then ask them to stop acting like a university”
This is the most insepid thing I have ever had the misfortune to read. He frankly is trying to see destructive nihilism as a sort of free expression. If thi sort of thing occured, with real world corallaries, on a real campus, those involved would be thrown out of the school, but somehow due to its digital nature he thinks its an educational incident?
Frankly either Mr Clift is so out of touch with reality and his students to the point of being non-functional, or he’s so concerned with free expression that he forgets that there are others who have rights beyond his “students”.
In addition, this seems to be just another example of Pixeleen giving an open forum to a griefer to simply rant and ramble as they will, without actually asking anything resembling a challenging question.
anon
Jul 3rd, 2007
“I disagree. I’m not sure if you have owned a sim or two, or if you have managed such, but I assure you that controlling what others do is not an easy task when you have the type of traffic that some sims do.”
I disagree. Mister professor of the University, should have listened to the warnings, not via an email but ON THE TELEPHONE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, and closed off all scripts, building and what not on the entire sim. a sim owner can do this, and it is an easy way to prevent the sim being used for instance for grid crasher testings.
But, even if he didn’t know that Foxchase Tizzer was up to, and before you start, I KNOW her to be a griefer like all her PN and /B/ buddies, closing off all building scripting and such on the sim would have shown what she was up to.
And when I hear him say that you cannot recognise a griefer till they actually start griefing, come on… is this guy new on the internet or something? Don’t get around much, do you professor?
Here’s a clue… /B/
nuff said.
mootykips
Jul 3rd, 2007
Shooting at the wrong target yet again.
The drama continues.
ari [withheld]
Jul 3rd, 2007
What a joke.
I’m referring to all those comments slamming on LL.
The dude said he got a phone call in APRIL, Reiterating (read: REPEATING) a warning. It’s July. 90-fukin’ days to react.
How many warnings does anyone need?
I salute LL for acting on their threats. Because if you don’t, then you just get pushed around and walked on and your threats begin to fall on deaf ears.
I’m black. afro american, ebony – whatever *you* want to call me. I call me *human*.
I see your avie runnin’ around with a ‘fro, spewing crap like what was described, I’m gonna own your ass first and ask questions later. I don’t give a shit if you don’t “harbour no hate to black people or any other ethnicity.”
‘Cause actions speak a lot fukin’ louder than words, bozo, and I call it a kneejerk reaction to a ‘broadly offensive’ action initiated by you.
Heh.
Yeah – last name witheld because I don’t need any of you griefin’ freaks profiling me and then griefing the places in my picks.
laytahz
Your Sanity
Jul 3rd, 2007
Yep Woodbury did house the PN and /b/tards. I know I wondered in their home without knowing it. Their lair entrance was semi-hidden. But if you did a little LURKIN, you’d eventually fall through a floor, into their “world”. Hundreds of weapons, scatporn pics, etc. I got questioned heavily by a few members. At that point, the PN was suffering from spies in their org. So they thought of me as a spy for goreans or furries, when all I was doing was being nosy for my own. I got ejected eventually because I couldn’t pass their stupid meme test. Now they’re all gone lol.
Janelle Kyomoon
Jul 3rd, 2007
Dear dear Prokofy, in the time that it took me to do RL things like get up, check on my child and his father who are in another state, make a lovely dinner, take a shower, brush my teeth, etc you are still sitting around on your computer posting MORE news articles and commenting over and over again in them. There is this thing out there its called a real life. And I must say our dear Mr. Clift here lives a real one as well. I must tip my hat to him and say kudos. I think he handled the interview very well. You must notice that pixeleen remarks that he is part of the head of a department of a college. He can not constantly “police” Woodbury because the man does have that thing called a real life. He takes time to educate and enhance real life studies at Woodbury. And again you folks fail to see that the “underground base” that most of the /b/ gathered at was just that an underground base… not the true Woodbury. The true Woodbury was above ground made for and by the students. There were clubs housed in those buildings, a coffee shop to gather at. Which I personally, even though I am a student of a different college, sat in and enjoyed. Clift here is welcoming all forms of people into the Woodbury sim, even those attending other colleges that just want to play with prims for the pure joy of recreating ideas of clothing that are in her mind, say like me for example.
I think Pixeleen was right in not attacking Mr. Clift with a barrage of questions and keeping an unbiased opinon in her interview. It was what true journalists do. True journalists do not throw their emotions completely into there writings, like some other people did with an overuse of crossing at words in another article aka you Prokofy. You let your emotions run with what you feel about Woodbury. Dear Pixeleen has what it takes to be a journalist in the real and virtual world. You dear Prokofy are a fake journalist in a fake world. Its time to get off the computer and realize that there is this thing outside of the door called the real world.
You have let a virtual world become more important to you than the real one. I hate to quote the /b/tards but for once I think one of their many jokes is right “Internet is Serious Business” You have let the internet become real to you.
WitnessX
Jul 3rd, 2007
PN is really a division of a leninist conspirator movement
Alyx Stoklitsky
Jul 3rd, 2007
>Prok
You keep going on about testing “their” weapons in the sim. Who are “they”? Certainly not the sort of people the woodbury mods wanted in the sim, that much is certain.
Why, mere hours before LL took the sim offline, we banned someone from the region for crashing it.
These weren’t tests – they were malicious attacks.
Anonymous
Jul 3rd, 2007
All WU’s little experiment did is prove that lord of the flies was, indeed, correct and that if they wouldn’t be held accountable, their student body would gladly run around and burn down the campus for the ‘lulz.’
WTG Cliff!
Tenshi Vielle
Jul 3rd, 2007
I hear a lot of whining. I can kind of understand it, but… come on. Minorities? Blacks and Mexicans outrun the white people these days. Change your idea of minority.
Your Sanity
Jul 3rd, 2007
For the comment on Sim Crashing techniques: I believe this would be more of LL own fault. It’s no different than Windows having exploits that are not patched or fixed. Instead of LL banning and removing griefers, why don’t they focus on fixing these “exploits” first so that later on, griefers can’t use them.
Don’t you wish there was anti-griefer software, that would act like a virus-scanner in game. Seriously guys, all you have to do is study and improve here. Because LL won’t.
Kami Harbinger
Jul 3rd, 2007
Once again, Prokofy’s trolling in the comments is interfering with what’s otherwise an interesting report on the Herald. Uri, if you won’t stop publishing the crazy person because it’s good for selling more pageviews, at least stop it from posting on anything but its own articles.
Based on Clift’s comments, I would bet cash money that he organized the griefing by his students… Assuming that he really is a professor at the real Woodbury University. Has anyone verified his credentials with administration, called his office phone number and talked to him, etc? The whole thing stinks.
joe
Jul 3rd, 2007
Umm, Woodbury University was nothing more than a cover for griefing activities. Nearly every member was in fact a griefer. Don’t try hiding behind this educational facade. You’ll just look stupid in the end.
Jim Schack
Jul 3rd, 2007
You know I couldn’t take it anymore and so I phoned a black friend of mine to get her option of the whole “Jellowned is racist” bullshit. I sent her to the SL Herlald and told them to take a look at the picture while I played the audio of it being used played up the phone.
She started laughing when she saw it and said it was funny. She said that she couldn’t see anything racist about it. She asked why I was getting her opinon about it and told her that were was a writer for the Herald who claims it is racist.
What she said next was reviling “Tell that bitch to get a life.” And since she doesn’t use second life and only knows what I’ve told her about it on an occasion, I believe she was referring a first life.
I didn’t even tell her you were crazy yet Prokofy. She stole my thunder!
Anonymous
Jul 3rd, 2007
1. I’m glad Kami Harbinger can smell something rotten in this story and even “bet cash money”. It does seem an experiment in deliberately provoking and observing griefing on live human experiments, and that’s pretty creepy. I actually don’t think that’s what it is. I think it’s merely a deliberate con as part of an elaborate, criminally-minded griefing culture that has drawn students and even academics into it at this point.
I’m not “it,” however, I’m ‘he’. Uri doesn’t “publish me to get page views”; he’d get them anyway, he is merely tolerant of free expression in the comments.
2. I’m tired of being singled out for hate attacks, however, especially when the articles in question aren’t even mine. I’m truly done writing rebuttals in these comments to every lameass retarded hack and slash at me, and I know everybody else is tired of hearing them.
So I have a new rule for myself for answering charges that I’m evil, corrupt, a negligent parent, a poor journalist, a liar, a psychotic cat-lady, and many other bad things. I’m happy to entertain those charges seriously, and answer them line-by-line with the utmost of care. But from now on, I’ll require that the person making the charges get a second and a third for his motion, like Roberts Rules of Order. Those two other persons he enlists to make the charges from him must have a Second Life first and last name. So, if Ian Betteridge, for example, despite my long and patient parsing of this journalistic issue with him back on the pages of Clickable Culture, believes that I’m a narrow-minded and arbitrary crank in the way I’ve said that publishing stories about griefers fuels them, yet I’ve “hyprokitically” published my own story as follow-up to an existing Herald story, with pictures, then he can find someone to second and third that opinion/belief/critique, and I’m happy to answer it line by line.
3. I’m glad to hear that Janelle Kyomoon is now admitting to be part of the Woodbury Conspiracy, and that lets us know why her attack on me is so vicious. It doesn’t matter how much “life” — first or second — Prof. Clift has, he’s still responsible for massive griefing attacks and sim crashes as the educator an d *in loco parentis* for some of these goons while they are under his tutelage.
Pixeleen did a bang-up job in getting the interview with Clift, and she was able to frame his propaganda barrage expertly, with this very pointed and very well-crafted sentence, “In real life he is the Deputy Director, School of Media, Culture, & Design and Chair & Associate Professor, Dept. of Communication at Woodbury University, so we can assume a certain level of media-savvy, and perhaps an interest in those that hack the media to advance their own meta-messages – such as the goons and griefers.”
The purpose of her interview was to “let him talk,” however, not drill him with questions that might have got his back up — that awaits to be done on a whole host of issues, which is the work of other journalists if he refuses to talk to the Herald.
I believe that in the closed society of Second Life, with the unaccountability governance of the Lindens and the anonymous and non-transparent avatars we must deal with, journalism has to take many forms besides the straight-on wire copy and objective investigatory model for reporting. That means “community journalism” of sorts, that is imbued with all the emotions and passions of the world, and all the uses of parody and satire one needs to get at an oppressive regime, as in RL. I think that’s why the Herald aptly takes the motto “Always Fairly Unbalanced”.
Now, as to my real life, which includes journalism and parenting and meeting UN ambassadors, I’ve done all kinds of things — these last few days alone I’ve done everything from Xerox and mail a long math packet to my daughter and discuss it with her at length over the phone, to put out one weekly and file an article to a RL newspaper; to interpret for Chechen children who lost their limbs in the war, here at the Rusk Institute getting medical care; to write reports about Darfur advocacy. That’s just one slice of life of the last 4 days. I live a very full, rich, varied, meaningful and important RL and SL. I work in both SL and RL journalism and advocacy. I do as best a job I can raising my kids as a single parent.
Again, if you have further concerns about my RL and SL and further false claims you need to set straight, find a second — and third — SL-named individual to help you make the charges and I’ll take them up at length, with Twitter-like news bulletins if you like.
Anonymous
Jul 3rd, 2007
Robin calls him on the PHONE, and he still didn’t get a clue?
Color me unsympathetic.
coco
anon
Jul 3rd, 2007
“Follow the money. Follow the liability chain. LL is capricious.”
I agree. And just as SL today brags about the win over the French legal issues within the blog, they again show how profoundly arrogant and misguided they truly are. When all is said and done, any logical conclusion will show that Linden has no concept of real business management. Let alone
ethics or willingness to work within the guidelines of the law.
It’s coming… just a slow process.
anon
Jul 3rd, 2007
I agree with Joe, above.
NobodyImportant
Jul 3rd, 2007
“There is no way to know whether someone is a member of one of these trouble-making groups until they demonstrate it in some way.”
I agree with this conditionally, if only because I know a few people who fit the description well.
Many /b/-tards are actually very normal people off the internet. They may spout memes occasionally, but other than that, that’s the only clue you have they visit /b/.
As another example, let’s use Prok’s alt – Random Unsung.
Now, assume the following:
It doesn’t type like Prokofy.
It doesn’t belong to any of Prokofy’s groups.
It genuinely seems like a normal person.
How inclined would you be to say that it’s Prokofy’s alt?
For that matter, how do you know who’s a Linden and who isn’t – when they’re on their civilian account, barring any seemingly ‘personal vendetta’ bannings, how do you figure out which Linden uses which civilian account?
The last thing I’ll leave you with is this: believe it or not, /b/-tards can hide.
They can seem like completely normal people. In fact, there may be many around you all the time, and you don’t even know it. The “We are Legion, we are everywhere” speech isn’t just fluff, it’s true.
There are /b/-tard managers at your fast food restaurants, your pizza parlours, your Blockbuster video store, your Wal-Marts, even your ISPs.
Wingless Redgrave
Jul 3rd, 2007
I don’t have much time for SL anymore. I just pop in quickly from time to time to check on things. I read a few of these blogs from time to see what’s still going on (and remember that, this is just a blog masquerading as a real news source, it’s still informative at times but it’s still just a blog.)
Now I’m not going to comment on Tizzers, the PN, or the /b/tards to give them anymore of a rise or publicity. Quite frankly I’m tired of all of them so I pay them no more since that’s what they crave.
Yet Clift here does bring up ONE good point. They should be refunded. Simple as that. LL should just refund them, it will be a good PR move and it will defuse the Woodbury lot quite a bit.
Now onto where, in my opinion, Clift falls and he falls hard. I’m pretty sick of the race card being played so often. Whenever someone has a weak or slightly shaky defense they use the race card to bolster themselves. The race card has been played so much in one’s hand that it’s disintegrated and you don’t get any chips back for it anymore. The ONLY time the race card should be played if it’s very very, and stress very again, valid. Now before I’m jumped on let me make this clear, I’m 3/4ths Mexican/Native American and 1/4th White (and whatever else is mixed in my white blood.) I’m pretty mixed, and I it I find it insulting when the race card is used so very often. Especially in this case where it has no merit at all seeing as how we are dealing with a virtual world pretty much separated from RL racism. This point here is where he has no legs whatsoever even going as far as bringing up “Spanish accents.” What? What does this has to do with anything pertaining to Woodbury, Second Life, Linden Labs, or anything brought pertaining to those three things?
Please Mr. Clift, never use or bring up the race card again unless it’s seriously warranted and not just to fluff up your argument. It’s unneeded reasons like these where the race card is used that cheapen it. You need to realize the internet and the virtual landscape is different than the real landscape.
Mr. Clift, in my opinion, you should apologize for your unwarranted “Spanish accent” remark.
Reality
Jul 3rd, 2007
“I’m happy to entertain those charges seriously, and answer them line-by-line with the utmost of care. But from now on, I’ll require that the person making the charges get a second and a third for his motion, like Roberts Rules of Order. Those two other persons he enlists to make the charges from him must have a Second Life first and last name.”
Aw what’s the matter dearie? getting so desperate to avoid how others see you that you have to hide behind such cowardly and bullshit ‘rules’ everywhere you go now?
Ah well – it really cannot be helped …. That does seem to be your MO: Telling other people whom you have no control over whatsoever how to interact with you in such a manner that you can control the response given.
Wingless Redgrave
Jul 3rd, 2007
“Quite frankly I’m tired of all of them so I pay them no more ATTENTION since that’s what they crave”
Forgot the word attention.
Beware the rest of the typos, tiny tiny keyboard.
That’ll teach me never to type on a cumbersome smart phone
Janelle Kyomoon
Jul 3rd, 2007
>>>I’m glad to hear that Janelle Kyomoon is now admitting to be part of the Woodbury Conspiracy
Once again you have chosen to twist someones words Prokofy. I said that I frequented Woodbury and was part of the group that used the actual school campus grounds in Second Life to further my interest in the clothing aspect of the metaverse. I’m so sorry my attacks on you were “vicious”. I’m sorry they hurt your feeling so badly but that is what happens when you put your voice out on a public forum. I only posted out of concern for someone who has become so enamored with a fake world.
And just why do you keep calling it the Woodbury Conspiracy??? Woodbury is a college. An actual true to real life college. And why do you insist on always focusing on the /b/ part of the college. There was a whole campus part of the sim which DID include student activities and clubs! You refuse to see anyones view but your own. If Prokofy says something it must be true. I have completely agreed with you at the fact that their were griefers that would visit the /b/ part of Woodbury. But the majority of “kids” there were there spouting nonsense about /b/ memes and other random things not off viciously attacking another sim. Yes, some of the stuff they say can be taken as wrong, offensive, sexual, bad taste. But so could have of the other things that have shown up in Second Life. I know NUMEROUS people who find furries VERY offensive in real life. So because they are offensive should we take them off second life too. If you want to take Second Life in such a realistic view you must allow all aspects of life to walk thru the door of the Second Life universe. Even the gross little /b/tards that tend to hide out underground. At least the /b/tards were doing it underground and not blatantly in your face like half the furries on Second Life. I remember one of my first Second Life experinces was a furry coming up and propositioning me for intercourse. I laughed and dismissed him and went on my merry way. Should the griefers be banned… Yes, most definately. Should a whole group of people including students such as I be punished because of people getting their feelings hurt.. hell no.
Janelle Kyomoon
Jul 3rd, 2007
And this brings up another point for me. You constantly say that the kids running around acting like fools in the underground part of Woodbury were not doing student activites. Are greek rushes, mixers and hazing at a school fraternity not student activities. I’m guessing since you are going off meeting UN Ambassadors in your free time as a single mother you have some sort of college degree…. do you not remember kids at college, laughing it up and having a good time. Plus seeing as your are in your 50s you must have been around during the “hippie” days… so was their free love and protests wrong?
I now know why the griefers and others like pushing your buttons so much, its very amusing to see you react. Its like a kid in a candy store, you know you are going to get a response out of you. I don’t think have of these “kids” “btards” or “asian males” as you like to call them would not have harassed you half as much if you hadn’t brought yourself down to their level and encouraged. You may not think that responding to them is encouraging it but it is. They love to see you squirm. I see behind them enjoying it. I read your response and automatically burst out laughing at the fact that you once again got your panties in a wad over something I said and the fact you misquoted me. You are the Westboro Baptist Church of Second Life. If you don’t like it or believe in it, its automatically wrong and you must tell everyone you know its wrong.
I support Intlibber”s view immensely on this. He has taken the time to research Woodbury and the people in it. And seeing as he is a great success in Second Life I would tend to believe him first and foremost on his viewpoint of the whole situation. You Prokofy REFUSE to do your research and all use is what you believe is fact.
Second Lulz Vigilante
Jul 3rd, 2007
It just has to be said…
POOL’S CLOSED, GRIEFERFAGZ!!!111!!! ZOMFGLOLOLOL!!!
Turnabout is fair play, ya’ freakin’ crybabies. But that’s a typical grieferfag for you. Hypocrites all.
When they’re caging some unsuspecting bystanders with their backs turned they’re all like “I did it for the lulz!”. But when the tables get turned and they’re the ones getting kicked in the nutz? That’s when the grieferfags start screaming TOS and “I’m actially a Linden and ur going to be in big trble dood!”.
Grieferfags, this week every last vigilante on SL(real vigilantes and not those JLU underwear peeps who scold us for giving griefers ) is laughing their asses off at you. You got to cocky and forgot that “one does not simply Tank Cat into Mordor”. Take your lumps like a man, you fagts. lol!
Hey…maybe the Lindens “did it for the lulz!”. Did you ever think about that?
ROFL!!!
Anonymous
Jul 3rd, 2007
>I now know why the griefers and others like pushing your buttons so much, its very amusing to see you react. Its like a kid in a candy store, you know you are going to get a response out of you. I don’t think have of these “kids” “btards” or “asian males” as you like to call them would not have harassed you half as much if you hadn’t brought yourself down to their level and encouraged.
Hi, thanks for your comment! If you’d like a detailed response, you’ll need to provide a first and last SL name, and get two other SL residents with their names as well to second and third your request for a response to this accusation. See you in the ether!
Reality
Jul 3rd, 2007
“Hi, thanks for your comment! If you’d like a detailed response, you’ll need to provide a first and last SL name, and get two other SL residents with their names as well to second and third your request for a response to this accusation. See you in the ether!”
No dearie – no one has to do as you say. Either you’ll answer a person’s posts/accusations or you will not.
If you wish to be a coward and hide behind another imaginary set of ‘rules’ (in your case this means excuses to avoid responding to anyone) then you really do not ened to be responding at all.
pixeleen mistral
Jul 3rd, 2007
Reality,
Do you even HAVE an account in Second Life?