Op/Ed: Should We All Spy On Each Other?
by Pixeleen Mistral on 10/07/07 at 8:09 am
Guilt by association creates a world of spies
by Jessica Holyoke
Reading the articles about the Woodbury situation and the actions and the reactions, makes me look around the real world and second life, sit back and ponder.
I do support the underdog, the person who doesn’t have the ability to fight back. In this community, it seems to be the members of the Woodbury University group. Someone asked me why I don’t support the government, or the Man, in this case. Beyond determining for myself who’s side I fight for, I wonder why the government, as in the Lindens, in this case needs my help. The Lindens have all the power.
And in this case, the members of Woodbury University can never be clear of the accusations made against them. If they don’t take part in the actual griefing, they are either part of the conspiracy and providing material support or they are alts, and their other identities are committing the griefing. If an innocent resident doesn’t leave the group, that resident is guilty of griefing. If an innocent resident doesn’t boot griefers, even if they don’t have that ability, then they are guilty of griefing.
At the same time, I look at certain facts. Anonamoose Letlow created a “Fire Prok” sign on June 30th, after the account was created June 23rd. With only two groups on their profile, the facts point to that being an alt of someone else. I can’t say that it was any one person in particular, but it does look like somebody’s alt. That can mean that an alt was created by someone for griefing or it could mean that a resident can’t create anything anymore without being accused of griefing and they need the anonymity in order to protest.
Then I look back at Tizzers Foxchase, someone accused of griefing, with one instance given that she crashed the SLB4 sim. But she’s still on the grid. She is still taking part in Second Life. I also look at Janelle Kyomoon, someone accused of griefing, not because she created scripts or objects, but she is supporting her own experience of Woodbury University.
How does a reasonable group go about policing their members?
Look at what is being asked of us, the other residents, in SL. Many feel that the Woodbury University group was infiltrated by griefers. Over 50% in a recent poll number on Second Thoughts reported that it was an educational group infiltrated by griefers. Somehow, we have come to the conclusion that it was the group member’s responsibility to police the group from griefing residents. The question becomes how. The main resource a normal resident of SL has of wrongful activity is the Police Blotter. The blotter does not report specific actions or the names of the avatars involved. So how does a reasonable group go about policing their members?
Then it could be said that it’s not the non-land groups that should be responsible, but the land groups that are responsible for policing their members. After all, they would have access to land, the land can be monitored and controlled, and you, as the group, must ensure that the land is not being used to harm others, either through the testing of scripts or the creation of harassing material. You can’t rely on the Police Blotter, because the names are not known. And you can’t rely on the victims to report it because they may feel that abuse reporting the incident to the Lindens is enough. You can’t rely on the word of the resident, because they could be lying or an alt. The only option left is to spy on the members of your own group, to make sure they are not using the land in a manner that would reflect badly on you.
Residents are being asked to spy on their friends and associates in order to make sure they are not breaking the law
And that is why this is problematic. If one views SL as a game, then a new rule for the game is that you must monitor all those around you, friends and associates, plus other group members you may not have ever met before, for griefing activity or else you will find yourself accused of griefing, banned from locations and eventually driven out of SL and forced to either leave or start fresh. If one views SL as another version of the RW, then residents are being asked to spy on their friends and associates in order to make sure they are not breaking the law. And if they are, you must break off all contact with them, either by you leaving or making them leave, or else you will be punished yourself for your friend’s actions.
At this point, the griefing conspiracy concept should be addressed again. If Janelle innocently joined the Woodbury group, and it was a griefer conspiracy, what should she have done? Everyone says she should have left the group. But based on what? Based on web sites she may not have read? Based on Police Blotters that don’t reveal names? If she innocently joined the group and didn’t observe what else was going on, how is she culpable?
What happens to the next group that the griefers infiltrate? Is everyone now supposed to be on guard against griefers, to the extent of sharing names and banning everyone they can? Should everyone take time out of what they are doing to patrol and police the grid?
Is banning someone based on association proper?
This points me back to the Lindens. I know why the Lindens are pushing the responsibility of the game onto the residents. I see that they are trying to limit their own liability for what residents are doing by saying that it’s the landowner’s responsibility. I also understand that as the grid grows, there just isn’t enough resources for a full patrol presence of the Lindens. But they are the ones with the most control and power in this situation, and they are trying to pass responsibility to people with less control. And if abuse reports go to the private estate owners, that doesn’t mean that the abuse report is shared across the grid. It means it goes to that particular estate owner based on location.
I also look at the general point of SL. If SL is the new Web and the new way to communicate and share information, is banning someone based on association proper? Or even general banning proper? Because I can imagine a world wide web, where if I posted something harassing on one comment board, and then being blocked from viewing any other website on the web because of it. If that feels right to the majority of residents, then by all means, but banning a resident based on one action on one section over an entire grid, seems against the point of a new form of communication.
Finally, to the reporters who report griefing. With the independent reports, residents have a chance to comply with what is being asked of them. The reporting should not be discouraged, so long as the facts are in order and corroborated. Because the consequences of being wrong is tremendous and the accusation goes beyond just the resident themselves, but everyone else that resident knows .
anon
Jul 10th, 2007
yes, yes, sounds like fun…
Onder Skall
Jul 10th, 2007
Where was it that every neighborhood has a paid police informant? Was it Cuba?
shockwave yareach
Jul 10th, 2007
All well and good. But you overlook a few important details.
People who own (or are in charge of) a section of land are pretty much free to do with it as they like, in SL as in RL. The owners may restrict access to certain things as they see fit, just as you don’t allow random strangers into your bedroom. Renters have less power, but can place security orbs near their homes so that they get some privacy without restricting the land itself.
If you come onto my land, and you act like a turd, I will treat you like a turd and ban you. If several people from group X come in and do the same, I’m going to logically conclude that members of group X are troublemakers and ban the whole group. My land, my rules. You don’t want your group banned? Don’t act like a turd to me and my friends and guests. Simple as that.
It’s not like people sit up all night and peruse groups with Search, asking themselves if they like the sound of the group or not. People ban groups once members of that group cause problems enough to get the owner’s attention, or get the attention of the entire grid for their obscene behavior. Granted, where there is smoke there is not always fire. But smoke and fire are correlated often enough to be sufficient reason to preemptively ban based solely upon it.
Is it fair? No, it is not. But where is the unfairness? That is the key question. Is it fair of me to ban Lonnie because she is in WU? Perhaps Lonnie is an innocent in all this. Perhaps not. But it is not I who have tarnished her reputation – it is the greifers who destroyed WU who have caused that. And by continuing to wave the WU flag and insist that “not all WU are greifers” she swears allegiance to them. And even if factually accurate, we come back to the smoke/fire analogy again and I’ll err on the side of caution when it comes to certain groups and their troublemaking members.
If Lonnie does not like it, then she has two choices. Leave the group that has caused so much trouble, or stay with them and learn to live with her banning. That group X has gained a reputation of troublemaking, getting the word out even through the inertia that is SL, is not my fault and I accept no responsibility for Lonnie or anyone else being a part of it. Now if she wants to stay and help clean the group up, that’s cool with me. When it’s straightened out, I will reconsider on a case by case basis.
A group has a responsibility to its members just as a member has a responsibility to the group. The sword has two edges. If a group does nothing about members that destroy property, cause financial loss to others and crashes servers, then it is reasonable to assume said group either supports these behaviors or, at the minimum, doesn’t care. If a group comes into my sim and start throwing doggy cocks around (and what IS PN’s fascination with dog cocks – are they closet beasties or something?) then I’m logically going to conclude the whole group are troublemakers because the group doesn’t kick out its troublemakers.
The groups I am in are constructive in nature, not destructive. I’d rather be known for making lives better than making them more miserable, thus I only associate with such groups that share the same goals. Any bunch of punks trying to make people more miserable in this already miserable age have nothing but my contempt and I will not let their venom spread to me or my guests. And if you wear the flag of the enemy, I shall treat you like the enemy. It isn’t rocket science.
Daman Tenk
Jul 10th, 2007
Basically shockwave is saying the same as: if a few black people mug you, it’s okay to become a racist or a nazi, because obviously all other black people are approving of that.
I find this whole way WU was treated to be disgusting.
Brent Recreant
Jul 10th, 2007
So Shovewave bans all black people from her property if a black person goes it it and acts in a bad manner?
Anonymous
Jul 10th, 2007
The problem I have with a lot of this is WHERE do we have ANY rights as the public? It seems all the power is in the hands of Sim owners and lindens. Which is great, except the “public” has no place where they can go to and be truly free from possible opression just because someone doesn’t like their opinions or interpretation of the world.
Second life is ruled by the “moral” majority. Whoever acts the most generic and fits in with everyone else is OK. Yet if you dare act different in a manner that could be taken as “Broadly offensive” Expect to be labeled a griefer.
shockwave yareach
Jul 10th, 2007
Oh please; in SL how you look is irrelevant. There is no black, white, green, polkadot… you can change it at will. So no, banning people who belong to X group does not equal racism, as the concept of race also doesn’t apply in SL. There is no SL analog to race or color and we are not talking about RL at all.
Try to keep your head in the virtual realm while we are discussing virtual things.
Khamon
Jul 10th, 2007
“Basically shockwave is saying the same as: if a few black people mug you, it’s okay to become a racist or a nazi, because obviously all other black people are approving of that.” – Daman
No, your example is not analogous. Black people have no choice but to be associated with other black people. They have no option to leave the group. Shockwave is referring to voluntary associations and is outlining a standard practice necessarily used to maintain order in civilized societies.
Adults understand that they are perceived to share practices and views with their close associations. Why they feel compelled to cast their pearls here I don’t know. But it’s a simple fact that if I publicly belong to a group that causes people trouble, I’m going to share the group’s fate as a member. All the righteous indignation and childish justification in the world won’t change this tried and proven observation.
While we’re on the subject, yes, Linden Lab owns the world and can rule it with an iron fist if they choose. Land owners pay loads of real life money to maintain areas of the world and can also rule their domains with an iron fist if they choose. They can, in fact, take your monthly rent, kick you off the land the next day, and suffer no punishment from LL or any other court. Residents have no rights on land they don’t own and no rights at all under LL. That’s Second Life, take it or leave it, that’s how it is.
Vestalia Hadlee
Jul 10th, 2007
Daman@11:23″Basically shockwave is saying the same as: if a few black people mug you, it’s okay to become a racist or a nazi, because obviously all other black people are approving of that.”
People don’t normally “join” a race.
Reverse the example: Just because a few racists mug a black person, it’s okay to become an anti-racist.
Prokofy Neva
Jul 10th, 2007
Jessica is still having trouble distinguishing the problem of “guilt by association” with the issue of criminality, criminal conspiracy, malicious intent, and overt acts.
Kalel Venkman
Jul 10th, 2007
Something important to remember is that Second Life is not a perfect society simulation: some methods and practices customarily used in real life are impossible due to its very nature. Physical evidence does not exist. Listening devices are against the terms of service. So how, then, as an estate owner or land owner, make one’s determinations as to whom to ban? The choices are few – and the Terms of Service very narrowly proscribe what one may or may not do in this regard. Unfortunately, banning by group association falls into the area of permissibility with respect to the Terms of Service, and while it is not socially, morally or ethically acceptable in many cases, it is often the only possible choice for a landowner.
Vestalia Hadlee
Jul 10th, 2007
Daman@11:23 — “Basically shockwave is saying the same as: if a few black people mug you, it’s okay to become a racist or a nazi, because obviously all other black people are approving of that.”
Poor analogy. People don’t normally join a race or ethnic group. Reverse your example:
If a few racists mug a black, it’s okay to become an anti-racist.
Anon
Jul 10th, 2007
Daman, Shockwave said nothing of the kind. How is banning a group from your own private land, based on multiple instances of observed bad behavior by that group’s members, even remotely equivalent to becoming a “nazi” or a racist? I don’t recall Shockwave advocating the poisoning or lynching or WU group members. Besides, equating voluntary membership in a Second Life group (one which has become known grid-wide for causing trouble) with race is simply a stupid analogy. You can stop being a WU group member, but you can’t choose or change your race. So banning WU group members from your land = smart. Banning people of a given race from your land = racist. Simple.
It seems to me that all this could have been avoided if WU had simply controlled the enrollment process for the WU group and limited it to verified WU students whose RL names were known to WU. Then, if one or more made trouble, simply eject them from the group and the WU sim. Why WU would have (what I presume was) open group enrollment escapes me.
In any case, can we just shut up about this stuff? The SL Herald has become Prokofy’s and Jessica’s personal bitching and moaning rag lately, and it’s really boring.
Anon
Jul 10th, 2007
“” said:
> Yet if you dare act different in a manner that could be taken as
> “Broadly offensive” Expect to be labeled a griefer.
Yes, you should be “free of oppression” and able to “express yourself” by crashing sims and interrupting events. Those fascist Lindens want to stop all your “creativity!” Boo-hoo. Grow up.
SqueezeOne Pow
Jul 10th, 2007
Good writing! It’s nice to see the situation looked at with at least an ATTEMPT at objectivity!
I don’t think we’re actually heading to a police state but it is rather alarming to see that certain “at risk” groups need to be more careful than those that seem harmless to the powers that be.
However, how is a RL campus regulated? Can I as a nobody off the street go into the dorms and just start doing whatever? I don’t think so. I tried once!
I think this is ultimately a failure on the part of the WU staff put in charge of this project. It has been admitted in an article on this site that they had received multiple notices to clean house from LL before getting the plug pulled. It also wasn’t the first time the plug was pulled according to your last article.
The only thing I think could have prevented this situation was to have the sim be private/invitation only. If you had completely free and open campuses IRL then you’d see the equivalent behavior there, too. There are all sorts of drugs to be sold, parties to be had and, well, ass to be waxed at a college.
Certain bad apples seemed to find out about the freedom and openness afforded at the WU sim and went to town with it. If access had been regulated to make it a “safer” place (as though anyone was really hurt) then I don’t think any of this would have happened.
Once again, good writing! Keep it up!!
Mark
Jul 10th, 2007
“I do support the underdog, the person who doesn’t have the ability to fight back. In this community, it seems to be the members of the Woodbury University group. Someone asked me why I don’t support the government, or the Man, in this case. Beyond determining for myself who’s side I fight for, I wonder why the government, as in the Lindens, in this case needs my help. The Lindens have all the power.”
I hope that when you become an attorney, you’re not practicing in my neck of the woods. That is because bleeding hearts who assume positions of defense based upon perceived social status and not a sincere want for truth justice, don’t deserve to be allowed access to law practice.
What ARE they teaching you in law school? (True) justice is not determined by simply opposing those who have the most “power”. If that were the case, no one would hardly ever be found guilty of anything.
Kryss Wanweird
Jul 10th, 2007
Hi Jessica,
Could you please explain what is your concept of Justice, in the context of Second Life?
Tizzers Foxchase
Jul 10th, 2007
“Then I look back at Tizzers Foxchase, someone accused of griefing, with one instance given that she crashed the SLB4 sim. But she’s still on the grid. She is still taking part in Second Life.”
The nerve of you. My account was still on 3-day ban during the SL4B party for the “broadly offensive” stuff at Emit Time. Jessica, as much as I appreciate your reporting, when you don’t check your facts you become no better than Prokofy.
Jessica Holyoke
Jul 10th, 2007
Mark,
Its great to be responding to someone who is not Prokofy. The law is an adversarial system. In Criminal law, you have Prosecutors and Defense attorneys. Sometimes, the prosecutor is right on the money and the defendant is guilty. Sometimes, the defendant is innocent and needs the help of the defense attorney. And this can go on and on, companies and unions, land owners and environmentalists, tax attorneys and the IRS, medical malpractice plaintiffs attorneys, medical malpractice defense attorneys. In this case, I decided to support who I felt was being attacked unjustly because I didn’t see any proof of what was asserted. If you notice under “Woodbury: University or Conspiracy” where there *was* evidence of wrongdoing by Tizzers, I posted it.
But do you honestly expect a legal system to function properly if lawyers solely defend the innocent or prosecute the guilty? Should a defense attorney stop defending a client because that client is guilty?
I think you should ask yourself this, is unchecked police power justice?
Jessica Holyoke
Jul 10th, 2007
Tizzers,
I can see where you can get your interpretation. People point to “Tizzers crashed the SLB4 sim” as proof that you are a griefer. The fact that you are still here suggests that you did not crash the sim. Or in a little better layout,
Accuser: She crashed the sim, she’s guilty!
Rebuttal: But if there’s proof of her intentially crashing the sim, why is she still here?
That is the point I was trying to make. If you did crash the sim on SLB4, then why is your account still active.
Jessica Holyoke
Jul 10th, 2007
Kryss,
All I’m looking for right now is accountability for one’s own actions and that if accusations are levied and punishment meted out, they should be backed up with verifiable facts.
All the crimes that exist in the RW, still apply to SL, denial of service, fraud, theft, breach of contract, harrassment, copyright and trademark infringement. And if you commit those crimes, you should be held accountable.
What I’m objecting to in the Woodbury situation is that a resident can innocently join a group and be labeled a criminal based on the actions of others. And other residents, mosly landowners, are saying to the innocent residents that you have a responsibility to monitor the group for miscreants so that we know you are not miscreants yourselves, and even then, the landowners may still think the resident is a miscreant.
When people talk about how easy it is to leave a group, beyond leaving behind friends, yes it is technologically easy to leave a group. But the information is not generally available to know when to leave a group. How is the average resident, who is not as caught up in all of this as we are, to know when they are in a griefing group?
And, as I said, if this is what the majority believes is appropriate, that’s fine too. Its important to let people know what they should be doing ahead of time so that they can adjust what they do.
That’s justice.
Maklin Deckard
Jul 10th, 2007
“There is no SL analog to race or color and we are not talking about RL at all.
Try to keep your head in the virtual realm while we are discussing virtual things.” – Shockwave
Problem is, they have no logical defense for what they are doing, nor any real way to defend hanging out with ingame thugs just for the ‘lulz’…so they resort to ‘emotional’ appeals of trying to label others as racist, hoping the accusation sticks. A childish reaction, much like their ingame behavior.
Anonymous
Jul 10th, 2007
fyi, spying is against the TOS
Prokofy Neva
Jul 10th, 2007
A reminder that Jessica is not licensed to practice law and has no standing and is rather a radical apologists for griefers and scofflaws and criminally-intended individuals for reasons that have to do with her own personal agenda in SL.
>All I’m looking for right now is accountability for one’s own actions and that if accusations are levied and punishment meted out, they should be backed up with verifiable facts.
They are. No one has been able to dispute a single fact I’ve brought forward about these dozens of people and their antics except oh, right, Intlibber technically joined the harassment gruop called “Anti-Voter 5,” the opposite of its name and technically didn’t join The Prokofy Fan Club, but had his security goons do that.
>All the crimes that exist in the RW, still apply to SL, denial of service, fraud, theft, breach of contract, harrassment, copyright and trademark infringement. And if you commit those crimes, you should be held accountable.
And they are held accountable, and that’s why they are banned? And the sim is closed.
>What I’m objecting to in the Woodbury situation is that a resident can innocently join a group and be labeled a criminal based on the actions of others.
There’s no evidence that people joining Woodbury were innocent. We have yet to hear from anybody who is NOT a griefer or the partner of a griefer or an apologist of a griefer. Not a single one. That’s really shocking, and totally mitigates against the notion of “Woodbury as good group infiltrated by a few bad eggs”.
A group that owns and works on an island isn’t just “some group”. It’s a group that has a purpose and ostensibly some vetting, possibly even something like course registration. None of that seems to pertain here. Tizzers, a b/tard lover, invited b/tards to make a base. She thought that would be cool and her groovy professor did too, but it wasn’t cool and they violated the TOS with their antics.
>And other residents, mosly landowners, are saying to the innocent residents that you have a responsibility to monitor the group for miscreants so that we know you are not miscreants yourselves, and even then, the landowners may still think the resident is a miscreant.
Absolutely, land owners have the tools to admit or ban people; to turn off scripts; to put on autoreturn; to do many things to control their sim. This wasn’t done on Woodbury, and not done *deliberately* not because of negligence.
A landowning group is something that most people control very carefully precisely to limit griefing and theft.
>When people talk about how easy it is to leave a group, beyond leaving behind friends, yes it is technologically easy to leave a group. But the information is not generally available to know when to leave a group. How is the average resident, who is not as caught up in all of this as we are, to know when they are in a griefing group?
Because the other group members grief? That would do it!
>And, as I said, if this is what the majority believes is appropriate, that’s fine too. Its important to let people know what they should be doing ahead of time so that they can adjust what they do.
>That’s justice.
No, that’s just ass-backward faux legal parsing, mincing, fisking.
Common sense dictates that if you heard there was a groovy new educational sim where you could learn to make clothes and you went to sign up for a course and found people in Nazi regalia, displaying penises, spewing particles, and rezzing ugly racist textures, that you probably came to the wrong place.
Bobby Troughton
Jul 10th, 2007
I don’t think policing one’s own land or group is really spying. I’d think those that spy the most would be you reporters who dig for truth of conspiracies and analyze chat logs. Also those who use chat spies on others. But looking at peoples profiles, and member lists in public groups isn’t spying. It’s public information. Patrolling one’s own land isn’t spying. But spying at another person’s land is. It’s easy to spot griefers, they’re usually quite blatant, at least when they grief.
The ones on Woodbury were blatant, crashing the sim, setting up shop. The Lindens apparently vocally warned the admin of Woodbury, who chose to ignore the Lindens.
So the average sl citizen does not have to do spying. See a griefer, ban a griefer. Quite simple. If they aren’t griefing they arent a problem. If you let them hold a “base” on your land, you’d probably notice it, and common sense would be to kick them out.
Bobby Troughton
Jul 10th, 2007
<
That's justice.>>
The majority of people believe griefers and griefer groups and the lands that willingly and actively host and support them are bad. The Lindens warned Woodbury owners know that there was bad going on and the end of their world was to come if they didn’t fix things. Their world ended.
That’s justice.
Now you complain you had no time, that you need your hand held by the Lindens, that one can’t leave griefer groups because one might have friends in them. As if one’s friends might be less of a friend if they left a griefing group. Heartbreaking it is. Do you need a tissue?
Michael Seraph
Jul 10th, 2007
Wow, the idea that voluntarily belonging to a group in SL is the equivalent of being born a member of a certain race is probably the stupidest thing I’ve read in the Herald’s comments in a long, long time. You choose your groups. You choose your associates. You choose your friends. You can be judged by your choices. You don’t choose your race. Comparing the two is just plain stupid.
Anonymous
Jul 10th, 2007
“Common sense dictates that if you heard there was a groovy new educational sim where you could learn to make clothes and you went to sign up for a course and found people in Nazi regalia, displaying penises, spewing particles, and rezzing ugly racist textures, that you probably came to the wrong place.” – Prokofy
Or they came to the RIGHT place for their kind of play, if you catch my meaning, and I am not talking about clothing design.:) Some people here are protesting WAY too much for mere ‘championing the underdog’ in their defense of Woodbury U. Reminds me a lot of politicos spinning the press when they get caught with their hands in the metaphorical cookie jar of the scandal du jour.
Anonymous
Jul 11th, 2007
“Basically shockwave is saying the same as: if a few black people mug you, it’s okay to become a racist or a nazi, because obviously all other black people are approving of that.
I find this whole way WU was treated to be disgusting.”
I assume you are Carigorp Matzerath because he has used this very very similar anology many times citing black people and mugging and such, right down to a T. Also he is a /b/tard himself and a Woodbury symphathizer, even a member of the Woodbury University group. Here’s a tip kid, after time and time again using black people to cite examples you *gasp* start to come off as a racist. Then again what can I expect from a /b/tard? /b/tards who use the N word often and have a penchant for being very racist for their Lulz. This anology falls flat in SL. Next time you can make an example with out using a specific race, try it some time. Good going Carigorp, as somone else said, I now dub thee Caridope.
Clift’s use of the race card is just as offensive. Shockwave’s comments are right on the money and I agree with them. People need to stop using race, it has no place in SL.
Don’t want to be judged badly by a tainted group, then leave it. Just the same you would a dubious group in RL, you leave it and seperate yourself from it. Until that is done anyone in a “bad” group that gets judged just the same as the rest has no reason to whine since they are there by choice.
Mark
Jul 11th, 2007
__The nerve of you. My account was still on 3-day ban during the SL4B party for the “broadly offensive” stuff at Emit Time. Jessica, as much as I appreciate your reporting, when you don’t check your facts you become no better than Prokofy.__
Yeah, like that means you weren’t involved! Because like – NO ONE CAN GET AN ALT! YOU WOULD NEVER USE AN ALT!
teeheehee! goonz r teh suhmahrt
What a bunch of fucking cowards. Quit taking the internads so srsly fags.
Jessica Holyoke
Jul 11th, 2007
I was going to write a long response arguing with Prok, again, about where the legal standards are and what should people do. But I’m not going to do that. Apparently, I’m boring people.
Prokofy, and some of the others that have been here awhile, are exactly that. They have been here for a long time. They have seen SL grow and they’ve seen groups and factions develop and fight. They’ve seen residents come and go and they can point to exactly why those people have come and gone. They are senior users of SL.
I joined in the end of 2006, coupled with a media push and found my own little niche, the adult clubs with my close circle of friends, a place I didn’t leave for a long time. Sure I checked out other places, but I never tried to involve myself in the greater community until recently. I’m a junior user of SL.
Back when I joined, SL hitting a million sign-ups was a milestone. According to the Insider, we are very close to having 8 million signups. And I am happy to be part of that growth of more junior users.
But many things seem landowner, and even senior user, centric, which is becoming a very low percentage of the population. Now you can point to alts and accounts never attempted (I’m not sure of the technical term for creating an account, but never accessing SL) as throwing off the statistics, but the vast majority of residents aren’t landowners or senior users.
Somehow its interpreted that I’m saying that the landowners don’t have responsibility for what happens on their land. Or that I think landowners are evil. I’m not sure how that came about. (Previous posts have addressed some of this.)
Who I’m looking out for is the non-land owner, the newer resident who hasn’t seen the battles and the griefing, who is somehow expected to *know* that people who like certain websites are terrorists. I feel that the people that say you can look at a profile and *know* that a resident is a griefer, are senior users and are able to make that call themselves because they have seen that information elsewhere.
And if you physically witness griefing by someone, then yes, that is knowledge, but that requires a certain amount of timing, you have to be both online and in the sim where it is occuring, and interpretation, are they playing with scripts or are they going to go out into the grid to harrass others. Of course, if you are out in the grid with your friends when they do that, that means that you are part of a griefing posse.
The non-landowners and junior users do not have the same information as the landowners and the senior users. By using guilt by association based on information shared among the landowners, the non-landowners and junior users are at a disadvantage. Put another way, when Robin Linden told the Woodbury people that there were griefers in the group, do you think she told the three administrators or everyone in the group?
Coincidental Avatar
Jul 11th, 2007
“Residents are being asked to spy on their friends and associates in order to make sure they are not breaking the law”
I’m confused. I take a look around gossiping bitches in RL, cyber-spying and I read a in certain circles well-known gossiping blog Second Lie&Hearsay. I wonder why people need to be urged to spy each others. They do it naturally. If there is nothing bad to say about somebody, they will make up it.
SLjunkie
Jul 11th, 2007
If a sim owners lets just anyone build on their land or even invites groups with a rep for griefing without supervision, and in turn said individuals use the privilege to plan or practice griefing, it’s their own fault (Woodbury University).
The group permissions are flexible enough for land owners to set up roles to keep track of who can build and run scripts (tho a royal PITA to learn). If WU didn’t bother to set them up or just let anyone build/script and as a result got their land confiscated… tuff.
On the other hand, i agree with anyone who said there has to be due process and transparency for LL’s dealings. What’s still missing is LL showing us the proof they have minus any “personally identifiable information” that would get the LL lawyer’s panties in a bunch. I’m sick of LL playing god over our SL lives.
Apologies in advance if I’ve repeated, regurgitated points already made. It’s too bad I’m getting shell shocked by all the incessant bickering in this blog. As a long time reader, I can’t count the number of times I start reading the blog, read some interesting comments, and then WHAM my screen is filled with Prok’s rambling and bickering. Prok is far smarter than I originally gave her credit for. I think Prok intentionally rambles and rambles in the blog, interwoven with coherant intelligent comments, and then rambles some more. Heck and then writes a totally coherent article or blog entry just to keep us off balance and coming back for more. It’s got to be good for the page hits. And cuz Prok is so easily provoked (or is it just an act to get more readers) maybe you too can join mellee. You don’t really need to do anything except express your own opinion, wait for the inevitable personal attacks, and Uri/Prok can sit back and laugh at the page hits.
Got to give Uri kudos for hiring Prok. Then again, new readers may just run into the bickering for the first time, say wtf, and retreat to a drama free zone.
Daman Tenk
Jul 11th, 2007
“I assume you are Carigorp Matzerath because he has used this very very similar analogy many times citing black people and mugging and such, right down to a T. Also he is a /b/tard himself and a Woodbury sympathizer, even a member of the Woodbury University group.”
* I’m not a kid.
* I’ve never visited the /b/ forum.
* I’m a sympathizer of Woodbury yes. But no, I wasn’t a group member.
I have no clue who Carigorp is. I have no clue who you are. So have a nice cup of tea and piss off. Not everyone who disagrees with you is the alt of some griefer. That analogy I made came from my own background, as I said, I’ve no clue who Carigorp is, let alone that I know anything he said.
Anonymous
Jul 11th, 2007
I hate the whole griefing label. I loved to go to armory xtreme and shoot the admins and cause all kinds of chaos, but not because I wanted to hurt them. It was just fun and they put up a pretty good fight. I don’t play with the particle emitters and various other malicious scripts. Whats a guy to do when he gets bored? I thought the whole appeal in SL was that you can do stuff you wouldn’t or couldn’t do in real life. I own about 1/4 a sim myself and I spend the majority of my time operating a productive and respectable business, its just that I periodically enjoy doing something new. I think alot of second lifers, particularly the ones with the most power are prudes. They’re boring people with even more boring lives. I cant stand lamers.
Prokofy Neva
Jul 11th, 2007
Um, Jessica’s looking out for the little guy and belief that SL is “landowner-centric” is touching and inciteful of class warfare and revolutionary and all that, but it’s also part of the grand Big Lie of Second Life that many tell who have their own very non-little-guy agenda, which usually involves them usurping power with little-guy rhetoric.
Who are getting prizes this week from Linden Lab? Scripters and bug finders who played with the open source. Who is being celebrated this week in special report? Developers earning money outside of SL from their metaversal services which largely consist of building and programming.
No, SL is *programmer* and *content-owner* specific, NOT land-owner centric. It always has rewarded and feted the programmers and designers and stiffed the very landowners that it relies on to make its money (Lenin’s “selling the rope” concept).
The “little guy” — the lowly sandbox shooter and script-kiddie — has far, far FAR more loving attention from the Lindens, whether through police blotter reporting, or facilitating of freedoms, than anyone else. There is no “downtrodden” little guy in SL — if anything, he facilitates the oppression of other classes through unchecked usage of resources, or so many claim.
Robin Linden doesn’t need to contact every 14-year-old script-kiddie in the Woodbury University group, and every “wow, turned-20!” asshole griefing goon in the Woodbury University group. Why? Because they aren’t the tenants of record with whom SL has the contract, they aren’t the landowners, i.e. OFFICERS within the group, they aren’t the TIER PAYERS and BILL PAYERS.
THOSE PEOPLE including Dr. Clift are responsible for the care and maintenance of the sim they bought and pay rent on. It’s not privileging them as an evil class to expect them not to crash the sim or let others crash it when they can put on autoreturn, set the land to no-scripts from outside the group, and so on (little good when your group consists of b/tards who landed to make a base there).
If they couldn’t figure out in April, when they experienced their first round of drama and bannings, then they’re part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Jessica, like so many revolutionaries, seeks to *evade personal responsibility*. That’s all it’s about. Infantilism, dressed up in extremist revolutionary rhetoric.
Her obstinate and redundant insistence that new people can’t understand within five minutes whether somebody’s a griefing asshole are reflective of having never spent five minutes in a welcome area.
There are griefers on Woodbury University because it’s a conspiracy; because Tizzers put them there; because she is one herself, an avowed member and celebrator of b/tard and its works.
Prokofy Neva
Jul 11th, 2007
>I think Prok intentionally rambles and rambles in the blog, interwoven with coherant intelligent comments, and then rambles some more. Heck and then writes a totally coherent article or blog entry just to keep us off balance and coming back for more.
I find it fascinating that people have this meme of Uri deliberately indulging me here in rants and cat-lady hysteria for page hits, or that I deliberately range from coherent to incoherent to achieve page hits. That’s not the case.
As I’ve pointed out, many page hits come from somethingawful.com itself, it’s sport for them to fill up these comments with dreck, and watch themselves be reported on. If someone fancies that ignoring them gets rid of them, they don’t understand the springs of Second Life, and the need to keep arguing for the sake of the silent majority, not them minority of freaks.
I write as I please. I’m not somehow being “incited” and “going into a rage” or “being poked at with a stick.” I like to provide thorough and thoughtful rebuttals to recurring deliberate, ideologically-driven attacks.
Prokofy Neva
Jul 11th, 2007
>And if you physically witness griefing by someone, then yes, that is knowledge, but that requires a certain amount of timing, you have to be both online and in the sim where it is occuring, and interpretation, are they playing with scripts or are they going to go out into the grid to harrass others. Of course, if you are out in the grid with your friends when they do that, that means that you are part of a griefing posse.
This is all bullshit. You don’t have to physically witness shit. Avatar radars report presence; prim litter obviously shows authorship; the Lindens check server logs and can easily tell who came in the sim and who was the owner and deployer of the script that crashed a sim.
Jessica remains alarmingly indifferent and ignorant of the requirement of personal responsibility for sims, and shockingly tone deaf to the criminality of the people she’s defending.
Kryss Wanweird
Jul 11th, 2007
Dear Jessica,
I carefully read your article and understand your position. The intent of my question to you about justice was to shift the focus of this Woodbury event to a philosophical perspective that, I believe, is the key point here.
Second Life, apart from all its nuances, is a business owned by Linden Labs. It has partners in this endeavor: business owners in SL and other companies related in some way to the service provided by the computer application Second Life. The objective of any business is profit.
So the question here is: did the activities that took place in Woodbury were aggregating value to the business or disrupting it? Since the Sim was deleted by LL, it is obvious that that the latter is true. No company enjoys halting business with customers, and, you can be sure, LL can backup it’s decision with system logs, if needed.
Is that fair? I would say, fair enough! Of course, there might be innocent residents that suffered some kind of loss in the process. But, their loss is minor if compared to the greater loss of the business and its supply chain, which is the main reason that SL exists.
That is justice.
Well, I hope I made my point understandable, since I am an engineer, and Portuguese native speaker
Jessica Holyoke
Jul 11th, 2007
Hey Prok, if you started learning how to read, perhaps people would start believing you more.
The point of this article, and most of what I’m saying, isn’t related to land owners. Land owners have a variety of tools available to them, as well as the Lindens themselves. My main point, and I guess it could be my fault that it isn’t clear, is that I’m concerned about how the non-landowning resident will be treated in the future. This isn’t about Woodbury right now, even if it started the controversy.
You say that avatar radar will detect presense. That’s great if you are a landowner. You say prim litter will show you who has left objects behind. That’s great if you are landowner. You say the Lindens have all the records and logs. That’s great if you are a Linden. But these things are not shared with the residents at large who don’t pay tier.
Prok, you have called me a Marxist. I looked up one possible definition of being a marxist and that’s being concerned with the working class, which damn right I am. If you and your landed class pals want to protect yourselves by using guilt by association and blame the resident for not knowing what the activities of every member of the group that they are in, that’s your perogative. Just don’t be surprised when no one comes by to see your pretty buildings anymore and SL shuts down due to lack of resident growth and use.
By the way, your Crips and Bloods analogy is crap. By the time anyone is able to join either gang, it would be pretty hard to miss what those groups are about. The point I’m trying to make is that the newer residents do not have the information readily accessible like the landowners and senior users do. Making the comparison is silly in this context.
Jessica Holyoke
Jul 11th, 2007
Kryss,
Thanks for the reasoned response. (Although I thought I edited my previous one a bit for tone, sorry).
I’m not as concerned about Woodbury in particular right now. I’m concerned about the next group that gets infiltrated. I’m concerned about future residents that might be discriminated against because of the actions of others.
If an innocent resident joins a griefing group and they are discriminated against because of that affiliation, one result is a bad impression of SL. They are going to tell their friends that SL is not a good place to go to because landowners discriminate against you because of who you know and not what you do.
And even if a landowner has the ability to do something and no legal duty to follow, doesn’t mean that they *should* do something. A landowner does have the right to keep whoever they want off of their land. And they may feel that ‘guilt by association’ is the only way to protect their interests. All I am saying is that it may not be in the best interest of future resident growth, where that non-landowning resident does not have the same tools and information as the landowners.
Prokofy Neva
Jul 11th, 2007
Like I said, I’m happy to debate Jessica when a) she’s passed the bar and b) she has clerked for a year or gotten a real job. She is untethered, and actually either witless, or cunningly duplicitous about contradicting herself.
Suddenly, she’s no longer talking about landlowners and their responsibility for their sims, and the Lindens rightful challenge to them to manage their sim, or have it confiscated.
Suddenly, she’s talking about “just anybody” and their level of education, knowledge, notification.
There are just a few SL basics one has to impart to this twit. Land — especially island land — either has a sole owner who sets it to a group or group owners. It has what we call “autoreturn” and the ability to turn off non-group scripts, non-group object creation, etc. So you don’t INVITE INTO A GROUP anyone who is going to litter, crash with scripts, etc.
These people just didn’t wander into a public sandbox. She invited them into the group. They are group members. I don’t know whether they are land group owners per se or the land was set to a group which they were members, but they were able to build and set prims. That means they were either ENABLED or NORMAL GENERAL PRECAUTIONS were not taken to prevent griefing.
Everyone puts on autoreturn. You have to these days. It’s an essential. They also frequently check off “no push”; they check off (i.e. turn OFF) non-group scripts. These are the very basic toolsets that any landowner with any consciousness in their brain about Second Life does. If Tizzers didn’t do this, or enabled group membership for access to those people, she did this knowingly, being fully appraised of the nature of the b/tards.
The idea that some little foolish clothesmaker wonders into this “university” and can’t understand what’s up is completely head-up-ass. She can’t set a single prim, rez a single object, or deploy a single script unless she’s INVITED TO THE GROUP on most islands.
On mainland, this is less the case and actually I’m one of the people who keeps land OPEN and not group-access only, an increasingly common feature of mainland which gives it red ban lines to everybody but the paying tenant/owner/group member.
I seriously do not want to hear any more shit from Jessica that reveals her deep ignorance about land management. It’s not rocket science. Autoreturn on, non-group-scripts off, biggest defense against griefing.
If there ever is a defending of the working class, it’s me. Possibly because I’m in it? Because there is nothing glamorous or get-rich-quick about mainland rentals — it’s a huge amount of thankless work for hardly any pay and many losses. Jennifer has no fucking clue, with her fancy Ivy-League trust-fund whatever education, what an ass.
Crips and Bloods are the PERFECT analogy for B/tards. You don’t join b/tard just stumbling around typing “clothing” and “fun” into the search box. You join it because you get a kick out of gross and obscene textures, anime, slogans, memes, and anonymous Internet hijinx DER.
Jessica has failed to find a good case here. Bad cases make bad law. There is nothing whatsoever wrong or unlawful in the Lindens’ proper action; only the lack of some kind of transparency and appeals process. What’s right about it is finding mismanagement and even intentional griefing — despite repeated warnings — and conspiracy to commit over actions — again and again — damaging to the Lindens’ property and other residents’ property.
There isn’t a case of the Lindens’ taking improper action against some mass group like “Awakening Avatars” or New Citizens Incorporated or for that matter “EXPLODER SEX FUN CAMP CITY” — the garden variety newbie groups that have thousands of members.
Jessica fails to grasp that griefing is based on land; most griefing takes place on LAND. Therefore land groups and land owners are to be tasked with responsibility for their tenants and visitors and most importantly THEIR LAND GROUPS with members in them.
Newbies flying around joining griefing groups don’t get banned for being in non-land-related groups; that’s where Jessica’s fake concerns are dead wrong. It only became possible for the
Lindens to act against something like W-hat when they have documented proof of LAND related abuse (like putting out giant mega prims rooted on Satyr obliterating the sky in neighbouring sims? For example).
Jessica Holyoke
Jul 11th, 2007
I’m sorry, I thought we were talking about guilt by association by landowners. I’ve been talking about “just anybody” this ENTIRE time. And if you are going to bring up Janelle, what land did she *exactly* own, other than any interest she *might* have had though the Woodbury sim?
And other than your constant ranting, I would not have known that /b/ had any sort of racist or obscene images.
Also if the PN are still active, but they have no *base* in SL, are they still land oriented?
Once again, facts would be helpful.
Reality
Jul 11th, 2007
“Like I said, I’m happy to debate Jessica when a) she’s passed the bar and b) she has clerked for a year or gotten a real job. She is untethered, and actually either witless, or cunningly duplicitous about contradicting herself.”
Like I said Prokofy – until you go to law school you have no grounds to dictate such things to even a lowly Law student.
In addition dearie, you have no ground to dictate any of your absurd and cowardly demands to anyone.
This is the internet dearie – you’re going to get responses from those that really do not want to put up with your bullshit. Deal with it and either respond back – properly – or do not respond at all.
Jessica Holyoke
Jul 11th, 2007
And what land did the Prokofy Fan club own again?
Jessica Holyoke
Jul 12th, 2007
Just reread your tangent prok.
Again, you say things without a shred of proof. On what basis do you think that I have an “ivy league trustfund education?” I don’t reveal real life information because I don’t want people using it against me, so you have no reason for what you are saying, both as to what type of law school I went to or my financial background, or worse yet, saying that I have no knowledge of the working class. You don’t know me in RL Prok, or know of my background. Slinging around unfounded accusations is a good reason why people accuse you of libel.
Kryss Wanweird
Jul 12th, 2007
Hi Jessica!
It’s not very elegant, but I’ll have to quote some of your text, so forgive me.
“If an innocent resident joins a griefing group and they are discriminated against because of that affiliation, one result is a bad impression of SL. They are going to tell their friends that SL is not a good place to go to because landowners discriminate against you because of who you know and not what you do.”
If someone is discriminated, as in the situation you exposed, there could be two possible outcomes: one becomes aware of the activities of the group and removes himself from it based on irreconcilable interests, (x)or, decides to remain in the group and embrace it’s cause. In the first case, the resident would be left with a bad impression of the group; in the second, of the discriminating agent.
“All I am saying is that it may not be in the best interest of future resident growth, where that non-landowning resident does not have the same tools and information as the landowners.”
The fact that landowners have more privileges than non-landowners residents is very unlikely to affect future resident growth since granting different privileges to different users is common policy of information systems management. If same privileges were to be granted to different group of users, it would be not only unfair, but also bad user groups administration…
“The non-landowners and junior users do not have the same information as the landowners and the senior users. By using guilt by association based on information shared among the landowners, the non-landowners and junior users are at a disadvantage.”
I would completely agree with this statement if “at a disadvantage” were replaced by “susceptible to unexpected discrimination, if joining unknown groups”. By the same argument of not having the same information, one could understand that landowners and senior users are at a disadvantage here, since they know nothing about the non-landowners and junior users except by their profile and groups, justifying the use of guilt by association!
“ Put another way, when Robin Linden told the Woodbury people that there were griefers in the group, do you think she told the three administrators or everyone in the group?”
The group was the owner of the land also, from what I remember in this case. So, she must have told the owner of the land/group only, as expected in a business relationship.
Now, Jessica, let me ask you another question
Lets suppose that information about group activities should be available for everybody, so users could have a tool, perhaps, to make better decisions about joining a group or not.
How should this information be disclosed to the community and who would be responsible for this information?
Jessica Holyoke
Jul 12th, 2007
Kryss,
If the Police Blotter, what is already being used by the Lindens, provided names and more details of the incidents involved, I would be happy.
Anonymous
Jul 12th, 2007
Again, spying is against the TOS.
If you can get banned for trivial things like simply insulting someone, why is spying so conveniently accepted? IMHO, spying is lower than a snake’s dick. People who are paranoid make use of it.
Prokofy Neva
Jul 12th, 2007
Griefing is land-based. Griefing mainly occurs on land. Griefing that doesn’t occur on land — sending friendship cards repeatedly or making $1 payments to annoy — isn’t as common as land-based griefing. Griefing on land occurs through a) land ownership b) land use granted by owners.
>’m sorry, I thought we were talking about guilt by association by landowners. I’ve been talking about “just anybody” this ENTIRE time. And if you are going to bring up Janelle, what land did she *exactly* own, other than any interest she *might* have had though the Woodbury sim?
There isn’t any “just anybody”. These griefers are a) in land-owning groups, like Tizzers, as administrators or b) granted permission to enter/build/script on land through membership in groups or management of the tools. It’s ALL land-based. Janelle is in the Woodbury group, and in the affiliated griefing groups.
Many educational sims actually keep their land access-only or even on “hidden” status. Woodbury might have kept theirs open. But they would then still have to make decisions: how to set prims, whether to put on no-push, whether to have no-non-group-script, etc.
Janelle joined the Woodbury group. That group was given permission to enter the Woodbury sim and more to the point, maintain a visible, named affiliation with Woodbury. Woodbury is on her profile. Hazim and others had an additional title (or group, I’d have to look at the menu and now the sim is gone) saying “Woodbury Security” that evidently gave them officers’ powers, although judging from the time I visited them and they only shot at me instead of ejecting, me, they may not have had full powers. Not sure. One thing is certain: the Woodbury group is the group that was allowed on the LAND of the Woodbury sim.
Woodbury is not a group you “just join” as you frolic around SL. Woodbury isn’t a group you fall into innocently like SLODERS ‘R US. YOU NEED AN INVITATION TO JOIN, YOU NEED TO BE PART OF THE CONSPIRACY, YOU NEED TO BE ONE OF THEM TO GET THE INVITATION. It’s not an open group: it’s closed.
These things shouldn’t have to be explained over and over again. Anyone who made one five-minute visit to this land of confusion would see it in spades.
>And other than your constant ranting, I would not have known that /b/ had any sort of racist or obscene images.
Then Jessica must have her head *very* far up her ass. Do a cursory google of the /b/tards to understand their cultural memes. Um, look at MC Fizgig’s profile, and the profiles of the owner *land group owners* and see their blackface or black Afros and Pool’s Out memes. It’s not just *me* ranting. They *are* racist and everyone knows that.
>Also if the PN are still active, but they have no *base* in SL, are they still land oriented?
Um, they grief on LAND. That’s why they send TPs *from Baku* as they did once again because *they are indeed related to W-hat*. They are *permitted to reside/hangout/build* on Baku, or Woodbury or wherever. That IS having a base. Permission to enter and griefing from land *is land-based griefing related to land groups and/or permission on land to enter*.
Once again, a common, cursory lesson in land management tools right right-clicking on any land group and seeing how it works would solve this stubborn pigheadedness about failing to see how a) Woodbury is a land-related griefing group b) it’s on the sim Woodbury.
Are there, oh, 150 people who aren’t griefers in Woodbury? Maybe. But given that there are 50 who *are* griefers, it’s a safe bet that the rest are alts, cluess dweebs, accidental tourists, and lovers of revolutionary adventures like Janelle.