Now why would they keep to procedures that end in personal hurt? Lindenz is people, people. They only get burnt by the same thing once.

The transcript is here. Read it yourselves. It’s about 180 degrees opposite of what Prokofy claims.

http://www.slba.info/2007-08-12_Transcript.htm

The really funny thing here is that Prokofy is a member of the SLBA. If Prokofy cared to do something rather than just spin the same broken record, it is a simple process to get something on the agenda at a meeting. But Prokofy didn’t run for office, hasn’t ever suggested an agenda topic for a meeting, hasn’t ever made a motion during a meeting, and doesn’t participate at all — except to complain. I’m glad he’s a member though, as it continues to demonstrate that we’re open to all viewpoints.

It’s a young group. If Prokofy stays a member, he can help shape it however he wants to. But he doesn’t seem to want to — so it’s just Prokofy grinding an increasingly old ax about me. And while I’ve gotten rather used to that, readers should know it doesn’t have anything to do with the SLBA, a group that I willingly elected myself out of control of shortly after I started it.

After all, here you laud Stroker Serpentine for filing his lawsuit in real life, but in other places you state how evil it is for the lawyers to be involved in SL including helping Serpentine file his law suit.

And your august 19th 2:10am comments didn’t reference the in-world dispute resolution system. That seems to be something you added to aug 20 6:23. I like how at 2:10 am you talk about a lawsuit, which can only be filed in RL. And then at 6:23, you change it to mean only the in-world arbitration/mediation system. Bravo.

I know calling people stupid helps you feel smarter, but its only making you look worst.

Like many before you, you earnestly believe you are somehow going to “trip me up” and find me caught in a “hyprokisy”. But you won’t. If you think there is something always hypocritical in what I’m writing, it’s because you assume bad faith in others, since you *steeped in it yourself*. You lie and prevaricate; and you assume others do. You try to get away with murder — and imagine everyone is like that.

As I’ve painstakingly explained before, oh, absolutely I’d love to see a class-action suit against sign griefers. Now…where would that take place? *In real life*. Where else?! A suit against another resident involving a claim of a business loss can’t involve Linden Lab, which is merely a telephone service writ large.

There is no court or entity in SL — and Portugese e-justice isn’t going to cut it — that can force miscreants who damage others’ livlihoods to the curb. So you have to do a real-life lawsuit, and that’s as it should be — just like Stroker Serpentine!

In fact, the idiots stumbling around in SL right now trying to be cool and opening up “help stations” and “law offices” and all the rest are probably *the last* place you’d go to look for competent legal advice. I wouldn’t rule them out; I’d be sanguine.

I’d count on finding one that indeed would work pro bono precisely because it’s a landmark decision sort of case.

Within the context of Second Life, it’s like a law of gravity that you cannot interfere with what someone else puts on their property. And sure, this has its merits, and it’s the best we can get out of the Lindens in terms of ‘property rights’ (Robin Linden rightly calls them “propertarian”).

The simple rules of the TOS, and the simple conditions the Lindens need to keep preclude being able to solve resident-to-resident disputes.

This or that group might get on the JIRA and say, oh, Lindens, do this or do that, don’t let 128 parcels show up for sale in the list (Nobody’s biggest brain wave lately, which i’ve disputed merely because it’s not how to go about it, restricting the market inworld; it makes more sense pre-world to restrict the ability to even sell anything for under 512 for anything more than $0). So let’s say a group of lawyers would get involved actively lobbying LL to change the way they show things in the sale list.

That would be exactly an example of what I’d castigate as interfering and meddling and restricting the world. To solve one problem, they restrict an entire class of people and things. The pre-world solution simply makes a different law of gravity rather than trying to restrict all land sales in the market for ideological/content reasons (the Lindens will likely never go for that).

So instead, a more practical measure is to use campaigns of social ostracism, like boycotts of those who make and use the ads, and also the threat of a good old-fashioned meat-world lawsuit. That might concentrate their minds wonderfully.

If someone obtains a divorce decree by documenting that they became a Second Life widow — good! They did that *in real life, where they are*. They did it not by banning adultery — that’s morality. They did it not by imposing on the Lindens to reveal IPs or put things into the client that out avatars or whatever. The Lindens stay out of it; the entire world is not relevant. It has to happen in real life, where the damage took place.

Business losses in Second Life happen not to avatars, who don’t need food or shelter or anything at all but to stand around looking fabulous.

Business losses in Second Life happen to the typist, the real person, who should sue in real life where he is located.

When I asked what *you* would go to a Sl lawyer for, that’s everyone, not just prok.

And Prok, you say comment frisker as if it is a bad thing, although that doesn’t stop you from engaging in it yourself. And if you’re such a tough person, willing to resort to virtual violence at the slightest provocation, why do you need anyone protecting you?

Oh yes – and quit your bitching about the process here at the Herald. every real world paper has an Editor … deal with it.

if your entire economy is premised on an unconscionable contract, of course, what do you expect is going to happen to all the other legal issues that emerge within it?

anybody have a clue why the hell stroker serpentine is suing to recover losses of worthless funny money? because it’s not worthless, you dolts! stroker sold in $L not $US. the disputes being talked about here all involve $L not $US. but the company that can’t tell a consumer protection law from a hole in the ground (Linden Labs with their now-defunct tos) thinks that you have no case because if you’re losing $L, you’re not losing money and it’s worthless.

so what are you people arguing about? contracts, shmontracts; you’re not losing money, who cares, right?! so what will you sue for? funny money? who’s gonna give it to you? won’t be Linden Labs. gonna ask the court to compel the other party to camp up some funny money for you or something?

no, pee-brains, you demand money. $US. you need recognition that time and energy put into your virtuality is worth something and convertible to cold hard benjamins. recognition that $L equals $US. that if your contractee doesn’t deliver the $L, they owe you the $US. that if a linden lab intern forgets what the delete key does, and in the quest for knowledge and tao of linden, tests it out, and wipes your inventory, linden lab owes you $US. it all goes together. and to get the legal recognition, you need to go right to the source. right to the big enchilada. LINDEN LAB and the tos, and every single unconscionable provision that first year contract law students could figure out was illegal. every single line of words that even a prokofy neva coked up on ritalin, caffeine, and poppy flower seeds couldn’t obfuscate into a morass of enforceable legality.(*)

only when you have a fair, realistic, and enforceable fundamental agreement governing everybody’s usage of the world can you then starting wondering how to effectively deal with any and all contract relations arising within it. that does not exist today and won’t till courts force linden labs to make it so. start the lawyer engine where it matters most: at the top, not with the small potatoes!

(*) this message should not be read to condone usage of ritalin, caffeine, or poppy flower seeds. please consult any relevant legislation governing the jurisdiction of your place of residence regarding the legality of the use of such substances, in the event that you live in a nanny state. the usage of the fictitious name “prokofy neva” is completely random, where “random” is legally defined by a senior member of the Bush administration, and is not meant as an implication that such person actually exists in reality or virtual reality nor that such person or avatar uses any of said substances. any resemblance between this name and persons or avatars, living, simulated, dead, or deleted, is purely coincidental.

Nobody is right; there’s no legitimate power that can arbitrate contracts and I am definitely not willing to have a resident-based “mediation agency” or “bar association” do this. Others may find it useful; it’s no accident this never catches on, it’s because it’s not legitimate.

It doesn’t matter if it isn’t *my* contract in question; I’m speaking in defense of the class of people who make contracts in SL, who probably have no idea that in fact a group of lawyers is now hedging in on their territory. Push them back.

I can’t imagine needing a RL lawyer for SL. If it reached the point that I had to spend time, talent, and treasure on a lawsuit, it would be because I no longer wished to be in SL. The extreme conditions that would foster the need for a RL lawyer aren’t existing yet. I would tend to avoid invocations of lawyers for any reason. It’s unfortunate that instead of really defending avatar rights and reinforcing the notion of rights and laws, such as for free speech, this soi-disant ACLU presence and the SLBA first consider how they can *control others* not how they can *defend them* and protect the world itself. So I’m supremely unimpressed.

No, I won’t be forcibly required to submit articles to an indifferent editor who doesn’t protect reporters, second-guesses them, and gives air-time to griefers like Mootykips and comments-fiskers like Jessica.