The Alphaville Herald

Ex-Superhero on Woodbury, Griefing & JLU drama

by Alphaville Herald on 11/02/08 at 4:04 am

Pierce Kronos reveals he “left the JLU in disgust” in exclusive interview

by Proper Prim, staff writer

A great deal of controversy has been circulating around the Justice League Unlimited of late raising questions about how much is real and how much has been manufactured – is someone is trying to troll and defame the JLU? To learn the truth, I created an alt and went inworld and asked the JLU for interviews for some time before Pierce Kronos finally (hesitantly at first) came forward to talk.

I went into the interview with a long list of questions. Could the teen grid allegations have any merit? Is Kalel Venkman really an ‘unbearable power hungry fascist’ as some have described him? What is the purpose of the JLU? What part did JLU play in the Woodbury University situation and Tizzers Foxchase’s permanent removal from Second Life? Near the end of the interview, Mr. Kronos announced that he had ‘left the JLU in disgust’ but also made it clear that there are still those in the JLU whom he likes, respects, even admires and that he will in no way betray their trust by disclosing any sensitive information as Nikola Shirakawa, another former JLU member, once had.

After speaking at length with Mr. Kronos about work, life in general, griefing, Second Life, the PN and the JLU. Pierce seems to be a good guy and I am convinced that not all of the allegations circulating are true – and I suspect that the ones that are true have nothing to do with him. While Pierce wasn’t been entirely forthcoming about his reasons for leaving the JLU, I admire the fact that he has shown his enemies respect by keeping his quarrels private. It is unclear if Mr Kronos intends to continue endeavors as an anti-griefer from outside of the JLU or if he simply intends to settle down and live quietly – either way we wish him the best of luck!

Proper Prim: Are we seeing a decline in griefing lately and if so, what do you think is the cause?
Pierce Kronos: I believe there have been fewer instances of organized and multi-sim griefing since just before the holidays started. It been like, “Where did all the griefers go?” Still, with over 15K sims in SL and God(dess) only knows how many residents, there’s always griefing going on somewhere.

As to why the apparent reduction … the flippant side of me would say it’s because all the griefer boys and “girls” are still playing with the Christmas toys they got from Santa Claus and haven’t broken them yet. Seriousness aside though, I don’t have any idea why it appears to have lessened but I’m fairly certain it will return, if only from a new crop suffering through the growing pains of the maturation process. I would imagine the “decline” is due to various factors as opposed to just one thing or another. Those factors could include improved SL and GTeam protocols, more folks being educated on utilizing Abuse Report procedures, griefers being busy with school and mid-terms, others getting on with their lives, the threat of real life repercussions, that sort of thing.

Proper Prim: What sort of legal implications do you think griefers may face in the future?
Pierce Kronos: That’s really hard to anticipate as all this cyber world stuff is relatively new compared to the history of real life. I imagine there will eventually be continued transition of real world laws into the cyber world; things like harassment, obstruction, slander/libel, discrimination, fraud, and so forth. Denial of Service has financial repercussions as well so there may come more corporate vs individual suing. You also have to remember Linden Lab is based in the US, home of the lawyer and land of the law suit. Besides, you know politicians and lawmakers the world over are just itching to get their mitts on virtual reality so any excuse will become justified.

Proper Prim: What is the real story about the Tizzers Foxchase and Woodbury University situations?
Pierce Kronos: Well that question is gonna open a whole big can of worms especially considering the folks who comment to Herald articles on a regular basis and all the folks who have taken entrenched positions, as it were, either for or against Tizzers.

To understand my perspective, you have to realize I didn’t join the JLU until June of ’07 so I wasn’t really involved in the whole Woodbury thing as it was already ongoing. I didn’t get to know Tizzers personally until Aree and I started setting out the Perch in Cordova to hang out on, as well as meet and talk with folks in a casual setting. That would have been sometime in October, ’07 I’d guess because it was prior to the infamous Halloween debacle.

As you can well imagine, we used to get all sorts of folks stopping by to chat and visit and so forth; Tizzers, Alyx, Windowlic to name a few and, of course, various PN in day-old avatars. The latter weren’t too hard to spot because, let’s face it, how many one-day-old new residents even know Cordova exists, much less how to get there? Anyway, over time and several conversations, when we weren’t being griefed, trolled or otherwise harassed by various of the aforementioned day-olds, I had the opportunity to hear Tizzer’s side of things and what he/she was trying to accomplish. So I gave Tizzers the benefit of the doubt despite believing Tizzer’s attempts at griefer reformation were misguided.

Proper Prim: Before you go any further, would you go back a moment and give your perspective on the Halloween thing?
Pierce Kronos: Well, I thought it was an incredibly stupid and boneheaded thing to do. I know it’s been posted in comments on the Herald by numerous folks that he/she was merely trick or treating, blah blah, but I mean … really? Anyone with a brain knows Tizzers and buddies went over there to tweak Kal (Kalel Venkman) at his real life address and they were successful even though Kal wasn’t there.

I’ve also heard that Tizzers lead a “raid” on Kal’s house after “stalking” him, tried to intimidate his family members, etc, etc. What it really was, was simply was an unthought-out, bad idea by an immature 19 year-old (or however old Tizzers is supposed to be) who was lucky things didn’t get really out of hand. But, you know, who of us didn’t do incredibly stupid, boneheaded, unthought-out things when we were that young?

I think Kal’s initial anger at the tweaking was justified — I mean it’s one thing to hassle someone in SL, but it’s quite another to take things into real life and to a person’s residence. At the same time, Kal’s old enough and should be mature enough to recognize it for what it really was and to stop referring to it as a “raid.”

Proper Prim: Okay, back to the “griefer reformation”
Pierce Kronos:Right, well, Tizzers would talk to us about just different stuff though one time he/she was all bent out of shape about something and really pissed me off by saying we in the JLU just took orders from Kal and did whatever he directed.. I proceeded to inform Tizzers that Kal was not my general, not my boss and not my father, that each of us (then) in the JLU were individuals and responsible for our own actions or non-actions. One need only read the comments here in the Herald to see how everyone in the JLU is smeared with the same tar that’s constantly thrown at Kalel — you know, guilt by association. There’s a lot of that in SL and in real life too.

Anyway, after that, Tizzers and I seemed to have an uneasy truce. Now that’s not to say that Kalel and others in the JLU did or didn’t file abuse reports for various alleged things. I was never personally knowledgable of Tizzers doing anything wrong until January 1, 2008.

Proper Prim: What happened then?
Pierce Kronos: I filed an Abuse Report on Tizzers for disclosing, without permission, a private conversation between Tizzers and myself to others in Second Life. Within a couple of hours, Tizzers Foxchase was no longer in Second Life. Now it could be that AR was the one that put Tizzers over the top in cumulative “naughty” points and resulted in a ban, or it could be that Tizzers just decided to delete the account for some reason.

By the way, for your readers information, there are three levels of disciplinary action that may be employed by the Governance Team when they determine abuse has indeed taken place: a warning, suspension (1 to 14 days), and lastly, a ban. There is no difference between ban and “permaban.” Too many people call suspensions “bans” and thus call a ban, “permaban”. There’s also an Administrative Log out but that only lasts an hour, so it’s not really an action, more of a time out. I figure, since everyone says Tizzers was banned as opposed to deleting the account, that the Linden cumulative point system is what lead to the removal of that person from Second Life as bans are on a real person, not an account name.

Proper Prim: So you got Tizzers banned from Second Life?
Pierce Kronos: No, Tizzers is the one that got Tizzers banned from Second Life. As to anything else about Tizzers and Woodbury, you should ask someone else. Let’s move on.

Proper Prim: Does JLU really have a presence on the teen grid? Is there another explanation for the existence of the near identical group that was recently uncovered on the teen grid?
Pierce Kronos: There is none nor has been any presence of the JLU on the Teen Grid. As to an explanation, well, you should know that many in the JLU are well old enough to have children, including myself, children who could easily be on the Teen Grid themselves. I suppose younger members of the JLU could well have siblings in that age range also. As I understand it, that teen group wasn’t even active at the time of the “uncovering” otherwise I’d say have a Linden IM the owner to determine the truth in the matter. I’m sure the Lindens could trace the ISPs of anyone in that teen group and compare it to the ISPs of those in the JLU to objectively determine the matter. I wonder if those folks who were so anxious to point the non-retractable finger of accusation bothered to file AR’s on the JLU or just gloried in the insinuations.

Proper Prim: Does JLU generally encounter resistance from landowners and other ‘neutral’ parties?
Pierce Kronos: Some are pro-JLU, some are thankful for any help they can get, some are neutral, some don’t like the JLU, some are anti-JLU, but really … the grid is 15,000+ sims and growing and I’d say most landowners don’t even know the JLU exists. Of those that do know about the group, the range of opinion runs from praise to condemnation, from being griefers to vigilantes, to wanna-be Lindens, to a self-appointed police force, to a public service group, to a valuable volunteer resource. Some within the group and without see themselves as being heros. Take your pick.

Proper Prim: How do you view what you did? Were you a hero, a vigilante, a griefer?
Pierce Kronos: I really didn’t view it one way or another. All I did was what any other resident of Second Life is empowered to do — abuse report apparent violations of the Term of Service and the Community Standards, try to help educate folks on ways to protect themselves and to provide information to new residents that would ease their transition into a new experience. I will say I enjoyed ARing griefers, be they a day old or two years in world. By definition, griefing causes people grief and anyone who purposefully causes grief to someone else deserves whatever penalties are appropriate.

Proper Prim: What about someone who griefs a griefer?
Pierce Kronos: ::laughter:: I do my best to abide by ToS and CS, others have their own opinions of what’s acceptable. It’s Linden Lab’s platform, they get to decide the rules. If you disagree or don’t like them, either don’t log in or try to get them changed.

Proper Prim: Tell me about Maldavious Figtree who is rumored to have been a JLU member at one point
Pierce Kronos: All I know is I saw him at a couple of meetings, then he trashed a sim, admitted to it and was removed from the JLU. He was/is a scripter or something like that I think. I’m pretty sure he’s listed in the Brainiac database as having been discharged for cause.

Proper Prim: Have there been a few cases of drama within the JLU? What are the primary causes?
Pierce Kronos: Well, having just quit the JLU last week, I’m probably the wrong person to pose that question to. Still, within any group, real life, second life or otherwise, there’s the potential for drama; it seems to be human nature. As I tried to explain to Tizzers that time, the JLU is composed of individuals not clones, not soldiers, not employees, not children either. Individuals have their own views and opinions on things … even when they band together for a common goal or purpose. Some in the JLU, for example, believe in a strict interpretation of ToS and CS, others believe in a more casual, situational application. With such wide ranging views, conflict and associated drama occasionally occurs. Sometimes it’s handled well and sometimes it’s not.

Proper Prim: What can you tell me about the JLU’s standard operating procedures?
Pierce Kronos: I can tell you all about them but I won’t. I may have quit the JLU in disgust but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in the public service aims and mission of the group. Plus, there are those in the JLU whom I like, respect and even admire for their commitment to their ideals and their efforts to help Second Life be a good experience for all. I am not going to put those particular folks at a possible disadvantage by revealing to all and sundry what can be very effective procedures.

Proper Prim: I take it there are those in the JLU that you no longer like, respect nor admire?
Pierce Kronos: Take it however you want. I was very specific in how I said what I said.