I agree. I have experienced this for myself firsthand, and LL’s policy of “We will do what we want when we want regardless of our written rules” destroys any sense of professionalism or trust between residents and Linden Labs. I have had chats with Linden Labs support technicians who flat out lied to me about their policies, EVEN WHEN I REFERRED THEM TO THE STATED POLICY ITSELF.

I think most of the confusion revolves around weak employee training, but in some cases I think Lindens just enjoy their power-trip. Getting a job as a linden isn’t exactly hard. The only qualifications you need are 1: Be a resident of SL for more than 6 months and 2: Speak english. Even McDonald’s has higher qualifications. (BTW these requirements are taken from the employment section of LL’s site).

In the long run LL would be better off enforcing their written policy to the word, as well as enforcing policy on their own rogue employees (perhaps training them better would be good too). A tremendous amount of hatred has been generated towards Linden Labs because of this, and they really need to do something about it.

“The GTeam applies the rules unevenly – operations that should be shut down entirely due to extensive fraud and money laundering still operate (I work for one of these, actually, and yes, there are some problems we’re dealing with)”

The GTeam does indeed apply the rules unevenly, but to suggest that Intblubber is in on some ‘extensive fraud and money laundering’ scheme is pretty laughable, because if he was, he’d ACTUALLY. HAVE. MONEY. And I might be able to squeeze a fatter paycheck out of him every week.

As it stands he’s ethically anal to the point of hiring serial griefers like me onto his third-world payroll so that he can feel good about himself for benefitting society by giving me an incentive to be a good citizen.

Or atleast that’s what Prok’s blog says.

Probably because this one drew a ton of attention to himself by asking about it’s legality to a linden, putting signs everywhere claiming a linden said this was legal, and then getting an article written about it. Lindens don’t really go around actively searching for Casinos to shut down, they do it when it’s pointed out to them either by someone or by strange small payments back and forth.

Since they did this with gambling, and banking, it’s not hard to imagine them doing the same thing with all other financial transactions that can’t be regulated effectively in-world. I know the Lindens are thinking this over, and if they reach the conclusion I think they will, I’ll have to look for other work.

Why are these systems any different? The casino operators are large established casino’s – do they know something that the rest of us are missing?

If I understand correctly, you are not allowed to gamble or place wagers in Second Life in which the winnings include anything of value (or in the above cases Linden Dollars winnings).

Truly confused now…

er no

RL US rules apply to it

which is why it is unlikley that how things are done in Japan is unlikley to matter to LL

^— Collective sound of all individuals who bought into this.

The GTeam applies the rules unevenly – operations that should be shut down entirely due to extensive fraud and money laundering still operate (I work for one of these, actually, and yes, there are some problems we’re dealing with), while most of the rest are simply left standing in the hall waiting for them to do something constructive.

One major CEO of a (former) major presence in SL once said, “I’m never coming back to SL again – it looks like shit and people fuck on the floor.” If Linden Lab needs any more proof than that that they’re going about this the wrong way, the whole operation is doomed anyway.

By the way, after reading the chatlog in question, I do have to ask, where did Zara get a law degree? Alternately, if Zara is not a lawyer, why would anyone be surprised that Zara’s personal opinion on the legality of something turns out to be false? Something doesn’t become legal merely because a Linden says so. Anyone who finds this surprising is taking the “game gods” thing way too seriously. It seems a common practice on various SL-related blogs to elevate Lindens above the status of being mere employees of a tech company. They aren’t gods, never were. They aren’t even necessarily legal eagles.

This story could be summarized as: “ZOMG a Linden made a mistake!!!1! Foolish fanboys, can’t you see LL isn’t perfect???? You can’t consider something a serious business platform if its employees aren’t *really* gods…”