The Rock Spider Clan of Second Life
by Alphaville Herald on 29/08/09 at 11:04 am
Hundreds of avatars have paedophilia slang last name
by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk
After previous ageplay scandals, one might have assumed Linden Lab would want to avoid even the appearance of being paedophilia-friendly. But as The Escapist reports, one of the new last name options for avatars – Rockspider – is well known slang used to refer to a paedophile. Several hundred new residents of the metaverse have adopted the name – perhaps unaware of its connotations.
The Urban Dictionarynotes the term is "derived from the analogy that apaedophile, like a rock spider, is always getting into little cracks". A Google or Bing search or a visit to Wikipedia is also illuminating -the Wikipedia page for "rock spider" redirects to the paedophilia page. 
Al Rockspider is a member of the FREE SEX EMPIRE and Wet Dreams Members and Family
We are left to wonder what fate has in store for the avatars with the unfortunate last name – perhaps a perma-ban for "any reason or no reason" will be needed to protect the serious business friendly image the Lindens are now attempting to cultivate for Second Life? What will become of the Rockspider clan?
Darien Caldwell
Aug 29th, 2009
I would daresay only a pedophile would know that was slang for themselves. I’ve never heard it used in the media, or anywhere else for that matter. Any word can be given a negative connotation by anyone. Should we just stop using all words altogether?
Very Tired
Aug 29th, 2009
@Darien Caldwell
>>Should we just stop using all words altogether?
Yes. On a long enough timeline and in a large enough context, all words that ever were or ever will be are ‘broadly offensive,’ and are therefore in violation of TOS.
It fills me with gratitude to think of the battles fought and the blood shed by the glorious armies of Normal People in the early nineties to pacify the internet, that I might today enjoy an out-of-box-experience free from the menace of deleterious words, child sexuality, tobacco use, and political statements.
Onward, AOL Police, in the struggle against unholy words!
LOL
Aug 29th, 2009
Anyone who says SL is not only about sex, OBVIOUSLY has not met Rockspider Linden.
Yak
Aug 30th, 2009
Years ago, during my studies, my puppeteer worked in an Amsterdam sex shop for a while.
On my first day, I thought to brighten the day by wearing a shirt with Micky Mouse on it… and got reprimanded. You can guess it… Also good old Mickey is a ‘hidden’ code for these despicable practices.
Alun Dudek
Aug 30th, 2009
Hmmm. I must admit I’ve never heard of Rockspider, in either sense of the word, but then, I’m British and our language (which really is English, the Language of the people of England, by the way) is differnt from American.
Of course, a further complication is that many of those clan members may not be English speaking. Though whether offensive words in a foreign language (from their point of view) counts is open to debate. If it does then a lot of Star Trek may be bannable too, as (allegedly) Ferengi is a racial slur in Punjabi.
Isn’t banning words for offensiveness fun. Not!
And by the way, what is it the Americans have against foot-fetishists? Pedophile clearly comes from the Latin pes, foot, and phile is (supposedly) Greek for love.
Now if it was Paedophiles they were talking about (from the Greek pais (plural paides), child, and phile), I could understand the fury.
Back to the serious point this article was trying to make. Those who know this (alleged) meaning will avoid the name, the rest won’t know unless they are told. Personally, I have a lot more problems with people using words like “Faggot” when they do know what it means, than than I do with a German monoglot using “Rockspider”, totally unaware of this other highly offensive meaning.
Australian
Aug 30th, 2009
Rockspider is a well known slang term in Australia – I learned about it in a newspaper years ago.
a quick Google brought up these references ( a newspaper article from 2002, and a book published in 1999) which clearly show it isn’t a new term:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/03/1025667005325.html
http://www.seekbooks.com.au/isbn/9781876462031.htm
Bunny Brickworks
Aug 31st, 2009
I’m German, not a monoglot though :p And even here the meaning of the word ‘rock spider’ is quite well-known due to some attempts of the government trying to censor every last bit of the internet. So much about the glorious English skills of our British neighbours…
But back to the subject. The first time I met someone called Rockspider in SL, I was immediately reminded of the double meaning of the word and checked the person’s profile. And I was not surprised to see groups that perfectly matched the name – ‘family love’ and something similar to ‘little chicks for daddy’.
Of course, we can’t expect Linden Lab to double or triple check every name but running a google search or entering it into the Urban Dictionary would seem appropriate in the light of the Lab’s desperate attempts to keep the grid clean and perfectly legal. Then again it took a dozen abuse reports to have the account of a person called Rapist Childs banned. They are a loving and caring bunch those Lindens, aren’t they?
Melissa Yeuxdoux
Aug 31st, 2009
This American never heard of a “rock spider” before this brouhaha arose. (There’s a rockspiderracing.com; apparently they race vehicles up steep rocky inclines.)
I looked up the first word that came to mind, “mustard”, on urbandictionary.com. It has an entry with a sexual connotation.
“Faire les yeux doux”, whence comes my last name in SL, means “to look amorously” at someone or something. The occasional Francophone asks me “do you know what your last name means?” Yes, I do.
Just about anything has risque or offensive connotations if you go looking hard enough. Some are obvious, and LL can and should skip those, but past that seems wasted effort to me. On one hand, people not wanting to give offense can put forth due diligence; on the other, people that DO want to give offense can always pick a first name or combination of first and last name that does so.
Senban Babii
Aug 31st, 2009
Melissa I agree; everything can be given a sexually twisted meaning (for some reason I’m now laughing at the scene in Friends where Joey does just that with “Grandma’s chicken salad”).
But while it’s true that even every day words can have sexual connotations, a quick search by Linden Lab to filter out terms potentially or clearly linked to paedophilia (and perhaps other areas) would take ten minutes tops and would avoid potentially embarrassing situations like this one.
General Drama
Aug 31st, 2009
Not surprising. Back when Germany came out of the dark ages and started giving everybody last names, they’d assign surnames to jews like “Einhorn” which was a euphemism for “dick head”, along with similarly abusive names.
Emperor Norton Hears a Who?
Sep 1st, 2009
and we need trolls with this stuff?
Ari Blackthorne
Sep 2nd, 2009
“Noun
rock spider (plural rock spiders)
Australian prison slang for a pedophile/child molester. Rock spiders constitute the lowest rung of inmates in the prison system, and are looked down on (and often mistreated) by all other inmates.
A term used to refer to Boers (Afrikaners) by Rhodesians and English-speaking South Africans.”
I am American.
NOT Australian. Or South African
Like the Lindens, I’ve heard the term as referenced to mountain racing. Not as an *Australian* slang word.
Hurray for the Germans who are familiar with the term. I am willing to bet you wouldn’t have been have your government just gotten the hell out of your lives and would stop trying to protect you from yourselves.
Like the idiots in the United Sates… and Brittain… and OH! The whole damned E.U. ‘entity’. Now *there’s* a beast of burden that never should have been born! LOL
Archie Lukas
Sep 8th, 2009
I have unlicensed DDT (Gallons of the stuff)
call me, I’ll pop over and poison them
FoC
Bamika Easterman
Sep 26th, 2009
Doing a search today it looks like the Rockspider clan is gone at last. There’s only one left, created on 9/17. I must say that it took LL longer than I thought it would to do this. From a PR point of view they should have fixed this one like “Yesterday!”
Alyx Stoklitsky
Mar 27th, 2010
All avatars with the name Rockspider have now been removed.
One wonders what LL said to the account holders – or if they said anything atall.
WTF?
Mar 27th, 2010
yeah a rock spider is a term for a rock climber who climbs light without safety equipment here.
@alyx I wonder if LL paid back any money spent by those accounts? Kinda chicken shit to offer a name then punish a person for using it.