Lindens Seize Land in Internal GIGAS Dipute
by Alphaville Herald on 05/08/05 at 11:48 am
photo by Hiro Pendragon
by Prokofy Neva
Browsers of www.secondlife.com today were startled to see a lone, furry protester bearing a sign in the Dore Welcome Area populated by newbies, greeters, and Lindens. Coming in world, a reporter found Hank Ramos, an SL resident since November 2003, sporting the title “protester” and carrying a sign, “Linden Lab Shouldn’t Be Allowed to Take Away Land Because High Profile Residents File Abusive and Frivolous Abuse Reports!!!”
Hank Ramos had little to comment about his protest, noting only that it involved an internal dispute within his land group, and that his case was currently before the Lindens. He was hoping that some “office Lindens” would resolve the matter and questioned why Governor Linden would be seizing land — not for any TOS offense but for an internal dispute.
With the SL group land tools, widely characterized as “sucky” by all major land owners, any officer in a group can seize the group land and sell it out from any other officer, even if that other officer is paying the tier on the land. Meanwhile, tier-payers and those who payed original purchase price of land have no means to remove an officer in a group other than to attempt to make a new group around him.
While Hank refrained from further comment, a trip out to GIGAS mall, where Hank has long known to have invested land and tier, revealed the unprecedented news that Cyn Linden had indeed seized 33,048 square meters of prime telehub mall land in two parcels, valued today at a minimum of about US $1500.
The mall was still open for shopping but half-empty as it has been for months. Industry insiders have noted that the mall, one of the most spectacular builds in SL and widely praised by architects, has not been an investment success and appears to be currently renting out only half of its vending space. Some merchants who left the mall say they found customer service to be spotty and some shoppers were frustrated with the lack of a store directory.
A right-click on the group land menu and its officers’ tier levels reveals that Adam Zaius, the main officer associated with the GIGAS group, currently has only only 1248 m2 of tier showing in the group and all the other officers are showing “0″.
Governor Linden routinely seizes land of residents who do not pay their tier bills, usually allowing only a 7-day grace-period if a credit-card does not clear. Residents who are permanently expelled from SL also have their land seized.
But the seizure of the GIGAS mall land appears to be the first time that the Lindens have stepped in to grab a large chunk of highly-valuable land owned originally by a very high-profile group — merely because they had their own internal dispute and began to abuse-report each other.
Adam Zaius and Nexus Nash of the GIGAS Group could not be reached for comment.
Normally, Lindens do not respond to numerous complains about treacherous officers who steal land or rogue members who trigger officer recalls and freeze groups. They, too, acknowledge that the group tools “suck” but currently no major overhauls are planned. Edition 1.7 of SL is slated to remove “officer recall” functions by ordinary members, making it possible only for other officers to recall a fellow officer. This change will do nothing to help resolve the kind of GIGAS dispute, that occurs all too often when originally-friendly officers pool their land for a group project, but then have a falling out for various reasons in the high-paced, high-pressure business world of SL.
A Linden at Dore asked Hank to remove his sign from the field of view, and he obliged. The sign was evidently taking up all of Video Linden’s footage. The snapshot remained on the front page for at least two hours, before being overtaken by a shot by an enterprising wag who stood in PG land but got a nice click of a girl’s half-clad butt in Hotei.
Prokofy Neva
Aug 5th, 2005
The total land seized was 38,048. The screenshot shows one parcel of 33872, the other one was 4176.
Walker Spaight
Aug 5th, 2005
enterprising wags ftw!
Urizenus
Aug 5th, 2005
The Linden’s should form a guild in EVE Online, and show them how the big boys heist the loot!
nerferder
Aug 5th, 2005
Yeah, they shouldn’t be able to take away virtual property they already own!
ahahahahaha!
Is >>>> private company renting space.
Is not >>>>> the real world.
Learn it, live it, like it – or leave it.
Prokofy Neva
Aug 5th, 2005
I could add that Cyn remains on “busy” and unavailable for comment, Adam hasn’t logged on or at least not answered, and a senior Linden merely gave the stock reply about how they can’t comment because they maintain confidentiality of users’ accounts.
I’m sure there is more to this story, but the story isn’t about a “private company seizing what is theirs.” They rent it, and people pay for it. So if they want people to go on renting it, and paying for it, they need to not seize it without justification under the TOS, which, for better or worse, is the only rule of law we have.
If there are willing tier-payers in a group and there is an internal group dispute the Lindens should most likely stay out of it. Actually, I personally wish the Lindens would have even a primitive dispute-resolution system where you could file with them a true contract that stipulated who pledged what tier, and if people renege on it, then they intervene merely by re-presenting the true contract and urging that it be upheld. Probably no more could be done. But even better would be refined group tools that put an end to this socialist hippie dope-smoking approach to group land, which only enables it to be stolen. Instead, those who pay for it should be the sole ones able to flip it to sale or move it out of the group.
blaze
Aug 5th, 2005
Good story, Prok. Your a pretty good journalist.
Roberta Dalek
Aug 5th, 2005
The gigas HQ at Sami telehub is owned by Cyn Linden and is set to sell for $0 to Hank Ramos. 10,112 m2.
Secondlife://Sami/194/31
Urizenus
Aug 5th, 2005
I have to say that thing that is amazing to me about this is how ad hoc the Linden strategy appears to be here. Last year at State of Play II, I attended a meeting on conflict resolution that involved a number of lawyers, mediators, anthropologists, media moguls (me and Daniel Terdiman) and Philip, Robin, and Cory, and the point of the meeting was to discuss just these kinds of disputes and how they should be resolved. That meeting was reported in the Herald here:
http://www.dragonscoveherald.com/blog/index.php?p=503
and by Terdiman here:
http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,65562,00.html
So here we are a year later (almost) with no apparent rhyme or reason to this strategy of seizing property, temporary or not. If there is rhyme or reason, we aren’t being told, which is just as bad. It’s one thing to make your policy about handling griefers secret, but commercial disuptes between business partners? I mean, wtf????
Prokofy Neva
Aug 5th, 2005
Of course we can’t know everything about this back story, and not everything that is known can be published. Roberta Dalek, a long-time vendor at the GIGAS mall I could add, has put in some information about land set to sale to Hank which we don’t see he has claimed yet. This might be originally his own land, or what is offered in compensation, or what they think he should be getting, which he may dispute — or who the hell knows? That’s why it’s called “internal dispute” lol.
Whatever the back story, however, and whatever the efforts the Lindens and Adam Zaius might make to have Hank come out looking like a chump or worse, the real issue is — why are they involved *at all*? Why is the name “Linden” on land that someone owned, paid tier on, when they are in the game, not expelled, and claim no TOS infraction? These are valid questions for those concerned about the rule-of-law and private property rights.
Yes, Uri, here we all are, a year later, and probably worse off, not better, given that the Lindens really demonstrably back away from any kind of move toward disputes resolution, preferring to leave it to players themselves — and that’s a mess.
nerferder
Aug 6th, 2005
I hate the way LL runs their business, so I keep paying them.
Prokofy Neva
Aug 6th, 2005
Just to give an update, while there’s enough from all sides of this story to do another article, none of the parties wish to go on the record at this time, in part because the dispute is not yet entirely resolved.
Here’s the state of play atm: the land has been returned by the Lindens, after a few kerfluffles, to both sides in the dispute, evidently more or less to their satisfaction. BUT…Hank Ramos was demoted from officer to member in GIGAS Group…by an unseen hand and Adam has worked that time-honoured beleaguered officers’ trick of creating another group around a “troublesome” officer.
That is, there was no “officer recall” vote using the normal group tools to remove an officer. Hank apparently received one of those emails that GIGAS tenants know all too well: “Adam Zaius has ejected you from GIGAS Group”. Yet, under the hard-wired game rules, currently, an officer cannot be ejected by another officer from a group (that might be coming in version 1.7), an officer can only eject a member. So the only way that an officer can be removed from a group is a) to leave of his own accord; b) to be expelled from SL or leave the game entirely in which case he leaves the resident list (but may still be shown as a group’s founder or c) the Lindens manually remove him from the officer status. So c) is what happened in this case…and this intrusion into the internal workings of a group, and a “breaking” of the “game rules” are just as troublesome as the seizure of the land.
Now, some might say that land was seized for the good of all disputing parties and for the good of the game, i.e. so that no player lost their land unfairly, and so that no unspecting new buyer of the land bought tainted land that was the subject of a dispute that they might be pressured to give up later by the disputing parties.
But…was it necessary, was it legal, was it appropriate? These are the questions we must be asking. The TOS or CS (communist standards) violations in this incident are not clear.
There’s more to this drama than meets the eye (there always is in SL) but the principles at stake and the practices of LL in this regard bear the greatest of scrutiny for those interested in solidifying private property rights in SL. And no, nerferder, if they’re going to tell me SL “is not a game” and if they’re going to tell me that “it’s a metaverse…world…a country…a nation…a platform” then I’m going to go right back at them and say “then you are stewards of the world…the metaverse…the country…from which we residents must demand accountability and you can’t hide behind your own company’s business needs and wants if you pretend to be creating something higher.” End of story.
I’ve also learned that there was another major case like this where Lindens seized a resident’s land, which was the case of tcoz bach and Tyrell Corporation which evidently happened in beta. There’s a notecard distributed in the game on this if somebody wants it.
At one level that was long ago and far away in another galaxy, but in my experience, when bad things are done like this that go against an institution’s own rules, it’s not necessarily because some higher-up made a conscious decision, but rather not enough checks and balances were built into the system, and at some point somebody said “let’s just do this just this once to solve this really vexing problem”. Of course, that’s the kind of thing that brings you the US crimes of systematic torture in Iraq if you don’t get on it quick.
Walker Spaight
Aug 7th, 2005
great reporting on all this, Prok, kudos and our thanks
HiroPendragon
Aug 9th, 2005
I’d like photo credit for the image you used. The appropriate place is general small, italic font underneath the image.
Thanks.
-Hiro
Urizenus
Aug 9th, 2005
No problem, Hiro. Done.
Hank Ramos
Aug 10th, 2005
Just a heads up: Linden Lab has secretly “removed” me as an officer of the Gigas group (I found a way to re-add myself after it happened) and of a different, unassociated group named Ouranos (but involving the same people in this dispute). This ocurred without warning, with no recall vote, and only at the request of Adam Zaius and/or Nexus Nash. The actual demotion from officer to member or direct ejection of an officer can be done by Linden Lab, and they will not comment on how it might have happened. Curious that Pathfinder Linden shows up as an officer of one of the groups, and another linden in another related group, against stated LL policy…very curious.
Urizenus
Aug 10th, 2005
Yikes, what the fark is going on at Linden Lab??
Prokofy Neva
Aug 10th, 2005
Excuse me, Hiro, but that really outrageous stuff, and I’m amazed Uri fell for it. That is a photo *I* took and sent to the Herald!
Fri, 5 Aug 2005 16:13:08 GMT
Jesus! Perhaps you just happened to be in the same place at the same time (I did notice you in the WA), and perhaps you shot a similar photo, but you have a hell of a lot of nerve coming in here and claiming it’s your photo when it is not. Uri, look in your email, and you’ll see those are photos I took — I sent you bunches. I have the time, date-stamped screenshots to prove it.
I’d also be curious to know if Hiro really did send the photo into the Herald, and what his date stamp is — Uri, go and look.
Honestly, Hiro, you try to nudge into every scene, it’s astounding! Did you realize the Metaverse does NOT revolve around you???
Uri, did you not wonder how I could send you a story I wrote, with photos, but then all of a sudden, one of them is Hiro’s photo????
Go look in your email!
I’m amazed that Hiro would come barrelling on here with that kind of nonsense claiming a photo credit in a story he did not write, for photos he did not shoot tons of (as I did — I have numerous ones of Hank in various positions, and send them to Uri).
It’s not enough that he hectors the Metaverse Messenger into accepting his advice with his “extensive newspaper and copy-editing experience”– and thank the Lord they are not taking it. It’s not enough that he erases every entry I put on his blog (I’ll be reposting them on my blog). He has to come into a Herald story and claim a photo credit merely because he happened possibly to photograph the same scene? Sheesh.
Hiro, you are a certified, grade-A asshole.
Uri, put the credit back, please to Prokofy Neva.
Prokofy Neva
Aug 10th, 2005
In case my previous post is run, in fact I was wrong, that photo isn’t mine but Hiro’s.
It’s hard to understand how Hiro can think he can get away with a snarky little comment like “”I’d like photo credit for the image you used. The appropriate place is general small, italic font underneath the image” — high-handed, demanding, arrogance dripping from every word.
But the problem is, Hiro, hon when photos appear on the front page of http://www.secondlife.com, they carry NO “photo credits”. There is no indication *whatsoever* who took the photos. And that’s probably a good thing, to protect residents’ photos.
I happened to be refreshing the SL page and looking at it when that photo came up. I immediately went to the scene, and happened to shoot similar photos. But THAT photo was indeed Hiro’s, as we now know, because it was his photo on the web site that made me even check into the world and go to the WA. So he gets credit for breaking the story on the SL front page for sure — except there was no way of knowing that until he mentioned it — and he had no interest in breaking it anywhere except to the SL website and Sluniverse.com!
I saw Hiro at the scene, but I had no idea he was the one who took the photo, nor that he uploaded it, because he didn’t announce it, at least after I arrived. Hiro has me on mute, I might add, anyway.
I’ll bet Hiro never thought to IM the Herald, email the Herald, or submit the photo to the Herald and is only now coming here because he *couldn’t bear for Prok to be praised for anything because it just infuriated him too much* (the story sat here for days without Mr. Pendragon claiming his photo credit).
Anyway, I often see no photo credits here on the SL Herald. I’ve had pictures here before that had no credits, and it wouldn’t occur to me to demand them. I guess some people are just more skilled at always making sure the attention is drawn to themselves.
yes Uri I can spend just as much time on a photo credit as I can on av cellulite.
nerferder
Aug 11th, 2005
Prok >>> “Did you realize the Metaverse does NOT revolve around you???
Oh irony of ironies!
HiroPendragon
Aug 11th, 2005
Prok, nice to hear your apology.
Everyone knows SL snapshots on the front page are intercepted en route to Snapzilla, and a quick check there would have you find:
http://www.sluniverse.com/pics/pic.aspx?id=22129
Yes, that’s my picture. The camera angle, lighting, character locations, heck, pixel for pixel is identical.
As your story goes, you saw this and then investigated. Now, for all of the conditions to be literally exactly the same AND for you to have the same video settings (note the widescreen format, as well), is extremely unlikely. I am extremely happy that you quickly realized this, and have apologized for your previous comments.
It’s entirely possible that you had a similar picture, but Uri opted to use mine. Or, perhaps you had your images named similarly on your hard drive, and uploaded the wrong one. Who knows! But it’s moot, I suppose, and I’m flattered to have photos of mine on an organization informing the public about current SL events.
But I’m so glad you were able to own up to your public libel, Prok. It’s refreshing to see someone own up to a nasty, heated, personal attack.
…
I apologize if my photo credit request came off high-handed. That wasn’t my intent. If you would, Prokofy, could you please inform me as to the wording I could have used instead? Surely, there must be some phrasing that I could have used that would not evoke a hostile, vicious response from such a clear-minded, un-biased thinker as yourself, Prok.
…
And as for your query as to why I didn’t bring it to the Herald — It did go to the SL front page, and someone from the Herald saw it. It’s a testament to the Herald looking out for news stories, as I would expect from you folks. Hence, I believe sending the image to Snapzilla was more than enough notice for you folks.
…
And, finally, as to seeing few photo credits in the Herald, perhaps it’s something you could start doing? It’s proper to give credit, and while most I’d assume were by the writer of the article, I’m sure there are other exceptions.
Good day to you!
Prokofy Neva
Aug 11th, 2005
I wouldn’t know what the Metaverse was if it bit me in the ass. But maybe if we all clap hard enough we can make it live.
Urizenus
Aug 11th, 2005
It’s my bad about the confusion over the photo credits. When Prok told me about the story I grabbed the photo off the Snapzilla page. Then when Prok sent me the photos with his story there was one pic that was almost identical to the one I grabbed off Snapzilla, so rather than upload Prok’s I used the one I had. Didn’t think about credit for the photo I used, so that was a brain cramp on my part. But yeah, I understand the confusion.
Prokofy Neva
Aug 11th, 2005
Hiro, when I first saw the picture of the protestor on LL’s website, I just assumed automatically *that the protester himself* took the picture for the SL website which then went to Snapzilla. I mean, that’s how it works in most cases, people are featuring *themselves* and starring in their own SL dramatic action. Who but the protester himself, already carrying a sign, in the WA for chrissakes, with greeters and mentors knee-deep, is going to add on to his troubles also a picture *for the official SL front page*? It seem utterly rational to assume it was Hank’s picture, in the absence of any of the identifying marks — that are never there.
Sure, everyone “knows” that these pictures go on Snapzilla after showing up on the SL front page, but if a picture doesn’t have an author on the SL website, it doesn’t have an author. I didn’t go reading SLuniverse.com trying to find pictures on their pages when I assumed the subject of the photo took it himself, I went into SL to follow the story. I took a lot of photos myself, and they looked very similar. I assumed it was Hank’s own picture, I came in and snapped very similar pictures, and I posted the story here because it’s a very important issue. When I looked at my e-mail sent queue and saw bunches of pictures, they looked the same. It simply never occurred to me to put a photo credit for Hank (since I believed it was him snapping ihs own picture) or to inquire whose photo it was. After all, that wasn’t the main point.
You, Hiro, did not send your own picture to the Herald. I did. And it would never occur to me that YOU of all people would be deserving a photo credit, though I saw you on the scene and I think you informed me I was on mute, because I just wouldn’t think that you, as one of the lead fanboys and LL loyalists on the SL forums, would be posting a picture that might appear to harm LL’s reputation or question its policies.
Like I said, you didn’t send it to the Herald as news, you sent it to Snapzilla, as fan stuff.
So you get credit for breaking the story to Snapzilla (if one can even be said to be “breaking a story” to Snapzilla, which is mainly just a fanzine). But you didn’t post it here, and didn’t wish to write even a caption or a brief story. Only four days later, long after the story ran, long after it was pushed below the fold and had about blogged itself out, did you show up with your snarky comment to draw attention to yourself and try to undermine me in some foolish way.
Sending a photo to Snapzilla is not journalism. If you want to engage in journalism, which you say you have all kinds of RL credentials in doing, send the photo directly to the editors, and don’t rely on an eager freelancer watching for stories to crop up, like me. Deal with the masthead people.
I see photo credits missed here all the time, and I suspect it’s because a) it’s very hard to determine them sometimes in a busy newsroom when they don’t come name-stamped (and you wouldn’t want them to come that way so as to preserve your privacy) and b) they are lazy journalists. The SL front page doesn’t name-stamp them. And most people just don’t seek that credit. I know I’ve seen photos of mine come and go here and I never blinked because the story is more important. Sure, it’s good practice to give photo credits. The Herald should try to do better. Notice that Uri reacted immediately to your request without even checking with me — to his credit.
In most cases, a pleasant, “Say, that was my photo, could I get a credit” — posted not on the blog, but in a private email would do the trick — for such a modest, unassuming, community-oriented selfless person such as yourself, Hiro.
And if you *must* blog it, I’d remove those supercilious and vicious little innuendos in phrases like “the appropriate place is generally a small italic font” etc because everybody in the news business — especially those at the Herald who work hard at this for no pay or peanuts in LL — knows this, and doesn’t need to be told about little italics. You’re either being a bossy know-it-all telling them the obvious because you don’t know it’s the obvious, or you are trying to be cute and sarcastic in a subtle way which also merely reveals you to be bossy and know-it-all anyway. So cut it out, Hiro.
OH, and finally, while I’m happy to admit my error about the photo credit and give credit where credit is do, I don’t withdraw my nasty, heated personal attack, Hiro. I stand on my nasty, heated personal attack. You’ve libeled and harassed me on the SL forums for months, along with others who differ from you and your FIC pals, and you’re at the lead of the pack of jackals there harassing most people on the forums with nasty, oh-so-subtle, cutting, vicious, fanboy remarks. You’re exactly what is meant by a Linden’s comment about “an insular group” ruling the forums. We need to break up that cabal, for the good of the world. I’m here to do that as hard, as forcefully, as dramatically as I need to, and as I said, I even fell on my own crossed swords and got permabanned out of that odious forum to make the point.
Prokofy Neva
Aug 11th, 2005
Oh, so Uri is even faster on the draw, grabbing right off the front page before getting my email — well good work, Uri! You have to be fast with those kinds of things because I suspect the Lindens can and do yank them.
What I sent you wasn’t just “identical” in one instance, it was the *same* picture, which I, too, right-clicked on and then pressed on the link to get right in the world. Then I quickly snapped others where he was in slightly different poses or even in the same pose but of course you can see the light/angle etc is different.
So, I, too, right-clicked off the front page “Second Life Postcards” because it seemed urgent to save it before it got pulled. It never occured to me that it was anybody but Hank taking it; it never even occurred to me to give Hank ostensible credit as I was already featuring him in a story, but of course from now I’ll be more careful about trying to research the provenance of these photos on Snapzilla.
I think it’s absolutely HILARIOUS that a major reason why I got one of my bans off the forums over “dissing” Cristiano’s site (i.e. asking hard-hitting questions about it that even Robin Linden felt called upon to answer thoughtfully) was over just this issue. I claimed that there was no privacy for people in the game, if they wished to take a snapshot and get on SL’s front page just with their cool shot, but that when the screenshot was sent out of the game on to a third-party site, Snapzilla, the author of the shot would show up, because the email from inside the game would be whatever email they had tied to their account.
So if they had made an alt that happened to have that same email used on it, and they sent a picture to Snapzilla, it would then out that alt, because the game would automatically generate the same email as put “privately” in the game.
This is just a basic, ordinary, normal concern, expressed not only by me, but it’s the sort of thing that the tekkie goons on the forums have generated thousands of tin-foil hat pictures of me to ridicule me over.
I think many people haven’t been aware that emails sent in and out of the game used to have identifying marks on them, even your RL name if you happened to put that in your RL email return address. LL then moved to hide this better with a long AV key set of letters, but that too is its own identifying mark for the enterprising researcher.
Cristiano has spun this issue until he is blue in the face. He’s never
been able to say, yes, I hear your concerns about RL email and privacy and that’s why a) I urge everyone with these concerns to get an anonymous game email for communication outside the game with third-party sites and b) I reassure everyone that we take privacy seriously.
Instead, he’s sounded defensive, and yammered over and over again that the email gets stripped out and “never” read. He’s shown that people can opt to register on the site with names that aren’t their SL user names. But the fact is, the information *does* arrive into Cristiano’s hands. What he does with it then is basically a question of the faith the community has in him. I personally don’t share that high degree of faith that others do for all the reasons already so often stated (see my blog article “My So-Called Second Life”).
Hiro has amply demonstrated my essential point: whenever I see any picture show up on SL’s website, I can handily click on it and follow it to Snapzilla and likely find out the SL name of the person who took it unless they’ve taken care to disguise this by registering with a non-SL name on Snapzilla (I think that’s how it works).
Urizenus
Aug 11th, 2005
Technically I didn’t grab Hiro’s photo, but took a screenshot of it on the SL Page, showing the Postcards for Second Life tag. The thought was to contextualize it as something on the front page, since that was also part of the story. But, clearly, there just wasn’t enough context to get that point. Again though, I do believe in giving photographers their props, so I don’t know why I forgot about that.
Cristiano Midnight
Aug 11th, 2005
Prokofy,
. Let me clear up a bit of your usual FUD bullshit for those reading.
1) The snapshots sent to Snapzilla always contain the name of the avatar who sent them – this has been fundamental from the beginning, You cannot spoof it by changing the name – the avatar name is embedded in the postcard. This is to protect from someone taking a picture and submitting it as someone else. Would you prefer that it could be spoofed and someone could take pictures and send them as if they came from you?
2) Snapzilla existed before Linden Lab added the pictures to the front page – they intercepted them and started posting them to the front page. You act as if I had anything to do with this or control over it, which I do not.
3) In the next release of SL, there will be a checkbox indicating whether or not a picture can be included on the front page. In the interim, LL used pictures going to my site since they already had implied consent to be public, as they were going onto a public web site. A bit of a stretch on their part, but there you go.
4) I have always taken privacy very seriously, and have stated so and proven that with actions. I have not wavered on that, and I refuse to let you misrepresent me in any way. When you get a direct statement from someone, you just pretend that they didn’t say it. Both SLU and Snapzilla have clear privacy policies, and I have gone to great lengths to ensure that information is not only private, but secured.
5) I am the one who asked Robin Linden to have the email addresses removed from the postcards going out, long before you ever raised the issue, as they are not needed for any functionality on Snapzilla and are not read or processed at all.
Please stop with your obsession with my site, it is getting really old.
Cristiano
Prokofy Neva
Aug 11th, 2005
Cristiano, everything you’ve said about your site I already knew, and you’ve said it a million times, but you just don’t get the larger moral issues — there’s always that moral blindness there that astounds me.
Your story about the “interception” wears a little thinner each time you tell it, but sure, let’s give you the benefit of the doubt. You were the “last to know” about LL’s use of your technology despite Babbage Linden talking on his blog about discussing it with you for months. Whatever. It’s fine. You didn’t know. You were blindsided. So? That doesn’t remove any of the issues!
And I’m afraid you are blatantly misrepresenting the issue of stripping out the email addresses. It was *I* who raised it on the forums — forcefully. Robin then answered it publicly that she would take a look at this concern — she didn’t post a tinfoil hat picture like the rest of you, but took it as a valid concern like every valid concern about privacy in LL. I can’t imagine why you think you can “backdate” this issue now to make it look like *you* are the one who asked Robin to do this when *I* was the one who raised in the forums — where it counts — and got a public answer from her — where it counts — and this is all the public record — where it counts. Whatever private little FICy convos you had just don’t count because we didn’t hear them.
Cristiano, since this debate, there have been numerous patches of SL released. This business of the checkbox, which must be a hugely simply matter to program, has been discussed numerous times. Where is it? I don’t see it. And I won’t be surprised if I don’t see it in the next version, either.
Uh, duh, we know about how the snapshots sent to Snapzilla. But on the SL site itself, they are not named. Nothing is there. It is stripped out. Gone. Just missing. It only shows up if someone then follows it to Snapzilla. In fact, it’s not an easy matter, weeks later, to find some picture that was once on the SL site among the numerous pictures on your site.
You allow libelous and slanderous statements to remain on your site, and you do not remove them, despite your own TOS. You’ve done that with statements about me, and you’ve even made claims about me being the libeler and yet not removed my ostensibly “libelous” statements. So you have no leg to stand on when you go on yammering about your big concerns for privacy or standards of dignity. Your “rants and rumours” and forums in general of even more tabloidy and scurrilous than the Herald, if one can imagine such a thing, and that entirely undermines you so-called noble privacy mission.
Cristiano, your story is never going to be old, I’m going to go on comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable : )
nerferder
Aug 14th, 2005
The Messiah wrote >>>> “This business of the checkbox, which must be a hugely simply matter to program, has been discussed numerous times. Where is it? I don’t see it. And I won’t be surprised if I don’t see it in the next version, either.”OMFG!!!11!!1!
ANUDDER CZECHKBOKZ? *DA* DIS IS TOO *DA* DIFUHCULT FIR US *DA* STOOPED NOOBIEZ TA *DA* FIGURE OUT *DA*!!11!!!1
Thus spake the Wisdom, the Power, and the Glory wielder >>>> “You allow libelous and slanderous statements to remain on your site, and you do not remove them, despite your own TOS.”
Most of the [elided by Uri] I have seen on SLU is your own, pondscum. Outing people’s gender, fishing for, and implying real life info, making unfounded, unprovable allegations against the webmaster, other players, etc. You know, hypocrisy suits you well. It’s hilarious watching you say what you do about SLU, from THIS site, which, since you were banished into the wilderness, has allowed you to publish more [elided by Uri] and outright lies than SLU ever would. Then there’s your blog. A putrifacted, toothless maw; belching forth utter tripe.
You seem more hysterical than normal Prok – is it getting to you?