The Alphaville Herald

JLU Shamed – Green Lantern Excelsior Turns His Back on SLUniverse

by Pixeleen Mistral on 26/08/11 at 3:46 am

Superheros “standing in front of a monkey cage and being pelted with waste products”

For almost a week, a particularly ugly chapter in Second Life’s social history has been playing out on both theListSL.blogspot.com and the SLUniverse.com forums. While it is impossible to know if all the claims being made are true, the sheer body of evidence suggests that the Justice League Unlimited's secret wiki's security has been compromised again. Apparently the security-challenged JLU didn't learn anything after their last embarrassment and have continued to compile dossiers on Second Life players without their knowledge or consent. 

JLU advises members to keep quiet about wiki leaks

What seems to be a never-ending series of extremely embarrassing disclosures from the notoriously leaky JLU Brainiac wiki paints a disturbing picture of Kalel Venkman’s band of virtual vigilantes fighting tooth and nail for what they believe is law and order in an online cartoon world - never mind the fact that the other players didn't sign up for a surveillance society game. 

What sort of revelations have the rank and file players up in arms?

Facebook stalking the family of an AIDS patient to verify he is on his deathbed - then speculating that his demise might result in less game world griefing. Tracking real life identities of various Second Life players - sometimes in very great detail. Collecting medical information on those the JLU believes are enemies. Attempting to frame other plays with "black ops". Fabricating chatlogs to file abuse reports hoping to ban other players - it just goes on and on. 

On the other side of the fence, in what has grown to be a 188+ page forum thread with over 4600 replies and 103,000 views, mainstream Second Life fight a war of words with a succession of JLU spokesmen. Strangely, JLU leader Kalel Venkman has yet to step up in public to answer his critics, and those JLU members who have spoken up seem unable to do much more than inflame the situation further. Who are the real griefers are in this situation?

I was hoping against hope that one of the more inflamatory comments was a troll - and asked Green Lantern Excelsior in-world if he was really behind the SLUniverse comments. He said he was, and shared his opinion of the SLUniverse readers.

Pixeleen Mistral: did you really post this:
http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/general-sl-discussion/63339-jlu-harvesting-ip-addresses-125.html#post1357637
Pixeleen Mistral: seriously GLE - did you really post that?
GreenLantern Excelsior: (Saved Wed Aug 24 02:38:21 2011) Yes, I posted that. I posted on many of the pages in that discussion thread.
GreenLantern Excelsior: (Saved Wed Aug 24 02:38:41 2011) I was banned from SL Universe tonight, for posting "links to RL information," i.e., a link to Deadly Codec's obituary. The ban will be lifted on September 6, but I won't return. There are very few members on that board who will engage in serious and respectful discussion. Mostly it is like standing in front of a monkey cage and being pelted with waste products.

The more optimistic members of the anti-JLU faction cling to hope that the Linden game gods will take a stand, hoping against hope that Linden Lab is not in such dire straights that Second Life has been forced to depend on corrupt volunteer vigilantes to help maintain order on the grid. 

Second Life Premium gives you more privacy ad next to players begging Rodvik for help

And so heartfelt pleas are posted to Rodvik Linden’s Second Life profile, but as of this writing remain unanswered. I hope Rodvik hasn’t been playing Farmville in Facebook and neglecting his SL profile page - but Rodvik did mention at the SLCC that social media is taking people’s time away from immersive games. Unfortunately, some of those still deeply engaged in Second Life are taking the game far outside of the virtual realm in ways that seem likely to harm the ailing Second Life brand.

Meanwhile it seems likely that anti-JLU sentiment will continue to rise unless the JLU can somehow cover up the evidence. Will Kalel resort to firing scattershot DMCA takedown notices again? Perhaps not - since this would be a tacit admission that the leaked material is legitimate - and could lead to some unfortunate legal action for the would-be super hero if a pattern of filing frivolous DMCA complaints was demonstrated.

more pleas to Rodvik

and still more

and more