Should the "Impeach Bush" Guy's freedom of expression be surpressed/censored?

1. Intolerance
   Combating intolerance is a cornerstone of Second Life's Community Standards. Actions that marginalize, belittle, or defame individuals or groups inhibit the satisfying exchange of ideas and diminish the Second Life community as whole. The use of derogatory or demeaning language or images in reference to another Resident's race, ethnicity, gender, religion, or sexual orientation is never allowed in Second Life.
   
2. Harassment
   Given the myriad capabilities of Second Life, harassment can take many forms. Communicating or behaving in a manner which is offensively coarse, intimidating or threatening, constitutes unwelcome sexual advances or requests for sexual favors, or is otherwise likely to cause annoyance or alarm is Harassment.
   
3. Assault
   Most areas in Second Life are identified as Safe. Assault in Second Life means: shooting, pushing, or shoving another Resident in a Safe Area (see Global Standards below); creating or using scripted objects which singularly or persistently target another Resident in a manner which prevents their enjoyment of Second Life.
   
4. Disclosure
   Residents are entitled to a reasonable level of privacy with regard to their Second Lives. Sharing personal information about a fellow Resident --including gender, religion, age, marital status, race, sexual preference, and real-world location beyond what is provided by the Resident in the First Life page of their Resident profile is a violation of that Resident's privacy. Remotely monitoring conversations, posting conversation logs, or sharing conversation logs without consent are all prohibited in Second Life and on the Second Life Forums.
   
5. Indecency
   Second Life is an adult community, but Mature material is not necessarily appropriate in all areas (see Global Standards below). Content, communication, or behavior which involves intense language or expletives, nudity or sexual content, the depiction of sex or violence, or anything else broadly offensive must be contained within private land in areas rated Mature (M). Names of Residents, objects, places and groups are broadly viewable in Second Life directories and on the Second Life website, and must adhere to PG guidelines.
   
6. Disturbing the Peace
   Every Resident has a right to live their Second Life. Disrupting scheduled events, repeated transmission of undesired advertising content, the use of repetitive sounds, following or self-spawning items, or other objects that intentionally slow server performance or inhibit another Resident's ability to enjoy Second Life are examples of Disturbing the Peace.
   

Policies and Policing


Global Standards, Local Ratings
All areas of Second Life, including the www.secondlife.com website and the Second Life Forums, adhere to the same Community Standards. Locations within Second Life are noted as Safe or Unsafe and rated Mature (M) or non-Mature (PG), and behavior must conform to the local ratings. Any unrated area of Second Life or the Second Life website should be considered non-Mature (PG).

Warning, Suspension, Banishment
Second Life is a complex society, and it can take some time for new Residents to gain a full understanding of local customs and mores. Generally, violations of the Community Standards will first result in a Warning, followed by Suspension and eventual Banishment from Second Life. In-World Representatives, called Liaisons, may occasionally address disciplinary problems with a temporary removal from Second Life.

Global Attacks
Objects, scripts, or actions which broadly interfere with or disrupt the Second Life community, the Second Life servers or other systems related to Second Life will not be tolerated in any form. We will hold you responsible for any actions you take, or that are taken by objects or scripts that belong to you. Sandboxes are available for testing objects and scripts that have components that may be unmanageable or whose behavior you may not be able to predict. If you chose to use a script that substantially disrupts the operation of Second Life, disciplinary actions will result in a minimum two-week suspension, the possible loss of in-world inventory, and a review of your account for probable expulsion from Second Life.


Harassment. Disturbing the Peace. Global Attack.

Two of the 'Big Six' violated, with 'Global Attack' tossed in.

Triple TOS violation. End of subject.

Desmond, selective bolding removes the context in which the bolded words were originally stated.



Every person in SL is likely to be annoyed in general with something. The part you bolded is an addendum, a coverall phrase used at the end of specific examples: offensively coarse, intimidating or threatening, unwelcome sexual advances, etc. You essentially bolded the etc.




Lazarus is advertising nothing. Besides, according to what he is doing - placing a textured object on his own land - by that logic, every club or store in SL would be violating the TOS by having a sign out front where people on other parcels can see it.

And finally, your selective bolding removes the context of the bolded words again:



His objects do not use any sounds, they don't follow people or self-spawn, they don't slow server performance. If they are inhibiting another resident's ability to enjoy Second Life, then literally any other build on the grid is subject to the same judgement and is breaking the TOS in someone's eyes.

The "global attack" comparison is, frankly, silly and even more blatant hyperbole than the "zomg its extortion" people.

Anyone remember Anshe's signs?

Lots of folks said they were ugly and her prices were high... Many yelled the exact same things...

.....wheres the difference?

Me, i can't see one. I stood the same there as I did now - "I may not like it - but it's not a violation"

Not in this case.

Communicating or behaving in a manner which is offensively coarse, intimidating or threatening, constitutes unwelcome sexual advances or requests for sexual favors, or is otherwise likely to cause annoyance or alarm is Harassment.

The 'or is otherwise likely' removes no context - it's after the 'or'. Basic semantics. Furthermore, it has caused annoyance. Fact. Thus, by their own words, it is harassment with a capital H. Their capitalisation.



Everyone annoyed with something - true. Coverall phrase - yes - everything not covered by coarse, intimidating, threatening, or an unwelcome sexual advance. This coverall phrase covers *exactly* all the other stuff.




Yes, the TOS does cover annoying objects very, very powerfully. It has not been enforced as such perhaps, but it does. Advertising or not, follow the 'or' conjunctions - there is no semantic ambiguity here.

...or other objects that intentionally slow server performance or inhibit another Resident's ability to enjoy Second Life are examples of Disturbing the Peace.

Devastatingly clear.



It meets the Company's definition in the TOS:

Objects, scripts, or actions which broadly interfere with or disrupt the Second Life community, the Second Life servers or other systems related to Second Life will not be tolerated in any form.

Unless, incredibly, you do not see broad interference in the Second Life community, such as many angered residents in dozens of sims, ads, petitions, forum threads and so forth.


Edit: and yes, this may well cover land baron's signs, as well. Folks, I didn't write the TOS. I don't enforce it either. But I can read it, and so can all of you.

The signs do not broadly interfere with anything except for the view of certain residents. They're tacky, but how is that interference? Should we legislate taste?

I almost put up a poll on this, cause it seems to be the pivotal sticking point in all these gazillions of posts and discussions.

Is this activity:

Griefing
Extortion
Expression of Free Speech
None of the above or other

So David, I could say to you, "There is extortion and griefing going on, but I guess you can ignore these facts." This is the primary divide.

coco

Um - the legal definition where? In America? In the UK? In Belarus? Could you give a specific reference to which definition you are using?

It certainly meets all definitions of extortion that I have come across.

And doesn't meet a single one that I've come across. Interesting that, huh?

But this argument has been made every which way and conveniently ignored every time so people can continue to throw the word around with regard to these signs. Which is beyond pathetic, as far as I'm concerned.

Yes, it is - you have obviously led a very sheltered life.

Interestingly, no one has mentioned that there is both legal and illegal extortion. As an example of the latter is the situation where someone, when they sell their land, retains a small 'ransom' strip because they know that a future developer will need to cross that strip with a road, and will therefore be willing to pay much more than the land is actually worth.

That form of extortion is legal, but it is certainly immoral.

No, I just don't equate putting signs on your own property - even if that property is for sale at any price - with extortion. And neither do the Lindens.

But those of us who see the reality of the situation have made our cases, while those who disagree have conveniently ignored any good arguments to continue bitching.

So pretty much a normal forum discussion. Except this one is really getting on my fucking nerves, along with anyone who continues to talk about it.

As I just said in another thread...

Since we already know that you are not supposed to come here appealing against Linden 'injustices' etc I think they should now start handing out suspensions and bans to people who repeatedly come whine here about Bush signs, which the Lindens have already said is perfectly fine however unpopular.

To add to that, I also believe they should start handing out suspensions and bans to people who go around accusing other residents of being extortionists and the like when they have already been ruled to be within the ToS.

I think there should be a stickied thread about bush guy, and any thread started outside of that should get shitcanned.

Well, this is certainly incorrect in my case because every posting I have made on the issue has been reactive.

Yes, I get annoyed too. By people who support griefing, whether they be Lindens or not, and who make up the most elaborate justifications for supporting it.

If that was the case, probably 75% of the forum posters should be banned.

The issue has not been ruled as 'within the ToS' - LL just haven't got the balls to deal with it because they're scared of the repurcussions of taking a stand and setting a precedent.

Unfortunately they've decided that one individuals 'freedom of speech' is more important than the right of tens of thousands of residents to enjoy their game without having their environment cluttered by these stupid signs. Why is this any different than one individual exercising their right to use a self replicating script to gring the grid to a halt, after all the command exists in LSL to enable them to do it so it's not a hack or anything?

Lewis

Hmm... I have one observation with the poll.

One poll option says '...I have an IQ of +140'
However, the right notation would be 140+.

In the '+140', the plus sign is an omittable one, it just specifies whether the subsequent number is positive or negative. Like '-140', '+140'. Engineers mosly use this notation to make sure noone forgot the sign.

In another use, +140 can mean that there's a base point, and you're adding 140 to that. For example, sea level is considered to be at '0 meters', so 140 meters above the sea level can be written as '+140 meters', indicating that it's actually sea level + 140 meters.

If you want to say '140 or more', that's written '140+'. Like when you say only 18 years or older people, it's marked '18+'.

In any case, +140 means 'exactly 140'. So people who have an IQ of 141, or 142, or 139, or anything else than 140 shouldn't select that option.

I find it ironic that the poster (who probably voted 'No', and thus also claimed to have an IQ of exactly 140) doesn't know the difference between '+140' and '140+'.

Err. Yes, it has. Check the hotline posts on the subject.

Kris, could you post some links? Are you thinking of the 'Second Life Answers' forum? (I don't see any 'Hotline' forums.)

Since this issue has been dragging its ass along the ground like a dog with worms for quite some time, there were posts about it in Hotline before it was discontinued.

Like this one, for example:

/invalid_link.html



But there are plenty more, since people don't seem to be able to accept an answer they don't like and continue to ask the same one over and over, presumably hoping eventually they'll get a different answer.

Not wishing to get picky, but there's actually quite a big difference between "not a ToS violation" and "within the ToS".

Just because he doesn't explicitly violate one part, as others have stated, at least 3 of the 'big six' could easily be used to apply to this whole scenario.

There's also the old saying of "just because you can, doesn't mean you should".

Lewis

But as the situation continually changes - ie gets worse and worse - and the situation deteriorates grid-wide, then I think we have every right to challenge this decision.

It's almost as if there's a test to see how far he can push LL before enough is enough.

Lewis

What?! you're either within it or you arent! Just like you can either break the law or be within it. As I keep stating like a broken record, if there were anything wrong with what he is doing, LL would act upon it. Especially given that it's spawned a thosand crybabies with a thousand forum threads.



And three of the big six could be applied to the people continually bringing this to the forums, since as LL have ruled Lazarus is ok doing what he's doing, the continual furor amounts to Intolerance, Harrassment and Disturbing the Peace. Of course they'll disagree, but they would, wouldn't they?



Which means shit, in the context of SL, where people can and do get away with everything that isn't carved in stone word for word.

LOL! So whether or not the Lindens, who run the world, say it's fine and not griefing etc doesn't matter. It is griefing plain and simple because you say so? Oh well then. Best permaban the guy then.

Thanks, Kris. I have to agree, that post does say about the signs what you say.

It does seem to say that putting up a sign is within the ToS. Though you have to agree, if someone was spamming SL -- with Viagra, Internet Casino or any other advertisements -- it wouldn't matter if they just put up signs within their own property, the 'no spam' clause of the ToS would override that ruling.

Also, I don't think I can put up a Nazi cross or racist sign on my property, even if the quoted post would seem to imply so.

PS: To check the integrity of the quoted post by Robin Linden, I have put up a question to Lindens in the Answers forum, titled Racist signs allowed on own property!?!?!?

If they say yes, then you're right. Anything is allowed, as long as it's your property.
If they say no, then the quoted post about 'anything can go', is false.

Also, check this post, from the same thread you just posted the link to:

A gray goo attack actively knocks out as many acres of land as possible, as quickly as possible, and can even shut down the entire grid if it gets far enough. How is that even in the same league as a cube with some textures on it that basically sits in one spot and does nothing?

So you don't accept that real life 'standards' such as "just because you can doesn't mean you should" apply in game - yet you seem happy that real life politics can come into game?

Either game and reality are separate, or intertwined.... you can't pick and choose. Which side of the fence are you actually on?

Lewis

Both acts are greifing, unwanted, unnecessary, and disrupt other's enjoyment of the game.

Yet one is against the ToS, and the other is basically given the 'head in sand' treatment.

My guess is that it's more to do with LL supporting the point of view on the signs than anything else, even if they refuse to comment either way.

Lewis