Free Expression and Moderation Reform

people generally get treated according to the way the behave rather than how they think of themselves.

Not so much so. I try posting elsewhere, and I get dozens of personal accusations. For you, maybe . . .

coco

The rules haven't changed. Only the severity of the punishment.

Is the severity of punishment what you're referring to when you say "tightening up the forums"? Also, how do you feel about the consistancy of moderation and the use of the "red triangle of doom" to manipulate the moderators? Assuming that free expression is never granted, do you have any recommendations to improve moderation?

~Ulrika~

I can't tell if there is consistant enforcement because I can't see when a post is deleted or when someone is repremanded. All I can see is a huge improvement over just a few short weeks ago. I don't see posts in need of moderation lately. Everyone seems very pleasant.

I don't see the severity being increased either. I think one still receives a warning before getting banned. If one is warned about their actions in forum and do it again, even if the first warning was concerning a different thread/discussion it's still a warning of forum actions, the punishment is increased to the next level.

The red triangle is wonderful, it allows us, the average user, power to keep the discussion on track. If one does nothing worthy of a warning I see no reason to fear it.

Also, it's my opinion the people running LL are smart enough to read a thread and judge for themselves any infractions to the forum rules. I'm sure there will be differeing levels of enforcement depending who is doing the enforcing and their personal mood at the moment. These are real people like us. They have good and bad days. But I can say they do their best with the tools provided.

I think they are trying to right the wrongs of the past, so we may see one banned for something that used to be acceptable. When I say tighting of the forums I mean applying the rules quickly and without regard to who is posting.

This is how I see the changes and I like them, but it's just my humble opinion ;p

Correlation does not imply causality. If you wore a blue shirt and it didn't rain, would you think that your blue shirt was a rain inhibitor?

Not related to moderation consistency or a change in the severity of punishment, the fact that Prokofy is gone in my opinion has made a great difference. He would have annihilated a thread like this days ago. Thanks LL!

Just to bring you up to speed, I received a formal warning the other day without first receiving an informal warning.

Hmm. You sound like a relatively new user.

The red triangle of doom can be used to manipulate moderation. For instance, my censored post, which generated a formal warning, was relatively benign, however a post after it asked folks to click on the triangle for expressing relief of Prokofy's banning (similar to what I just did above). The moderator didn't read the posts around it (ignored context), issued a formal warning (skipping standard procedure), and left worse posts in that and other threads untouched (poor consistency). Additionally, my request for a review of the formal warning has gone unanswered (unresponsive).

Ignoring context, skipping standard procedures, applying poor consistency, and being unresponsive to review requests does not good moderation make.

~Ulrika~

I just wanted to say that things are really great now. I feel like I can post without being denigrated.

Hopefully things don't change.

screw you, hippy!

I mean, I dutifully respect your right to that opinion and expression thereof.

(KIDDING!!!)

No problem. One can name names, if the news is trivially verifiable. The burden of proof would be on the poster, who would face punishment if they didn't provide proof or falsified proof.

For instance one could say:

1. Happy Birthday Ulrika
   
2. Reddish Tigereye and his group the Commune just sunk the entire sim of Blue underwater!
   
3. Wuvme Karuna is selling my free animations in Aqua without my permission right now!
   

Yes. Privacy should be considered. We should allow transcripts to be posted if and only if all folks agree to having the conversations recorded or if the statements were made in a venue where lack of privacy is implied.

For instance, at a Linden town hall, transcripts can be posted without permission. The same should hold for all public events.

~Ulrika~

Ah, but could you say all three?

Happy Birthday and her group the Commune just sunk Aqua without my permission right now!

I agree. I've never had a civil discussion like this in the General forum ever.

When I first joined SL, I had to defend my ideas against a mob of hateful forum politicos, then came Prokofy, who bogged down my threads with accusations of favoritism and socialism. Right now? This is easier than posting in the Polisci forum.

~Ulrika~

(Note above that when I named "Prokofy" that I ascribed to him the act of bogging down my threads with accusations of favoritism and socialism. This is factual and trivially verifiable and thus should be allowed under the new free-expression reforms.)

Reddish is female.

coco

A forum owned and operated by a company on behalf of its customers may be run any way they see fit. I am perfectly content with how they see fit, of late especially.

Nice to see you again

Thanks. Took some time off to chase down life, hence the sig.

We've already discussed this. (Not that I'm accusing you of not reading the entire thread.)

We are humbly asking our oligarchy on bended knee to permit us the kind favor of having free expression and improved moderation, especially since a ban in the forum now automatically results in a ban from SL.

I know what you're going to say. Someone already said that. Read the thread.

~Ulrika~

I've been trying to stay out of this as I am happy as pie in mud. But I had to say, didn't we have that and wasn't it more repressive than freeing?

I apologize in advance if this was already said, but other things have been said several times, so I guess if I'm repeating the same sentiment, I can be induldged.

No. We've never had free expression in the forums. As a matter of fact this last year we've lost the ability to say many things (naming names) while gaining no rights in return.

~Ulrika~

you could lookat this way
lost: right to write defamatory posts about people without proof
gained: protection from unfounded accusation

Why is it necessary to surrender certain civil rights to benevolent gods in return for "freedom from denigration"? That's a plea of nolo contendere to charges that collectively and individually we have no discipline, tolerance, nor balance, and are helpless to fix our issues.

Speak for yourselves, not me. I will give up none of my civil rights to participate in Second Life, and I will not say that I have nothing substantial to contribute to issues of order, control, and policy in an online community in which I participate.

Why is the LL's ownership of the world and these forums constantly trotted out as though it's the final word? If LL was Boeing or Intel, then - of course. But LL provides a service, not airplanes. Ultimately that service is a community. By definition a community must grant order, safety, rights and privileges to its members, and the process by which it does that is subject to debate, participation, and forms of referendum - and will change according to circumstance. Why? Because order and rights are often contradictory, but we have determined, in modern democracies, that rights are more important than order in almost all circumstances. LL's product, as outlined by company officers in published papers, is a modern online community that encourages pluralism, diversity, and open-ended creativity. Inherent in that product is the right of users to participate in the process of policy-making and governance.

And that is the final word, unless those claims and papers are mere corporate fluff, and SL is "just a game".

There is not a single thing stopping people from posting whatever they want to third-party forums or websites. LL neither has or claims any jurisdiction over the sentiments that are expressed on sites other than their own. It has been fairly well established that LL will not enforce any sort of punishment or retribution for information posted on those sites that might get you banned if the same was posted on the SL forums (and how could they, anyway, since they have no idea who is actually posting anything off their own site).

SL is a community, but forums are a company-owned extension of that community and, in essence, the "face" of SL for anyone new who is looking around and trying to decide whether to join. It would be just as foolish for LL to allow users carte blanche on forums as it would be for a private store to allow somebody to paint graffiti on their front windows.

Ultimately, it is up to LL to decide what is appropriate for their forums. An even-handed application of rules is desirable, naturally, but inconsistencies will invariably occur when more than one moderator is making decisions (Lindens are not Borg-like, after all ). If one doesn't like LL's forum policies or finds them too restrictive, one can always find another forum that allows users to say what they want, or start one's own forum or blog.

because ll is a business. it's not the us government. or any other government.

you're not giving up civil rights. you're paying for the privilege of using sl - the grid and the forums. you follow ll's rules or else ll may decide not to extend the privilege to you anymore.

now, in a business sense, it's in ll's best interest to allow as much free speech as is feasilble within the context of its business plan. but it's also in ll's best interest to do something about griefers and trolls - which is to say a dysfunctional forum is not in ll's best interest business-wise.

Excellent, Seth. The first decent thing I've read in these forums since the banning, which was the culmination of what I have begun to think of as "the dark days" began here. It almost gives me a shred of hope.

Not sure when the dark days began, but it reached its zenith - actually, an unbelievably immoral low - somewhere around the Shunning. And culminated in the worst, most appalling "celebration" I've ever seen. And dig it: A banning, topped of by the threat that the next time this happens, it will be your game, too. Thanks only to the benevolence of the Lindens, that individual didn't find himself out of the game entirely, for which he is supposed to be grateful.

And those dancing around the grave - and now picking apart the carcass to make sure that, yes, it was an aberration, and of course that could never happen again, and of course that will be the only carcass, because of course, that was a MONSTER, it was never one of US - think this is a wonderful thing, secure in the mistaken belief that it can't happen to them.

Yes, the Lindens can do all this - and they can allow unsupervised forums to become a vicious place where those who don't agree with the party line are hounded relentlessly. Then kick out the one who looks to be the greatest PITA, and take away more free speech, and encourage more group-think, with more playground bullies policing it, using the big stick of threatening paying customers with their right to play the game if they become unpopular on the forums. It's easier than moderating them.

But at what price? Public opinion of their private corporation, that is the price.

It is penny-wise and pound-foolish to squander that currency, that credibility, to the likes of me, for the likes of those of you who continue to exercise mob rule by coming down on little-liked individuals, feeling even more justified now that your last PITA was removed.

If I had greater ability to actually participate in any meaningful way in the policy making and governance of these boards - as opposed to cowering in a corner of them somewhere, knowing that no matter how much I am poked and prodded by, not just one, but MANY "forum jackels " - I can't respond in kind without risking my game, I would be saying my ideas as naively and openly as I once did. As I CAN do on other game forums and other forums anywhere.

Any "freedom from denigration" you think you have been guaranteed here is illusory - I'm living proof of it. And you should know by now that the sacrifice of one dissenter does not promote freedom; it diminishes it for everyone.

Only the hard-fought, ever-difficult task of making painfully sure even the least one of us is able to enjoy those freedoms is what guarantees them for all of us.

Establishing a climate of fear for the next one whose head may be on the line - i.e., the next one of us who is least popular - isn't healthy or beneficial for any of us. If nothing else, these forums are llike a microcosm of people trying to reinvent the wheel and not knowing how, who are apparently stuck somewhere in Salem.

Less freedom means more danger for all of us. It wasn't worth the sacrifice of one. You should have upheld the FREEDOMS of the one. This is where mob mentality gets us. Now we're in a position where Ulrika can be next. Or yourself. Or anyone. One gets burned at the stake and the citizens cheer. Who will be next? Might it be you? I know you don't believe me, but any one of you could be next, especially if you somehow wind up on the wrong side of enough of the right people.

When "you might be banned next" is applied to a person like me - even BREATHED to a person like me - by someone on these forums, and no one objects or disagrees, I know we are living in dark days, indeed.

All forums must have rules in order to be any sort of place where decent people would want to stay. But those rules must apply to all, throughout, not just at the last moment to sacrificial victims who happen to be the least popular. Personal attacks were never disciplined here; they still aren't. What got disciplined with Prok was ideas unpopular with forum regulars. That's about the size of it.

This forum is not a place where a decent person would want to stay. There is no pluralism and diversity encouraged here. The thinnest-skinned of you was never me - it was those of you who couldn't bear to hear analysis and criticism of the game itself and your place in it.

And it will never be so until the rights of the individual are valued. If people can act like mobs with impunity, and the state comes in to light the match, then you have a very sad and a very sick place, where all but group-speak is stifled. Those who do their best to run off individuals are rewarded, while their victims are punished. No wonder the mob feels so smug and self-satisfied about it all.

Obviously, it's the Lindens' game. Obviously it is a private corporation. But public opinion will trump all, and this business of letting people get away with murder for months, then lopping off the head of the one everyone wanted gone, isn't lost on me, and won't be lost on anyone else with any objectivity.

coco

I think thats rather harsh, there are LOTS of decent people on these forums and not blowing my own trumpet, but I believe myself to be a decent person, and whereas I don't agree with everything that goes on in here, i'm still here.

Its lines like these, that start all the back biting in the first place.

You should know that by now.

I will amend that then, as you are correct.

Instead, I will say, it is not a place where a decent person - who finds himself or herself as the disliked target of many influential regulars - would want to stay.

I imagine it is a great deal more comfortable for the majority of you, and I certainly don't mean to say that the majority of you aren't decent.

coco