Free Expression and Moderation Reform

This is a faulty analogy. It's so far from the topic of freedom of expression that it makes little sense. It makes me think that you're misunderstanding my original analogy.

Actually some rules take away freedoms and other rules give freedoms. It just depends on the type of rule. In this case I'm interested in eliminating rules which restrict expression unless that expression hurts other folks.

It's the same rules, I'd just like them pushed a foot to the left so we have more freedom to discuss things like adults.

~Ulrika~

You might be an adult, I might be an adult (that's debatable ) but maybe the guy 3 seats over isn't. And that's the trouble. The one bad apple.

This clearly qualifies as destructive expression, specifically spamming, trolling, and harassment. It would not and should not be permitted.

Remember, I am interested in free expression (except in the case of destructive expression) and reformed their moderation -- not chaos.

One only has freedom so long as it does not affect the freedom of others. It's so simple, isn't it?

~Ulrika~

Sorry about that. Message delivered though


Does it matter what motivates recognition of civil rights as long as it's recognized? And you're right -- within the boundaries of SL, the function may be the same. At the limits, however, it is still within your undeniable prerogative to leave.


We agree.

It definitely is. I guess my confusion is in how you think we don't have that freedom right now, even after the linkage of forum and in-world enforcement?

I thought it was a great analogy, the point being freedom isn't absolute. And equating the lack of complete freedom of speech with living under a comminist regime is very far fetched imho.

Your thread was started to allow you, and others, the right to name names, right? Does that open the door to harming others? If the answer is 'maybe, sometimes' then we have to say we don't have that right under this proposal to name names. So that part of the issue is dead unless you can show how one might name names of people in-world concerning their SL actions without harming that person.

We have the right to say anything we want, bring any idea. We just can't say things that hurt others, and according to your last post you agree with that.

I don't understand what things you want to say that you are being denied. If it doesn't harm anyone I'm sure LL will allow it. Unless it's blatantly off topic.

I'm just trying to understand what it is you want the forums to be. Should it be a place to share ideas, or a place to inform others of bad peple in SL?

Precisely. We are free to do what we will so long as what we do infringes not upon others. The definition of types of infringement are clearly defined both in the TOS and in the Forum Guidelines. The definitions use concise language that is easily understood.

The linkage of in-world reprecussions for forum behavior was, in my opinion, long overdue. Especially as in-world suspensions result in forum suspensions (accounts linked). Consistancy on both field means equality in both fields.

"You're not debating his behavior or making him THE issue, you're simply using him as a point of reference. It's a bit different than reproducing his chat logs here or calling him names in public. Right?"

Problem with this is, not everyone agrees with him as a point of reference, or a "we all know why" or anything of the sort.

Again, I point to you two forums where I have, along with everyone else, managed to co-exist with him despite his ideas and his dramatic way of stating them.

That alone proves to me that the generally accepted cause/effects and point of references are not correct. I object to them now, and I always will object to that viewpoint of the history of this.

All this is being blamed on an "aberration" and now that the villain is gone, all is presumably well. It is not.

coco

In other words, "one bad apple" was never the problem here.

P.S. "This clearly qualifies as destructive expression, specifically spamming, trolling, and harassment. It would not and should not be permitted."

Which would include, if anyone is really trying to be fair here, collectively denying a person their rights to existance as a human being; i.e., insisting they are an alt.

I feel destructive expression in a forum would also include any group discussion of shunning or agreements to shun any individual in it.

I believe the term is 'objection over-ruled'.

I agree. However, we do not have that freedom.

When Reddish Tigereye sunk the entire sim of Blue under water, Cristiano couldn't mention her name. I had to get it by PM and then risk a warning by posting it.

From earlier in this thread, we should make the following reforms:

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 her 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!
   

In the case of transcripts 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.


I agree. However, Prokofy, while banned from the forums, is currently not banned from SL (see his comments in the latest town-hall meeting). How's that for consistency?

~Ulrika~

sl - the world - isn't a game, but it is an entertainment venue. so ll exerts influence over it.

personally, i wish ll would switch it over to a hosting service, and let other people who are already in the business of electronic/internet law enforcement deal with the legal issues, and let what communities and speech acts happen happen.

however, in the context of the sl forums and the sl grid/venue, i don't see ll being particularly heavy handed (just inept from time to time).

Okay, I hate to quote huge blocks of text. I'm trying to clarify some of my views and my understanding of others' views, mainly Seth and Ulrika since I've had corrections from both of them and I feel like analogies (both mine and theirs) are making things about as clear as mud for me in relation to the issues at hand:

1. (I think that) Seth and Ulrika maintain that in order to have a community or true metaverse, the population of SL needs more control over forums and how they are policed. I maintain that, as long as third-party sites are tolerated and encouraged by Lindens as a place to express views that are inappropriate for SL forums, there are enough ways for residents to make their views heard without testing forum policy and running afoul of Linden mods.

2. (I think that) Seth and Ulrika acknowledge that SL is a paid-for service provided by LL, but maintain that residents must have certain rights recognized by Lindens in order for SL to develop into a true community and/or metaverse. I admittedly don't usually find myself in a position to break rules, and I generally feel the Lindens are fair in how they mete out justice. I can't say how I will feel in the future. I do feel the recent forum changes are a step in the right direction for the Lindens to establish some order and civility on forums since they had become somewhat out of control.

The bottom line for me is that SL IS still just a game, and the Lindens ultimately treat it that way (look at the ridiculous rating system for evidence of that). I think that until LL starts licensing their code and allowing others to bring privately hosted sims into the SL world, we are all just rats in LL's test cages.

I can respect people asking for a future right to have rules and policies reconsidered if things change, though.

Ok, I think I get it. We need an SL court to verify all claims, then we need a jury to decide punishment for those who claim someone is crashing a sim without absolute proof. btw, how do you prove some group is crashing the sim, and wouldn't that be info suited to the people who can fix it(namely LL), rather than posting it on a board as a means of punishing the offender?

Won't this harm the person you claim is crashing the sim? If so your own guidelines say you can't do that.
You have already made these claims 3 times in this thread and LL has yet to edit these unfounded claims, even though I think they should. You have made claims but have yet to give evidence in support.

Yet he is YOUR point of reference, and my point was that you aren't insulting him or villainizing him (on the contrary), thus I don't understand how using his name is a violation of the TOS in spirit.


I respect your opinion, Coco, but my own view of this is that every forum is different. Every community is different. Forum moderation in one board doesn't work in another. We use 4-letter words here that would get me banned in a heartbeat from a couple of other boards (as long as we're not using them to attack someone). And other boards may have more or less tolerance for personal attacks. It doesn't prove one is right and the other wrong -- just that they're different.


If you accused me of being an alt, that makes me less of a human being?

Personally, I feel that CONTINUING to say "Reddish Tigereye did this or that" is against the rules, is it not? And whether or not she did this or that is no excuse for keeping bringing it up.

Keeping bringing it up, when she has done nothing against the rules (whether or not I agree with what her group did), amounts to slander, and continued ruination of a person's good name.

In that respect, and for many other reasons, I don't agree naming names is a good idea (or even a necessary one, since those who really want to know can find out through PM anyhow. Those who really don't care don't need to be prejudiced against Reddish, particularly not in a thread that has nothing to do with her.

I disagree with naming names, particularly when they are included in a subjective sentence. There are those, maybe not me, but others, who don't consider what she did to be tasteful, but creative, and certainly not against any rules.

I don't think we get to be flip about pointing out this or that other player by name as an example of some egregious thing or another, as if we all agreed that Prok was the root of all evil, or Reddish did a horrible thing.

coco

As an example I've been using the sinking of Blue, which happened a while ago. At the time of the event it was easily verifiable by anyone who visited it. Is that what you mean?

I'm not really sure what claims you're talking about really. I also never mentioned the crashing of a sim. It's like we're sorta talking about the same thing but not really. Even without full understanding, though, you seem quite eager to get on with the censoring.

~Ulrika~

YES! This is a brilliant question. Even though I'm simply stating the verifiable fact that Reddish Tigereye sunk the sim of Blue, is the statement of that fact something that should be censored?

If you interpret the Guidelines literally, it should be censored. However, that would be a clear violation of freedom of expression as outlined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article 19 of the Universal Bill of Human Rights. This is precisely where the free-expression rules of modern democracies and SL differ and it's exactly what I'm trying to address in this thread.

It is my opinion that this should be allowed, provided I'm not saying anything defamatory, destructive, or insulting.

~Ulrika~

some people have a very bad grasp of what is a fact. and some people have an even worse grasp on what is "defmatory, destructive, or insulting." especially when they miscontrue the facts.

Why then, did you never address he who shall not be named in this manner? The behavior you are describing here fits him to a T. He named names, and quite often made false or unverifiable claims, day in day out, and called it "reporting".

And by address, I mean publically, not some unverifiable IM you had with him. Why does your friend not qualify for your public admonitions?

My guess is folks like that could wind up getting banned. If you know what I mean.

~Ulrika~

If twenty people accuse you of being an alt, Cindy, for weeks on end, despite your taking great and polite pains to prove you are not, and despite, finally, a desperate and open (and ignored or unseen) plea to Pathfinder to disprove it (remember, I don't like to AR) . . .

If everything you say is attributed to being another person, for weeks on end, and even persists, as we have seen, up to and including two days ago . . .

If everyone believes your motives are those of another, you ideas are those of another, that you ARE another . . .

If any casual reader of the forums grasps quickly that you aren't even real, or something is fishy, and that deeply affects how people see you when they meet you in game . . .

Yes, damn well and damn right it affects me! It's damn slander, is what it is! It hurts me in the game! It should not be allowed to go on, period! What am I, a doormat?

Naming Reddish hurts her - and continuing to do so, as some sort of "example" from the past - hurts her in the game similarly.

What happened to me is a heck of a lot worse than someone coming on here to spout a bunch of political this and that stuff.

Ordinarily reasonable people shunning and forming lynch mobs to get that one guy and get him gone is a lot worse, too. Nobody is that bad, or that dangerous.

And the problem was, none of that was ever handled by Lindens. It was atrocious, all of it. You just weren't here to see it.

And I wouldn't care if people had been saying I was actually the most beloved poster here instead of the most reviled one, damage was done to me; REAL damage. Damage would have been done to me even if I had been suspected of being Torley, or Aimee!

In such conditions, I don't think you should expect someone to be content just to rise above it, knowing in their hearts it's not true. I was at the point where I was actually threatening lawsuits for public defamation of character, which if you knew me, you'd know was a sign that I was pretty beleagured and long since past the end of my rope.

Of course I know in my heart it's not true, as I know many of the other things flung my way are not true. And if I didn't know that, I have everybody in the real world to tell me that, including everybody I've ever known on any other game or online venue. That doesn't mean, though, that I always feel like turning the other cheek, nor that I should always feel that way.

My own self-confidence and ego strength are not the point. Obviously, I have plenty of both.

The point is to have civil forums where those things - piling on, shunning, personal defamation, troll and alt accusing - just because people don't like what someone has said - don't happen, don't happen with glee, and don't get seemingly sanctioned and approved of by the Lindens by merely banning the most reviled. To have forums where everyone is welcome, and dissent is expected and allowed.

Chip is right, though, when he says that's history now.

I just want to make sure history isn't rewritten. Or repeated. I'd like to think something was learned from that history. And that the forums will be improved for all of it. That is why I put in my two cents on this, which of necessity involves talking about my own involvement, despite those who think I have no right to "dwell on the past."

If others can voice their opinions of forum rules while talking about examples in the very recent history, why do I not have that right? Why don't I get to talk? Because it is "accusatory?"

Besides, of all of you, I arguably have the best understanding of all sides of this than anyone, and probably more sympathy for all sides than anyone involved. Sympathy aside - I must argue against any forum behavior or AR rule system and/or lack of modding which makes it difficult for unpopular posters to participate.

I will make you guys a deal. I will try to talk a lot more - rather than a lot less - about other things, things I know you agree with, fun ideas and things that we all share.

I will still speak up for these things here when the topic includes them, and I will still object when someone turns what I have said into nothing more than a reflection of some personal failing of my own.

I do understand how you are all sick of it, because I must be ten times as sick of it as you are. I still want to play this game, and I still want to be friends with most people. So rather than lying low, and trying to have my conversations elsewhere, I will just try to talk MORE, as April suggested - I believe she called it a positive ratio thing - and see if that helps.

I'm ordinarily an incredibly encouraging and fun sort of person - ask any of my friends. I will try to show more of that side of me. But not when THIS topic is at hand.

coco

P.S. The four-letter words is itself completely unclear. Supposedly, this is a PG rated forum. ?????

Actually, I was one of those folks who thought you were Prokofy's alt. I would like to state for the records that I was wrong and I did receive a well-deserved informal warning for it. Apologies, Coco.

Under the free-expression and moderation reforms proposed, this would be standard procedure.

~Ulrika~

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm going to stop reading this thread. It seems to be the last bit of the forum which smells like the bad old days. Everywhere else is clean and nice and lovely now. I salute the Lindens, who have not been dictatorial with their new rules. They have been sensitive to our needs and wishes.

The last remnant of all the disgraceful egotistical paranoid hypocrital insulting innuendo-laden motivation-distorting, even sometimes directly lying things Prokofy enlessly poured over me and many others in his desperation to provoke and anger us. That last remnant is here in this thread. Remnant of paranoia, remnant of insults. And it is very distasteful.

We need to put a stop to it here and now. We don't need political correctness. Prokofys behaviour was awful, arrogant, rude, unforgivable and ultimately sad. He should have gone long ago. He made it unpleasant here for large numbers of people. Lets say it, and forget it, which is what it deserves.

This thread is being driven forward partly by coco claiming current persecution, now, under the new rules. Words like "desperate" "dark hours". I can't see this persecution, and a request to produce it is ignored. Without evidence, I don't believe it. Please prove it, or drop it. Begins to look like more of the old trolling, at least to me. Decent evidence, and I'll withdraw that in a trice.

As for all the "freedom" stuff. Its inappropriate. SL is still too young. Later there will probably be no Sl forum for us to post in, it'll fall to us to do it ourselves.

All this talk about a forum run by us as being "exiled" is wrong. Since everything is only a click away, a good competing forum could pull 80% of the traffic away from here if it was vibrant, and supplied a better ethos people wanted. Imagine how Prokofy's presence would attract the masses! But seriously, it easily could work.

Remember that very shortly we'll have a browser within SL and then on prims, so a competing forum would be helped by an in-world presence. I see absolutely no reason why different forum models and policies shouldn't compete for our trade, and lets see which wins. Its not even as though this one has much of a head start. 95% of potential posters have never even been here.

Unless coco can really show that the new rules actually are failing her, which I suspect she cant, lets just drop what seems to me like unpleasant provocative whinging, and move on. And coco - can you stop using insulting descriptions for other posters please? Want an example from a recent post? Something about ankle nipping dogs ?

Isnt there some sort of SL birthday celebration starting in Brilliant about now ? I'm off to that. I'm going to forget this endless complaining, and all the "me me me". Lets all go have fun there, eh ? Or don't we like SecondLife ?

You're right, Nolan. When Prok criticized major figures and businesses, he was pointing out how he felt they were all a self-sustaining entity, not favorible for competition, and in bed with the Lindens on it.

Whether or not I agree that that is true, in any part, I won't address here.

But had I been writing those posts of his, I would never in a million years have named those names and those businesses. I would have made the very same point (had I wanted to make those exact same points), just as effectively without naming anyone at all.

I suppose I gave him a pass on it because I saw him naming all the biggest names. Sort of like talking about corporations, rather than individuals (such as Reddish). I was more into the politics of it all.

But you are correct. Overall, I don't approve of naming names whatsoever. And in the case of Prok's doing so, it wasn't necessary then either. I would have to go back and reread all his posts, and probably will now, to see examples therein which I possibly would have and probably should have publically objected to.

I did mention to him semi-privately, though, that people considered themselves attacked because their babies, what they worked on hardest and were most proud of and successful at - their babies they rightfully expected to have praised, were getting used as bad examples of something else instead.

You give me food for thought, Nolan, and if things had been more balanced and not so dire, I probably would have given more thought to his doing that, "businesses" or "politics" notwithstanding. It's probably because I knew him so well, and knew him to be not malicious, and was so involved, that allowed this to escape me altogether, for any practical purposes.

The next person who uses an individual or their business directly to make a political or other point, I will object to, just as I did here to Ulrika, and did not do to Prok.

coco

P.S. (Having read the posts prior to this one now) Apology accepted and appreciated, Ulrika!

oh and P.S.: I am still totally against the idea of tying forum behavior to the ability to play the game itself.

Actually, it's negative and judgemental posts like this that sour forums. Aside from a couple of folks, there's great dialogue going on here. The best I have ever seen in the SL General forum.

This is exactly the kind of statement that a troll needs to fan the flames and is walking the line on what I'd call acceptable for the forums even if there were free-expression reforms.


How would the discussion of free expression hurt a "young" virtual world? What age do you think would appropriate to discuss free expression? What part of discussing topics would lead to the removal of the forums? I just don't follow.

This is speculation. There is no SL-related discussion site that comes close to the traffic the forums gets.

Given the inaccessability of prims in world, it seem logical to me that a URL on objects would be a less efficient way of sharing links than standard hypertext. If this is the case, through what mechanism would a virtual prim lead to the disuse of this forum and the use of an alternative. I don't see it.

Are you not also complaining in this very paragraph yourself? This post is a troll's delight and on any other day would most likely signify the end of this thread.

~Ulrika~