Sad state of the forums

I have a full time job, and I don't think ResModding should be unpaid, either. They do a tough job. My criticism lies with the nature of the job that needs to be done being basically undoable by volunteers, rather than with the resmods themselves.

I refuse to be a resmod because I think Linden Lab is exploiting its customers by relying way too heavily on a volunteer workforce, which is shameful with the type of income the company has. The work of moderating these forums could easily be done by adding a paid full time employee to moderate them - you know, someone who gets a salary and benefits. Why do that when you can exploit the kindness of your customers for free?

Additionally, I feel that the resmod program unfairly places customers in a position of power over each other, when we are all paying customers . I've stated my objections to the program ad naseum, as have many, many other people, all for naught as they press ahead with it. So I will simply comment on it when I see inconsistencies, and while I think overall the resmod program has become less intrusive than it was initially, I don't think moderation has improved one iota from when it was simply Jeska doing it.

Neither you nor Hiro have ever done volunteer work? Have neither of you ever moderated large blocks of discussion boards? I gather not. You both expressed consternation over the delays between your reporting a thread and action being taken. Without going into the merits or problems involved with using a rezmod program, my suggestion was that the both of you volunteer to rezmod so that you would understand why there is such a delay between reporting and action. This way you two could come to understand why this delay occurs. Additionally, you could both learn why doing volunteer work (not exploitation) can be personally gratifying, full time job or not.

Additionally, you could both learn why doing volunteer work (not exploitation) can be personally gratifying, full time job or not.

Neither you nor Hiro have ever done volunteer work? Have neither of you ever moderated large blocks of discussion boards? I gather not. You both expressed consternation over the delays between your reporting a thread and action being taken. Without going into the merits or problems involved with using a rezmod program, my suggestion was that the both of you volunteer to rezmod so that you would understand why there is such a delay between reporting and action. This way you two could come to understand why this delay occurs. Additionally, you could both learn why doing volunteer work (not exploitation) can be personally gratifying, full time job or not.

Working for a profit corporation for free is not volunteering, it is illegal.

Working for a profit corporation for free is not volunteering, it is illegal.

I think you could expound upon this comment. I do not understand it. Volunteering is volunteering regardless of the type of corporation. And, how is it illegal?

Actually I have done an extensive amount of volunteer work, even for LL, so your post is misplaced. Thanks so much for the advice though. America Online and several other sites have faced class action lawsuits over their use of unpaid volunteers in the same way LL is and had to end those programs. Linden Lab is not a charity, and there are very specific rules about how they can use unpaid employees. The fact that they use them so extensively to replace inhouse functions - Live Help, Greeters, Instructors, and yes, ResMods is going to bite them in the ass. I do all kinds of philanthropic work - but no longer to help a company not have to actually hire employees they should be hiring to do the work instead of using their customers.

I think you could expound upon this comment. I do not understand it. Volunteering is volunteering regardless of the type of corporation. And, how is it illegal?

There are very specific employment laws involving the use of volunteers and interns, including the types of work they can do. It varies from state to state, I would have to look at more detail on what California's law is. Again, many web sites have faced the same issues and erred on the side of discontinuing their volunteer programs or severely limiting them.

Okay, so I have a question then. Are these laws in reference to corporations pressuring their employees to do volunteer work at the work place and/or outside of the work place? Or, do you mean that the laws apply to corporations using non-employed volunteers? The first point makes sense to me, the second, none whatsoever.

Volunteering is not volunteering regardless of the corporation. There is a reason people carefully assign work to contractors, interns. There are reasons that volunteers at non-profits are not allowed to do the same work as paid employees at non-profits, so they aren't sued for co-employment, or employment. Employment laws exist for a reason, you can not have volunteers doing the same work as paid employees, either at a Profit or a Non-Profit corporation. Often at a non-profit so a person can volunteer and do the same work as an employee they are paid a small sum such as one dollar so they are compensated. I don't have time at work to link California law (these laws vary some by state, to some extent), but I will try to later tonight.

Employees of a corporation doing volunteer work outside of the corporation but under the umbrellla of the corporation (Motorla and Habit for Humanity) is not the same a corporation using volunteers to servicing their customers.

Volunteering is excellent. Volunteering to do work that is saving a corporation tens of, and possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars by having customers work for free, won't really get you a Nobel Peace Prize.

however if somebody wants to volunteer to work for free while others are being paid to do the same exact job, I don't yet see why there is a problem.

"Certainly under federal law and under the law in several states, individuals cannot volunteer for other than humanitarian or public service-oriented purposes," said Karen Kubin, a partner with law firm Cooley Godward who specializes in employment and trade secret litigation.

"The laws are meant to protect employees from being replaced by volunteers" such as people wanting to get a foot in the door in a given company, she added, noting that the question the court will be asking is, "In the absence of volunteers, would there be a workforce employed to [perform the volunteers' tasks] on a paid basis?"

Prior to the middle of 2005, AOL used volunteers called Community Leaders, or CLs, to monitor chatrooms, message boards, and libraries. Some community leaders were recruited for content design and maintenance using a proprietary language and interface called RAINMAN, although most content maintenance was performed by partner and internal employees.

In 1999, Kelly Hallissey and Brian Williams, former Community Leaders and founders of an anti-AOL website filed a class action lawsuit against AOL citing violations of U.S. labor laws in its usage of CLs. The Department of Labor investigated but came to no conclusions, closing their investigation in 2001. In light of these events, AOL drastically began reducing the responsibilities and privileges of its volunteers in 2000. The program was eventually ended on June 8, 2005. Current Community Leaders at the time were offered 12 months of credit on their accounts.

Now *THAT* made this thread worth reading

The delay is not the issue, Hiro is angry that his thread was moved at lightening speed and now other threads are just sitting there. This is really just a "Hiro isn't getting his way and doesn't his FIC status count for anything?!??!!?!?!?" thread, but let us pretend it is about ResMods.

For that matter, perhaps resmods should be forced to read each and every thread to make sure things are fair. If resmods can't be consistant otherwise, that may be the only choice.

The problem with forcing folks to do stuff, is if they don't have to - they can just tell you to go do something unhygenic with a boat anchor.

Don't they add a point to some total for each report people make? Or is that only in world?

At any rate, food for thought.

4/5ths are about child sex in SL... keyphrase being "in SL." Cant's they merge these into one thread... PLEASE?

Yeah. Seems to me they are doing an okay job.

The only ones that haven't been moved that I can think of are the ones that are in General that are really off-topic "joke threads" (at least that is the only way you can possibly get the 4/5ths figure). Those are pretty much the hardest determinations to make, and the ones that (let's face it), matter the least if you don't end up moving the thread.

This sounds like another spurious accusation or tempest in a teapot or whatever to me.