Censorship in Robin Linden's Blog Replies

Why are all of Ceera Murakami’s replies being kept out of Robin Linden's blog? (Mine too, for that matter.) She has tried replying to Robin's blog about the forum closures three times, and all are “awaiting moderation”, even though replies to this blog are supposedly no longer being moderated? Even though well over 30 other replies from other folks, made many hours after hers, have been posted for public access? Even though her posts are less critical and inflammatory than some of what HAS been approved???

I guess there is a difference between “moderated” and “censoring dissent”.

Mine is still marked as "Your comment is awaiting moderation." *sigh* See, what was that about blogs encouraging communication?

They aren't the only ones Feral, I know of at least three people who have had their posts removed or never accepted. This is one of the many indicators that while Linden Lab says "We welcome criticism" with one face, the other says "As long as no one else can see it".

Me either.

Robin said they didn't mod posts yesterday but new posts keep showing up?

I don't know if it's censorship, since my comments were nowhere near as hostile as others that were posted. Mostly, I was just begging for the content creation forums to stay.

But I've been waiting since yesterday afternoon and others are already being posted in reply to posts that came after?

Dunno.

Me too. I posted a reply a little after 3 pm yesterday, and as of this morning it's still 'awaiting moderation.' I'm not holding out any hope that it'll actually ever make it through. One of those 'things that make you go hmmm,' isn't it?

Same here, my post never showed up. I guess only GOOD posts show up. Don't say anything other than a mild criticism is the message that sends.

Proves why they want these forums gone. It IS because they don't want to see negative posts.

LL has become liars.

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WELCOME TO THE SOVIET UNION, 1955
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I submitted the following post to the Linden Labs Blog YESTERDAY afternoon within minutes of the announcement respecting the forums: It remains "Your post is awaiting moderation". As you can see my post is critical of the propsed action. Yeterday while waiting I observed a host of successive positive comments being posted immediately

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THIS IS TRULY OUTRAGEOUS CONDUCT BY LL
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"# Hok Wakawaka Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation.
August 10th, 2006 at 9:49 am

Well:

Now that the “heat” will soon be coming off of Linden Labs as a result of the impending Forum closures, the quality of gameplay in SL is likely to decline even further.

Having been a hard-core gamer for many years, I have witnessed over and over again major improvements in on-line games come only as a result of the issues raised by the outcry of the gaming community on the general forum of the developer’s website. The step that LL has annouced today, is prior to today, unheard of in the gaming world.

In additon, the steps announced by Linden Labs today ignores what any experienced gamer will tell you is one of the basic functions of the game site forum: namely an outlet to vent frustrations with the current state of the game. Where and how will these frustrations be expressed now? Within the game? By leaving the game and thereby weakening the player base?

Whether or not you perceive it as such, depriving the gaming community of its collective voice is an affront to every resident of SL. We should all be incensed.

This is a sad day for the community and for the prospects of the game."


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There must be some pattern to the posts that were not approved. Don't look only at content, look at the way they were written also.

Modding is not always about content.

Check for tone of speculative accusation. When I was modding before (other MMOG) that type is the second most common reason for mod action. The first being flaming and foul language.

A begging tone is not a good idea either.

Uh, I read all the posts and they are hardly consistant.

They range from pointless "we luv u man" to articulate requests to rambling rants.

My comment was about how getting rid of the new products was essentially ignorant and it was put up immediately and hasn't been removed or anything... Maybe they just recently changed their mind and enabled moderation?

The only pattern I see is that the ones I know never were posted were in some way critical of the decision to kill the forums. Yet they posted other critical comments, that were more nasty than anything I ever tried to post.

I suppose I feel better that it's not just me. But it is terribly suspicious that so many other posts sail right on through in minutes, while some get stuck in 'moderator limbo' for now over a day?

It doesn't bode well for this method of 'communication'.

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Aodahn:

Would you like to take a stab at speculating why, other than for content, my post (copied into a post above) has not yet been allowed to be posted in the blog?


Here is the post I submitted:

"# Hok Wakawaka Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation.
August 10th, 2006 at 9:49 am

Well:

Now that the “heat” will soon be coming off of Linden Labs as a result of the impending Forum closures, the quality of gameplay in SL is likely to decline even further.

Having been a hard-core gamer for many years, I have witnessed over and over again major improvements in on-line games come only as a result of the issues raised by the outcry of the gaming community on the general forum of the developer’s website. The step that LL has annouced today, is prior to today, unheard of in the gaming world.

In additon, the steps announced by Linden Labs today ignores what any experienced gamer will tell you is one of the basic functions of the game site forum: namely an outlet to vent frustrations with the current state of the game. Where and how will these frustrations be expressed now? Within the game? By leaving the game and thereby weakening the player base?

Whether or not you perceive it as such, depriving the gaming community of its collective voice is an affront to every resident of SL. We should all be incensed.

This is a sad day for the community and for the prospects of the game."



...........

I'm guessing here...

When I first posted a comment to the Linden blog... it sat for a while awaiting moderation... After it had been accepted, further comments went through ok.

Perhaps you're being held up cos nobodies actually got there to approve them yet... while comments from people who've been previously approved are getting through, thus looking more like censorship than it really is.

But that's just a guess... maybe some are being rejected. Probably not a good idea to piss-off the moderators, I guess.

The pattern can only be found when comparing the approved posts against the unapproved posts. Check content, tone, possible risky statements, TOS matters, legal implications, speculative accusation. There are so many factors to check.

Aodhan. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't see how my post copied above meets any of these forboden characteristics. I believe you are being too kind to LL.

Did you see the place you need to sign up to register to make blog comments?

You may be right there. I certainly hadn't bothered to reply to one of their blogs before this. Though at this point, I doubt I'll bother in the future.

If there is such a requirement or place it is very well hidden

No, I confess I did not. All I saw was an open reply dialog, that indicated a name and an e-mail address was required. If there was any further pre-certification needed, other than being an active registered member of Second Life, I saw no sign of it.

Speculation here: If I were a mod for that blog...

[1] Speculating as to the reason for forum closure. Also veiled accusation

[2] Not unheard of. As it was pointed out, there was a period Everquest forums were removed.

[3] Accusation

[4] A threat

You didn't need any of the above to make your point. Rephrase in positive terms. Even negatives can be phrased positively.

*sigh*

Have you even read the posts over there?

Some of them are nothing but angry one-liners:

"This is like stopping all rock concerts because someone in the back lighted up a joint at one of them."


"Nice move. At least the forums do function. So why disable them? Ah, yes, silly of me to ask really."

Some of the longer ones got more personal, heh.

Here is my post:





And read Brace's post and tell me about "tone", lol. ( I like Brace )

Yes, you ARE that important. Really.

My take (speculation):

[1] Unnecessary attack. The rest of the post is powerful enough as it stands. You don't need to attack.