Are We Citizens or Children?

I just had a thread locked with the following explanation:

"Reposting – If a moderator removes your post, do not repost it elsewhere. Do not repost threads that have been locked or deleted and do not repost content that has been edited or deleted by a moderator. Furthermore, please do not post a "why did my post get removed" post. Send any further discussion regarding post removals to [email]abuse@lindenlab.com[/email]."

Are we children playing a game with hired parents to punish us and keep us in line in the forum or are we citizens in a virtual world who use the forum as a place to lobby our government and share our experiences with other citizens? Is this a virtual world where we are citizens like Ben Linden claims or is that simply PR and we are playing a game and treated accordingly by the LL corporation?

This censorship and heavy-handed authoritarianism is exactly what the First Amendment in the U.S. was intended to stop, the right to express ourselves without government interference especially when criticizing the government. How insidious that the Lindens can punish and censor individuals and then punish and censor them again for simply discussing their punishment and censorship.

What's next? Proscription?

~Ulrika~

What part of these rules do you not understand?

I always considered myself a customer.

I think the issue here is whether we are adult customers or child cutomers.

Frankly, as a 45 year old woman who prides herself on speaking her mind whenever possible I'd have to say I'm disturbed by the practice of mandating that our speech adhere along guidelines that I'd fine instrusive for a Junior High student.

Yes --LL is a private company and has the legal right to govern content of their own forum. But I believe Ulrika is right when she points at the 1st amendment. The US Constitution does not grant rights to it's citizens. Rather it recognizes the inherent rights of the People. One would hope in that case that I am spending my hard-earned money to a company which also recognizes free speech as an inherant right. Especially when that company posits itself as a ground-breaking platform in a new form of human interactivity. If I am mistaken in assuming that LL is in the business of providing more than just an MMPORG then I'd like to know for sure --because in that case I'm spending my money unwisely.

In short -- Are we adults responsable for own speech and actions and therefore subject to judgement and action by our peers --or are we defacto children that need to be admonished by our "betters"?

I think LL really needs to take a hard look at this issue as it certainly shapes what type of world Second Life is to be.

We can babble on and on about the rules and being a customer and everything, but let's get something straight.

The rules exist to protect us from idiots and malicious jerks.

Ulrika is neither.


It is my belief that Ulrika should be exempt from all disciplinary and moderation action on these forums in recognition of the grand service she renders SL by her very presence.

edit: It's a bit like James Bond, you know? Obviously we need laws against murder to prevent Uncle Cleetus and his ilk from going into the Elk Lodge and shooting everyone with his shotgun. But at the same time, sometimes we can trust certain individuals to Do the Right Thing even when that right thing exists outside the normal realm of the rules. Ulrika is our intellectual 007 and needs to be provided the lattitude necessary to do her job. s'all I'm saying.

I just gotta say...

If the pen is mightier than the sword, and if Ulrika is like James Bond...

then she's got a license to quill!

LOL (I'm assuming thats some tongue in cheek joke).

The rules is the rules and should reach from the lofty to the lowly in equal sum.

The bit of irony that I saw in the preceding drama was that the cited "rule" didn't in fact apply to the alleged "violation". To my reading, the original poster thought that a thread had disappeared and was puzzled by it. So the question was not "why did my post get removed" as proscibed by the rule but rather "did my post get removed?" which is a substantively different question. Morever, the question was replied to with (paraphrasing) "it did not get removed it simply got moved over here".

Now of course the distinction I point out above is indeed subtle and probably requires more than a cursory skim of the "offending material". You might say I'm being over-literal, I've certainly been called worse. But when there is a "rule" couched in terms like "please" and giving specific texual examples, then one can reasonably say that it was probably heavy handed application. Slightly funnier still was that it was a pretty picayune matter which had died a natural death. Ham-fisted moderation of a dead thread in this case caused an issue rather than corrected one.

So it goes.

I'd say this thread needs a poll. I vote for children
Ulrika, you need to start a rebel faction that will overthrow the fetid hierarchy of the lindens
We'll go around shooting random lindens in the middle of the night and will finally stage a coup to remove philip from power

I'm sure you can look at it that way - but the question posed was are we citizens or children.. I don't think I'm either... I'm certainly not a child (though on occasion I choose to act like one - as is my want) nor am I a 'citizen of a virtual community' - I pay to use a service, much as I pay for cable TV, or broadband internet. SL for me is entertainment.

If the company feels like moving, deleting, locking posts over what they think is a violation of the terms and conditions folks agreed to use - more power to em.

Seem appropriate to comment on 'the devil you know...'

Hell I wouldn't bother shooting or overthowing - why not just ask.. I'm sure he isn't too keen on his position (in relation to the world) anyways.. Poor bastard is the 'Great Satan' lately and I kinda feel sorry for him.

I'm sure he'd like to just ditch the robes and the last name and be a regular farty like most of us.

Torely,

that's precious! May I use that at "Ulrio" my upcoming brand new Ulrika merchandise store?

Ulrika's baaaaaaack

See the sig.

That is all.

where is the poll???

heheh kendra, that would be fine if we had fewer posts written with the maturity level of junior high or below...

I'm all for freedom of speech to lobby and protest this and other issues, but I also think LL has a right to act like a business and exercise some semblance of control as they see fit to keep this from turning into a roadhouse brawl, which it regularly does anyway.

Personally i do try to keep in firmly in mind that LL is a business -- not a government, not a pantheon of gods -- just a business.

I could not agree more highly with this statement. However, given the past couple of years, I think I'm hardly alone when I say I'd dearly love to see them even give the appearance of attempting to exercise that right. That is honest, not sarcasm.

*high five*

I dont think their control in that regard should really extend to the forums though, which are the only really viable public forum for talking about Second Life.

We are not talking about stopping people from doing nasty things we are talking about censoring people from talking about things. Censorship is never a good idea unless there is a good solid reason (usually to protect the well-being of another individual) for doing it.

All the proper tools and laws already exist for prosecuting individuals who libel or slander. All the power exists to discipline avatars in world for revealing secrets, or making inapropriate comments on the forums. IMO there is no need for an extra set of rules or to censor the forums at all, other than need LL has to stroke their corporate image.

LL should just get out of the forums business and let users run it, and these "other" forums already exist of course. They will never be very popular until this one "goes away" however since it is the defacto standard. It's clearly in LL's favour to have this forum exist as it enables them to exercise a *little* control over the majority of what we say. Good for them, but not for us.

As long as they control the main forum, the "good stuff" (bad stuff?) and the censored stuff is doomed to always apear on that "other" list. Deliberately "below the radar" of the majority of players and media commentators.

Sounds like a plan to me.

all i have to say is that this is Linden Labs's forums. They can decide want they want and don't want on here. And can tell someone to take things they don't want on here elsewhere.

Me too. Are we children or adults? Am I famous yet?

no, just annoying

That's horrible, even I couldn't come up with a pun that good. Bravo!

EDIT: As for the topic at hand. A topic was moved. You reposted about the topic. It was locked. That's just general forum moderator MO, I don't see the problem? Would you rather they -didn't- keep the forums orderly?

And I find it almost comical that some people on this board, people who I assume are not noobs to message boards, have to be reminded of this.

LL will administer and moderate this forum as they see fit.



Yes, because it's all a huge conspiracy by LL to keep us in our place. *shakes head*.

You've not been here long, eh? The terms "[SL] forums" and "orderly" don't belong in the same sentence.