Everyone please sign this petition

I appreciate your asking for people to explain why they disagree. I totally disagree with this petition. Too often businesses are viewed as being the evil entity, cold and uncaring. The business is trying to protect their interests and make money for their investors. Nothing wrong with that.

When you made your purchase you should have asked them about this particular scenario and then based your decision to purchase on that. Especially for a service which is a luxury. You don't need SL to survive or get ahead in the world (although some seem to not be able to live without it). Coming back to Linden, not accepting them wanting to enforce the contract as agreed upon, and resorting to an online petition is not justified and really bad form.

When I was deployed to the Middle East the last thing I wanted was to have special arrangements made for me. OK, maybe a free beer every so-often but certainly not circulating a petition on my own behalf to be cut some slack on a luxury item.

Bruno, i dont appreciate you making it sound like im looking for a handout.. its far from that.. the fact of the matter is that you should be able to suspend your assets if you arent going to be able to log in.. in this time it owuldnt matter if they suspended my account along with the land and made it so you have to pay to play.

You're wrong. It's very important. It's the nature of the a civil-military force in modern democracies that people both in the military and in the reserves or militias must be accomodated by society for their service, voluntary or by order. To be blunt, that means they get certain breaks that the rest of us don't. It means that the rest of us do what we have to do to cover for them while they are out there putting their lives at risk, in a combat zone or in Tierra del Fuego. It means that corporations like LL cut them some slack when there's a reason to. It means proactively helping service men and women, and not just when forced to by law or public pressure. That's the nature of civic virtue, an absolutely essential quality in the defense of modern democracies. And capitalism and profit, too.

I don't know enough about this particular instance to pass judgement on LL's decision. But I am by definition sympathetic to any service person with a request for reasonable accomodations as a result of a deployment, voluntary or otherwise. (Voluntary, by the way, is supposed to be good.) Perhaps rather than remaining silent, LL might comment on its policies regarding customers in the military, U.S. or otherwise?

Seth,

This is a video game, albeit an expensive one. No one here is forced to buy anything. You get a free trial and can play forever for $9.95. You have to VOLUNTARILY enter into a tiered contract with LL to buy land.

BM was VOLUNTARILY active in the service when he bought the land and private sim. He knew there was a risk of deployment. Bruno and Unhygenix are correct to point out that maybe he should have asked what would happen to his stuff if he was deployed.

LL is under no obligation to give him any breaks due to his being in the service.

I don't know if you are aware, but there are several military members in SL and none of them, up until now, have asked for any special treatment. One young man recently had to sell all of his land to buy a special survival backpack.

I would suggest that BM "Aim High" instead of asking for special treatment.

You miss the point.

Doesn't matter if it's a video game. Doesn't matter who's involved, billy Madison or anyone else, and it certainly doesn't matter whether anyone likes him or not. While it might have been wise, it doesn't matter that he didn't ask questions about how his duty status would impact on his contracted ownership. It doesn't matter if there are other service members who haven't brought up similar issues, yet.

What matters are the principles involved. SL is pushed as "virtual property" with a "virtual economy" and potential real world advantages coming out of that. You can't redefine SL or how it applies to civic responsibility based on what is convenient for a particular argument. Consistency is important in these issues, whether the company be General Motors or Linden Lab.

I'm less interested in the details of billy Madison's case and more interested in the general policy, if there is one. If the consensus is that military service personnel have no special privileges in a deployment situation, as they would when dealing with property, jobs, consumerism, contracts, etc., in the real world, then that says something meaningful about the hype surrounding the "metaversical" potential of SL.

virtual = "almost" or "nearly"


I'd be happy to stipulate that LL "almost" has an obligation to cater to billy's special needs, or "nearly" should make special considerations for him, because of his investment in the virtual economy.

I don't think that would satisfy either billy or yourself though, Seth.

Unhyg, other than being clever, and funny (yes, I laughed), I don't see how your point applies.

Again, if the consensus is that nothing is owed to billy because of his deployment, then Alan is absolutely right. SL is merely a video game.

Which is OK with me. I agree.

Would this proposed rule apply to members of all militaries - or just NATO ones?

Who just said military? there are other jobs that require travel =) And also do you know exactly what NATO military is?

I think people suggested making exceptions for members of the military only. I'm trying to work out whether this suggestion would apply only to members of the military of friendly (to the US) countries.

It's a fair question in an international environment.

Well i personally could understand if they only offered it to U.S military but i do not think it would be right if they didnt offer it to NATO mil aswell. And i dont think this exception should be made to only military people.

Billy,

Thank you for having the balls to be in the military at this time. Im glad there are people like you willing to step up so we dont have to force other to do so. I salute you Billy.

The Lindens should back Billy's shit up, lease the server to someone else and when Billy gets back lease him a new server for his little island if he wants it.

Everybody RL and SL should be helping this guy out so he can get on his way with out a bunch of bull shit stress. I don’t care if he volunteered or not. He's going. BTW "volunteering" is usually a calculated decision of picking the lesser of two evils for deployment. He may want to go now to avoid something worse later.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lindens:
Help the guy out, don’t be a hard ass about this. I bet less than 1% of SL residents are in the military so this isn’t a big sacrifice. Everyone is not going to line up and expect special treatment. If u don't like the military, good for you who gives a phuck, at least help Billy, he has contributed a lot to building your money making empire. He’s gonna come back and pay tier and contribute more later on. So why is there a question of helping this guy out? It won’t hurt Linden Labs and is a good exercise for the techs. This makes me sick that Billy even has to mention this in the forum.

SHAME ON YOU LINDEN LABS!!!

Thanks for the kind words! I appreicate them! but i do not want people to get the wrong impression. This is not only about me, if they dont do this with me but start this later on i would be just as happy. Im probably one of the ones least hurt by this because I also have premilitary funds to fall back on. The point is that there should be a way to temporary suspend the account and assets until paid.

The lindens will lease billy's server to someone else, if billy sells or stops paying tier. They'll charge $100US transfer fee if he sells it to another person, and a $980US fee as a new owner if he simply lets his tier lapse. They'll also lease him a new server when he gets out, and charge him $980 for it, the same that they would charge for anyone to set up a new server.





Billy, let me ask you this:

If Linden Labs were willing to do it, would you be willing to pay a reduced monthly tier to have your server taken off the grid, and kept in holding until you return? Say, $60 per month to keep it in cold storage rather than $195 per month?

yes indeed.

But you know i have a feeling that linden lab is more concerned with the money.

I think it's an excellent question. Since SL is an international product, logically it would apply to military personnel in other countries. But what about soldiers of nations unfriendly to the U.S. or its allies?

That's why policy is a good thing to have.

Now way. If you can't afford your entertainment then you can't afford your entertainment.

Well, your solution is obvious then.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that you'll be gone for 6 months. It may be shorter or longer.

You stated here that Anshe Chung offered you $630.00US for your island. Sell it to her. You don't have the capability to back up your sim yet, but let's face it it's pretty empty and rather simply terraformed. Take all your objects into inventory and tuck them away. In 6 months time, order a new server from LL; chances are it'll even be newer, better hardware by then too. Who knows, the setup price might have dropped by then too.

So, you'll have lost some money on the supposed value of the land. How much? Well you paid $980 for it to be set up, so $980 - $630 = $350.

Divide that by 6 months, the time during which you won't be paying tier, so $350 / 6 = $58.34 per month.

Since you would have been willing to pay $60 per month to have a sim put into cold storage, I've just saved you $1.66 per month. Call it a gift, don't worry about trying to pay me back. True, when you buy a new sim, you'll have to do the terraforming all over again, but your sim isn't as fully developed as some....it really shouldn't be too hard to get it back the way you want, especially if you take some screenshots before you sell it; and to make up for this, your new sim in 6 months time will likely be on faster hardware.

If you're gone for longer than 6 months, then I've just saved you even more money. For example, if you aren't able to buy your new server for 8 months, than your loss is spread over a longer period of time. $350 divided by 8 months = $43.75. That's a savings of $16.25 each month from the $60/month that you would have been willing to pay, but again, I don't expect to be compensated, as I'm happy to help.




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Hi Billy,

What about this?

you say you'd be ok with a maint fee of $50 or 60 per month to shelve the server...

What about selling the sim to someone with an agreement that they sell it back when you return? Either you or the buyer pay the $100 for transfer of ownership through LL to the buyer (that's worked out between you and them). You pay the $100 to transfer it back when you return.

If you are away 2/4 months (depending on above), your cost works out the same... If you are away longer, it gets more advantageous to you.

The buyer gets to 'rent' the simm for however long you are away by paying the monthly fees and doesn't have issues with not being the owner for purposes of island controls.

Admitedly, this requires trusting whoever you 'sell' it to. Both in that they will honor the agreement to sell it back when you return and that they will not 'dump' it while you are away so that it cannot be sold back.

Also, there is always the chance that either the temporary owner or yourself might not be around to transfer back to/from later on. Not fun to think about but things happen and you need to take these possibilities into consideration before making any agreement like this with anyone. There is risk in everything but as a military volounteer I believe you already know that.

Anyway, just some thoughts that might give you some new avenues/options to explore.

--EDIT--
Or go with Unhygienix Gullwings suggestion above. I think it's gotta be easier all the way round and costs you roughly the same amount overall.

--EDIT 2--
Dang! I had the edit window open over 1/2 hour writing this... Too many distractions at work...

Racer P.

Thing is, now that the lindens are implementing a standardization for upgrades to the main grid, would it now be to the benefit of Island owners to have their servers back into rotation?

Seemingly this would now tend to ensure that their server will only be rotated away from them when a newer, faster, better one is put onto the task of running their sim.

I signed it because of why Billy is leaving. I don't think everyone should get this treatment but our servicemen and women should.

I wish you the best of luck and will keep you in my prayers Billy. I hope SL changes the way they do business in regards to this matter. Personally I don't think they will, but I'd love to be proved wrong. If the Red meets Blue articles where any reflection of the political bias within the company, my guess is they won't do it. I really hope they contact you and try to work something out. Not because of the petition, not because of this thread, but because they choose to support our troops because it is the right thing to do.

If there is anything I can do to help, feel free to contact me in world or out.

God Bless America and God Bless You Billy.
Come home safe.


May God take pity on the Linden's souls.
...and thats all I have to say about that.

Flame on

I followed the link and it goes to a response from Ben but the response is nothing I would call an extensive , more of a teaser about some issues that would be involved in an answer if one were produced.

Whutever. My point was to draw attention to the people (like me) who have been saying (not just about this, but for ages) 'so why cant you just back it up?'. Answer: Cuz it aint that simple. As per all the things Ben mentioned.