Rate the Lindens' TOS Enforcement

It's one of those constantly bubbling topics on these forums - complaints about the enforcement (or lack thereof) of the TOS in SL by the Lindens. To that end, how would you rate the quality of their responses?

Personally I sortof always hated any DM-intervention in any MMOG. I appreciate it is necessary because otherwise all Hell breaks lose, specifically you get an effect somewhat analagous to the Well, where it becomes very hard for new people to break into the game.

Thats not necessarily a bad thing however, it adds a whole new challenge into the game, though obviously it would deter someone who's interested solely in, for example, building, without wishing to go into the social aspects of fitting into the world.

It would also be a Bad Thing for the in-game economy in many ways. Economies tend to thrive when people consider they get back what they put into things, which implies that people need to feel stable and secure. Obviously they wont feel too stable or secure if they can be ejected from the world because they got on someone's bad side one morning, and that person is fairly high up.

Still, the way things are currently smacks of school, and I think we're all out of school? Why is it we rely on "teacher" enforcing the rules in what should be our world?


There are a couple of possible paths to avoid this:
- make the game, or parts of the game PvP enabled, so that individuals can deal with issues on their own, or form gangs/possees to do so
- the whole self-government thing


Perhaps it would be interesting to add a couple of new types of zone:
- Wild West zone: anything goes, no Linden intervention, except for illegal content
- Self-government/group zone: no Linden intervention, the group wields the same powers as the Lindens do in Linden-mediated sims

Azelda

I have no knowledge of their TOS enforcements. All information I have is anecdotal and comes from the people on the reciving end. There isnt enough available information to form a reasonable opinion.

-AP

bah, i posted perfect and wanted to revise my vote as i don't think Ace of Spades should have been suspended. But it won't let me. I would say it's ok to good.

voted pretty good.

which in a community setting is a problem in an off itself. there is no transparency into the action of the police force. it's like living with a secret state police - you are never quiet sure when you might be policed, and there's never one around when you need one.

From what I have seen, LL's usual response is along the lines of, "Girls, girls, you're BOTH pretty," even though one party is OBVIOUSLY prettier than the other.

doing the best they can

this is a good point. they are doing the best they can in the environment they've created with the number of people they have available. there's no way they can afford to pay enough people to fairly enforce the tos & cs as they're currently written.

eventually, they're going to have to turn the decisions over to us with proper land & group management tools. i imagine they're waiting until the standard until of land is a sixteen acre sim. that'll be much more meaningful than banning someone from a 1024sm lot up to 40 meters high.

Taggy said it perfectly.

Surreal

I have no knowlege of their TOS enforcements. All I have is a batch of closed abuse reports.

Some people voted more than once

Click the poll results then the #

i think the lindens are doing a great job. not perfect. but great! what are they, 20 people managing an infrastructure for a world of 15k all the while improving and debugging? do you think you are paying the true cost of this service? if you were do you think after a year of having gone live, LL would still be seeking venture capital?

the negative opinion could be, like most problems people have with SL, a problem of perception. people don't come to the forum to write about what a wonderful job the lindens do (or i do) as much as to stir opinion to manipulate LL or some players.

Polls can be set up in one of two ways. The 'tick your one choice' or 'tick all that apply' types. This was set up as the latter.

were LL a public institution who's power acquired from our community and who's authority legitimized by our collective agreement, i would agree. but LL's is a private company who's power is constituted by their ownership of the medium and legitimized by our accepting of the ToS contract.

the only way to escape LL's authority is to leave SL. there is no moral or legal arguement to expect transparency. we are tenants in LL's private fiefdom. power is structured top down, not bottom up.

people will be much happier when they stop confusing metaphors for reality.

like i said in the other thread, you vote with your wallet.

But don't tell anyone if you do want to make your feelings known by leaving or tiering down. They call you all sorts of names if you say you're going to do that.

The griefed are punished more than the griefers.

Well DUH. Now I'm sad *I* didnt pick more then one.