Certain 'communities' getting leeway?

What you said was, "But just because the focus is on something, doesn't mean it's the entirety. As I stated already, even the most loathesome people on earth have a track record of donating money to charitable organizations." You have already asserted that SA is a forum full of "prepubescents," and that since the forum is called Something Awful, it couldn't possibly be anything but a bunch of jerks. You may not have said that SA is "loathsome" in particular, but I think you've made it pretty clear that that is what you think.

Wait, the forum promoted a planned attack? No. SOME PEOPLE who use the forum decided to get together and act like jackasses. 30,000+ people are not responsible for the actions of a few. SA is a forum, not the damn Navy.

Whether W-hat chooses to apologize for what some ejected members have done is W-hat's business, not yours. You, being a back-seat magistrate who is in no way affiliated with our group, have no business preaching to us about how we ought to run our group.

Good for you, but not everyone feels the same way. I myself might feel inclined to do so in certain situations, but I don't expect everyone to always do that no matter what.

How did we proclaim ourselves to "represent" SA, exactly? W-hat is a group for people who are members of a forum. We haven't started an embassy or anything.

Way to COMPLETELY miss the point. The "Goon" moniker was settled in the early days of the forums, before they grew into what they are today - and that's all it is, a moniker. When I am sitting around all day, posting in the SA automotive forums about camshafts and clutch packs, am I being a "thug" or "oafish" in any way?

Do you really think that the SA admins have time to track the outside activities of tens of thousands of members, and take personal responsibility for what they do when they are not on the forums?

Stop being so overly dramatic.

You haven't got an argument, dude. All you have is a ton of unfounded assumptions about what goes on at the SA forums, and a bunch of melodramatic nonsense about how we are supposed to act all contrite about the actions of a bunch of griefers who we don't even want hanging around with us, and who would be kicked out of our group the SECOND the W-hat admins found out about it. If W-hat chooses to apologize for what those people did, it will be out of self-determination, not because we feel pressured by pressure from a few people in a forum that is read by a tiny fraction of the SL population.

A touching gesture, I suppose, but it's still not their responsibility to apologize to me for what other people do. Do you suppose I should apologize to minorities about the KKK? No, I have no hand in what they do. Saying I ought to apologize on their behalf insinuates that the color of my skin makes me somehow "responsible" for what is done by other people who have a similar skin color, which is patently absurd. They aren't puppets and I haven't got my hand up their collective ass, moving their mouthparts.

Do you feel somehow responsible for what other people who have the same skin color as you are doing? I sure don't.

Please explain how they acted as "representatives" of SA. I don't feel I was represented by them, any more than I feel the KKK represents white people, and I am a goon. I am sure there are many SA forum members who feel the same way.

Those threads were many tens of pages long (at forty posts per page), in a subforum where a thread at the top of the first page can wind up somewhere on page two in a matter of hours. The mods, who are for the most part unpaid volunteers, cannot keep their thumbs on every last post in every last thread. There HAVE been threads that were locked when it was discovered that some goons were making trouble. That one wasn't, presumably because no one reported it. By the way, any SL resident could have sent an e-mail to Lowtax or one of the other admins, at any time. None did, to my knowledge. Lowtax and the other admins DO suspend and ban people for staging malicious invasions. It is a bannable offense.

Wait up, what am I apologizing for?

Fortunately, the taxpayers are not footing our bills, so we are not under obligation to do very much boot-licking.

We don't owe you a public denunciation. How we handle our internal affairs is our business, not yours.

You know. After reading through all this I can't figure out who is worse. Ignorant griefers who victimise someone because they wear an animal suit or the people with a stick marked 'politically correct' rammed so far up their arse they can taste the tip.

Tolerance is a two way street. If you wish to be part of a group who indulges in practices many don't understand then you must tolerate or educate the ignorant. I know this doesn't fit into the utopian vision a lot of people seem to have going on here but there you go this is a world full of human beings and humans are flawed creatures.

As for the people who have a problem with furries. Grow up. If you don't like them stay away from them. End of.

My last point is people complaining of bans and suspensions and offering various takes on the meaning of the TOS. I can only say one thing, who told you this was a democracy? There aren't any courts here guys. If the Lindens think you should be banned guess what! That's right. Paying customers or no we play in their world governed by their rules which they can interpret how they wish. If you don't like that fact I guess there's only one option open to you.

As far as judging ALL Goons by the actions of a few, well, what can I say? Griefing is the only behavior I have ever seen from them. When I start seeing good things coming out of them, maybe I will start changing my opinion.

@Hayden,

I cannot describe how awful the extent of the abuse was in the spring. Before you pass me and other off as "Politically correct activists", please realize you did not see what went on. I know it sounds unbelievable, but the scope was literally:
- Dozens of griefers
- A planned, coordinated attack
- The attack lasted 2-3 days
- Multiple people left SL entirely because they felt so threatened
- No provocation
- All over the SL grid (which granted, was only a hundred or so sims back then)
- 10x10x10 cubes by the hundreds with stuff that was so awful, there was no question if it violated the TOS in a M rated sim, let alone a PG sim - where most of the griefing took place.

-----

@Davoren,

Look, I'm sure most of you W-Hat folks are nice. I'm saying SA has a bad rep in SL, and W-Hat associating with SA gives it a bad rep.

As for the race card, I stand by what I said. There's an enormous difference between a race and a group that has voluntary membership. For instance, if I blamed the Arabs for terrorism, that would be racist. If I blamed the Islamic jihaad for terrorism against civilian targets, that would be accurate. People don't choose to be Arab, and most are peace-loving. However the jihaad does endorse violence, and even if many don't want to hurt civilians, the whole is culpable because they don't speak out against it and they let it happen.

So when Huns said he didn't blame blacks for what a couple black people did do him, that's completely irrelevant. It's a big "duh", so to speak. It's insulting to my intelligence that he would compare a race, something everyone is born with, to a group that people choose to belong to.

--------

Huns,


There's a big difference between loathesome and prepubescent. The prior is despised, vile, etc. The latter is simply immature. I say what I mean and in this case, I mean the latter. You're allowed to be immature, hell, we all deserve to have immature fun ... when it doesn't hurt anyone. What happened in the Spring hurt people.


There are things called "forum moderators", and I'm sure if you look at the terms of service you signed when you registered for the forum, it included some legal disclaimer about not using the forum to break any laws or harass people. Forum moderators are obliged to lock / edit / delete / boot and do what they have to. We're talking easily 100+ SA Goons that went into SL, and assuming only 1/10 of any forum membership in particular is active, by your 30,000, that's a good 100/3000 or 4% of your active membership engaging in illegal activities - i.e. harassment and abuse. Not just breaking game rules, but harassment that there has been civil precedence of prosecution.

Maybe you don't get how serious what happened was. SA is very VERY lucky no legal charges were pressed against it back in the Spring. (And on an aside, it's the very reason why online communities, especially MMOs, are obliged to have player-player dispute resolution.)


You misunderstand. It's SA that should apologize for what the ejected members did (not that we have any evidence that they were ejected from SA, only SL). What I am saying is simple:

W-Hat affiliating with SA gives it a bad reputation.

I'm not saying what you should do, I'm just trying to possibly explain another reason why maybe why in the heck saying that "certain groups are getting preferential treatment" is absolutely absurd in this case.


I guarantee you that if civil action had been taken on SA, they'd be kicked ASAP and be talking trash about those members. Harassment is not a joke, especially not the harassment that went on in Spring. It is a crime and the people who did it are criminals.


I wasn't talking about W-Hat here. Did you not read what I said? It says SA Goons, and they represented SA by virtue of the fact that, gee, I don't know, that they called themselves the SA Goons. If they misrepresented what SA is about then SA has done very little to dispel this myth.

If a group named themselves "Linden Helpers" and went around harassing n00bs, you better believe the Lindens would be all over booting them and dismissing their claims to be Linden related.


No, I didn't miss the point. I understand what goon means to you, but what it means to the rest of the world is thug. When they see people from a group called "Thugs from somethingawful.com" they generally don't get a good impression. When they find out that the members really do call themselves "thugs", it solidifies.

So while you personally are not thuggish or oafish, the perception of you wearing the "goon" tag is that you are presenting yourself as thuggish and oafing. Labels matter. Words matter. They have much more power than you give them credit. Language is a powerful thing.


No, but I expect that they would take control of the content of their own forums. They let this discussion go on. They no doubt received complaints. They could have followed up with the complaints and at the very least apologized for people claiming to be acting as members of SA.


I wish I had thought to save the post, but the words were posted here, in the SL forum, from your very own forum. This is not based on assumptions.

As for the assertions that "SA did not kick out the harassers", you have yet to contradict me.


Indeed, and the non-KKK part of the white community has also spoken up and said that the KKK is wrong. Further, the entire country has banded together, and through elected officials, written these things called "anti-descrimination laws" that denounce any descriminatory actions of the KKK to be illegal. So, they have spoken out, and as a white man, you already belong to multiple communities who have spoken out against the KKK's actions.


Nothing, you personally already did - you said you didn't like what the harassers did and don't consider them as representatives of your group. W-Hat however still is associated with SA, which has never publicly acted or spoken out against the actions of the harassers.


Again, what W-Hat says about the harassers is moot. I don't care about your internal affairs, but I am, however, replying to a ridiculous thread where a victimizer claimed to be a victim. My reply, I state once again, is that W-Hat will continue to have a bad reputation as long as it associates with an organization that refuses to apologize for and/or take action against harassers in its group that planned a widespread attack on their forums and NOTHING WAS DONE ABOUT IT.

How your group chooses to use my reply internally is your affairs. If you choose to continue to associate with SA, that's your right and your business. Just don't be surprised when people don't see you in the best light because of it, while SA continues to refuse to acknowledge what happened was bad.

Alright, I'm done with this thread.

For the record, the only people I really personally find reprehensible were the griefers in the Spring. The rest has been a spirited debate in the scope of the forums. I do wish W-Hat and SA a nice future. Have fun.

I remember well enough when the SA goons came in. But what does that have to do with my post? I think I was pretty clear in my opinion on griefers and their activities. You took a little kneejerk there thinking I was singling any one person out when I wasn't. The activities you mentioned above were dispicable for sure. No question. But my post certainly wasn't trying to justify any goon activity or say you were wrong for calling them out on it.

But that was then and this is now. What's all this fuss over? A few ignorant people circling a person? Suspend em or ban em job done. Why go round and round and round about this stuff? And before someone jumps in saying 'Oh thats what the forums are for' I have to say that it doesn't seem like you guys are having 'joy joy' fun with this at all.

If a goons intention is to draw your attention and annoy you then they seem to be succeeding. Surely you dont want that?

Well, after reading this thread, I can say with absolute conviction that you, and darkwing, (who obviously mislead in his initial post to cause hard feelings toward the furry community), are both very immature and not really much on understanding or compassion either. I've seen almost every childish excuse from both of you, little actual logic and a whole lot of excuses and misdirection.

Before this post I really had no idea about W-Hat, but judging form your vocalizations, it's just another group of children wanting attention.

As for SA Goons that invaded SL, they are for the most part pathetic. And I still laugh at thier failed, and humiliating invasion of SL. I was at 3 events that they griefed and laughed as each griefer was banned. I saw thier posts of bragging about what they did in SL, and then in turn saw many of them try to claim innocents and cry "poor poor me" on these very forums when they got suspended. I saw many of them target furries. Now you folks are defending your association with this morons? Wow..we are all so impressed..

Judging a group of 100 people based on what two people said on a forum isn't childish at all.

These forums are for discussion and education about Second Life, and there is no need to attack those you don't agree with. Please refrain from personally attacking someone you don't agree with in the forums. If you must discuss further your personal grievances with another resident, please utilize the more appropriate methods, such as private messages on the forum or instant messages or chat in-world.

That said, this thread has gone beyond the point of useful discussion and for that reason it is being locked.