Your Real-Life Personal Information

You need a lawyerly "including but not limited to". Otherwise people assume that only the specifics you listed apply. (For example, I'll paint words on a texture and stick it on a prim and display it on my land. You didn't say I couldn't do THAT.)

I don't think we residents want LL to pull the suspension trigger every time somebody makes an accusation. Or for that matter, every time some idiot makes an innocent mistake. We need a certain amount of both skepticism and tolerance, or the rules themselves become weapons.

I think that's a pretty good and fair summary Pathfinder.

Even with it spelled out I hope such things will be handled on a case by case basis with the context of the infringement taken into account. On one hand SL is about having the freedom to reinvent yourself, but on the other it's also a public space full of human beings who do human things... like speculate and gossip, with or without any malicious intent. While I believe that people should have a reasonable expectation of privacy, I think everyone should also have a reasonable expectation that what's acceptable in a real world public square should also be acceptable here. Neighbors don't get evicted for chatting about one of their other neighbors' occupation, or speculating about it... coworkers don't get fired for it... it may be impolite to point at a woman on the street and whisper to the person standing next to you that you think she's actually a man, but you won't get arrested and deported for it. Nor should you. How sacred is anonymity in SL? How sacred should it be? I often wonder how much better the internet would be if we weren't allowed anonymity but had genuine accountability for our actions. There's good and bad on both sides of that argument.

I hope that in SL it's always considered impolite and frowned upon to divulge other people's real life details, but I'd hate to see one person's anonymity be considered more important then everyone else's freedom to be a typical human. There's an irrational meme about internet privacy that contends that having your information known online is somehow incredibly unsafe and likely to attract stalkers, thieves, and harrassment. It's no more likely online than it is in any other public place. You're a lot more likely to pick up a stalker at your local mall than you are online. So why don't people wear burlap sacks everywhere to conceal their looks and gender? I believe to a large extent that the safety issue is a red herring. The real issue is to what lengths do we go to protect people's ability to live out their fantasy without anyone knowing who they are? I hope the answer is a long way... but not such a long way that we hold people to an unreasonable expectation that would seem irrational in the real world.

Very well stated; detailed clarification in the TOS would be beneficial to the SL community.

I'm going to respond to this point by point because a great deal of vicious hearsay and distorted beliefs have been put forth here. The ways in which Pathfinder is interpreting and spinning this already indicate he hasn't really studied the problems here in depth. I'm going to send him a detailed e-mail that outline all the ways in which this player has harassed me for weeks, and then the context will become clear.


My First Life profile contains one phrase, and one phrase only, which is DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL. Does that remind you of any presidential election slogans? I hope so. DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL MEANS DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL. It's an army slogan, a half-assed way of dealing with gay rights, but it is one I could adopt in a game where I have no protections, correct? So I did. DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL MEANS DON'T ASK DON'T TELL.

There is NOTHING in my profile about my real life in the game. Here on these forums, I added "New York" to location merely as a convenience for others to see a rough time zone. But I do not have anything here in my forum panel, or in my game profile, that links me to my RL information.

Those trying to portray me as having done that as some kind of undermining of me or these principles have to get off that tactic. My blog, in my game profile, does NOT link to my RL info. My RL info is NOT on that blog intentionally.

If some player uses google, pokes around looking under HTML scripts or Jpegs uploaded or whatever the hell they do to procure RL information, or use whatever methods they want to grab this stuff, that doesn't take away from the primary point.

MY GAME PROFILE AND MY BLOG DO NOT REVEAL MY RL INFORMATION.



I did not, so please stop trying to make that some sort of claim by putting this sort of elaboration up here, implicitly undercutting my efforts to protect myself here. Instead of making a swift, clear-cut read out that someone has posted my RL information and has clearly violated the TOS and should be suspended, you are fiddling around with trying to find the 101 ways in which you can back out of this.



My SL-related website, with my SL avatar name DOES NOT have my RL information on it. If someone somehow clicked around on jpegs, or on related sites holding jpegs, or doing whatever the hell they do to troll up this stuff, which is sometimes hard to wipe out, then the point still stands. I DID NOT KNOWINGLY RELAY MY RL INFORMATION ON ANY SL-RELATED WEBSITE.



I have not done that.

In the above cases, publically talking about any of this information in a way that links it to someone's SL identity is not a privacy violation, since the individual has directly linked this information on their own.



Why did you not open with that point, Pathfinder? That's what is at stake here. Malicious individuals, just a few of them, one motivated by personal baggage, another motivated by hatred of my forums, are working these rumours and using them to force me out of the game. I will not be forced out of the game. I have a pretty tough hide. But you need to protect your game better from such malice, and create better methods of dispute resolution and better, more refined methods of punishment that really get at the problems.

Nobody should be allowed to sit on a forums and taunt their victims for hours after a wrist slap. Given the more serious messages I sent you *yesterda* you should have just suspended the player pending analysis. You do that *very handily* in other cases. So honestly, I don't get the uneven performance here.



Please put in language about "knowingly" and "with consent" becuase what all these fucktards on here are doing -- and I knowingly and deliberately call them fucktards -- is claiming that because they can fool around with a link related to a link related to a jpeg or an account information hidden somewhere, that I have "posted my RL information".

I have NOT posted my RL information. It is not posted with my consent. There are good reasons for that. I don't know why this needs to be repeated. But I want it on the record.

Not everything is about you, Prokofy. Your situation here brought up a discussion about the TOS, and Pathfinder posted what he felt were example situations for the discussion at hand and clarifying language on LLs policy.

Chip,

While I agree with some of what you said I have to speak up on a certain statement you make and call you on it.

Specifically,

"There's an irrational meme about internet privacy that contends that having your information known online is somehow incredibly unsafe and likely to attract stalkers, thieves, and harrassment."

Are you actively involved in computer security and forensics? If not then thats a naive position to take.

Stalker to the extreme 0_o I'd do something in RL, usually you can get some money or a good giggle when he gets like 4 years in jail. ^_^ Just my thoughts.

This is offensive. This post is reported.

Buster, the rules can and DO become weapons.

In the hands of the malicious in particular.

The rules shouldn't be enforced zealously without intelligence.

I'll be the first one to point that out.

But the performance is terribly uneven, and the application terribly amateurish and biased.

I think part of the problem is that like most game companies, SL doesn't really high-end the customer service aspect of the operation. They leave it to telecommuters, part-timers, older players who were dying to get a job at LL and show off their portfolio to use the whole thing as a springboard to their next job. Much of CS is left to older players in the mentor system and the live help system, and we saw how horribly flawed that is, when we see that this TOS violator and abuser of me is in the institution of SL Mentor.

It's like what Khamon Fate said in another post, which really opened my eyes. It's a resume policing operation. There isn't really a long-term solid vision of a world and a society. Not the most basic steps are taken to make it one. Some who come in and try to make it one are slammed miserably.

The people assigned to take care of CS and disputes and TOS violations are new, they turn over frequently, they are stressed, they are harried and nickeled and dimed to death with a million sob stories about weapons and av pushes and sexual assualt. As a person doing CS all night myself, I fully sympathise.

They need to get their act together and train the personnel better, have after-action reports built to a standard template, remove this oldbie-Linden liaison problematic connection, get new people more guidance, have policies articulated better in something other than the uneven and spotty "Hot Line" section or the occasional rumour sent around by one person who claims they have "talked to a Linden".

For the Internet, the communications devices in this system really suck. And what they have, they don't use.

For example, couldn't Michael Linden or Daniel Linden or whoever is the most senior Linden (not Philip because his persona itself might detract from the message) get on the intercom and say "Bouncer scripts are a TOS violation. Remove them from your lot. If you are caught using them, you will be suspended." Clear, simple, and consistent.

There needs to be more of an in-game presence that deters, and in-game announcements that remind people that they cannot do this. In most public spaces, there are constant messages like "Do not place strollers on the elevator" or "Please watch the closing doors" but you never get any of that in SL except "Our game is going down, goodnight."

I believe that any attempt to use RL information in SL about a person that is not found in, linked to, or directly concerned with SL, and is not generated by that person with the specific intent to inform other people about him- or herself, is wrong. Ethically, pragmatically, intrinsically, inherently wrong.

Argue the details, "what-ifs", and exceptions all you like. It's wrong, and nearly all of us who are trying to be fair or don't have an iron in this fire know it.

On the other hand, if you are expressing concern about the negative effects that this incident or any resulting draconian rules might have on free expression, then I think that's a discussion worth having. I worry about that.

edited for clarification

Prokofy... Pathfinders outline was about privacy and SL in general spurred on by your situtation, but it was not about you. That's why, in the opening paragraph, Pathfinder says:


To me, it certainly sounds like general guidelines and not about your case in specific.


If you've registered your domain, someone can find your RL info by doing a Whois search in most cases. It's not difficult and it's public info.

I'm not, and I'm speaking from opinion rather than hard statistics. That said, while being online certainly makes you more prone to online crime (understandably), I'd be very surprised if the number of victims of things like stalking is any higher online than off. In any public space there will be some psychopaths and criminals. That said, if the number is substantially higher, couldn't it be argued that the primary reason is anonymity?

OMG! He found my missing ex!

what she said.

I'm not saying you're wrong. I agree on that.

But to call people a bunch of jackasses (as you did) simply because they are fed up of being kicked in the teeth month after month doesn't make sense to me. Making jokes with each other is the only way to deal with some of the ridiculous, insulting, crap that Prok spews.

Maybe you should bury him better next time

Excuse me, idiots, but I *know* that Pathfinder's post is just a generic post, I *got it* duh that he is dealing with the generic issues, not just my little situation, but I found it VERY USEFUL to go through his thinking step by step and APPLY IT TO MYSELF VISIBLY because his thinking on this, like your-all's, is just sparked by the incident of Nolan publishing my RL information -- MY RL information not YOURS.

So honestly, if you think i'm that stupid that I don't "get it" about more general points and generic issues, go on thinking that, you're hopelessly biased anyway.

But I found it useful to take what he said and immediately set the record straight on his 101 caveats and backouts and clawbacks to their principle.

REALLY Useful. Because SO UNLIKE the anti-gay incident, where three Lindens descended from the skies and removed those signs faster than you could say "Second Life", in this case, they foot-dragged for a day (I sent the notices of the first harassment messages and blackmail implications and pressure tactics to silence me last night.) And when they acted, it was with a little wrist-slap, and not even, because the individual felt perfectly free to go on posturing and taunting forever.

Now we'll have to endure a million posts about everybody's freedom of expression being dinged by this application of a TOS. Sheesh. God forbid you should apply a TOS, except excessively, unfairly, when someone AR'd you with malice, hmmmmmmm???? And not on something real like this?

The damage someone does with a thing like this is incalcuable. The game hours -- days -- weeks -- months that you are repeatedly, systematically, excessively harassed, ridiculed, even physically attacked, are just immeasurable. It starts when someone decides that it is ok to make you less than a human being and calls you "it". And it goes on from there, with everyone piling on.

Could you all just get a grip here? Try to look at the facts. I write posts long enough precisely to get a record. Go back to my first posts. Google my name. And see it is the same six people, no more, really no less, constantly fuming, harassing, trolling, pouncing, aggravating, etc. etc. It's not "the whole community". It's not even "most of the community". In fact, nightly, people IM me and say WTG on the forums, and even posrate.

What is going on here is that at least one new but influential person with a tropism for power, and at least two-three oldbies keen on keeping their privileges without examination, are gunning for me. Pure and simple. Using every tactic in the book. They incite, spread slander, troll for information, get me AR'd, try to get RL information -- the entire nine yards. They attack, physically, verbally, in game, out of game. Can you not see it is all of a piece? And a tiny piece at that, involving really just a few individuals who just made a common cause.

Other than that chronic problem, which I am confident will be resolved as their behaviour gets more exposed, there are the people who just don't like my posts. But those people don't think to escalate it to another stage of harassment and forcing me out of the game, whereas that small group of people do.

I have no doubt that whether it is any one of the dozen "regulars" who harassed me in-game or out, they have all had help in developing their angry hatred of me from one person. And it's been a mutual hate society, and it's fun when you can make a club and keep others out, but this is not second grade.

It's Second Life.

If you've registered your domain, someone can find your RL info by doing a Whois search in most cases. It's not difficult and it's public info.

Juro, it's really getting tiresome.

I did not register my domain!

I have a public website from a company, http://secondthoughts.typepad.com

That's it. The rule works this way. If you did not publish it on your profile, and you did not link to it, it is a TOS violation.

I didn't pubish it.
I didn't link to it.

What you're trying to do is downgrade, diminish, demean, and disintegrate all the distinctions because they apply *to me* and you don't like *me*.

But civil rights in any society have to protect everyone, even the people you find you dislike.

And it is often the case that unlikeable people are the ones who are found at the interstices of rights and duties, found pushing the envelope, found up against the wall, and you have to apply the law fairly to them, even though you dislike them.

I am reminded of Andrea Dworkin's distinction. She explains that when a women files a complaint about date rape, many people pile on and say it's all her fault, she shouldn't have gotten drunk and gone into a coed dormitory with a horny young man. Many people here are making similar arguments. Don't walk on unsafe streets if you don't want to get mugged. Don't criticise people in the forums if you don't want people seeking revenge.

But Andrea Dworkin, who is one of the foremost feminist thinkers, makes this distinction. She says that the punishment for being stupid and getting drunk and taking some jerk home to your dormitory should be a hangover. It should not be rape. Not rape that leads to physical and emotional harm and maybe an unwanted pregnancy.

Someone who takes your RL information and puts it into SL commits a grave violation of your privacy and your person. You tried to keep them separate but your efforts at protection were violated, and violated forever because privacy is not something you can ever put back.

The "punishment" for being pointed and vocal in the forums should be a negrate, or a nasty post in replay or whatever other form of retaliation you think you can slip in under the wire of the TOS.

The punishment doesn't get to be exposing and violating somebody's RL privacy and bruiting it in SL, stalking them in the game, putting signs on their lots, ruining their business reputation, and all the rest of it. Those acts must be punishable under the TOS in a clear and fair manner.

i'm catching this thread very late... but i'm disturbed that linden lab is letting a breach like this result only in an "informal warning".

what nolan did was unconscionable.

The protection of RL information is extremely important, and I hope it is taken seriously. Ultimately the Lindens have access to all chat and IM logs and can verity the truth of the situation, and if any lines were actually crossed, in spite of all the rhetoric going on in this thread. The principle is an important one to protect - having been on the other side of this issue on more than one occasion with my own personal info, I know how violated someone can feel by it.

To clarify something Aimee Weber said, RL information would also not be tolerated on SLUniverse which is clearly stated in the posting policy. I have never had any tolerance for personal info on the site. Openness about Second Life is one thing, and something I am fiercely protective of. Real life information is off limits.

Hey, did you feel that? I felt it. There is a disturbance in The Force. I think the Universal Empathy just went down. Oh my gosh, it did! It did! Shucks, even fewer people will give a shit how Prok feels now, what with that disturbance in The Force and all.

Ahhh.. I gotcha now. My sincerest apologies Prokofy.. I didn't realize that it was from a public company. I've never visited your site, before today. However, I think that info is something you should consider if you ever decide to register a domain and run your own site.

Again, my apologies for the tiresome error.. I am merely an idiot - right?

I'm clear on the concept, thanks.


Agreed, Prokofy. I've been fortunate enough that I've never had to deal with any of this. I can't imagine what would provoke someone into such dastardly acts. I hope this is dealt with appropriately and that you're satisfied with the outcome. I noticed there was a public apology on this matter, at least that's a step in the right direction, no?

An example of your inability to conduct civil discussion.



Yet another example. You simply right-off anyone who disagrees with you, as biased or part of some consipracy.



You are the one who posted his dirty laundry, wholly unable to contain himself until all the facts have been investigated. Yet you seem to play the "lynch mob" card all the time, when it suits you and your dillusions.

I think it is really cute when social misfits try to hide from reality by pretending they know more than they do.



Kindly educate yourself as to the full definition of this word in the context of law.



Kindly educate yourself on the legal defintion of 'highly offensive to a reasonable person'.

When you are finished with that, kindly educate yourself on recent case law regarding violations of personal privacy in the digital domain.

I just love it when some idiot thinks a quick google of terms means more than "grats to thee for knowing how to cut/paste!" I suggest you use Lexus/Nexis for accurate information. Oh, and you might wish to hire someone with actual experience to explain it all to you... you obviously are a few fries short of a happy meal on the matter.

Update: I note this in your 'Public Apology' thread:



I think you begin to understand that, should someone be so inclined, this could very quickly become very much NOT just a TOS violation.

The hard lessons are the ones that usually hold. Let us hope you do not have to learn one.

(Aside to Talen -- read for comprehension -- it isn't the end of May, and the two in question are still gone from the 'people' listings in-world. But hey, you can always put me on ignore. Oh no, wait, that might mean being responsible for your own problems. Silly me. Nevermind.)

Lexis Nexis is probably not the best reference to use on the subject of privacy these days, what with the whole theft of 300,000+ records of personal information from their database thing.