Some bans and suspensions applied only to Linden Land

It occurs to me that some bans and suspensions imposed by the Linden should only apply to Linden owned land.

There is no intrinsic reason why every ban or suspension imposed by the Lindens need prevent the offender from being inworld on land if the land owner has authorized the ban-ee to be on the land.

This would allow a finer degree of control over the punishments the abuse team dispenses and show greater respect for the rights of landowners.

I disagree - the fact that a suspended/banned user can still interact with the world, even though theyre constrained to a parcel is my reasoning. If malicious scripter A is banned for creating a self replicating virus, what's to stop him from making it again and releasing it into the world?

Christopher's response is invalid because it overlooks the important presence of the word "some" in both the header and the body of my feature suggestion.

The Linden staff could decide if an offense merits global suspension or suspension only from Linden owned land.

An example of a situation in which suspension only from Linden owned land would be be if someone violates the PG behavior code imposed on Linden land.

What good though would a Linden-only ban be though? I would hazard a guess that 95% of game content is player owned, not Linden

Brendan Ludd

Wow I thought this too inane to warrant a reply, but let me see if I can clear things up a bit:

How about ground them to their own land. They can log in but they cannot leave their own land. If they do not have land they cannot leave the welcome area?

Problem is, the 'landowners' don't own the land, they are only leasing it. So, it's like living in an apartment complex. If you're kicked out of the complex for bringing a handgun to the swimming pool, you're banned. It doesn't matter that everyone in 'Building-F' will gladly accept you into their apartments until you find a place of your own, you're still banned from the complex.

Unless LL opens the grid to servers owned by a 3rd party, LL will maintain the right to control access to the entire system.

True, but telehubs are Linden land, as are roads...

DoteDote, your analogy is reasonably apt. The words buying and selling are in common use, but leasing is more accurate. Yet so called landowners do have the right to permit people on their land or to forbid them from entering so long as they hold the lease, and the right to permit people on the land they are leasing is part of what they are leasing. If the people they wish to permit on the land they are leasing are not allowed to enter the grid at all then the leaseholders arent' getting full value for their lease payments.

What if, instead of bringing a handgun to the pool, the offense is more along the lines of wearing too skimpy a bathing suit or playing music too loud?

I think in such cases a resident in an apartment complex might be forbidden to enter the pool area unless they comply with rules that pertain to the pool area, but still allowed to continue as residents.

Malachi , the reason that it is so hard to get suspended is that you have to do something bad enough to justify being removed from the game entirely.

If the punishment was less severe, the severity of misdeed needed to justify invoking the punishment would be reduced proportionately.

Perhaps being able to lock out those who chronically and severely violate PG community standards from all PG areas, as deemed appropriate by the abuse staff , while allowing them to enter Mature areas, would also be a good increase in the granularity of response to abuse.

Brendan, a punishment of small severity is well suited to a misdeed of low severity. That is why having the option of restricting someone from a part of the grid is good. It makes it possible to do something about misdemeanors instead of doing nothing because the only punishment you have available is one appropriate for felonies.

If the deed that warrants action is small. The number of times that deed can be done before the Lindens take any action at all. Besides the occasional Linden IM of 'please stop that' or the 'cant we all just get along' speech is greater. This is basically the way on online gaming in general...it promotes tolerance and community. Which is essential in the environment we are given.

The end result is still as TOS is written however. The idea that an individual should receive less punishment because his/her actions where less...drastic, is too arbitrary and open to too much interpretation when forming a policy. The very fact that individual Lindens get to decide on what they think is a hard core offense and what is not, is enough, when dealing with the offenses TOS has as strictly forbidden. They have far too much interpretational freedom as it is. The last thing you want is for someone to be allowed to make a free interpretation on both sides of the issue... is this even a violation and what am I going to do about it today...as opposed to yesterday or an hour ago. Was it even a violation an hour ago ?

'Punishment'..at least in the context of SL, should be crystal clear and uniform. In that way no one easily claim bias or under handedness. Not to mention that in order to implement a enforcement policy in the manner that is being discussed here. Would require a TOS policy with literally 1000s of provisions for individual infringements. It would have to be updated constantly and would be so liberal as to not be 'effective'. Ultimately it would end up including infringements of even the most minor actions...stuff that today you don't even consider an issue. Other then they might annoy you in some way.

The idea of the TOS being enforced in the manner that it is..IMO..is to obtain some transparency and continuity. There are infractions that simply wont be tolerated...period. It sends a clear message. The rest...you the player can work out and if not...then the Lindens will make a call as to if it falls under the catch all clause of 'interrupting others play and enjoyment' or 'disruption of play and community' or whatever they are calling it this week.

Having more rules and regulations is not always a good thing. In this case, I would say that it certainly isn't a good thing. Besides...as SL sits at the moment...the Lindens are having a hard enough time enforcing the policies they have. I would say..wait till they master what they got before we go tossing more on their plate to deal with.

Brendan brings up a point about how little Linden land there is compare to private land.

Maybe it would be good to go ahead and eliminate all Linden ownership of the land, and let all suspensions and bans be determined by parcel owners. The pseudo-collective ownership of land by the Lindens bring about pointless contention about what policies should be enforced and having Lindens administer punishments in the form of global suspensions and bans virtually ensures a very low punishment rate which means a very high successful griefing rate.