I'm Not A Linden!

I have no comment.

Shut up me!

Maybe you were a Linden in beta

Thanks Nolan, I read it and appreciate what you've said there.

Well no, this doesn't prove anything at all. It was a feeble attempt to satisfy the original conspiracy theorist over on the blog that I am not a Linden, by his suggestion of making it public knowledge here. Although not known to me, he can't even read this as it is. I was not clear on the ban situation.

This is not a disguised ad for the forum, see my point above. In fact, I'm killing my signature after I hit submit. Since the original post had no link back to the forums or the website in the main text, killing my signature should help prevent any future consequential click through to my place. And hopefully dissolve the suggestion of intent here.

I admit that I joked about this on the other forum, wondering if I could get away with placing an Ad in this forum, because other's had before. But I didn't plan on actually doing it. This was just bad timing, the whole blog thing, and me trying to "prove my innocence."

I realize you've been stung, Suezanne, and I'm responsible for opening up a place where that was allowed to happen, and I'm sorry. But the passing comment as to the intentions of this original post is wrong. Though, I suppose, it's not far fetched by any means.

Just wanted to clear that up.

I know you must hate me, Cristiano. And I don't blame you.

My apologies to you and to everyone else who has been "roasted" or made fun of or called names or otherwise hurt.

I had good intentions with this place.

Unfortunately, you have a troll infestation, and it's not going to help your board's image in the long run, although I don't know what you can do about whilst still maintaining an atmosphere of freedom.

You do know that many people think "FIC.TIONAL" is one of the entities running things over there don't you? I know it's come up in some group convos I have been party to quite often. I am fairly sure he is independent of your site, but I am not so sure about others.

As much as I think you're a decent person, I am going to have to agree with Suezanne (which I don't do very often), and say that I think this thread is an attempt to pull people to your forums.

I understand the motivation, for there's really no shame in that, but not the elusiveness when confronted with the charge.

If the highlights of your forums are going to be an anonymous troll, the victim squad, and TMHPL, you're in for a rough ride me thinks. It may pull some drama seekers in at first, but that will taper off as soon as people get bored of hearing the same old shit we've been hearing for a over a year, not to mention FIC's extremely lackluster attempts at satire. Speaking of whom, I guess I was right after all when I guessed who he was... (tell him to use a spell checker if he is going to misspell the same words on your boards as he does on these, because it's fairly obvious when you cross index the misspellings, especially when they aren't on common words, and return search hits here that all point to the same person)

Maybe Moses' elder brother can help him lead the victim squad out of "Egypt", hint hint.

Wow... I was totally unaware that's what people have been thinking. About FIC.TIONAL and others.

I run this thing alone. I guess there's really no way to prove it one way or another. But that's the truth. That goes for FIC or anyone else there. I mean it's clear that posters over there have been nice enough to invite friends and mention the board here and there, but it was completely unprompted by me, although appreciated.



I really don't know what to say Nolan. This wasn't some sneaky ad campaign on my part. PN suggested I make it known publically that I'm not a Linden, and stupid me, I figured I'd take the advice and try and cut off the rumor before it became a bigger issue.

Maybe this would have been more suited for Fansites, sure, I'll admit that. But as far as me advertising the place goes, I've been fairly quiet about it in most cases. Turning to paid advertising through google now to promote the site, as opposed to here.

I'm really not trying to grab the Second Life userbase anymore.

Originally, yes, I meant for this to be a Second Life fansite/forums. But it became clear to me that I could do more with it, and opened it up to MMOG players in general. I made my final advertisement in Fansites about the change, hoping to pursuade a few more Second Life players to represent us over there. And that was to be my last promotion here.

I'm not being elusive at all. Maybe it was my mistake to not first cut off the signature before posting. I didn't think of it at the time because PN had me in a frenzy with all the comments made towards me. I've never had that kind of aggressive move pulled on me before. It rattled me. I rushed into posting this, yes. Probably not the right move.



The idea behind the forums at first was just another alternative forums for people to hang out in. I tried to pay attention to what I thought it was that people wanted here, and then tried to provide it, thinking I could fill in some holes.

Taking into consideration some of the things people disliked here, like the moderation issues and something I actually got excited about and now feel like a total dork for (begging coders to write me an add on that would allow forums to be reply and no bump, like some people wanted here), I really just wanted to have a place that I could provide some of the things people were asking for.

I originally had it so that people had to sign up for the forums through some complicated in world script that I screwed up completely (Sorry Gabe!), which would then verify that they were an SL Account holder.

Even after I fixed the script, no one was doing it. I had multiple registrations with names that I could not verify through in world-find, who for some reason or another refused to go click the script box!

Eventually I saw this as a hinderance, and I pulled it. And it all eventually boiled down to letting people register quickly and without hassle. Hence the eventual no email validation, and no cross checking of SL Accounts.

This became impossible to reverse when I started advertising for other MMOG players, as I cannot possibly sign up for all those games and validate people even now.

I opened up a can of worms, and I guess I'm going to have to eat them.

I'll mention it to him, sure. Although I'm sure he will have read this thread at some point anyway.

I wish I could figure out the Moses reference, lol, it went way over my head.

Oh my "I have no comment" was about being a Linden I don't hate you in the slightest, Alexander, or have any hard feelings against you. You are making an effort at establishing a site, and you have no control really who takes up residence there and they alone are the ones responsible for what they say. Even if you are doing double duty as FICtional, I still would have no hard feelings.

I had a similar problem with the SLU forums - I worked so hard to establish an alternative to the main forums, which at the time were really severely limited at edited much more heavily. One of the first people to become a regular poster on my site tested the limits of free speech over and over again - every time she seemed to find a new line to cross. It is very easy to say "I'm going to make a site where people can speak freely" and then really supporting that once you see what people actually will talk about when left to their own devices.

Ultimately, it is your site and you can determine the tone you want for it, but you can't really control what happens overall. My main reason for not participating in it was a conscious decision to not respond to any of FICtional's posts, which seemed nothing more than a calculated attempt to drive traffic to your site. After fighting way too long of an endless battle with certain people, it is just not worth it to even respond to any of it, especially someone who hides behind an anonymous name. That's fine, a site needs traffic, and I am a public figure by choice and can take anything slung at me with a sense of humor. However, when 90% of the content on your site is from the same person, with the same one note digs at people and a middle school level sense of humor, it gets very old very quickly. It is a shame that people like Gabe Lippmann and Sable Sunset have their posts lost amongst the deluge of crap.

Good luck with your forums.

I'm delighted to see such a highly polished alternative to the official SL forums. More choices for SL's residents can never be a bad thing, and it would seem that Alexander is pouring a lot of heart into the new forum.

That said, the alternative he is offering doesn't exactly appeal to me personally. While I oppose some of the technical details of the ResMod system, I'm actually very happy with forum administration on the SL forums overall. We have nearly unlimited freedom here to criticize Linden Lab and any of its employees or policies. We are also permitted a lot of freedom to criticize each other as long as the level of discourse and civility doesn't descend below a level that I would find undesirable anyways.

There are those in these forums who feel unfairly picked-on or feel they have no outlet to unleash vicious and deeply personal attacks against other residents. These folks will look at the sanctuary you provide as a breath of fresh air! The rest of us, however, have little motivation to subjugate ourselves to that environment when we have the freedom and order we seek right here on the official forums.

Ima gonna go bitch about Barnesworth there. Gonna be grrrreeaatt!!

Cristiano, I appreciate you saying this.

Even though I know you meant nothing by it, I just want to make it clear for others reading that I am not FIC. I honestly wish I knew who he was. Or why he chose my board to come do this on. Or why it wasn't this aggressive or outspoken if he is or was on other forums previously.



I hear you completely about the situation with that. And I feel backed into a corner at the moment. I truly want to keep the freedom of the forum and the relaxed moderation. But even my patience is wearing a little thin right now.

As much as I'm trying to be a good host over there, and being a person that likes to provide something when there's a request for it, even now I'm trying to reel the place back a little with some changes.

FIC asked for a lot of custom forum categories over there. And at first I was okay with that. There hasn't been a request on there yet that I haven't filled for anyone who's asked, and I didn't want to stop providing. But I'm now starting to pull that back in. Or trying to. And I've gotten rid of several of the additional drama forums, as I don't want that to overcome the rest of the normal forums which I very much want to see flourish.

I'm taking gentle steps though. But I have ideas. And of course now it's very important to me that people lurking on the site from other online games don't wander over and wonder what the heck everyone is talking about since the drama threads are very Second Life specific. I have seen several registrations from people who have identified themselves as gamers from other worlds who have yet to post. Probably due to confusion and probable horror once they see how things appear to be working.

Not exactly the first impression I want to make.



I completely understand your non-participation. And during week after week of new posts about this individual or that, I was silently adding names to a make believe list of people that would never visit for very understandable reasons. It was frustrating and sad to say the least. I could see the userbase getting smaller and smaller before it even had a chance to grow.

FIC definitely drove traffic to the site, I'll give him that. But it's not quite the traffic (or response) I was aiming for.

And I agree about the less useful content taking front row when that rant forum was supposed to be a diversion from posting crap into the other forums.

It's ironic that I created the rant forums originally in the hope that it would help enable the light moderation over there (figuring everyone could just vent in that forum and keep the other forum discussions civil). I never would have expected it to have become what it has become today.

Thanks for the kind response Cristiano. It's much appreciated.

Hold off on that ... I'm opening www.BarnesworthIsABigPoopieHead.com

i'm sure alexander wasn't trying to invite people over to www.secondcitizen.com, but i am.

Excuse me, Aimee. Talk about damning with faint praise. If that, even.

I am one of those who looked at Alex's forums as a breath of fresh air. It is true that I don't feel freedom on these forums, due for one thing to the simple fact that I got a warning here for simply defending myself, while some can tell me and others to f**k off, etc., etc., as much as they like, with no warning - you know all the kinds of things that are said as well as I do, and who they are said to. But apparently you, personally, aren't aggrieved by that incivility at all, nor is your personal sense of freedom and order tainted by it whatsoever.

It isn't the level of civility per se - or lack of it - per se that bothers me, Aimee, so much as it is seeing rules, expecting them to be upheld, and gradually, over time, figuring out that there was never any intention to uphold them.

Worse, it is knowing that the deck is stacked - that the rules sometimes apply and sometimes don't, and apply absurdly rigorously to some people and hardly at all to others. That is exactly the sort of situation most humans find psychologically untenable. Either have the rules, or don't have them, but have them apply to everyone. Hopefully this will improve over time.

Meanwhile, yes, I do love that breath of fresh air afforded on www.secondcitizen.com. It is nice to be able to talk back without people anxious to AR me on the flimsiest of excuses. So why don't you run over there, Aimee, and soak up some of those "vicious and deeply personal attacks against other residents" I have unleashed?

coco

Let's call a spade a spade here, Mother Theresa. "Shut up Ingrid" and "Bite me Ingrid" are personal attacks. Start having some accountability for how to you talk to people and maybe you won't feel the need to rush off to bitch about how you're being treated unfairly when the mods here call you on your less than civilized behaviour.

We can have this conversation off of the forums. It isn't, in the first place, what I got a warning for. And in the second, I'd just as soon battle you over this one without holding the whole forums hostage to my description of your behavior which you have apparently lost all memory of. If you'd had some accountability for yourself back then, I wouldn't have told you to bite me.

coco

It's interesting that you immediately assumed she was talking about you making the personal attacks, Cocoanut. Your posts on the site have been fine - I imagine it is the same trite shit from Prokofy that she was referring to, who made a predictable appearance to trot out the same lame attacks he has been making for over a year. Same shit, different forum, this time with FICtional trying to egg the whole thing on. Talk about a cesspool.

When I said "shut up and bite me, Ingrid", I was flirting.

I, also, would like to confirm that I am not a Linden. Yet. The day is coming when they will need an expert with vast business knowledge on their payroll though. At that point, I'll probably go pro (Linden).

No, I did not immediately assume that, Cristiano. It's interesting how you didn't actually read her post.

I give you her paragraph:

"There are those in these forums who feel unfairly picked-on or feel they have no outlet to unleash vicious and deeply personal attacks against other residents. These folks will look at the sanctuary you provide as a breath of fresh air! The rest of us, however, have little motivation to subjugate ourselves to that environment when we have the freedom and order we seek right here on the official forums."

coco

P.S. And anyway, as far as I can tell, Prok doesn't like F.I.C. and hated the roast F.I.C. did on him!

P.S. I, however, like F.I.C. Due to Nolan's adeptly dropped clues enabling us to hopefully out who F.I.C. really is (and Nolan is good at that), I'm off on a search through the forums now to figure out who it is I actually like, probably to discover he is a complete enemy of mine under his real name! lol

Yeah I'm sure you'd prefer me not to pipe up about this at all because it proves that you're not the saint you'd like everyone to think you are. You're as bad or worse than other posters I've seen here. Just because I didn't report it, doesn't make it less of a personal attack.



I don't recall ever have told you to "bite me" or to "shut up".

You can blame everyone else for your babyish behaviour forever, but you're not doing yourself any favours. And you're not fooling anyone.

This is good !

I did read the first part of the sentence as dealing with you, and then there is that neat little word OR - I did not assume both parts of the sentence applied to you. You have been very candid about feeling unduly picked on in these forums, and that part of the appeal of those forums is not being constantly under seige. I don't think the second part of the sentence was aimed at you, however - I think you are reading too much into it.