The War of the Jessie Wall: Comments, Corrections, Reflections, Corrections

Well, if I knew you'd quote me as much as you have (did you guys not talk to him?!), I might not have lingered so long to tell my story

Anyway, I do appreciate the way the story is turning out so far. I gotta be honest with you here, I was expecting a horrible bias against us. Then I read the article, and now I can't believe the fun we had! Not to sound corny or anything, but I'd give a week's wages for the one night we strong-armed Beau Domino for land recovery. That was a shining moment, and I wish I'd gotten screenshots. Did you talk to him? I'd love to hear what changed his mind so abruptly to comply with us

Anyway, there are some details you left out I'd like to mention:

Where you quoted me (and let me point out just which one!) as saying, "Nah, we've said worse," you neglected to mention the word Darkwave (ooops, can I ID him? ) had colored his sentence with, "I was just f**cking with you guys."

I had taken you to mean had we been offended by the "F" word. Apparently, we had a miscommunication, and it came off that I'd said we'd told worse lies :/

Anyway, keep quoting me like you have been and I'll never hear the end of it from mien komraden!

Just a minor clarification:

The situation between myself, Davada and Catherine occured in Shipley, not Stanford.

Bye bye for now,
Alexis

I play german.

I want to thank Hamelt for clarifying why that wall was there when you go into Jessie. I just started playing right after the game was released, so that was before my time. I flew over Jessie, and wondered why there looked like a bridge for a superhighway there or something. It gives all of the people who have just recently joined a background for some things in the world we didn't understand.

Keep up the good work Hamlet.

Ah, thanks! Parts VI-X to come starting tomorrow, when things over the wall really start heating up...

Enjoying the series, so far, Hamlet.

I would like to make one observation about something you wrote in Part VI: "...the only political statement near the Jessie wall was a rather non-controversial one (in the US, at least) in support of Bush and the American troops still in Iraq."

It is not true that this was non-controversial. For some of us, this was a VERY controversial statement. This was an engineered statement designed to silence any protest against Mr Bush's plans to kill many people – ours and theirs. It was a notion spread throughout most commercial networks - even news programs - that anyone not supporting Mr Bush was purposely trying to sabotage the efforts of the individual soldiers. Any protestors were – at BEST – stooges for Sadaam, and probably intentional traitors against America and God. There were many situations where people displaying that very sign called (shouted) for the arrest, and execution, of all protestors.

[On Edit: I suddenly felt the need to jump back in and let those who may not know me learn that I really am NOT a traitor. I served my country for 5 years, and received an honorable discharge from the Air Force. Two of my sons have served as well. I am deeply proud of my country and have born arms in her defense. I have never had any dealings with any agent of any enemy government. And I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the Communist Party. And I have never wished a moment's harm against ANY soldier - ever. Sheesh, I can't believe I have to say all this these days in America!]

I’ll leave aside the question of how appropriate it is to bring that kind of propaganda into an alternative environment like this. That’s a good question to hash at some night when you aren’t feeling too restrained by your role as reporter to speak honestly. But I did find the preponderance of those particular signs – in their dozens – coupled with the shouting and shooting I’ve already mentioned – to be quite alarming and evocative of some strong emotions. And I felt especially singled out since I hadn’t protested a damn thing inside this game.

So, I’d just like to speak up for myself, and other folks who might have felt a bit threatened by such an extravagant display of such a loaded directive. It was not non-controversial. And it was very clear, on the wall, that it was meant to do more that simply express personal patriotism. It was meant to threaten and silence any alternate opinion.

Now, I doubt that I will get any comment on what I’ve just said. Most of the people involved in that display never denied that they intended to suppress the other side. Their statement has always been that they have the RIGHT to suppress the opposition. I won’t disagree with them here. That’s for another day.

But please don’t brush past the message of that wall and it’s numerous signs. It had a lot to do with the emotions that both sides brought to the conflict. And your light touch here makes me a bit nervous that the next installment is going to portray some of us as acting rather inexplicably and capriciously

There was nothing ambiguous – for anyone involved - about the message on that wall. It was all about opposition.

"someone figured out how to toss so many grenades at once, that it caused the entire simulator to go down."

:: Blush :: Sorry, the problem with the sim was unintended.

The massive body count wasn't.

Still KOS in Jessie,
Oracle Omega

first off you dont know the full story,there was originally 1,just 1 small simple sign on someones own property in jessie with that support the troops sign.

and tell me,how is 1 sign suppressing you?

no one ever intended to suppress anything with a single patriotic sign,its like flying the US flag,the fact you disagree with the message is your issue not his.

the fact is it was NOT a controversial sign,he did not see it that way,it was simply a statement of support for our armed forces.

but the dozens you speak of came later,the walls was our graffiti wall,there were no political messages on it,then enter woopm skidoo.

he put up a few dozen anti bush childish photoshop images all over the wall covering everything we had up.
that is when we put up our own dozens of signs simply to cover his up.
he knows us well and put those up to directly insult us so we covered them up.

i suppose we couldve covered them with non political messages yes,but well we were angry,woopm skidoo was not only the biggest thron in our side in second life but he was doing the same on our own forums.

so when he did that we just got angry since we were already angry at him.

aswell anyone who died at that time in jessie to random killings i can assure you it was most likely woopm skidoo.

myself and almost all other wwIIoler's never shot unarmed people passing through.

oh and btw hamlet one small correction,woopm's red globe was NOT bullet proof,it simply made it harder to hit him.

though myself i got around that trouble and mustve killed him around 100+ times in jessie,and no matter what he would always come back to kill randomly.

many of you folks who had problems with us should know,they all stemmed from woopm skidoo for the most part.

My first day in SL I was shot while flying unarmed over Jesse and it happened several more times when I went back to find out why I was getting shot at. Finally one of the residents apologized and told me it was just one person who was doing this, explained the existing situation and got the individual to stop.

Woah woah woah Hamlet! Have to correct this time too. I put up one sign that said "Leftist". One sign. And that's all it said. And the number of signs was one. Not two, or three or DOZENS or a LINE of signs, but ONE.

Any questions about how many? And I took it down shortly thereafter - after talking to a resident in Jessie who claimed it justified his shooting me. I took it down, Not that I could see it without digging under all the Bush signs, but I took it down - that one sign.

One sign, Hamlet. And I swear I made that point a few times when you and I talked, though I'm sure there were so many signs flying around that you may have missed that fact in your notes.

Once again - ONE sign, for several hours.

Thanks.

Kathy, much of your concerns are already covered in later episodes-- please stay tuned!

Wouldn't miss it

I just have to comment about that one part because I played a large role in it and really regret it now.

Hamlet mentioned that people were going around putting blocks with the noise tanks symbol around the sim. I had a part to play and feel bad about it

Also, he mentioned grenades that crashed the sim. That was ALSO me. Correction to make they never crashed the sim, they just lagged it. Luckily, I am passed that point in my second life. I am now a child of the lag-free

After going back to what happened, I feel that we made a big mistake fighting this war. It was pretty pathetic to do it. If I could change what I did, I would have never done what I did in Jessie. It was a war we never should have faught.

Well, ok, now I'm not even sure why I was included in this story Sort of like including a short quote from one of Ms Leary's other cows at the Chicago Fire - on an unrelated topic

BTW, it's "Yippie!"

And it's prankster - not Prankster. I was too young to get on the bus at the time

Thanks, again, for the story

i agree with kathy here.

a few things unmentioned on my portion are that i had no affiliation with.. what did you call him? gadfly? i met him once after things calmed down. also even though i was a brief member of kathys group, i wasnt really a member there either. I got an invite one day when i logged in and that was the extent of my membership. when i was being attacked for being a member i dropped it. the signs were causing enough excitement.

also after being repeatedly attacked and cussed at a few of us did talk under linden supervision. they tried to convince me to take down my signs while at the same time buying land around mind so they could cover up again. i told them id take mine down if they took theirs down but they said they couldnt and i said the same. when i heard the gov was cleaning the wall i went and took mine down voluntarily.

another note is the wall was never owned by the wwiiol guys. it was always linden owned. that the lindens allowed it to go on so long is a mystery. build anywhere else on linden land and its usually swept away in no time.

hamlet you're alright but it kind of feels like the wwii guys are the backbone of the story and not the wall as your title suggests. seems like the other players in the events are side notes. im not sure if youre trying so hard to be unbiased that you are appearing biased or of you really do have a leaning here.

regardless, it is still an interesting story. not sure all the facts will ever be heard with so many gone. i was lucky i still had forum access to comment.

Suede,it was a fact the guys you talked to could not take down the signs.

First off all the original signs put up were by me.

Now you said that a differing opinion was the reason for your signs right?

Well had i taken donw my signs then gadfly's(aka woopm skidoo/kippler on our forums)wall of dozens of anti bush signs would be there.

I personally asked him to remove them because i did not want the wall of signs there but he left me with no choice,we know him and he put them there for the purpose of provoking us.

He refused to take them down and he went a step further he later came back into jessie when no one was around and covered my personal property with his signs.

I took those down easily,but he saw that and came back and put up a half dozen more just outside my land so it took 3 days for them to decay to public before I could get rid of them.

We did not start it,we did not want it there,we had no message to convey mostly,and we had no intentions of causing any problems with other SL players.

I simply put them up as opposition to woopm's signs.

Again I say this had woopm never played then we would have all gotten along fine after the move to jessie.

He accounted for most of the random killings that people complain about,including us,he prevented us from gaining another about 15 or so members who complained on our forums of entering for the first time and just getting shot immediately and repeatedly.

He was the reason davada developed the sentinel gun so we could have a weapon to keep him out of jessie even while we were not on.

I apologize for the whole situation,but when i put up the signs i really did not expect ot stir up anything,it was more of a return slap to the face to woopm skidooand was meant to be funny more than anything else.

Had I known it would cause trouble at the time I'd have covered his signs with something not political in nature,but either way thanks to him being childish and dragging his differences with us into SL there would've been a wall there either way.

hey where's the next installment?

Boom, showtime. Ask, and you SHALL RECEIVE. (Props to Jim Linden, webmaster extraordinaire.)

summary of "The War of the Jessie Wall": a lot of people were really childish and then it ended.

do we really need a ten-part series of articles about it? seems like much ado about nothing. people like to act like online games are a big new virtual world where all the rules are different or maybe we're evolving toward some completely new form of society. human nature doesn't change just cause you look like a demon or an anime character or just cause you fly and teleport instead of walking or driving. inside we're all the same people and human relations are always the same. the war of the Jessie wall wasn't anything unusual or new. it was the same old thing that's happened millions of times when 2 groups run into each other and have different goals and don't value each other.

p.s.: props to our Hamlet who has an article in this month's Game Developer magazine about the link between indie films and indie computer games.

I actually enjoyed reading this series. I think all of us could learn a thing or two about how to act/react in similar situations.

The worst thing that could happen now, is if we all just walk away from this incident and forget it.




Bob Bunderfeld

"We talk about Kathy Yamamoto, with whom they've had more than their share of political arguments with. "The thing is with me," Syank Nomad fumes, "I told her there are probably many issues I would agree with her on, because believe it or not I have a lot of liberal opinions on issues. But she still called me a fascist."

"Without quite thinking it through, I say, "What if you guys talked right now, if she came over?" chaunsey Crash is agreeable, "Though I think we've got a few guns tracking her." (Because they suspect she was part of the vandalism on the WWII Online museum, they've rigged gun turrets that automatically home in on her, whenever she nears.)"



Just a minor correction to what I think was simply an overly tight editorial compression. My calling Syank a "fascist" (did I EVER say that?!?!) was NOT the final step in that relationship (and I think Syank will back me up on this). Syank may recall that I did take his attempts to actually TALK to heart, and that there was a peaceful outcome (similar to the one in this story), followed by several peaceful visits to his land in Jessie. He may also recall that on a few of those visits, things shortly turned nasty and OTHER folks (not Syank) accused me of vandalizing their museum. He may FURTHER recall that I never blamed him for these later attacks.

I'm not in the habit of calling people names, and if I DID call him a fascist (are we sure this was me?) then I apologize. Especially since it isn't even an accurate word. Fascism has to do with a centralized dictatorial government. I am surprised if I used that word. Perhaps one of the soldiers said that word and I failed to lecture him with the correct usage? At any rate, if I said it, I apologize. A more appropriate word would have been "bully" or "thug" - certainly not "fascist."

As it stands now, I have absolutely no bones to pick with Syank. I still hesitate to stand with my back to him, and his lack of interest in a leadership role during this episode of thuggery in Jessie makes me worry that he might not be a reliable mediator if things heated up again. Otherwise, I have no issues with him, and would be very glad to cooperate in any efforts to help him if he DOES decide to assume a leadership role in Jessie. I have no worries about potential fascism.

And, as for the accusations that I've vandalized the museum, I can only say "ridiculous." Those accusations were born from the fact that I was visible and vocal, plus the fact that they couldn't figure out who the sneaky vandal was. If they'd have stopped and thunk for a sec, they'd have realized that not only is vocal and visible not usually the same kind of person as sneaky, but that I'd have had no need to to stroll in for my daily shooting and abuse if I was successfully getting my revenge at night by deleting chunks of building. Besides, I've been around long enough to know there are logs, and that this kind of activity would be pretty apparent on the logs. As it stands, I was never asked to account for any of my time or actions by the Lindens in this fiasco.

And how would vandalizing this building (which I have toured - AND donated to) benefit me in any way? Are they saying I'm too thick to keep my own goals in mind? I fail to see how damaging their building would get people to stop calling me a Commie or stop them from locking me out of the sim.

[In fact, I HAVE noticed how beneficial it was for their "cause" to have suddenly become the "victims" of rampaging liberal ninjas, or whatever, and how they never seemed to be able to pin-point the occurrences sufficiently so the Lindens could find the culprit in the logs. But THAT is just as much paranoid speculation as their claim that I was a vandal, and I am not going to go the extra step to accuse them, since I DON'T accuse folks of stuff I only SUSPECT them of doing.]

I still think the "vandalism" was either an inside job - one of the group using their group editing rights - or the result of server crashes that, in turn, were the result of setting those gun turrets to kill a particular person who might try to enter the sim - killing them 20 times per minute without end if they have Home set in Jessie. In a strange way, I wonder if their own guns could be the cause of the building's difficulties. But, hey, I have no idea. So, I can only add this one fact to the mystery - I didn't vandalize anyone's building.

I really believe the "kill Kathy Yamamoto" plasma cannons were set to attack me because the owners were angry and reactionary - and NOT for some sort of property protection as the article implies. There were several times when I would visit, be shot or called names, apparently frustrating people because I didn't die properly or thoroughly enough, and THEN the cannons would be turned on - for days and days. Sometimes they would accuse me of vandalism at THAT point, like I had time to vandalize while being chased by plasma balls, but - oddly enough - they would never lean TOO heavily on that being the reason I was being locked out of the sim. Usually it was some sort of quasi-justification like their (eroneous) belief that I wanted them to stop shooting people and they didn't want me there bothering them about it. I'm not sure how that (untrue) justification correlates with needing to lock me out of the sim when they aren't even logged on, but what the hey, I'm not going down that road again.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I have never vandalized NUTHIN! And I have NO problems with Syank. And I do NOT think he's a "fascist." And I didn't CARE if he had "liberal" ideas of his own - I simply appreciated that he tried to speak to me with some respect (which is ALL I EVER ASKED of anyone in Jessie). And locking me out of the sim was NOT an appropriate response to ANYthing I was accused of - even if I WAS a vandal, I should have simply been reported to the Lindens - not specially targeted 24/7 with suppressive cannon fire.

And, perhaps my major point, the whole thing was pretty much water under the bridge until these articles came out.

Disregard my previous post. I'm always grumpier when I'm at work

I do NOT mean to start a conversation on this topic.

great article hamlet!


Kathy actually the article makes it sound as though we believed you were the one who deleted the pieces of the building.

That is not true though,see at the time among alot of our guys you had a reputation,you were sorta the most prominent "enemy" left.

So many of the mroe casual guys who didnt have alot of knowledge about what went on between all of us and you had seen you around the building clicking on parts of it and so they assumed the worst.

I never suspected you and I dont think syank did either,and had told everyone who accused you exactly that.

Infact we were at one point very sure we knew who it was and at the time I was extremely close to wiping his building off of secondlife in revenge heh.

Besides,after the first stuff was deleted it all ended cause I decided to lock every object which i was reluctant to do since i had a building partner early on.

Thanks Kathy.. Although I have much fewer words and playing time because of real life, I appreciate what you have to say..

I wish this whole episode could have been avoided, blame rests with each side.. I miss the other wwiiolers who left because of this episode and who wrote the game off..

For me it was a nice escape from the OT forums when they got too polarized, and wwiiol got boring.. Now it's just a couple of us who saw that the game actually had something to offer even though we did not get as warm a reception as we wish we had..

Thanks, Guys