Petition and Poll: Reinstate CrisMid

Signed.

coco (Strawbearry Shortbread)

You can't break the rules.

No matter who you are.

Sorry folks, thats the way it is.

Signed.

This is not merely a matter of poor judgment.

The reputation has become one of uneven and subjective application of the rules, uneven issuance of sanctions, favoritism and unprofessionalism.

/signed

I read the original post and responded to it. In the past, (the great permission debacle comes to mind) the forums has been the last resort for getting a serious exploit dealt with. I think Chris' post was appropriate.

One reason to protest the suspension that I don't think anyone else has brought up is that they are cumulative and escalative - resulting eventually in a forum ban/SL ban. I'm not saying Chris is going to go on a spree, but there is no reason to use up his "levels of spanking" where not warranted.

More accurately, you /can/ break the rules, you just can't /avoid/ the consequences that are specified by the ToS, no matter who you are.

I can do anything /possible/ I $expletive well please, but being responsible is knowing and accepting the consequences of one's actions.

And - in my sole opinion - the way to get over a reputation of subjective application of the rules, uneven issuance of sanctions, favoritism, unprofessionalism, etc - is to apply the rules to everyone, regardless. What he did violated ToS. He was disciplined. There's nothing in the ToS that describes what disciplinary action is appropriate for what violation, and IMNSHO, warnings are used where there's reason to believe that someone may not be familiar with the rules or committed a technical infraction from which no conceivable harm might originate. Neither is the case here.

What LL did was fair/just, /under the ToS/. It failed to evidence favoritism, subjectivism, or unprofessionalism. It may have been uneven but that is a matter of history and if they are trying to change their reputation, then history is precisely what they're breaking away from.

Linden Labs is not going to consider /outside/ the terms of service because that is precisely what they /don't/ want to do - evidence favoritism, subjectivism, etcetera.

Now - we can discuss whether the ToS and the way they could be consistently applied, is just according to some outside principle, or whether they're conducive or ultimately significantly detrimental to keeping paying customers.

There's also the point that we'd never be having this discussion if Cristiano hadn't posted on a Linden Labs public forum.

Exactly why I wish that they'd come forward.

It's not impossible to have very very strict enforcement coupled with genuine respect from the forum denizens. The secret is simple: rules clearly laid out combined with good calls from the whole mod team. Quick rectification of mistakes when they happen is also welcomed.

This isn't a matter of favoritism. This is a matter of what's right.

You know, favoritism goes both ways (as Aimee has often said). There is giving people perks and privileges because they are favorites, and there is NOT giving them opportunities just because they are favorites.

Neither is good. The same is true here.

I believe in this case, the punishment was much too strict and crude for the supposed "crime."

coco

Grrr - had an appt. today and got this in late!


Signed! with purple and red and green ink!

Chis broke the rules, and now he's stuck in the Cornfield Hoosegow for a week.

As far as I'm concerned, that's where he belongs.

Absolutely unjust. Signed and wish I could sign again.

signed.

LL can shove their suspension policies up their collective asses.

Oops will I get suspended for that? BOO HOO HOOO

Briana Dawson

Signed. Oh, and according to Eggy's formula for Av name abbreviation it should be CriMid.

signed. we are not powerless:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/08/blly_bragg_myspace/

The example you're citing is where a large corporation, that bought MySpace, changed the terms and condition so that any creative work uploaded to their service became their property - which is something Linden Labs has always been against. Linden Labs did not say "Everything Cristiano Midnight has ever done on Second Life - and everything everyone has made or uploaded to Second Life - is ours."

What happened here was that Cristiano Midnight was banned for /three/ days (not life, not months, three days) for disclosing part of an exploit procedure on the public forums.

signed

Finning, I think you missed the point of my post, which was that restrictive TOS, like the ones tried by MYSPACE, MICROSOFT, APPLE, GOOGLE and LINDENLAB, are subject to user pressure. Quoted from the article:

"Five years ago Microsoft was forced to change a similar, but even more acquisitive click through contract. ...Microsoft retreated after a storm of protest. Redmond wasn't the first to attempt this, nor has it been the last. Apple had introduced a similar click through before retreating. Two years ago Google attached almost identical terms to its Orkut service. That was in 2004, the bloggers' love affair with the ad giant was still untarnished, and very little protest was heard."

Orkut still carries its icky TOS. Many Orkut users have abandoned the service because of this.

article link again: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/08/blly_bragg_myspace/

Seconded.

I've nothing against the man, but he broke the law. What did he expect?

It does not violate the TOS to warn the membership that a dangerous exploit exists. Cris did not state how to perform the exploit, another member provided that information.

Anyone who knows Cris knows he is a fan and supporter of SL and would not act vindictively.

This suspension was harsh and unwarranted. In light of Cris' long time support of LL and contribution to SL, if LL had any question relating to his post, then a warning could have been issued.

You could always sue.

The part of the ToS isn't restrictive - it prohibits people from posting exploits that can be used to steal/grief residents on its' public forums. Despite his intentions, that's what he did. They disciplined him. Restrictive is - for instance - saying that I can't use Skinhead as a first name of an avatar. Ought to be protected speech and doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. It's forbidden because of American racists.

Katy, LL could care less about what a user has contributed.

Here I was, opening the first Island sim shopping center (Galleria City), and LL suspended me while i was in the process of building up the sim. And suspended for a reason that should have never happened if they had a clear policy on suspensions and bannings.

They could careless what a person contributes because given enough time, another person will come along and create what you could have or might have created.

Briana Dawson

*Presses Panda Print firmly*

Signed

I'm getting the impression that actually there are an awful lot of well-meaning and contributing residents who have been suspended, or warned, often for very little reason, with no appeal. After all, not everybody announces it. (Not to mention the fact that I've seen various good residents leave in bitterness over unfair forum treatment.)

I wrote on another forum once how one thing that struck me about the SL forums was how everyone was always unduly concerned about punishments, compared to other games I've played. I'm starting to think that maybe more punishments are handed out in SL (certainly that is true of the forums) than in the other games I've played.

The trouble is, the only people who actually have reason to FEAR those punishments are the very ones who are most involved in, committed to, and invested in SL. Those are not coincidentally the ones who are more likely to speak out sincerely on the forums, and risk getting punished for it. And this same group rarely if ever commits any sort of crime on the game, but in fact are an inordinantly helpful to others, and also, by the way, create the content LL relies on entirely.

(Among these punishments I include the treatment of those belonging to the helper programs, who have devoted hours upon hours to it, and get summarily dismissed because of one forum warning. Without even knowing what it was for! Doesn't happen to all of them, but happens to some of them, which itself is awful. Why LL feels they can throw away these volunteers like so much used Kleexex on so little pretext is a mystery to me.)

Whereas all the throw-away accounts, who have no desire to speak out or improve anything, have absolutely zilch to lose from anything they say OR do.

That's kind of like having a society where the punishments really only ever apply to leaders, the business people, and the other stable citizens in town - who stand up for their beliefs under their own real (screen) names rather than alts, like a respectable community leader would do. They are the ones who are most harshly treated. It stings.

Against the real criminals, those punishments are meaningless and don't affect them at all.

So we have a world here where the citizens LL should WANT to keep are actually the ones getting in a wildly disproportionate amount of trouble for speech crimes - check the police blotter on any day if you don't believe me - and are the ones most often receiving warnings and suspensions. The real criminals in the game have nothing to lose anyway, even when they do get disciplined.

That sucks.

coco

P.S. And the worst thing of all was making the rule that if you are suspended or banned from the forums, you are suspended or banned from the game.

How chilling that is. What fear that causes the very residents who want to talk most about the game, who care the most about it.

And as another poster pointed out, it's bound to result in more punishments, simply because the "evidence" is right here, in words, compared to crimes on the game. That, too, is unfair. It means that saying the wrong thing will in practice be treated with harsher punishment than actual crimes on the game, leading to the unbalance we see on the police blotter.

To take the town analogy a bit further, it's like a man goes to open his hardware store in real life and finds himself locked out of his business because of a letter he wrote to the editor of the local newspaper!

Get rid of that rule!