Outlaws Semi-Anonymous

I am a griefer. I have transgressed the rules of Second Life and I have been punished for it – thrice. I believe I may be a menace to society and therefore wanted to warn the citizenry of my misdeeds. I am offering this mea culpa of my own free will and without coercion.

My crimes are thus:

1. I at one point teased – in the forums – she-who-shall-not-be-named who was also an abrasive, voluminous poster, for being an abrasive voluminous poster. While I cannot claim credit for causing new laws to be created, I believe that I may have been the first to receive “a forum suspension carries a corresponding game suspension”. I would like to be able to point to the evidence that was used to convict me, but that was expunged from the forums prior to my conviction and notification.
2. My second crime was for a single sentence posted in the forums which I had intended as a parody of someone who – although not a native English speaker – has been known to change voice from “eloquent” to “broken English” for what appear to be reasons of garnering sympathy. The point of my parody was to show that racism can be played in both directions and that if the person in question was switching voice intentionally for the presumed reason that was itself racism. I believe that my single sentence parody was not recognized as parody but was interpreted as racism and intolerance. I also received a game suspension for this infraction. Again, I should like to point to the damning evidence against me, but that too has been expunged from the forums.
3. My third offense was for “Violation: Forum Suspension: Personal Attacks” for which I quite literally have no idea at all to what statement of mine this was attributed. Therefore, I cannot point to the alleged personal attack nor could I even attempt a defense without that information. More importantly, I cannot learn what I had done to incur the judgment of the moderator so I cannot refrain from doing that in the future. Put another way: one cannot rehabilitate himself for conduct that he isn’t aware of.

I neither contest the penalties that I received (three day suspensions each) nor do I find them cruel or unusual punishment. Well, I might contest the third infraction if I knew what it was.

Why am I so branding myself as a menace to society? There is some recent discussion in these forums about Second Life justice, the penalties that ought be meted out, the seeming laxity of response to repeated in-game offenders and marking players with their rap-sheet and I think my case is relevant to that dialog.

I have never knowingly harmed anyone’s in-game experience (okay, some of my first builds were eye-sores, but that was through ineptitude, not intent) nor, to the best of my recollection, ever exchanged even a harsh word with someone in-game; that is not my nature. I will say that I have been vocal in the forums, sometimes strongly advocating a point, at times even teasing someone for holding what I personally thought to be an odious or absurd stance. I’m not prone to profanity, or even “name calling”.

What are my offenses? Making a forum posts that are clearly attributable to me which is viewable by all the “citizenry”, leaves a lasting record, and is open for public comment or censure. Is this different than dropping sim-bombs or shooting innocent players with push-guns, or scamming someone, or stalking or harassing another player? I would like to think so, but do remember this is the belief of a recidivist outlaw and should be viewed accordingly.

What is my point? Given the state of Linden Lab’s application of justice in their forum and 3D world, combined with their policies on privacy and equivalence of forum and in-game infractions, any proposal to flag any player based on their rap-sheet is likely to paint rather minor outlaws with the same brush as repeated, intentional sim-crashers and con-artists.

Now depending on whether you consider my actions to be high crimes or misdemeanors will likely effect how you feel about how broad the brush is. What is undeniable is that Linden Lab has established a world in which justice is so arbitrary, hidden, and contains neither due process nor appeal that they risk exactly what they are most afraid of: that an innocent will be tagged as guilty.

Until such a time as Second Life justice becomes any more transparent or accountable, any flagging of any player does indeed risk improperly branding one with a scarlet letter. These are natural effects of a community of tens of thousands of members operating under a judicial system created for dozens of members. I will address the requirements of judicial changes as the world grows in another post.

I confess too...I own a 4 wheel drive SUV.

Shouldn't this have started "My name is Introvert and I am a griefer." ?

Do you feel cleansed now? I did my confession last night. Maybe we can have a nightly griefer speaker.

if someone is acting an idiot - i call them an idiot

if someone repeating abuses me and people around me - i shoot em with a gun that sends em into the next sim

if some one in this forum takes a stance on a subject that is obviously way over the edge - ill 'fight' back

to the guy that started this thread - do continue to write your opinions n the forums - just dont direct them at a person - i could write here that you are a moronic prat (not true as i dont know you) and that would serve suspension - but if i wrote ' beleive what you have done does count as greifing then blabbered about what u wrote) the people who do this sort of thing are sually the same people that have trouble winning a talant contest that only had one participent' - u have put ur point over that the original persons idea is stupid yet not attacked them personally

(like i said b4 - the above statements used as example are false as i do not know this person)

I accuse myself of the following crimes:
I have seduced Party members of both sexes...
I've been to the proletarian areas...
I deliberately contracted syphilis in order to spread the disease...
to my wife and other Party members.
Together with other agents, I have counterfeited banknotes...
wrecked industrial machinery, polluted the water supply...

I stand here, a victim of the influence of Emmanuel Goldstein.

Guilty on all counts.

I'm glad I was caught. I was mentally deranged.
Now I am cured.

I ask only for you to accept my love of our leader.

I ask only to be shot while my mind is still clean.

Got pissed in Letterkenny
With darlin' sportin' Jenny
Spent me very last penny
And we made it in the press
The husband caught me in the bed
Tried to shoot me in the head
Had to swim the stream to get
The Donegal Express

Kahaya! You f*ck!
Come Hell of high water
I might have f*cked your Missus
But I never f*cked your daughter

Fol-diddle-dee-ahhh

What...you must think you're the first person to ever be punished! How horrible they are, you must be stoned at once, your martyrdom will save us all!


Methinks thou doest protest too much. And from the length of that diatribe, far too much.

That's why LL introduced the 'suspended in forums, suspended in game' rule. To make it *hurt*. Sounds to me like it did too.

That'll learnya.


- Newfie

I completely see your point, Introvert..... however I think the true meaning behind your post might be lost without the context of the other thread.

Unless I am the one that's confused, Introvert is posting this as an illustration of why he disagrees with the idea (from the thread here) to change Abuse Report sanctions to include a public color-coded name tag to indicate ones sanction history in-game.

While I'm a strong advocate of making residents abuse report convictions public knowledge, I agree with Introvert that making it a part of an avatar's appearance is a bit excessive for my taste.

Thing is, I don't even think this whole discussion is even on the table yet from a Linden perspective. Unless I missed an announcement post

Heheh no it's not. It was basically just an idea I tossed out there for discussion.

/glares at Aimee!

See what you've done!

I certainly learned a lesson about bringing up ideas

Aimee I was kidding!

Bring the ideas on! It just gets highly combustable around here sometimes. I say..... a round of Kevlar for everyone!!!

Quite correct. I saw that thread had scattered in myriad directions and wanted to make a point using a case example that I knew all the particulars of. Thanks Travis, for your concision.

As to the "doth protest too much", the irony is that I have an alt, registered under the same name, credit card, home address, that ain't even all that obscure (it was created to "3-up" a group) that was never suspended at any time. So my game play and posting was not affected for a moment. If anything, this only shows that not only is LL justice poorly administered, its sanctions are utterly ineffective as well.

Hehehe yes I know. Even though you disagreed with me, you certainly weren't who I had in mind. You were a perfect gentleman and fine contributor to the discussion

I think he knew that, Aimee. I think we all knew that. You made it quite clear in the other thread who you approved of and who you didn't. But you could just keep on mentioning it anyway, of course.

coco

I agree with this completely. For several years, we have asked for tranparency in the disciplinary process. A disciplinary system where you are punished and not even told exactly what you did half the time is ridiculous, but that is what we have. Combined with the fact that you often have no idea who accused you, any ability to defend yourself, and many times are just told that you violated some vague part of the TOS makes the entire thing a giant joke. We were promised reforms in this, but it remains the same as it always has.

I don't think that names need to be made public. We are customers of a company, we have no right to know what disciplinary actions the company has taken against its own customers, as much as some people might think we do. The police blotter is a weird kind of happy median - you might get lucky and recognize who they are talking about, but 99 times out of 100, you have no idea.

We don't need some early warning system or color coding - what we need is discipline that addresses true problems. Giving someone who swears in a PG sim a suspension is a ridiculous waste of effort, and maddeningly, seems a lot easier to get taken seriously than someone making repeated death threats against someone, even in a profile spelled out with the words "YOU ARE GOING TO DIE BITCH". That doesn't even warrant a suspension. Many of the things people think are such severe "griefing" violations that deserve permabanning are nothing more than minor irritants really , yet those aren't really taken seriously either until the entire grid melts down. It's a strange, strange system of discipline, and it definitely needs revamped, but not color coded.

We have been told that the upcoming resident forum moderators will need to have a perfectly clean rap sheet.

We know the databases that store our inventory records go awry from time to time. Folders get duplicated, items vanish, one person's items appear for no good reason in another person's inventory, the properties of an inventory item change seemingly spontaeously, and so on.

What reason do we have to place more trust in the databases that store our rap sheets than we are justified in having in the inventory databases?

If someone is turned down for the position of resident forum moderator, if they don't remember having received any warnings, wouldn't they need to be able to see their rap sheet in order to contest what seems to them like a database error?

The severity of disciplinary responses is dependent on one's rap sheet. If a response strikes one as excessively severe given the nature of the offense, how can one be sure it is not the result of an previous infraction appearing in the records that they simply did not commit, if they can't see their rap sheet?

I agree entirely with what Cristiano said.

coco

YES!! These problems put the system in disrepute. I have asked many times how can the members respect rules that the enforcers dont seem to respect.

Uneven application of the TOS leads to unpredictability and hard feelings. The secrecy surrounding sanctions and the resulting lack of recourse is absurd. You are right that even without publishing the names of repeated griegers, those accused should at a minimum be told with specificity what they did and when, and have some ability to defend the alleged misconduct.

Its just human nature that being sanctioned for an offense that another escapes sanciton for leads to hard feelings and resentment.

Thanks to those who bothered to read and for the cogent comments of Travis, Cristiano, SuezanneC, and Katykiwi. I'm glad I try not to measure the value of my blatherings in reply counts or I'd seriously have to up the drama factor.

And, ummm... Siggy, huh?

I thought they fixed that?

tisk tisk

???