Suspensions for 'use of alt account...'

I suppose a TOS violation is a TOS violation. I would point out that the users weren't punished for having alt accounts, they were punshied for TOS violations by the Alt. I suppoose if you just don't violate the TOS, the alt account isn't really an issue. And if you do violate the tos, well thats the player violation and not the account, and the player should be punished. If two players share the same credit card, then I gues you have to trust the other player to not act like an asshat?

Travis, thanks for your kind words, and yeah, i do trust them. My nephew did get a 3 day suspension while in the sand box someone pulled out a gun and he thought they were going to shoot him so he shot the guy first. I guess he had an itchy finger. Now he just comes to my land and works on stuff. 18 year olds and their hormones, lol. I have thought teens were disease that goes away with age if you are lucky.

What's to prevent JoSchmo from buying 2 keys and saying the second one belong to his wife? How can you tell who really owns the key? Even if you had to enter a name to get the key, what's to prevent JoSchmo from lying? I really don't see how having a key will help.
If the key had to be purchased, the money a griefer would need to spend might give the griefer second thoughts, but that would be the same thing as eliminating tial accounts. The same effect could be realized by simply getting rid of trial accounts and not having to hassle with keys. I'm not saying that free trials should be kept or eliminated. I just don't see how having a key will help.

Thanks all who have responded.

These are adults. They are not your wards. Would you like to be held responsible if say, you lent your car to an adult friend, and they went berserk in a moment of road rage and rammed the car through a 7-11?

Let's say you lent your credit card to a friend who is traveling. You can authorize others to use your card. I have done it. Now let's say the friend rents a car on that card. They freak out and do something like I mentioned above. Should you also be held responsible because you lent said person the card to rent said car? Maybe they rented a room, and trashed it. Same thing. Should you, the cardholder, be held responsible for other's crimes that you had no part in? Where does the line of personal responsibilty end and begin?

On a side note, Tcoz, I would highly appreciate it if you didn't drag your drama into this thread. This thread has ZERO to do with avatar keys or your avatar tracking theories. Thank you plz play again.

If the hotel or rental car company had no way of identifying which of you had done the damage, then they probably would hold you responsible by default (and say so in the contract). But more likely they would ask for a driver's licence or other form of ID and know who was responsible. The problem for LL is that they don't require proof of identity beyond the credit card.

I think as the internet matures more people will accept that certain communities limit access to people who are willing to prove who they are and accept responsibility, just like in RL. I think a problem for SL is that it was designed and marketed as a game, but has (not accidentally) become something more serious, with a lot of money and emotion invested by its residents. It's got a multiple personality disorder. It encourages you to play with push guns through an anonymous alt and it also asks you to respect the place as a genuine community.

I do agree somewhat. In the case of my roomie's son getting me banned from NWN though, I did not even encourage him to play, yet I paid the price too. He was and is not my friend. He was staying with us at the time and decided to play NWN after watching me play, which was 100% beyond my control.

Cadroe, I see your point, but I doubt that charging the cardholder with damages incurred while the cardholder was not physically present would hold water in court. I am reasonably sure that the financial liability and/or restitution would be redirected to the culprit(s). Katykiwi, we need your input on this one.

I see what you mean but that's why I said they would probably put it in the contract. I think they'd make you agree to it ahead of time. Of course it's not really an issue, since they're going to require proof of identification before handing over the room or car keys. Unlike with SL.

In SL you can rent the car under a credit card without proving who you are, and if you deliberately crash the car into someone's house you're allowed to rent another one as long as you call yourself by a different name

Sadly true.

I have, by the way, argued for stricter enforcement against alts, both in world and on the forums.

Your point about ID is well taken, and it reminds me of the issue I have with the teen grid. How many 14 year olds have ID? Does LL require them to fax in a birth certificate? If they do, how do they know it's not sicko ex-hubby faxing in a copy of one of his kid's birth certificates?

I hope this issue doesn't bite LL someday.

I would also point out that I have never had to show ID for ANY online game, not just SL.

Actually, Nolan - at least in the State of Michigan where I live - if I lend my car to someone, and they run down an old lady with a poodle (gasp)... I would be held responsible along with the driver of the vehicle. It would be my insurance, not the driver's insurance - that would need to pay for the lady's medical expenses... along with the value of a purebread poodle.

On the surface, I agree it feels somewhat like an injustice. But I think its an even bigger injustice if no one is able to be held accountable because they're hiding behind someone else's payment information.

The decision to allow someone else to use your credit card is yours alone. Since it seems pretty apparent from past history that the lindens don't ever ban anyone on just a first offence - as soon as the first offence or warning happened to an alt account using your credit card - that would be the time to analyze the situation, and determine whether it was just an isolated incident - or something that may put your own account in jeoprady in the future.

I agree, it's that way here too, where I live, however, you would not face the criminal charges that the culprit would. You did not run down that old lady. Now, if it was your child, that may very well be a different story, but, in the case of another adult, I highly doubt you could be charged with vehicular homicide/manslaughter along with the driver (friend). The responsibility probably ends with financial obligations in the form of an insurance settlement(s).

Ignore this

>_>

<_<

present company accepted of course

Sorry, Nolan. This infuriated me.
I'm declaring an EXTREME PARENTAL-GENDER PREJUDICE ALERT !

You got me.
My step-dad is a sicko ex-hubby. Please forgive me!

Is that like an Amber Alert? Or more like an El Nino Watch?

These are the tests I see available to LL for potential alt identification:

1. Same IP number
Danger of injustice: Very high. With potentially dozens of totally independent people behind the same shared number (eg a neighbourhood wifi scheme or residential home with shared router)
Avoidance : Very easy. Log on through a different proxy server for each alt. Own more than one IP number. Use different ISP accounts. Log on from another premises, domestic, commercial, or an internet cafe.

2. Same Card Address and zip code
Danger of injustice: High. With potentially several totally independent persons renting rooms in eg a rooming house and connecting independently, unknown to each other.
Avoidance : Fairly easy. Persuade relative at a different address to gift you a basic subscription on their card. Register a card of your own at another address.

3. Same Credit Card number
Danger of injustice: Fairly Low. It could be argued that anyone using the card of a griefer must accept this risk.
Avoidance : Easily circumvented by having multiple credit cards.

4. Same Name on Card
Danger of injustice: Gigantic, as names are not unique.
Avoidance : Not too easy. Persuade relative at a different address to gift you a basic subscription on their card.

5. Same Name and Same Card Address, ignoring card number
Danger of injustice: Fairly Low. As 3.
Avoidance : Fairly easy. Persuade relative at a different address to gift you a basic subscription on their card. Register a card of your own at another address.

6. In-game analysis eg of cash transfers, non-arms length transactions, login timings etc
Danger of injustice: Could be very Low.
Avoidance : Could be very hard.
Difficulty: Needs programming. Could be objected to as a SpyTool. Would need human guidance and might be expensive in manpower.

Apart from 6, every single test either has a high danger of injustice, or easy avoidance.
All these tests are therefore pretty unusable one way or the other.

Rather than spotting alts that exist, you could discourage their creation, by making it much more expensive to create a character. But this would damage SL by cutting genuine new recruits.

Personally I don't see anything too wrong with just banning each agent that misbehaves. Leaving any that don't in game. Surely its the behaviour of the agent (avi) that matters, not who is behind it ? In the odd really bad case, LL could investigate, make a judgement and ban an alt or two, but my guess is it would have to be no more than one or two a week. For manpower reasons.

Wholesale alt hunting and banning (assuming no really bad behaviour) would be very time consuming if injustice were to be avoided, and I see no good reason for it. People without alts grief too. If permabanned they will just reappear undetectably by one of the methods above. Having an alt is no indication that you intend to use it for griefing.