the general from the specific

Evidentally I misunderstood you, I thought you were saying that the protester themself shouldn't post the name of the person they had a run in with. I guess then I don't understand the how one could talk at all about suspensions without revealing who they themself are.

time. one less problem to investigate properly.justice. the lindens are aren't always right.uneven and opaque application of punishment is a problem. also, what is or isn't a violation of the tos is a subjective call and thus subject to error particularly if only one side of the story is taken. and to repeat, the lindens aren't always right.

Perhaps with something like:

That would be a lot less emotionally charged and would focus the discussion on the scenario, not the personalities, involved. Surely you agree that it's more applicable to the General community than "I was banned, it's unfair, everyone yell at the Lindens!" or whatever noise.

To fix these issues means creating an open system of justice and appeal that would be similar in many ways to an RL court in a liberal democracy -- an impartial process with policies and procedures openly published and strictly adhered to -- including rights established for accuser and accused, the ability of interested parties to monitor the process, an effort to involve a broad spectrum of constituencies from SL in the process, and the right of the community to discuss the implications of each case publicly and criticize the process if necessary -- "publicly" meaning in the forums, I'd guess.

Do that, and you're halfway to "government", unless you're careful.

actually the other way to fix this is ll to give up any pretense of policing that could in anyway be construed as obviously fair and just.

it's chaos out there. anarchy in the streets.

So, you think Linden Lab is banning its paying users because they're too busy? Linden isn't always right? Who is? Your government's justice system is certainly also capable of mistakes or less-than-universal enforcement. You seem to demand perfection where none can exist. The ToS is pretty open-ended, but it basically gives LL the right to regulate their system, and interpret their ToS, as they see fit. Don't like this? Well, there are plenty of other MMOs you could be using, if you feel the ToS's enforcement is draconian, or whatever. And 'to repeat,' nobody is ALWAYS right. Since when did perfection become the requirement for running a online service? I think you'll find that LL is more tolerant of both dissenting and diverse views than pretty much any other service of its type.

Folks should stop whining and get on with their game.

i don't demand perfection. i request improvement.

ll's enforcement is pretty good all things considered. however, there is much room for improvment.

organizations that do not acknowledge they could improve are doomed.

you asked what people who are banned could gain. in cases where ll is wrong, they could get justice.

asking for justice is never wrong; it isn't whining.

I have to agree with Chromal on this. Since the community can't do anything to change the situation for the banned player what good does it do anyone to stir up anti-LL sentiment in the forums? Not to mention the fact that anyone who isn't a well known forum personality will get the "well you probably had it coming" treatment, while a forum regular will garner generally myopic support that does nothing but breed ill-will, without any facts that aren't pure hearsay to back it up. LL has logs and tools to address suspension appeals. They're the only ones who can do anything. Would you rather we have a flexible TOS that allows people who get enough support on the forum to be forgiven whatever transgressions they made? Gee, that wouldn't cause any trouble would it?!

Seems any objection, disention, querry lately is boiled down to whining. If all "whines" were taken from the forums we would be left reading "Do you like me: check yes or no" polls, who opened the latest club and how to put on a full body avatar.

To assume those who would question the methods used for disciplinary actions are simply sniveling twits who wish to whine at every infraction is base. I want to know. I want to know what the compensation is for those falsely accused. I will never believe that ll's intentions are dubious nor do I believe that they can always make the correct decision. So question away, turning a blind eye will never force forward progress only stagnation.

it creates dialog. and in that dialog new avenues for addressing these problems could be discovered.

but in a very general way (of which the "appeal" threads are a specific example) stiffling conversation through censorship is a bad thing.

So is fostering a false sense of unfairness. No one posts about how a problem they had was investigated, dealt with in a timely and fair manner, and was handled correctly. You only hear the grievances which gives a (most likely) false impression that there's a bigger problem than actually exists... that in turn creates dissent that is overblown in proportion with the perceived problem. I'm not accusing anyone of whining. I'm being purely objective here. If everyone comes to the forums to appeal disciplinary action we will end up with a very unfair and lopsided view of how these things are handled... as is no doubt already the case.

Soooooooo thankful and happy to see posts like this

it's a private company. you must vote with your wallet!

really, this is like trying to get concessions from your crack dealer. LL uses the metaphor of community, and cory talks about the commons for his academic writings, but in many ways this is really no different from a gated community or the false public of a shopping mall.

we are not citizens of secondlife!

Very well said.

but we are community, and we create the social contract through our interactions.

i don't think it's false. it's not that ll is unformly or quintessentially unfair.

however, when it does something questionable, then it should be called on it.

grievances are heard most loudly, because they cause the most pain.

however, people do post kudo for ll.

as i stated earlier, people who whine pointlessly will be laughed at by the community. just look at some of the poll results.

I get all warm and fuzzy reading that. I know your paid to preach the party line, but emailing
abuse regarding actions they took against a player is like wetting your self wearing dark pants. It gives you a warm feeling but no one notices. A recent example of this, is action taken against of friend of mine. I emailed abuse detialing how I caused the problem not him. The reporting party did the same. Not even a simple reply of thanks for the update. Instead my friend recieved a stern letter warning him not to do it again.

With that kind of reponse what is a person to do? Linden Labs must come up with a system where the whole story is heard. I remember someone making reference to not hearing the whole story in another post on this subject. Until then fill up the forums. Crack open that 8 million and buy a server just handle the traffic if you must.

Until it fell at my feet to clear the name of someone who was wrongly punished. I used to ignore the "I have been banned and I don't know why" messages in the forums. Now I read them very intently and wonder what Linden Labs is up to. This secret cabal that plays policeman, judge, jury and executioner must go!

Rox