07-30-2003 12:42
It must be bitterly disappointing to gear up for a war, to bolt the gates and prepare the boiling oil, only to have the enemy fail to arrive. Can you imagine how Ronald Regan felt, having spent years lovingly building up his forces, when the Soviet ‘Evil Empire’ steadfastly refused to invade Western Europe? “Those people,” he must have thought, “are unreliable.”

This situation repeats its self, almost endlessly, in Second Life. Any resident who has spent weeks perfecting the World’s Most Advanced Satellite-based Land Ejection Weapon is going to feel a certain sense of deflated pride if the WMASLEW is never fired in anger. Gatling Guns and Rail Drivers can be easily toted to Jessie for a bit of showing off, but a home security system can only fulfill its destiny if it has the chance to repel a marauding horde. Even a small horde – a horde of one, any horde will do.

The problem, of course, is that Second Life is noticeably short on hordes. Most would-be marauders are off doing other things, too busy to be very menacing. The solution, of course, is to create your own conflict! Have a neighbor who loves scripts? Clearly he’s intentionally lagging the sim and must be stopped! You’ve been banned from someone else’s land – just wait ‘til they go anywhere near your house! Before you know what happened, ‘So and So’ has become a major ‘Such and Such’ for blatantly doing ‘This and That’. The Police Blotter plays an interesting roll in all of this. Two aspect of the Abuse Report procedure – the fact that we never disclose the resolution of abuse reports and a policy of not actually pursuing abuse reports that are not actually abuse – compound to create the additional justification that “the Linden’s never do anything…”.

Cultivation of conflict, of course, is not a violation of the Community Standards. Home security systems are not a violation of Community Standards. Faithful readers of the Police Blotter know that crime is followed by punishment in Second Life -- rules are zealously enforced and incidents are crafted into pithy anecdotes for your amusement in this column. So why the long preamble if the Blotter isn’t going to wrap it all up by sending someone to the penalty box? Its all an effort to remind you that best defense is not a good offense. Home security – be it banners, kickers, sentinels, or any other implementation – must never act on any resident outside of your owned land. Devices that are unduly aggressive should be reigned in, and any effort to take the battle to the enemy will be met with pithy anecdotes in this column.

Statistics: Eleven complaints of harassment, intimidation, or vandalism, six complaints about assorted rule violations, and five instances of inappropriate content on a PG sim, and one complaint of an undisclosed nature. As a result of these complaints and our subsequent investigations, three residents were suspended and ten warnings were issued.