Billboards Revisited?

I'm not sure where the notion of lynch mobs came up, except in your post.

The two previous posts were references to a Monty Python movie, nothing more.

Your subsequent posts, and si's proved my point however, and that was that it is a waste of time to argue with either of you over this. Might as well go argue with the billboards themselves! A great deal of time was spent in a previous thread with si claiming the billboards served a community function and how they were effective advertising and on and on. He has now abandoned that position, and it is now agreed that the billboards are just a political statement on his part.

The references to Fahrenheit 451 (censorship) are misplaced, since there is no "message" on the billboards that is being censored. Nor has anyone suggested doing anything to si or anyone else, in fact I specifically said that this is not something the Lindens need to be involved with. So all thats going on here is peer pressure, not physical violence (even in the non-physical VR sense) or even "legal" action.

Believe me I've seen this a dozen times before in programs such as this. These billboards are the tip of the iceberg. There will be more and more people coming in trying to test the limits of the TOS. If something isn't specifically forbidden they will seek to shove the issue in everyones face. If the TOS is changed they will claim repression, if the TOS isn't changed they will up the ante. The purpose is to provoke and annoy, not to win an argument, fight for freedom or any other high minded purpose.

My focus really isn't on si at all, but on the way the system works. It is designed through the ratings system to allow people to express themselves about things such as this. And yet I know there are people who have not done anything to protest the signs except to complain. There is a mechanism built into the program to DO something about them, and the question is: does this system have a snowballs chance in hell of working? Maybe the system needs to be changed. I have proposed something like voting booths except allow for a daily negative vote, just like we can now vote daily in favor of something. A daily negative vote against particular build SHOULD have a significant impact on the owners finances. Thats the way the system is SUPPOSED to work, and my only interest in this debate is whether it is working or not (I don't think it is).

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Oooops, I just noticed that it was ME that first used the term lynch mob!!! hehe

But I wasn't ADVOCATING a lynch mob and I certainly don't see how anyone would interpret it that way.

Absolutely not, but I'm giving you more reasons than just the fact they're a business and a service people are paying us for. Since that didn't seem to satisfy anyone.


One, the billboards themselves are an 'idea' or 'message' which you are just not grasping, as this argument has nothing to do with their practical incarnation. It's people complaining in general of something they dislike, they just happen to be billboards in this case.

Two, MANY people have suggested doing things to Si and others, and many people HAVE done about a million different forms of harassment towards myself and our group. Sadly it's also gone far beyond just suggestions, to points where I have been unable to enter entire sims due to scripts, and beyond.


This has nothing to do with 'stretching' the TOS. The billboards were our company's first, and longest running project. We got the idea from Secondlife's own advertising itself, see: http://secondlife.com/gallery/whatis.php?screen=6

We set out to provide a service which we thought people would want, and sure enough, they did. That is of course, until they started receiving ridiculous amounts of harassment, threats, and worse. If you'd like to talk about 'stretching the limits of the TOS' I think you need to turn the camera around, and look at which side is really doing the assault/harassment.

I've filed I think somewhere around 30 abuse reports since the billboards first started to be 'controversial' for various forms of abuse, and these are outside of the ones which have been worked out without Linden intervention.

That's a truly awful idea in my opinion. You want to see abuse of a system? That would be the perfect one for it. Say something someone doesn't like and they get a dozen friends to neg rate you every day, ruining everything you hoped to accomplish in SL and probably driving you out of the game... Give people that kind of power to ruin others and believe me they will, and more often than not for petty reasons. Worse still it would be anonymous that way. Recipe for chaos. How about just a much simpler system... live and let live? People seem to have a hard time grasping that one.



hehe. We'll call it creative license on both our parts

Let people do what they want on their land.

Controlling what people build on their own land based on such subjective notions as "ugly" or "eyesore" is not a good idea. Unless everyone in question has opted in to the group, neighborhood, theme, etc., there is no reason for anyone to assume they have the right to impose their aesthetic expectations on their neighbors.

And, like Chip, I do not see the difference between a billboard, a newbie cabin, a spinning flashy thingie and a giant hill of flamingos. Tracey's example even pointed out that this desire to control what someone can do on their own land can extend even to trees!

If its on someone's land, then let them be!

I'm not as worried about billboards being taken to their extreme, as much as I'm worried about peer pressure and conformity being taken to its extreme.

Does this mean we don't get to burn him?

If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can ever possibly imagine.

Oh yeah, and i'm a freakin' demon!

Guess his name is 'Obi si Money'

Isn't the rating system nothing more than an automation of peer pressure?

Are you suggesting that the rating system be eliminated, or simply that we all voluntarily not use it?

Errr...you kinda jumped from my discussion of a group of people pressuring someone to conform to their notion of good building to the rating system. The rating system is not at issue in the point I'm trying to make.

When a group of folks decide they are a "neighborhood", that's well and good. When they discuss and implement ideas to help beautify their "neighborhood", thats cool too. When they decide that someone who didn't join or wasn't aware of their group has to conform anyway, we got a problem.

I have seen several instances of a group crossing the line from peer pressure to harassment and intimidation. And then breezily excuse their TOS violations by pointing out that what they targetted was "ugly!"

The Sims Online, I hear, has been plagued by a group of players known as the Mafia who use intimidation and harassment to make players join their group and conform to their rules. Non-mafia players find themselves at the mercy of all kinds of TOS violations, because this large and influential group of players decide they don't like what that player is doing, how they are building, or simply because individuals are easy pickings for an organized group. This could happen in SL too, if we don't be careful.

When I refer to peer pressure, I am not particularly concerned about its current mild and legitimate manifestations, I'm talking about how it can be taken to an extreme. I don't think large groups of players should be able to justify harassment or intimidation against individual players. But that's what has happened in this situation with the billboards. People do things that are clearly against the TOS, blocking or "defacing" a build on someone else's land, and then justifying it because their neighbors agree that the billboards are "ugly".

I believe one of the first instances of this unfortunate behavior was the Hill of Flamingos in Hawthorne. It was covered up by a giant hill of earth cause it was "ugly". The owner could not even access his land or build without great inconvenience. Then there was the battle of the Flashy Spinning Tower which was covered up with a giant box textured with "No Ugly Builds" while the residents repeatedly shot the owner so that he couldn't even access his own land. These "protests" are harassment and intimidation, but somehow when its a group, I guess it feels like its ok to do. And THATS whats scary, that false sense of rightness because its a group/neighborhood/community that's doing the intimidation.

So to clarify...
billboards in present form = ok

peer pressure in present form = ok

billboards in a possible future which advertise everything from Viagra to Political Ads = mildly disturbing.

peer pressure taken to such an extreme that we have a mafia-like situation, where being on your own in SL is a scary, frustrating and fruitless enterprise as you will be subject to the whims of any number of powerful groups who could be as arbitrary and vindictive to take exception to the your build, textures used or simply the fact that you bought land in THEIR neighborhood = very scary!

Why is rampant commercialism mildly disturbing but extreme group behavior scary? Because the price for freedom is having to see things I dont like sometimes. I practice tolerance and in return get to build however I please. The group that decides its the arbiter of taste and privileges its opinion above the rights of individual landowners is much more invasive and problematic than any billboard. If I tolerate the group pushing other people around, then how long is it before that group comes for me? And who will be left to defend my right to do what I want on my own land?

In a democracy, your freedom must necessarily be restricted to ensure the freedom of others. Who gets to decide which is allowed and which is restricted?
Majority.
If a lot of people dont like a resident or its build then the one, and not the many, should make the necessary changes in order to fit in with the rest.

I think you're my new hero Bel You expressed exactly how I feel about this issue. Unfair peer pressure and forced conformity are a lot uglier than billboards, and will have a far greater long term negative impact on the community.

OK, good. I think we are all MOSTLY in agreement here. All I've ever suggested is that people (1) try and negotiate with the minority user to conform to the wishes of the majority, and failing that (2) use the rating system (for what I think is its intended purpose).

Frankly, I don't know how you prevent the rating system from also being used in a destructive way. From what I have heard, there are already groups of people that are gaming that system to improve their situation with respect to the average user. In fact, as far as I can tell the rating system has been very effective at allowing groups to benefit themselves, while at the same time very ineffective at allowing individuals to prosper and equally ineffective at discouraging "ugly" builds.

This issue has been rather like dealing with someone who's knowledge of the constitution doesn't extend beyond the first amendment (or pick your favorite). They are driven to "make a point" and never seem satisfied that the point has not only been made, but was accepted by the vast majority of people in the first place.

Violations of the TOS are EASY to deal with. Turn them in, get them banned. The harder issues are the ones that don't violate the TOS, but still offend the majority. The rating system is the closest thing we have to a remedy there, but it doesn't seem to be working. I'd love to see some proposed improvements.



Here is where I get off. You are distorting the terminology. Violation of TOS is NOT peer pressure. Peer pressure describes a very specific thing and that thing does not include harassment, TOS violations or murder. In fact peer pressure can't FORCE anything. It might help the discussion if we avoid such terms as peer pressure, or conformity at all, since they can be interpreted in so many ways. My use of peer pressure means nothing more than everyone expressing (openly) their opinions. The subject of these opinions can choose to change their behavior or not.

Peer pressure gets a "bad name" in contexts such as smoking or drinking: "I started smoking when I was 12 because all my friends were smoking". But in most instances, peer pressure happens all around us every day and goes hardly noticed. How we dress, how we paint our homes, the types of vehicles we drive are all influenced by others. Even the "rebel" has his freedom limited by peer pressure, since he constrains himself to engage in non-conforming behavior.

This seems like it's a bit contradictory to what you said earlier about wanting to be able to neg rate people every day and for it to have a significant impact on the person being rated. It seems a bit naive to me to believe that would end up being a postive thing. I think it would be abused and used as a petty weapon far more than it would be a positive force for maintainting the common consensus. By design the imact of negative ratings has to be small enough that the incentive isn't there to use it as a weapon. I'm not suprised that we see this issue differently based on your posts about being a peace keeper in AW. The last thing in the world I want to do is be in the position to tell others what they can or cannot do, becuase I don't want to be subject to that from anyone else. You're obviously more comfortable with it than I am since you took that role in AW. I'll fight tooth and nail to prevent the playerbase from gaining too much power to force their subjective views on others. The TOS is one thing, but we're talking about subjective tastes here.

I lived through highschool once, I'm not looking for SL to turn into a reenactment of it. In my opinion that's exactly what will happen if we get player run government or a ratings system that gives people too much power to arbitrarily punish others. The simple solution to this issue is for people to just get used to the idea that their control doesn't extend beyond the borders of their own land, and live with it. It's really very simple. The ONLY reason to make it more complicated is in service of people's desire to control what other people do. Sorry, but SL doesn't have a "ruling class" and it most defintely is better off without it. If it's not a violation of the TOS, get over it. We'll all be better off for it.

Well, I'm sorry that my posts are so long that you didn't bother to read them CAREFULLY. Because if you had you might begin to suspect that we are very much in agreement. I was NOT a Peacekeeper. The group I joined had NO powers. We greeted people at the entrance. Thats all. When the Peacekeepers were formed and I found out what they were about I quit, and I was not alone in quiting. I have said about a BAZILLION times that I am not all that excited about a player run government. I think that players given power over other players must be under strict supervision and there must be a review process when things don't go quite right. The worst thing that can happen is for the typical user (particularly new one) to feel that they are at the mercy of some clique.

I ALSO have concerns about the rating system being abused. Like the economy (which is tightly bound to the rating system) I don't think it is perfect yet. I don't think it will become perfected next week, or next month. Two years from now? Maybe. Never? Maybe. I admit to a great lack of knowledge about how things will end up. I think there is a serious danger of people ganging up and rating others for reasons totally unrelated to those intended. I think that may already be happening in fact. But rating people based on their build and behavior *IS* intended, and all I'm suggesting that people do is USE that system until it is proven not to work. At that point maybe something else will be tried. I have some ideas that don't involve rating systems or PeaceKeepers, but if we abandon the rating system now without trying it, adjusting it , trying it again, then there will always be people saying "can't we go back to the rating system, we never really gave that a good test". One thing that was(is) seriously wrong with AW was that the owner are INCAPABLE of admitting they ever made a mistake. Other than tweaking the software a bit, the community structure that is the same as it was 7 years ago. Thats not true of Linden Labs, and I hope it never gets to be true. That means that no matter what we try now, we are free to change it later. So, relax. This is not high school.

I really don't have much else to say about this, I'll restate:

Here is the typical European "let's all wear the same shoe and not make waves by asking for a shoe in our size and or colour" view of life. The good of society is certainly important, but you really have to be careful when the good of the mob intersects with the rights of the individual. Give the mob its lead and you will end up with a Beauxs Arts comfy life of nice safe blandness and reasuring predictability.
While I am positively LOATHING the idea of defending him or his sense of style, I feel and have always felt that the Lindens acted precipitately and WRONGLY in removing EZ Money's build in ROSE. By removing his stuff and keeping his money they did him a double injury and also in the process of doing it they created a dangerous precedent of intervention. They really should have left the issue to the residents to resolve as they are this billboard issue, which concerns, as it does, what is at most a minor annoyance to some residents, rather than the to me at least, much more disturbing noise irritations.

In a shocking turn of events, we found out today someone had apparently covered our ad in Tan with a Coca Cola ad. Entertaining, at the least, especially when I found it to be owned by Peter Linden, who had taken ownership because of copyright violations. Apparently the person who had done the cover up did it well enough the Lindens thought we had actually changed to Coca Cola ads! Talk about a good chuckle :}

On a side note, someone mentioned the Clementina opt out system not working, the bug has been found, and squashed, and strangely enough, it *wasn't* in the list handling, so the list is still in tact. There is a remote sensor system, due to sensors not being able to cross sim borders, which had lost communication with the main board (why, i'm not sure, suddenly it was too far away to talk).

At any rate, that is fixed, and the board now vanishes happily. I'm still working with something Christopher Omega gave me, which may provide a more permanent opt out list, or it may not, depends on how it goes. Should be interesting either way right?

Once I finish that, I think it's time for locational re-evaluation of all the signs, and redeployment, so maybe i'll make some of you happy, and a whole new group of people mad. It's about that time of year!

Here comes the question: Are the people who dislike the billboards and feel they should be torn down the majority, or are the people who don't like them merely vocal? I don't know the answer to that, but we shouldn't assume 'everyone' hates them just because people who dislike them have spoken up.

And, as far as I can tell, Second Life is not currently a Democracy. As much as I believe it is the best system of government, Democracy does not work in all situations. We may be getting it with the group government tools, but as it stands, the Lindens weren't elected, they weren't chosen, yet they make the laws and doll out the punishments. They /listen/ to us, but the buck still stops with them.
We aren't a microcosm of anyone's country, and I hope that it doesn't become that. No country is perfect enough that I'd want a duplicate of it in a digital realm.

Mac, I am a bit puzzled about where you are going with your remarks about the rating system.



As far as I'm concerned rating someone negative because you dont like their build is perfectly within your rights. I support your right and anyone's right to express their opinion about any build. I don't support people harassing or intimidating folks.

Does the rating system need more work? Certainly. But thats a forum all by itself! However, in its current form, I believe it is a legitimate tool to express approval or disapproval. However, people receiving the negative rating may still ignore it. It's not a means to compel compliance.

I agree with your steps for dealing with SL build disagreements.



But would add (3) then leave it alone. Let go of the idea that people have to do what you think is best. You've expressed your opinion, now drop it.

I think its the third step that is missing in some cases. They perform the first two steps and then expect instant results. When the person doesn't immediately change, they feel its time to escalate. It's not. It's time to let it go.

I think we both posted our last messages about the same time, so to address yours....

You think YOU'RE puzzled? hehe

Yep, I think I agree with your step 3. The voting process doesn't force anyone to do anything although it could (if it were actually used) apply economic pressure to comply. But I don't think it is being used. It's sort of like a fire alarm lever that isn't connected to anything and when a small fire breaks out in the coffee room everyones afraid to pull it. The automatic positive votes that people are getting just because they say hello to you are far outweighing any negative impact from the few (relatively) people that might be impacted by the signs (or some similar thing) and even if ALL of those people voted negatively, I'm not sure it would have enough impact to change anyones behavior, certainly not FORCE them to change.

I don't want the Lindens to appoint an architectural committee any more than anyone else here does. I'm also against responses that approach vandalism, and yet I know people who took that approach and STILL refused to cast a negative vote. So my point is, this is a perfect test case of the system. The signs are bad (IMHO), don't actually serve much of a purpose, the majority SEEMS to be against them, now what?

Believe it or not, I don't think I am as bothered by the signs as other people are, I just decided to use the forums to express my feelings, others have not.

Since no one else here has proposed an alternate solution, I'll throw one out. Maybe its worth a new thread...

I think a better solution will ultimately be some variation on the themed communities. Lets give it a name: Teamed Communities. I see this as a way for 4 or more people (depending on their wealth) to have an entire sim (or possibly this could be done on a smaller scale such as quadrants) all to themselves. Basically, set up some ground rules for the team, let them divide up the land any way they want and turn them loose. No special tax breaks or anything like that, just a groups of people who already know that they can work together allowed to do so. Of course if a group of people existed now who wanted to do this they could jump on a new sim and implement this with the current system. My idea would be to formalize this so that the groups could reserve a new sim rather than having to pounce on it. They would be responsible for reserving the land, paying the taxes on it etc. They could also teraform the land in it to meet their needs, I've even suggested the possibility of a sim without ground or water (if thats possible) for people who want to do space simulations, alternate planets etc.

There would have to be one additional issue that would involve the Lindens though, and that would be in the event of a dispute within the team. There would have to be some easy process for voting team members out should they violate the teams charter (whatever it may consist of). I think this could be done with the existing group voting system though. But I also think this would be a very rare thing, since people willing to join such a team would have presumably gotten to know one another's habits and personalities beforehand. I would more than gladly join such a team to avoid the constant concern about signs, protests encroachment and other "bad" behavior. Within Welsh, most of us get along VERY well and I think as a result it is one of the least cluttered sims in SL. We ask each others opinions about ideas we have for building and we ACT on those responses rather than intentionally ignoring them. As far as I know, none of us feel "repressed" as a result. As it is, SL is semi-organized chaos. It will probably never look like a cohesive "city" of any kind, because there is just too many people with different ideas about what they want to accomplish. But I'd like to see someplace where the more settled and agreeable users could "graduate" to and I think, one way or another such a thing will come to pass and make arguments about billboards moot.

Actually, not all that shocking. Worth the chuckle though. After doing VR stuff for close to 10 years it becomes harder and harder to run across a situation that you haven't already seen a few times. Thats true here too. If it were not you, testing everyone's limits whit those signs, it would be (and probably will be at some point) someone trying to see how annoying a script they can write without being banned, or how close they can get to posting TOS violations without QUITE going over the line. The observations by the founder of The SIMS Online was that everyone doing on-line games vastly underestimates the support costs. I'd bet that a large part of that cost is conflict resolution. My theory is that the best way to do this is to separate those who SEEK conflict from those who seek to avoid it. That would mean that you and I really belong in separate universes somehow, or at least on sims with different property laws. The nice thing about virtual worlds is that such an arrangement is easily made. We need no longer limit ourselves to discussions about my rights versus your rights as we would have to in the real world. In a way, SL and many of the on-line communities have borrowed way too much from the real world inheriting both good and bad properties in the process. As virtual communities evolve, I expect that to change, in the same way that on-line music sharing will eventually change the way we deal with compensating artists for their works. Old habits die hard, even when the new way of doing things is obviously better.

I think the discussion we have had in here has been valuable and interesting (to me at least) in teasing out the differences of opinion both small and large among members of the community. I think we have all said about all we have to say on the subject, and I'm not surprised that nobody's mind has been changed much, it usually isn't on things like this.

I posted at the end of my response to Bel an alternative to the current mix-them-all-together approach that we now have. I think it might be worth hashing out, in a new thread however. As far as I'm concerned though, this thread is dead. It's been nice debating with you guys, see you in the next one!

I in no way whatsoever seek conflict. However, when conflict is brought to my doorstep, I do not run and hide. The billboards were in no way an attempt to cause conflict. We built them, put them up, set up a system, did lots of work. and everything was fine for a long while, until Hawthorne started, then Welsh, then Clementina, and on and on.

Never have I looked to cause any sort of conflict with them, nor have I ever tried to 'test' the TOS with them. Those who would seek conflict are the ones who come to me shouting explitives demanding I remove them. Those who seek conflict are the ones who build giant walls in front of them. Those who seek conflict are the ones who buy the land around the signs and set up turrets to push us off our own land.

I think your perception of who seeks what is somewhat skewed by your personal beliefs of the sign. Never have we sought to cause problems, nor have we ever been anything but amicable to suggestions for change. I'm sorry of people cannot accept what we build, what we own, what we do. We don't ask them to, we don't ask them to even look at them. However, i've heard complaints from maybe 30-35 residents in my history in SL. I believe the resident count is around 7000, last I heard any sort of numbers of the sort. Which means to me that the vast majority, while possibly not liking them, does not object to them, and there may even be an equal percentage to those who complain, of those who appreciate them. Strangely enough, the ones I get the most complimentory words from are people high on the builders and net worth leaderboards, as well as many Lindens.

I think you may wish to re-evaluate your reasons for believing I 'seek conflict'. I have a feeling they are all based upon your personal opinions of the billboards, and as an indirect effect of those believes, your views of me personally.

Mac, I agree 100% that the addition of more opt-in communities are a good thing. I think that will solve a good deal of conflict as like-minded folks can get together and set rules for themselves. I fervently hope to never see self-governance that involves people who have not voluntarily opted into the community and rules in question. Ideally it would be great to see areas that are controlled by groups and areas that are free-for-all.

But it can't be stressed enough, that groups should only be able to set policy or exert control over land that is actually owned by those in the group. If there's a sliver of land on the edge of the group owned by someone else, then it's simply outside the group's control. Period.

I think we are on the same page for the most part, Mac. And I too enjoy discussing things even if it means no one changes their mind in the slightest. It's heartening to see a discussion from different points of view that can still remain civilized. And i have enormous respect for you Mac, having enjoyed your postings for many months.

But, I think you and others who dislike the billboards brush a little lightly over the more problematic behavior billboard protesters have engaged in. Covering the billboards with other images doesn't "approach vandalism" it IS vandalism.

Mac, you are advocating lawful means. But others are taking unlawful actions. Rather than gain support for the "anti-billboard" movement, these TOS violations actions alienate people like myself. I don't see the billboards as a problem, I see the protesters as problems. And even those that dont actually engage in overt action, nonetheless express tacit approval for this behavior.

I didn't want to post to this thread. It wasn't until I saw that many people seemed to think that the majority of SLifers agreed with the anti-billboard sentiments, that I realized that silence was taken for endorsement. I want to make it clear that I dont agree with people who seek to control neighbors who have not agreed beforehand to work together. I dont agree that its ok, cool, funny or anyway a good thing to cover up someone else's build. This is behavior that even anti-billboard folks should frown upon.

Sunnee Beach started this thead and at one point said "I don't know how to fight this fight." I believe there's a LOT of people that don't understand how to deal with conflict in this online environment. Its up to both sides to encourage appropriate behavior from all parties. The popular side/majority/organized group does not have special permission to violate the TOS. The desire to retaliate does not justify TOS violations. Problems are not resolved by fighting, they are only escalated.

You may very well have a good case against Coca Cola in the courts, lol. I would at least document and either give their advertising department a good laugh or bill them for the time the ad was up...

I guess you could call our system of government an oligarchical or perhaps syndicalist technocracy. As a form of government, I've always thought that democracy pretty much sucks. it is too open to populism and abuses. The countries where citizens have the most freedoms, combined with a good standard of living are all monarchies.

We need a Theocracy. I volunteer to be god.