Alts

Here is what I want to know..is a Linden employee, acting as a Linden or on an alt, permitted to have a cybersex relationship with another non Linden member? I might have to submit that one to the Linden hotline for an answer.

Let me first state for the record that I am the alt of Laquita Maracas, who, although not a Linden, once won Avatar of the Week (it was quite a coup too, thanks to a great belly dancer costume from Fey Brightwillow). And let me tell you, from this alt's perspective, it still doesn't make any sense! Talk about your conspiracy theories, good lord. That explains why Laquita bought some of my land. Oh no wait, that was so I could group it together, my bad.

I do have sympathy for your situation - it really does suck that people can be such sleazy vultures. Unfortunately, as SL has grown, LL has had to take a more and more hands off approach to situations. They have intervened in some situations, but it has been rare. I know that doesn't help because you want them to intervene in yours, but unfortunately what the person did does not violate TOS. There is nothing in the TOS about not being a contemptible jerk, unfortunately.

I don't think it helps your case however to then accuse the Lindens of favoritism and fraud. Ask yourself objectively if the small amount of money they could potnentially make off of the mistake on your land would be worth jeapordizing all of the money they bring in from tier fees, auctions, etc by betraying public trust? I understand being frustrated and hurt that they won't help, but the solution is not to invent conspiracy theories and come close to libeling the company.

The single person to blame is the one who took advantage of you - that is who you should be dragging over the coals, not Linden Lab. We want a world of freedom where we can do what we want, and part of the price of that freedom is that sometimes bad things happen. Your land situation sucks, no doubt about it - but adding insult to injury by lashing out isn't going to help you to get your land back.

PS - you know what does freak me out about alts? When someone posts as themselves and their alt in the same thread, and uses them interchangeably. That is just creepy (not this thread, but there was another one recently that was like the Twilight Zone!)

I'm missing something here. Why assume this was done by a Linden alt?

Because when Linden Lab doesn't side with a particular person, the obvious explanation is a vast conspiracy aimed at the destruction of innocents for vast profits.

On one side i guess you could say that, then in the general light, we have no published list of rules and conduct of liasons, and live helpers, what we should expect from them and what they are and are not allowed to do. This also includes the higher member of staff, but they like it this way to keep us guessing, thats why people start to think there is this whole inside network FIC etc, i have no idea if this exists or not, myth or legend?

And my only comment to sasi's point is when you see robin reply in hotline they are talkin off the hotline when neither philip or robin has replied to her since they asked for details of the case seems to sum it up for me, it's all PR on here and not about helping customers, all talk no action.

it doesn't really help that the only people who have posted to defend the LL position in this ridiculous thread are Linden Alts themselves.

Dear Mr. Or Mrs. Jauani,

PFFT.

Yours truly,
Amy Weebler
(No relation to Aimee Weber)

My alt has an alt of its own...and I think that alt is trying to kill me.



Darth Linden: Luke, I am your Alt
Luke: Noooooo!
Darth Linden: Give in to your feted side, Luke - become one of us
Luke: Never!

I smell an award winning, off-topic, spin-off thread coming...

Not wanting to be unfriendly, but the more we hear from the vociferous participant(s) in this unfortunate incident, which is beginning to assume mythical proportions, the more we see possible reasons why the Lindens have declined to become involved.

Would you ? When at least one involved person seems to be paranoid and irrational ? Maybe this was evident at the scene. Maybe there are factors we have not been told.

Every day I gain respect for the Lindens for their calm sane minimum-intervention policies.

It may sometimes seem (and even be) unfair, but I think it is the only way without dedicating half their staff to conflict resolution.

It's too bad the Lindens don't have a policy of insisting that their employees do not have alts. I question this policy. That would help alleviate this and other "paranoia" situations. When I've questioned this, I get the shruggy answer "Well, Lindens are people too and they want to enjoy SL too." Um, ok. But are there any ethical issues here? I mean, off-duty public professionals in RL have certain responsibilities that the public expects of them, we all know what happens when an off-duty fireman tries to talk to a 14-year-old girl in a chatroom and then meet her...so...what can we expect of Lindens off-duty? Is there any sort of internal Code of Conduct? Probably not. Well, then you'll go on seeing this kind of "paranoia" absent any kind of professional policy like that.

Sasi, you're in a land group with..um..well, some skilled land dealers, let's put it charitably. Are they you? Are you they? Are you at least friends? Could they at least help you with this predicament?

Sasi,

Wow I just read your incredibly abusive post in the Hotline Forum regarding your own mistake (people manage to sell land every moment of every day without doing what you did). I had sympathy for you until I saw that post. Why would any company help an abusive customer who has no respect for them? It is one thing to be upset about the situation - but it is your fault, and the fault of the person who was greedy enough not to give the land back. No one else's. Do a little self reflection instead of bashing and blaming. I am impressed Robin was as cordial to you in her response as she was, given all the noise and drama you are causing.

I know ellie will have a go at me for been one of the involded although i have no money to gain/loose or whatsoever, actually i have as much to gain in this as ellie does.

As far as sasi is concerned the hotline is the only place is she can go to get attention, even though robin asnser that its being dealt with off the hotline, sasi hasnt even heard from robin or philip in over two weeks, she was told to send email describing the problems and they said they'll sort it and then its been silent and when they said thats they are talking off the hotline how is she meant to feel, sure it makes linden look good publically like they are sorting it (not as if sasi can reply to that thread and say no your not) so sure as hell makes sasi pissed.

How would you people feel if a company said one thing in public and were doing the opposite in reality?

Sorry if that sound normal to you but im from the uk, where customer service might work kinda different, companies really do get trashed here for treatment like that both on tv and in the news

Let's clarify this once more:

1. Sasi screwed up. Not everyone does this, but Sasi did.
2. Sasi made a lot of noise
3. Sasi was abusive to Linden Lab in both the General forum and in the Hotline
4. Sasi now insists that her screwup was perpetrated as a vast Linden conspiracy

I'm pretty sure Sasi has forfeited her right to on-going private dialogue between herself and Linden Lab.

Now, with that said, Robin and others have stated that steps have been taken on the interface end to prevent this sort of thing in the future. If that is the case, then your assertion that Linden Lab is lying about their "discussion" of this situation is patently false; I've never heard of software development happening spontaneously without discussion.

Customer service is one thing. Babysitting is quite another. If I get careless and ram my Buick into a telephone pole, I don't get to demand General Motors buy me a new one, particularly when so many other Buick owners have never had such a problem.

Having been on that side of the fence a time or two, let me assure you that most GMs/devs work harder than 90% of us would ever dream of working. It's not just putting in hours, either -- it's also the incessant, childish, mean-spirited, selfish 5% of any given player population who represent 90% of the admin problems. It is thankless, stressful work. And almost without fail, every single MMOG I've been involved with in the last 8-9 years has had GMs who loved to play their own game because (~gasp~) it's fun -- if they were after power or riches, they would reveal their Alt identities but in most cases they never do. In fact, they are reluctant to reveal such a thing because it alters the dynamic of their other relationships in the game.

Your assumption that there is no internal Code of Conduct is insulting to the Lindens, at best. *NO* successful online community/game adminstration has ever omitted this critical policy implementation. Enforcement is another matter, but you have already applied an incredibly broad brush to your own prejudgement that they don't even have a policy to begin with.

Paranoia happens, no matter what you do. Customer Service organizations must, by necessity, respect the confidentiality of their customers -- even the childish, mean-spirited customers. That's why we don't hear from Lindens about what punishment is meted out to players, and it's why they don't choose to publicly respond to ridiculous assertions by the paranoid.

I realize I'm sounding like a Linden apologist here, but it galls me to continually see this sort of nonsense spouted by customers in every game I've ever been associated with. It's little more than an extension of the vapid internet urban legends that have run so rampant in the last 10 years. Myths do not become true simply by virtue of being repeated often enough.

Cindy

Prokofy I'd have to disagree. Other Beta tests I have seen where they got rid of "GM" players alts caused the GMs to stop caring and usually ended up the best players would get these "GM" spots and therefore "retire" from the game in essence. Kinda self destructive.

I'm comfortable with Lindens having alts. They labor all day to create and administer a great environment. I think it's nice they want to spend their off duty time enjoying it. I also know that Linden alts not only operate under a strict code of conduct, but most fear even approaching the line, never mind crossing it.


That said, when I become a Linden I promise I will be Aimee Linden

Ok first it doesn't apply to me because I know that I am actually Philip Linden's alt account (obvious by my keen fashion sense). BUT secondly: where is my prostate exactly? o yeah. nvm. over there. hehe

Adds extra butter and hands out napkins

You left out the secrecy and intrigue!

I think that everyone in the community should have a "right" to have alts. People have them for a viariety of reasons, and a number of recent threads have discussed the right to privacy and the right to not have your alts "outed." I do not imagine this excludes the lindens.

I mean what we are concerned about here is the possibility the lindes would abuse their position by taking advantage of non-lindens in private transactions. I understand the concern of this, and it is difficult for me to imagine that LL does not have an internal policy about this. But that policy should not be to bann linden emplyees from coming into the game and enjoying it. I for one imagine that the lindens would time away from being Robin, ot Jesska or Pathfinder or Phillip, or whomever.

I mean imagine the IM burden of them coming into the game, they are each of them celebrities, but unlike RL celebs they have a vehicle to escape themselves. Hell we all use second life as an escape, which should they be prohibited?

If abuse, is, in fact ever established, then I have to imagine the consequences of being a linden in alt form would compouned the problem for the abusive person. I should think a linden caught abusing the position would be subject to much more dire consequences than an ordianry user.

To me, we should craft policies that punish wrongdoing, not ry and thwart every possible potential before it arises.

I have to agree here there has to be some form of code of conduct in existance, due to the fact this world involves the trading of real $ this could lead them up the paths of insider dealing and with customer data ther is also the privacy protection laws, my point being that nobody publically knows what these rules are, so how are we to know what to expect from various team members. Personally as a mentor i often get asked questions that i cant answer because its simply above my head, and these arent from newbies either, i only found out the mentor rules after i was accepted (obviously nothing fancy) should there be somewhere saying what various people can and cant do. I mean normal customers have to follow the tos, we all know what they are but what do liasons follow?

Ok sasi's case plain and simple, to even get lindens attention we had to show up at fairchung island for the linden dunking and confront philip and he hadnt answered his emails from her for a week. From there he told her to email him, he promised he would reply, she's heard nothing about it since from him.
Robin also contacted her asking for a copy of the email which she sent the next day i believe, again there has been no reply to the email.

The discussion about software change has been done in hotline by myself, others and sasi, as well as an open proposition on the vote.

So for robin to say yesterday to say she was talking off the hotline is just plain wrong, and i will stand up to that comment.

Early on in this saga, linden labs admitted it was confusing software that needed fixing that caused this on posts in the hotline also noted there is an open bug for this, yet as this now falls into a system problem they failed to follow their own tos, 4.2(a,b,c,d) for service issues and enter into dispute resolution, they failed to freeze the land until mediation could take place, in fact they failed to do anything basically saying yea you lost 600$ or so, sort it out between yourself and teleported off rubbing their hands in the double land teir they had collected for that month.

Im sorry if i sound pissed but if we're supposed to follow the tos then so should they. and if they're not gonna offer to help fix they problem out like they offered then dont post to say we're talking when your not, so at least you know you have to take it to the next level, media/court etc.

Amen!!