Linden response to racist incident in Ahern Welcome area

This thread is becoming heated and derailed by personal bickering; I'd like to remind everyone to please be civil towards each other and keep the conversation productive, lest it be closed.

I've personally seen many times where a single Liaison had not one, but just *several* hot-button issues to handle at once. Meanwhile, other Lindens were also handling major problems. One of those times was yesterday.

More than "two sides to a story", each of us has a personal experience and I'd hate to see any unfair speculations or generalizations made about a particular Linden or Resident, especially if we weren't present.

I didn't witness this specific incident but I do know I've seen times where I was sitting on a bench in a WA, and then some guy in a KKK outfit came up and started blathering hate speech, and a Liaison was nearby and dealt with the intolerance right away. Intolerance, of course, is not allowed like it says in the Community Standards.

It's also important to remember the grace of patience: while abuse reports can take awhile to be resolved, they (hopefully sufficiently detailed) also serve as a formal record that something did happen, as opposed to shouting "Someone's doing something bad here!" and have it pass by transiently. The evidence catches up with the troublemakers.

Sure, it's nice to have things happen quickly. If only we weren't human, huh?

Something which hasn't been brought up a lot is the move towards more self-governance on estates. Desmond brought up a great point earlier. And being the king of your own castle (or steward, as the case may be) is far more personal--and scalable.

And, you don't have to be a Linden to be aware of what it's like: any helpful Resident, including volunteers, who's had a dozen, perhaps two dozen Live Help windows open and inworld action happening at the same time--and maybe the forums too... knows how it feels.

What happened inthe WA was sad......what is worse now is people turning this important issue into a stage for their own attention.......

I have left the Mentors group because, as I said, I wouldn't continue to volunteer my time for this company or this community without the proper tools or the concern and respect of the company.

I would like to invite anyone interested to a discussion about the problem of enforcement in SL, on Wednesday at 11am. This event resulted from discussions I had with DigitalCultures and Dreams members about the incident that started this thread, so I hope posting it here is within bounds.

http://secondlife.com/events/event.php?id=210118&date=1147284000

If you plan on coming, please remember this is about the problem/question of enforcement in-world and not about whether anyone who posted on this thread or anyone at LL is a racist.

Thanks.

FF

OH gesh! Frank you really did leave I am really sorry to you did. If this what allowed on sl, its no wonder people are getting so upset etc. LLabs really seems to be walking a tightline with some issues. This make me more sad because being a non western user of the game "Second Life" in a western culture VR in the most part. Really tells me there is some basis in the LLabs ranks...I felt in in some of my early days as a person here, and more resently as well. This was showen during one of the linden replied to one of my calls.........They do bring in emotiona bags to the game. Infact this linden is known for not pulling the trigger on taking care of problems. But instead waffling and saying things that appears they are unsuited to even being a linden....( mind you I am only talking 0ne or so in world lindens ) in the most part many if not in the majority really do take actions. and are the life blood of the game! ... Unlike some which close their eyes and do nothing. Frank I and truthy sorry about what happened in The WA. I sure hope LLabs does do something about this some time soon. There is enought hate in the world today, based on color of your skin. But the playing field is not REAL LIFE any More its on the VR land of gaming platform like secondlife. People Buy high priced computers just to share their tasteless beliefs of hating another person personal beliefs and skin color? There are a few mentors in the ranks that also reachout to you from your stand the occurance in the WA. The bad guys won this one and LLAbs let it happen. Whats even worse its going to get even worse from now on after LLAbs allowed kind of behavior. Now that kids are out of school, and having more free time on their hands. This is sick issue with LLabs showing us this type of behavior is allowed.Oh yea that person might have gotten a few days of vacation, br i be you they are back in a alt doing their best think "OH BOY I BACK AND THEY DON`T EVEN KNOW I HERE.....LLABS IS SO STUPID BECAUSE I BANNED AND I BACK HERE AGAIN HHEHHEEH"..Oh Boy really a nice game we have here with people like this.............

Frank may your beliefs and goals still stand tall after this sad showing oh the system fails over and over again......Good Luck to you my friend....


Usagi

i dunno if there is many peoples like me but i really don't give a sh*** about this really, could you wash your dirty laundry in private?

The include chat history function in the AR dialog has been disabled for a good while. It looks like it is still there but it doesn't actually send anything.

If an AR requires the chat history, one needs to cut and paste it from the chat history, and include the exact SL time the offending remarks were made, so the abuse staff can check the logs if they wish.

I saw it to. After about 5 minutes i finally MUTED that IM because the ONLY THING BEING SAID was they were a KKK AV and saw no mention of 'where' the offense was taking place.



simple, sweet and beautiful solution. have to love our ability to mute. And it seems that most people keep forgetting that almost all the Lindens have JOBS complete with JOB DESCRIPTIONS of what they can do and when. And sometimes schedules to meet on those jobs. There is a team of people also employed by LL that browse the abuse reports and take action if deemed fitting and neccisary. Residents (including volunteers, i am one) are supposed to use the AR mechanism and Live Help. Does using LH mean someone will run to your rescue? NO. But it does mean if you are LUCKY enough a given admin has some spare time they might be able to come. It is not a requirement to do so. And i fully support Coffee in blowing you off. I've seen many Lindens run to the rescue on many diff occasions and i truely appreciate that. But they dont -have- to. Its not required.



The TOS does get enforced. Via the Report Abuse feature. Jesus even an ambulance in the real world responding to someone in the middle of a heart attack can take 20 minutes or more to arrive. Responces are not automagic. They are not instant gratification. You're an adult and should understand this. If you're not an adult get off the main grid.

And if you're worried that some newbie will be immediately offended by the incident then as a volunteer what YOU should be worried about isnt seeing the greifer punished so much as HELPING THE NEWBIE learn how to use the mute feature and what an appropriate time to Abuse Report is. Wow you even have a prime example of a good time to AR in that case so USE it.



Actually there are a few. Try finding waterhead on the map. Its east of the Volunteer HQ.



Ok so you WANT immediate remedies for an action that can be taken care of easily by the victims use of a built in mute feature, but you DO NOT WANT a remedy for greifing actions which for the most part can not be defended from and that you cant just ignore because of visual attachments? Holy !@#$%@ thats backwards.



A breif moment of sanity in this whole thread. Thank you Desmond. Actaually all the posts from Jopsy were just as informed too.



Usagi: with all the commotion you caused with someone dressed as a statue and you herassing 2 diff lindens long enough they finally showed up only to compliment the guys look, and you STILL thought it was abuse.. id probably assume ALL lindens isntantly ignored your rants of indecency. And after your FIRST request on the mentor channel you need to stop spamming everyone. Say the complaint, let people know its extent and leave it be. People will responsd as available. And for christs sake drop your posts on 'mentor drama' as you've been the only one causing any since I joined the ranks.



Sorry but anything SPOKEN is the lowest possible priority to respond to. It can be dealt with via MUTE. ANYTHING else (a follow bot) would be higher in my priority list.



I on the other hand WILL call my fellow Zagato a racist. Her comments were completely out of line making assumptions as to what criteria the employess of LL prioritize their responces. I've seen the Lindens respond to these matters. But they have other issues they deal with too.

Torley: thank you for making a comment with such levelheadedness on such an emotional debate. I just hope you didn't feel others comments about lack of linden responce made you obligated. All of the admins behaviour speaks for itself and you shouldn't feel the need to justify.

I am sorry, but once again you are so very wrong. I think you need more than one statement to call someone such a hateful name. Not only that, but if you met me and my family in person you would slap yourself for thinking such thought.

You posted all those "just" and heart-warming responses and then you call me names. What a nice lil gift. I'll treasure it.

Mute only works for you, and in the welcome area it would take a lot of time to tell and show everyone around how to mute someone, I mean they just started the game.

It would be very nice to have atleast one linden that could (and would) help out with griefer problems like a 911. SL needs a few lindens that would take time of their BUSY[ ] and OVERWORKED[ ] schedules and just go stop a griefer like that, I don't mean goto the sandbox everyday linden but how about stop the stupid racist f*cukheads linden. I take my race very seriously, and someone in a KKK outfit running around yelling racist things would get me angry [believe it or not] and I would take action to stop this person in a virtual world or if he called me something racist IRL. The lindens don't really care about potential customers anymore anyways. They are rich!

OMG for someone that was not even there gesh..........But very typical of a reply.........Nice dig...Now go dig a whole and put a bone in it...Nice drama I give you a C.......

Another tactic is: "Hey folks! Sorry, sometimes we get griefers like this in the newbie area... here let me show you a nicer part of SecondLife. I'll send you a teleport invite in a moment..."

Right click on the newbies, open a bunch of profiles, teleport to one of your favorite places and invite them all over.... not including the griefer.

It sends the message that while there are asses in SL... there are also normal helpful folks able to solve problems.

There are, what, approximately 50 Lindens? And around 5,000 people online? If it's not weekday working hours that means you've got the weekend staff, which might, at most, be 5 people? That's one person per thousand. 0.1%. And fewer because I've no doubt that half of those are probably dealing with database, server or network duties, not community issues.

I don't want to pay MORE for SecondLife just because some people want more police protection instead of learning how to deal with griefers on their own. To review briefly:
Of course.. it's easy to mistake a griefer (or a troll) for a racist. They might not be, but are willing to go to any length of absurdity to get an angry reaction out of as many people as possible.

(Trolls seek to outrage many. Flames outrage specific targets. Terms are so slippery.)

-
"Actaually all the posts from Jopsy were just as informed too." -- Seronis Zagato
*blush*

Actually i showed up there with statue boy the instant you started whining on Mentor chat (assuming it might be valid complaint) and upon seeing the 'otrocity' put on a stone skin AV of my own. And i was there to witniss first hand both Lindens in question compliment his pose and overall look.

Usagi you seem to have a better understanding than most of why the lindens are not available to do a 911 rush, but you're equally off on some other issues. I think you just let your emotions get the best of you too easily. Just learn to sit back relax and take a breather and not worry about the tiny things. You'll be happier for it.

All of this is what a good friend of mine refers to as "dropping bombs of wisdom" Kudos, well done, props, hi-fives, etc, etc, ad infinitum!

In my opinion, one of the key points in all this is that we're talking about an incident in a VIRTUAL WORLD. Hell, people talking racist trash in the REAL world is fairly often nothing worth reacting over either. Ignorance cannot be thwarted by freaking out over it. Yes bigoted behavior is ugly and ignorant, but verbal abuse has absolutely no effect if you don't allow it to affect you. I for one refuse to expend the emotional energy necessary to be offended by idiots.

-S

It was more than just racist chat, as I've said. The person was wearing a Klan outfit, which is not something that can be muted, and was pinning dark skinned avs against walls, an act that I found very offensive, and something that would not be ignored in real life. This image, of dark skinned avs pinned against the wall by someone in a Klan outfit, did not leave my mind for several days, and while we can say that it is just virtual, to do so writes off our entire experience here, as everything about this world is virtual and symbolic. Either it means something or it doesn't and I don't know why I would participate in a world that doesn't mean anything.

I was only trying to do what I thought was right in this situation. Apparently many of you think my reaction was the wrong one. As I've said, I've left the mentor group, so there's no danger of a repeat. My apologies to anyone I may have offended or upset through my actions in this experience. I was angry and upset when I wrote my initial post, and while I still stand behind everything I said, I'm sorry if the tone was inflamatory.

I have certainly learned a lot about SL, LL and the forums through this entire experience. I can't say that it's increased my love for SL, but maybe I will find a way for it to be a meaningful, useful place for me.

If you would like to attend the DigitalCultures enforcement discussion I mentioned earlier, it has been moved to tomorrow, Friday, May 11, due to the downtime yesterday. I don't enjoy caustic discussions so I hope this anyone who participates can stay level-headed, but, rest assured, I won't be IMing Lindens to remove any troublemakers.

Event listing here:

http://secondlife.com/events/event.php?id=212671&date=1147456800

Best to all of you.

FF

never ask them anything. just file an ar.....that the only thing you'll ever get told. when i had my neighbour with a burning cross it took over two months for them to do something after God knows how many reports even though lindens did see it and refused to remove it telling me it's not their land. wtf? you file an ar and it takes two months to do something about it. def not worth filing anything or even talking to lindens as we have many on the list and only two or three lit up anyway who are to busy for stuff like that.
i'm not impressed at all with the support LL offers.

I guess my point was, in the context of SL (that is, the absense of physical or "real" harm), any psychological damage suffered is only there if you allow it to be. If the image of this event in SL didn't leave your mind for days, you must not watch the news on TV much.




Naw, I wouldn't say anything like that at all. Virtual does not mean meaningless. However, that does not mean that the same rules apply. Further, and more importantly I think, the meaning in what a resident does in SL is entirely dependent upon *that resident*. Allowing the actions of any number of ignorant jerks to rob your virtual existence of meaning is, well....letting them win. (I realize that's not what you said exactly, but I'm just running with it.)

-S

You spell drama so perfect...Now why don`t you go back to your hole and stay there.......... Since your posting number are few it appears you a troll that causes around and looks for problems.SO to that Welcometo the Ignore listing.......

Frank Just don`t bother with some here, they in their rl bring their emotion bag To sl. This is what year 2006? Some still live in in the late 1950`s and 1960`s in their hearts with hate. That factor you can`t change with some because why should they? It gives them pleasure to hurt other in the game just like they do in rl.........Nice World of SL we have......They buy powerful computers to spread their hateful thought to others on this game second life. For what? to help others in the game? To make their lives more important..........
The Pay Pal accounts have and are hurting this game with some of these pest that continuely get banned for their hated related racism etc. This we can not stop because since LLAbs does not IP banned at times. And these trollers know this...... Look at some of the dates on their join dates. That alone shows the status of people IQ of the game..I know so people that barly post but when they do they make it good with out getting in to their person dislikes. But others just hide without showing their first or must explosed avie posting name. If thats what they care to do they fine, it just reduces the impact of their replies. The drama is thick here, maybe because kids are out of school or in stress part of finals.Who knows?
When these types of people finally growup, they learn the world does not circle them. Hence they learn the hard way. Its part of the learn process some either lern sooner then others.......
Its these same people that makes fun of people`s spelling and grammar.......Thats another sign of their hates others that are unlike themselves..........The Real World is bad enough, now they have to spread their virus in to this great game......Modern world of spreading hate and hurt to others the internet.....

Have a wonderful day Frank and don`t let little mind mess with you.....Second Life is a great game with many GREAT caring people. Don`t let these people drag you though their dirty ways of thinking aboutthe world.....

There been times during my life on sl i seems some pretty tastless action, burning crosses, jeus stype of kids nailing themselve to a cross with blood coming out of thier hand etc......Some others which i can`t even speak of, because of their low life actions. If thats what people do so be it. If they need to show this type of actions on sl, its a hell of alot better then hitting someone or burning them in rl. Here they get banned and or thrown out of the game for good. But in rl with would have the police after them.......

VR are wonderful world one can do what they can`t in rl. But then again that goes for tastless racism actions.

If you read through some remarks from others here, they keep getting to actions that happened in the wa from TWO diff occurance..........That alone tells you people just don`t understand what they are reling to at times here.

Ok, I had about enough of this topic. Racisim is idiotic, and EVERYONE is guilty of it at some point to another, no one is a saint, NO ONE!! So , here is this, lets just drop it and let it be, and let LL deal with what is here right now. No more speculations, accusations, assumptions, because most of the time, we are always wrong. Now with that being said, lets get back to our Second Lives and have fun.

In this case I was there.....And what occured was sick.......I agree let LLabs deal with issues and they will........But I assumed not..........Was there was pushed around by KKK person seeming to want attention etc........

" Now with that being said, lets get back to our Second Lives and have fun" Total agreement

Well! What a brandishing of freshly ground axes!

Putting all the personal stuff aside, the ISSUE appears to be that LL, or at any rate quite a few Lindens, do not care sufficently about the first impressions SL makes on new(ish) customers to react to a distasteful griefing incident other than 'AR it'.

Sadly there are Lindens who will at least attempt to help residents if approached, and Lindens who definitely won't - you can generally tell by looking at profiles. The 'RTFM and DON'T waste MY precious time' types aren't worth the trouble - though it's something of a mystery to me that they are allowed in-world, or if they truly can't be bothered, why don't they use their 'God Mode' to go 'invisible', which they can easily do?

If you can't find a Linden who is free and actually willing to help, you might as well log off.

And if LL really don't care sufficently about the first impressions SL makes on new(ish) customers to react to a distasteful griefing incident other than 'AR it', well, just walk away - after all, it's their bottom line that's affected, not yours...

This remark is so outside the truth its not funny. The inworld Lindens are some of the better lindens inthe chain they have to be!. Doc i don`t know what your personal stick is with lindens but your not even close. Ok i had problems with that SOS i sent in the mentor chat, but they did come. But there was a few days later when this one linden who was less then willing to remark about a problem even direct said her peace about a problem bla bla.......But Thats one linden out of the rest. But the KKK problem got worse because the lindens on duty tried to deal with the lack of man power do to the large scale of the problem. They tried and they did their job, but its support thats has to deal withe the kkk person.

OK, all Lindens are overworked angels - happy?

Personally, I know of Lindens who can't be bothered. I also know of Lindens who are unbelievably helpful. And if I, or another resident, need Linden help, I ask a helpful Linden.
There is absolutely no point requesting assistance or expecting action from someone who makes it abundantly clear they just aren't interested in residents.

The FACT remains that a responsible company, i.e. one that happilly takes $millions of investors cash, should have priorities - and foremost of those ought to be that new(ish) customers are given the best possible impression of SL.

That is clearly what did not happen in this case. I can understand Lindens not wanting to have to constantly deal with petty problems. But this obviously wasn't a petty problem.

So, why sweat it though? If LL doesn't care about new(ish) customers being put off by unnaceptable behaviour, why should we?

Oh, and I don't have any 'personal stick' with Lindens in general, though sometimes the Linden management annoys me, but the Lindens I'm in contact with I have no problems with.
Ages ago I came across a couple of the 'don't confuse me with someone who gives a ****' types, and when I'd got over my surprise I compared profile notes with the helpful ones. At which point things became a lot clearer. Thereafter I've avoided that type and had no problems.
Just a simple observation based on experience.

Good for you want a cookie now