It might be time...

...to admit that the "Resident Answers" forum shouldn't be about a ResMod's - or any ResMod individually - ego.

It's time to reinstate this forum for honest questions, honest answers, and those of us who've been involved in Live Help to be able to answer a question honestly without pathetic chest beating. Please, someone, step to the plate. This "moderation" and "discussion" is about as level headed as what I see monthly in Penthouse Forum. I'm a Second Citizen regular, and I know what to expect there. However, here, we're supposed to be a higher standard; yet I can find nothing but ResMod hall monitors here trolling.

It's time for a change. The ResMods are now babysitters. Aren't we all over 18 here?

Regards,

-Flip

I can understand LL wanting to pull out of the General Forum, and focus more on game-specific discussion, and I think the Resident Answers forums is a good place for that. And by encouraging everything start off with a question helps to ensure that is actual discussion, and not simple ranting. Granted some people can get out of hand, thats the nature of society, its true in both the public at large and those who guard/protect/serve us.

I think it's important though that discussion not be stifled too much, and I have to agree with Flipper, there is a definite feeling of squelching on these forums as they are now. Perhaps it's time for a new mission-statement in regards to the forums, if things are continuing along at the old rules put in place when the General forums was still around, it's in my opinion, not suited to a forum of this significantly smaller, and shrinking size.

It may be a simple problem, of using a sledgehammer to hang a picture frame, the tools in place now are too strong, they're stunting the communities further growth, a growth that can be productive and managed if handled with care...

Thirded.

one can be verry gentle with a sledgehammer if one tries, but ll doesnt try for the mostpart with the forums

boils down, doesnt matter what tools they have if they dont know or care to use them

I find this thread ironically funny....
A post calling the resmods babysitters, with no in-game related question at all, just a rant... and posted in the in-game Q & A forum.
Might stuff like this be the very reason the mods feel they NEED to act like babysitters?
Lol - that's funny.

Ah, spotted one. We were asked if we were all 18?

This wasn't meant to be a rant at all, sorry if it came off that way. I'm just trying to suggest that perhaps the volunteer groups (Live Help, Instructors, Mentors) would be better equipped to keep a sense of the room, rather than the ResMods. According to many former ResMods I know (friends of mine, I might add), the program was never really quite a success and just created animosity. When this forum started, I enjoyed answering questions here to help people, but now it has seemed to turn into a partial shooting gallery.

Regards,

-Flip

Ah yes. I can't comment on any historical factors here but isn't SL becoming somewhat a victim of it's own success?
A few years back I was a helper on a game site. That game had a definite goal. Questions raised were technical because there just wasn't any other aspect involved. As an aside, we captains became firm friends and organised meetings IRL, now engaged to one, but the forum was designed primarily for the players to get technical help.
Second Life, and I use the name fully in recognition of what I'm saying, is an entirely new genre. It's been argued elsewhere whether it is in fact a game. I think the word game is too limiting for it.
With it's wide ranging complexity it draws in all sorts of human values primarily because there is no set goal. Hence conflicting interests, conflicting views. It's become a microcosm of the real world and as such is laid bare to many of its problems.
There, that's my two cents worth

But how do those two cents relate to the original point? Examples produced at other forums suggest resmod powers are now being abused to the point of locking threads for very personal reasons. It is also alleged that DMCA notices are now being threatened, and I for one thinks that is a matter of considerable importance for LL and anybody who values the SL forums.

Be careful which forum regulars you quote on your blogs from now on, otherwise you may not have a blog this time tomorrow. It's not even a matter of how you interpret the DMCA anymore. Your host will generally pull the plug just to be safe.

I thought my last paragraph did but as I said, I lack the history. Mebbe shouldn't have posted considering.

Nooo, sorry. That first sentence sounded harsh. Everything you said was quite valid and hardly OT because it related to experiences with forum moderation.

It is a can of worms though, innit?

My fault, perhaps rant wasn't the right word to use

Statement?

Well...in this case, I don't think so. What you say about complex human values and conflicting views is inevitable amongst regular participants of public forums. But appointed moderators are not regular participants. When performing their duties, it stands to reason they should do so with as much neutrality and as little prejudice as possible. If they are incapable of this, they shouldn't be moderating forums. Simple as that.

The DMCA issue is what concerns me most though. Does Linden Lab sanction DMCA threats made against third-party sites when those threats are issued by moderators they appointed? Particularly when the content in question was posted using forum software hosted on Linden Lab's own servers.

I would also like clear guidance on whether messages posted at the Second Life forum, or via its private messaging system, may be quoted on third-party forums and blogs. It's a pretty crucial Resident's Answers request considering we could be compromising the existence of third-party websites whenever we quote issues being discussed here.

I guess the question is evolving, and my concerns were valid, especially since the DMCA is now being used as a weapon. It's a real shame, I'm sure that wasn't the spirit of the law, but if you've read the DMCA, you'll probably agree with me that the letter of the law is shamefully written by people who don't understand technology.

Gleefully playing hall monitor has now changed and started to threaten third party communities built around SL.

Regards,

-Flip

Prokofy Neva has been doing exactly this for ages on his blog; not just forum conversations, but in-world chat and instant messages as well. I don't think there's ever been any kind of penalty assessed, and I know Linden Lab is aware of the behavior. IIRC, the rule was that in-world conversations and IMs could not be posted on the Second Life forum, but once it's on a different server, it's out of Linden Lab's jurisdiction.

Regards,

-Flip

I don't care for the DMCA threatening going on, either. I don't think it would get anywhere in court, and as such, would just serve as a form of expensive harrassment.

But for all we know, a Linden actually suggested that remedy to the individual in question, if he perceived a problem; after all, it is the remedy they are constantly suggesting, n'est ce pas?

I also don't care for the fact that the General forum is gone.

On the other hand, I also don't start threads like this one, because we're clearly not supposed to, and I think that really should include you, too, Flipper.

coco

Yes, sorry Dillon. Frankly, this DMCA issue is over my head .. probably where the can of worms is!

Interesting site: http://www.anti-dmca.org/

But I don't really understand this part. Are you suggesting we do away with the ResMods because ResMods hurt the forum and then replace them with Live Help, Instructors and Mentors. In other words you want someone else to do the ResMods jobs, effectively becoming ResMods??????? Or are you saying there should be no moderation at all? I can not see how either solution would be any different then what we have now or even worse. Posts like Joshua Nightshades and it's language should be allowed here? Or are you really saying you don't like the ResMods and they should all be replaced? I personally can not even begin to imagine how nasty it would become here in The Resident Answers section without any moderation at all. The threads get bad enough before they are locked.

Yes at times it is a shooting gallery with the same target but it is also the same people doing the targetting again and again.

Lindens can still moderate. And unbiased interns would do it for free to be part of a technological company like this.

Hmm, I was just going to respond to a message that said "therein lies the can of worms", Posted by billo99 Emu, but it's been deleted? Did I just imagine that message?

Sorry Dillon. No, not "therein". I was going to apologise for not understanding the DMCA issue but hadn't realised there were further posts. Just didn't seem relevent to post then. Can of worms was in my head!

LOL. Yeah, I was paraphrasing. I just didn't realise we could delete messages.

With regards everything else: I agree that Flipper's post was valid and disagree with the notion that answers are dependent upon questions. Here an issue was raised that effects any resident posting on any SL related forum (whether official or unofficial) and clearly requires some kind of resolve. If everything really must be posed as a question here, maybe the forum should be renamed Resident's Questions instead.

As for DMCA take-down notices (or mere threats of them), I'm sure anybody publishing on the WWW -- from mere bloggers to those offering forums to thousands of users -- would care as passionately about losing their web-presence as they would their business in SL if similar DMCA abuses occurred in-world. (And for all I know, maybe they do?)

What "kind of threads"? What could me more on topic for a forum than a topic discussing how we can get the forum back on topic instead of being a shooting gallery? Okay, a bit of a paradox, but an important one to discuss, nonetheless.


Oh, far from it! I'm saying let's not have any moderators other than the Lindens. The intent of this forum is different than the rest - it's for SL volunteers and residents to help people with questions. I'm fairly certain that the community involved could self-moderate very well, and when they couldn't, just let the Lindens step in instead of hall monitors with agendas. I'm not suggesting anyone from a volunteer group should have any more power than any other resident poster, but just that many don't bother here because of the animosity the Resmod program has created between residents.

This forum was created after the others were closed because Linden Lab's answers section was becoming overwhelmed. I've always been glad to volunteer my time to help Second Life grow, as have many; I think the least that can be done for this forum is to have Linden Lab take responsibility for it since they're the ones reaping the benefits. We've already seen the Resmod thing fail brutally enough times, and now it's gone so far as to have a resmod issue a DMCA to a third party site?! This is lunacy.

Just my two cents.

Regards,

-Flip