Do as we say, Not as we say?

I see some conflicting statements made in the Blog Post and the community Standards it is meant to support.







Specifically this statement here:



Conflicts directly with this statement from the CS:



This disconnect needs to be cleared up - they are directly at odds with each other.
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The way the CS is written there are no sexual or violent depictions that can not be displayed in Second Life, provided they are on Mature Land - as long as they do not violate the other Community Standards Rules, mainly on intollerance. This obviously needs to be revized since recent developments says that there are.

Yes, the Verification changes will change the Mature land into 2 divisions - but the fact remains that until this recent blog post the Community Standards expressly allow broadly offensive material, provided it is on MATURE land.

http://secondlife.com/corporate/cs.php

If anyone can find the portion of the Community standards that actually Supports Dan Linden's Statement that No Broadly Offensive material is allowed in Second Life, Please enlighten me.

Im of the opinion Dan choose his words poorly, and he meant something stronger than the "Broadly Offensive" used to deliniate the Mature requirement.

However, he did not SAY that.

So my questions are -

Is Broadly offensive allowed?
If not why isnt all of Second Life made PG - by its own Community Standards?

If thats not what they intended, when can we expect either Dan's Blog post to be ammended?

Or - the Community Standards rewritten?


Thank you.

I'll lean towards Answer 1, as in my opinion LL have been absolutely abysmal in their communication of ANYTHING.

Very good post, Collette. I'd like to hear LL explain itself.

Linden Lab has a long track record of disregarding the wants of their paying customers but doing a complete turn-around when the media gets involved.
ie. copybot, casinos, child porn.

I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.....

Maybe it's time the Lindens read the CS...

Mandy C

Its actually Sacha's point from the other thread that got COMPLETELY lost in the shuffle of people upset over this issue.





Yes its obvious that Dan Linden hasnt recently read the community standards or he wouldnt have used the terminaology he did. I would hope.

Of course when preparing a blog post about "community standards", you would think the least you could do is read whats on the books first. Its not like the CS is very detailed or large.

Oh, for god's sake...will you just stop this frikkin witch hunt?


I'm tired of seeing pasted examples that can easily be taken out of context.


You people need to get a real life.



And how the HELL does this fall under "Resident Answers" ?

I included the entire Blog Entry as well as the entire Indecency portion of the Coumminity Standards, As well as providing a link to the Community Standards -

So that I precicely wouldnt be taking it out of context.

What part of the context did I miss, please?


It falls under Resident Answers since Residents ask questions about the Blog here, as I did.

If the Lindens want to improve their Blog comments section or add a Blog feedback Forum I would have posted there.

Nice to meet you too. This forum is for discussing things, and that's what we're doing. In no way this is a witch hunt. As for your post, I could easily say you're just trolling a basically good thread.

Mandy C

How can "other broadly offensive content" be taken out of context when it never had any context to begin with? I'll take ridiculously vague statements for 200, Alex.

OK, let's reduce this to Fisher Price speak.

There's a clear contradiction between the Community Standards and a blog entry posted by Dan Linden last night. It's not a vague difference, it's not difficult to notice, and nothing is being taken out of context. If you still think it is, perhaps you could be more constructive by pointing out exactly which text you think has been taken out of context.

As for how the hell this fits into Resident's Answers, well Colette is a resident, her question is in the subject line, and the detail is in the body of the message.

Have a great day with that life of yours.

Conflicting policies and customer service issues are symptomatic of a company that is undergoing very rapid expansion. LL strikes me as a small company that suddenly finds itself very large, and is realizing the way a small company manages itself doesn't work in a large coporation. To give LL credit, this is also a very new type of business, so they don't really have a model to follow either. I think things will eventually get better and that policies will be more consistent. For now, the fact that there are inconsistent statements like this provides a certain level of protection in a strange way--should these matters make it to court.

From 'Animal Farm' by George Orwell



"Are the Seven Commandments the same as they used to be,
Benjamin?"

For once Benjamin consented to break his rule, and he read out to her what
was written on the wall. There was nothing there now except a single
Commandment. It ran:

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL

BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

Yep, I gotta agree, that's a really good point, there, Ms. Meiji.

Of course, they won't resolve the disconnect for some time.

My bet is that Daniel Linden is in the PR department, who a) usually run afoul of legal matters, and b) don't have even the remotest CLUE about technical ones, when they open their mouths and make sweeping proclamations like that.

Good point. But, alas, what D.L. wrote (other than "now go and hunt witches" is already part of the current TOS, although LL never seemed to find it important enough to add it to the community standards:



I read this when the TOS was changed the last time, but never worried much about it since it includes pretty much every activity on the grid. Using guns? Quite threatening. Even skydiving is threatening imho. Sexual content? Either vulgar or obscene. Everything else possibly falls under "otherwise objectionable", if LL needs a reason to ban someone. It is at their sole discretion to determine what is objectionable, and they can take whatever steps they deem necessary without noticing the resident.
At least that's what the TOS says, which turned out to be moot in court.

I assumed that, since LL doesn't want to lose the majority of their customers, they'd reserve this section for really, totally, absolutely and utterly extreme cases (like someone having sex with a sheep while cutting it up with a chainsaw, in a PG sim, wearing nazi insignia and uttering hate speech). Seems that I was wrong.

They badly need to clarify what is obscene, vulgar, broadly offensive or otherwise objectionable. But I doubt they'll ever do that, otherwise they lose the option to kick unwanted residents at random without causing a mass exodus of customers.

Oh, they have a model alright.

It's called the "Tao of Linden," and that's the problem.

http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/07/25/the-tao-of-linden/#more-174

coco

well certainly they need to keep this option

As well as the option to ban whatever they want.

But they should be careful not to use the same language meaning two different things when describing similair issues.

too many cooks in the kitchen.

Ultimately it doesn't matter what LL says...
it's what they choose to enforce that matters.

Despite the posturing on the blogs for posterity...
I suspect little will change to any noticible degree.

Keep this handy when you get AR'ed for something offensive, and evidence is submitted against you. Will the Arer be subject to AR?

I was wondering about posting that quote in this context when I put it in the sheepbot thread

I hope you don't mind me lifting it........I figured it would be more on Topic here.... Is it me or does LL use the phrase "Might constitute" an awful lot in the TOS. Can they be definitive on Anything?

LOL@ all 4 sentences.

This is NOT taken out of context. LL has done this type of thing time and time again.

One i was personally involved in and got an answer from a Linden in world only to be told in the linden answers forum the complete opposite.

Things like this NEED to be cleared up and discussed and made clear and known to all LL employees as well as residents. I guarantee there is a large handful of liasons who know nothing about this. That`s pretty sad. And then when its delivered to the userbase it comes in chopped up/missing/no-sense-making pieces.

That sort of blog posting should
1) be put through decent QA before it gets outside of LL
2) tried out on the Beta grid
3) Never get to the main grid

Yes after the verification post and now this one, Im really not impressed by Dan L's Blog style.