is BanLink a violation of CS?

Here is another thing not yet mentioned, and the most damning: the system is totally opaque and unaccountable. There is no way to know which parcels or sims use Banlink, and who shares ban lists with whom. On one hand, Banlink readily puts up personal information about the accused, including private IM conversations, but is completely silent on how the system itself works. It is a black box blacklist.

What if someone wanted to avoid places that use banlink, or places that use certain banlink ban lists? What if someone wanted to form a group protest the use of the system or elements by refusing to patronize stores and other commercial ventures in such areas? There is no way to do this.

If the operators wish to make banlink more fair, they need to put up a page detailing the parcels that use banlink and which banlists they share. They also need to delete all private information from the database and prohibit the addition of such in the future.

I am answering on SLUNIVERSE

FYI: This discussion has continued over at the SLUniverse forums, where we can all speak freely, in addition to 'naming names' (Yes, you can do that on 3rd party websites).

The link to the thread is here, for those not familiar with SL Universe:

http://www.sluniverse.com/forums/Topic15893-1-1.aspx

Aminom - while I respect your criticism, you do realize that BanLink is not the only system out there that does this sort of thing, correct?

Not only are there networked ban systems out there that are 100% secret, there are both in-world and out-world groups that exchange information about 'griefers'... except its often in a complete vacuum. There is no dispute mechanism, and there is absolutely no way to know who is on the 'list'.

In a way, many of them have taken the easy way out by not attempting to balance the needs of the landowner with the needs of the banned. Look what it got me: a whole lotta drama & pitchforks.

BanLink is getting attention because we've chosen to be more transparent by allowing anyone to search for a name, and file a dispute for themselves. I have yet to be convinced we're not doing the right thing by making these things public.

Additionally, Wilhelm - it appears the dispute you logged succeeded, and your ban was taken off from being shared by Atlwolf. Its a testament that disputes do indeed work, if you can be a little patient.

If anyone wishes to debate BanLink further for bad or good, happy to chat with you over on SLUniverse

hiya

after my somewhat uh strange experience with banlink (to my knowledge I am not banned on other systems which dont publish names ) I'm worried about the validity of information and the ability of people to move through SL without worrying about persecution and publication of what basically amounts to gossip for everyone to see on this website and possibly information being shared privately in other smaller systems.

As a result of the fact that this appears to be growing and the fact that I want to be able to travel through SL to places that I feel safe at where some guy isn't gonna hate my for breathing the wrong way I'm going to start up a faily loose service where people can display a logo/sign that says they dont use such tools or publish or share information about avatars (even if they ban them) and these places will be listed as "banlink safe". This will just be a blog for now but I will be making up the sign and notecard and sticking it for people to get on sl exchange.

I think that if people are going to be banned that each individual business/service/hangout etc should be judging from scratch for themselves especially in light of the fact that names are added and published and may not even be for valid reasons or even factual reasons.

Also possibly peopel who are wrongly banned can publish their reasons on this blog in an effort to be heard because I know that there is no real way for anyone to actualy voice anything. I do believe that the only reason I am no longer listed is because I spoke up loudly maybe I am wrong but I dont think so.

Anyhow I think that people are going to have to start taking measure to protect their reputations and identities from false accusations as finger pointing escalates over time and the only reason I can feel that I am safe is if somene assures me that if i go to their land that I'm not going to be published in any list for any reason at all. Banlink and other smaller hidden systems dont guarantee that and are banning people for all kinds of reasons. I do still consider banlink to be a huge gossip mill of drama and I didn't apprecaite being publicly persecuted for even a day as it should never have happened as truly I had done nothing wrong except ask a guy to take down a barrier

Banlink boasts to be a "powerful tools against griefers" but its not just listing griefers its listing people who write negative things all kinds of stuff this is wrong and I would like to protect myself from this type of service in the long run

so this weekend I will be setting something up and displaying banlink free sign on my properties so thatpeople know that I'm not gonna spread a bunch of rumours and post information to some website about them if they do something wrong on myproperty they will be banned and possibly even reported to LL but they wont be abused and published to a third party site and their names wont be shared with 20 million other people

Could I have a copy of that sign you are going to make?

I just created a fake account on the banlink site and I had without any verification access to their database. That is just plain anything involving privacy... banned avatar or not.

Apart from the fact I think it is not up to them to play "police force and judge" at the same time on these vague terms.

Morwen.

hehe okay name is changing to blacklist free i think (still working on it) I will create a blog tomorrow or this evening (still busy with real world stuff) this is not like a protest thing this is just going to be a list of places on a blog or website eventually if it has interest as places that dont make lists and publish them and trade them off to others etc

and they can display their little sign with the notecard in it explaining why they are blacklist free and what sites keep them (websites i mean not land the list would be too large that way)

i'm still working on the name and this just started as an idea like 24 hours ago so be awhile once i make the notecard and put the sign together i will send you a sign and then you can list your property as blacklist free hehe

I run The Particle Laboratory and Ethereal 'Teal' nearly single handedly. (a silent partner does help out from time to time).

The area is PG... and yet I get nude/obscene visitors often...
The area is Safe... and yet I get gun toting ?savages? often...

When someone stomps over the line of what I find acceptable, I politely, respectfully, and warmly ask them to stop in a variety of ways.


You'd be amazed what people will agree to if asked nicely enough.

And of course, if you ask in a way that invites confrontation, they'll certainly answer with it.

In the last 3 years I've been building on my area... I've banned fewer than 10 people... total. Folks are warned twice before hand, and I rarely have to issue a 2nd.

I don't like banlink... or it's like... and while it's a cleverly deployed system that I'm sure helps in areas with higher traffic than mine, I dislike what it stands for.

To me, places are "open to the public" or "private". Private areas, in my opinion should operate on a "by-invitation only" basis.... not on a "Everyone except you cause someone has spoken against you" basis.

And I think "open to the public" areas should be open to all, and not rely on hear-say to exclude specific people.

Just my 2 cents... but then again, as my tagline says, I'm a perpetual outsider. =)

Banlink is avery useful tool. I know from my time on the mainland running a 'public' venue that the notorious nuisances usually hit a few dozen places and get reported before Linden intervention. With Linden Lab backing further away from policing, this system is all we have to help folks think twice before being twits in public places.

Smart thinking! I guess I'm a little surprised that it took this long for someone to test the system and report back results. But I sure wouldn't have thought to do it. Wow, that really supports the argument that systems like this can and will be abused. It's problematic enough that the complaints against the banned parties are not investigated before they are slapped up on the master ban list - but not even to verify the people registering to get an account? Isn't that a little like letting the fox into the henhouse because one of them might have laid a bad egg? Edit: Okay maybe not the best analogy but I just talked to a fox with a furry swishy tail before dinner and it's the first thing I can think of in my post-dinner slump. Oh and Morwen I'm not accusing you of being a fox in a henhouse. But I wonder how many there are.

I like my privacy and I'd like to keep it. Banlink people, you might be right that this is the best system in place, or you might be wrong, but either way, these are some serious issues that need to be addressed.

BanLink is still a work in progress. By no means is the project complete, or closed to feedback and suggestions for making it better for everyone.

Morwen, while some of your concerns are valid, you seem to be filling in the gaps of the little you understand about banlink with your own wild assumptions.

Creating a fake account does not give you any abilities other than to view one site's particular 'view' of the database, which is actually less information that you can find by searching the public form. I fail to see the serious security 'breach' that you claim.

Did you investigate the trust system, and how that works?

While you were looking at the database, did you happen to notice that the majority of shared bans are indeed for grefing activities that few would dispute?

While you were looking at the database, did you happen to notice the number of Disputes filed, and look at how many appear to be satisfactorally resolved?

In your exhaustive research, did you learn that there are three different types of bans a site can set, but only one type of them is shared with others?

If I sound mildly annoyed, its because you have done a really crappy job of researching the thing you are so admantly against. You are shooting from the hip, and making a lot of statements that just plain aren't true.

I know, I know - no one needs proactive systems to prevent grief. Anyone that claims they do is completely overstating the grief problem. Right-click, freeze, eject. That's all that needs to be done. Alrighty then.

There's no such thing as coordinated terrorism in Second Life

There's no such thing as coordinated terrorism in Second Life

There's no such thing as coordinated terrorism in Second Life

Griefers wouldn't actually create an open-source SL client called Shooped Life, that successfully evades all Linden's hardware bans.

You're absolutely right. There's no need for such a thing at all.

*edit*
given up people missing the point

not worth the time and effort to further explain

Not all of us are kneejerk naysayers, Travis - I can fully understand what motivates. There are definite problems out there, and there are definitely people who organise in groups for the purpose of doing pointless damage.

I'd even go so far as to say that today, it seems your system works pretty well. I'm not opposed on a present tense, facts-on-the-ground level at all.

My only real fear is what a BanLink-style system might become. Part of what makes BanLink palatable is you, Travis - people respect you, and for good reason.

Imagine if BanLink or a derivative really caught on, only to someday be run by someone less socially conscious, or someone who simply got too busy to worry about keeping an eye on what was going on with it.

I re-read this thread and it seems to me Travis you had some understanding of the issues that led to the original ban mentioned here.

I also note that it seems you restrict membership to high traffic/high griefing areas of Second Life.

Maybe the solution to some issues raised in this thread would be resolved if you made it clear to your clients a networked ban should not be entered because of a personal dispute, and reserved unto yourself the right to remove avatars entered on such a list if you felt a potential ban was unwarranted after reviewing any evidence or avatar appeals through due process you set

However I also note Desmond’s points too. I hope I am not bringing the wrath of Paris down on us in Caledon when I say we rarely if ever have trouble (1 prim litter issue in 5 months is my only direct experience of trouble) which was swiftly resolved by another avatar who Desmond trusts with Estate powers. Perhaps we are doing something right there which others could copy

This has already happened.

I run a system called LinkOBan and I am the most unscrupulous person I have ever met. Fully 50% of the avatar names on LinkOBan are there - as the database says - "for no reason whatsoever".

LinkOBan works really well, the only problem I have is that no one wants to subscribe to it. I am thus starting my awareness campaign here. Please send mail to [email=strawman@LinkOBan.example.com]strawman@LinkOBan.example.com[/email] so that you too can get in on the next wave of automated banning.

Disclaimer: LinkOBan doesn't really exist but was made up to show, using parody, why the hypothetical "bad ban sharing" service would likely not be much used. Futhermore, if you are reading this disclaimer, you have automatically been added to LinkOBan.

I object most strenuously to having been placed on the LinkOBan list simply because I read the disclaimer. I don't object to being on the LinkOBan list; I'd just like to have a more interesting reason displayed as the cause of my punishment.

Also, I'd like to sign up for the LinkOBan service.

-----------------------

Seriously, the repeated sight of the word BanLink has caused me to wonder if there might be a room for some kind of PromoLink system. An UnBanLInk system, if you will. Probably not, there's already plenty of places to promote stuff, but maybe there is some sort of system that would help people find good things, good places, and "good people" (i.e. people that suit the person looking) more efficiently. Some scheme that's easy to use properly but hard to game.

Entry change:

/SuezanneC Baskerville/s/reading disclaimer/subscribing to LinkOBan and being unkind to kittens/

Grins

Fun post. I would say though, a system doesn't have to *start* evil to turn into a bad egg later. There *is* such a thing as a concept that might work on a neighbourhood level but be disastrous for the grid at large.

Let's talk about the 'straw man' argument. Say a BanLink user goes off to play World of Warcraft for six months. Likely that hasn't happened yet. But must we wait until it does?

We have *all* run into people that simply don't answer IM's or email. Someone is going to get banned and ignored. This isn't straw man, it's Wicker man.



This reminds me strongly of "resident government." Most people instinctively and correctly know what a disaster-in-waiting this is, and yes, I'm saying that as someone who runs sims of my own. I'm probably the *greater* evil here, and well know it! The difference is, I'm pretty much limited to my own lands, and unlikely to ever catch on in a big way.

But the pot and kettle are both black to Joe Avatar, even if the pot and kettle both wink at each other and decide to call themselves gold.

I'm a huge fan of Travis and Mera, of Carl and others, and really appreciate that they do wonderful things on the grid. All told, they have benefited the grid far more than I ever shall. Definitely people with a strong sense of ethics too.

Yet I see BanLink as the sort of thing that can get bigger than all of us - something that if it catches on big, will become pretty much unstoppable even if Travis decided to shut off his version of it. It's a subject worthy of constructive commentary, even if not all of that commentary is positive.

That doesn't prove much, Morwen. Users you ban will have no effect on other sites unless they choose to honor your bans.

The appropriate use of BanLink is for people and organizations who know and trust each others' judgements link up to simplify banning griefers. IMHO, it's inappropriate for a landowner to join up and trust everyone else's ban lists! That's likely to cause them nearly as much trouble as the griefers would, because no doubt there are plenty of folks who sign up and ban people they don't like out of spite, or for whatever reason.

Finally, if you find you're banned from a site due to that site's use of banlink, you should consider discussing it with the site where you're banned, and suggest (politely and patiently) that perhaps they shouldn't trust bans from the party that actually banned you.

Some folks may see BanLink as an invasion of privacy, but the truth is, information gets shared. Some of that information is false. That's life, and there is no foolproof way to protect against it. The best defense is to be civil, and when a dispute arises, work through it as patiently as possible. And remember, if a site bans you, you can go elsewhere. Yes it's frustrating but it's not the end of the world. You get to choose whether you spend your time hassling over a ban, or go elsewhere and enjoy.

These are some very real issues, and I find them vastly troubling.

As I said earlier, Travis is a stand-up dog. If you go over to SLUniverse (Malachi, for instance!), you will see a discussion Travis is putting a great deal of thought into, that I think has progressed beyond this discussion here.

coco

(again the will never be realized plea to LL to let us have real forums again for topics like this)

Ive given this issue some more thought -

I think If this service werent run by people like Travis - less people would be supporting the idea. I dont think people like black lists per se.

The problem maybe is sadly "what can you do?" in these situations. I dont like black lists on principle.

I wouldnt like Residents with quasi police powers either. (the potential abuse there would be HUGE)

I wouldnt like the Lindens to up rates to allow them to hire more people to step up police activities either.

Imploring residents to behave as adults wont work.

Im not terribly fond of allowing griefers to run amuck either =/.

I suppose its possible the List is the least of a few evils.


*********************************************************
The other altenative would be to let griefers greif and ban them on your own as a manager/land owner. This is the policy I have always employed/ will always employ. I personally am more willing to survive being greifed than to participate in something like a black list or to call for a heavier police prescense .

But I can see where people with more economic interest at stake have more to lose than I would.

while there has been a fairly decent conversation (overall) and this thread did begin with an SL-related question that pertained to the community, this thread has since seen whatever answers can be garnered here and has, at this point, outlived its usefullness.

please feel free to join the conversation on this matter at whatever third-party sites have one running, or by starting your own at whatever thrd-party site you're comfortable with.

i have submitted my closure of this thread to Linden Review.


Torley Linden:
This thread remains closed as it indeed has outlived its usefulness. With Resident-created inventions, it's often a good idea to have a dialog with the creator, as they understand its intent and purpose best. Should we, Linden Lab, find a problem inworld which violates the Community Standards or Terms of Service, we can take action. But first and foremost, it's best to make certain there's no miscommunication.