Ratings site linked to by Lindens in blog is shady to say the least.

Yep, that is exactly what I'm saying. My first inkling came with a thread started by another person who had also been libelled and banned by this guy, and who I believe also learned about it from a third party. When I then went to the Banlink website and entered my avatar, I discovered myself being called a pedophile, and yes, that was the first I knew of it.

So, indeed, these rating sites are potentially playing with fire. And yes, I agree from personal experience such notification to the bannee is important.

(P.S. I don't blame the operators of Banlink; I'm quite sure this is/was an oversight on their part that happened because they, like me, don't have a sufficiently evil turn of mind to think of all the pathological ways such a service can be abused. Does need to be fixed, though.)

Nothing has changed hehe and i find it a bit alarming that its going to be used to "augment" ones ability to add to bans on the property based on a star system which likely can be based on anything. Anyhow for me I dont take part have never rated and never really asked to be rated although lately i put it in my profile if you like my stuff rate me hehe but I really am not keen on taking part in systems which can provide "he said she said" info its all gossip to me and some people tend to thrive on that crap others can't be bothered.

I have my friends they like me and I like them and what joe blow down the street who doesn't like me because I have an ugyly build or smell funny its irrelevant.

I've also never participated in popularity contests and am not one to give in to peer pressure. Those who do it seems to me they are not secure in themselves or wanting to stand out from the crowd. Its easy to take the lane of least resistance but when that lane says okay everyone be a lemming and jump off this cliff cause its cool then I start to wonder about what is inside people's heads when they all do whatever they are told to be in the "in crowd". It happens all the time in SL and real world doesnt make it any lest distasteful to me.


I find this need to bring all real world baggage into a game setting kind of alarming. If this is supposed to be a world where we can make it better why are people doing the same thing they always do lol more illogical logic.

Also if anyone is under any illusion that negative rating will make griefers go away it will likely do the opposite it will make them worse they want to play the "ebil guy" so they will start comparing their low ratings and nasty things said against them to their friends and see who can be "baddest" again why bring all the stuff that doesn't work into a platform already knowing it doesn't work ?

baffles me to no end that...

I anticipate the users to be the 20 somethings etc those who are "mature adults" for lack of a better word can't really be bothered they usualy hum along have fun and scratch their heads at what the young guys are doing "this time"

I dunno why it's so hard for folks to understand this simple concept of SL and land ownership: my land, my rules period. Your "rights" end where my monthly payment to LL or an estate owner begins. Contrary to some people's definitions there are no "public" spaces in SL, even the community spaces like Orientation Island or Linden Village are owned by LL. Someone is paying for every parcel of occupied land in SL. Consequently, anyone who goes to one of those occupied parcels is subject to the landowner's discretion and can be banned for cause or no cause.

Getting upset over BanLink or other trust systems is nuts. How is it any more wrong than SL's built-in estate tools? I as a landowner on a private island can and have banned morons for coming onto my land and being abusive. I generally try to be nice and ask them to stop what they're doing, but guess what? That's just a nicety. I am under no obligation to do so. I could ban anyone at anytime for anything or nothing. Remember, my land and my rules.

Right, wrong, indifferent...doesn't matter, that's the way it is folks, sorry. Deal with it.

The concern over ban link - is you get banned on on sim - then you get banned on hundreds of others. Often for something as simple as a disagreement with the a single sim owner.

The other sites are basicly orgasnized gossip and rumors - which are objectionable to many.


The aggrivating thing I see is Linden Labs just Endorsed all these sites.
They should not have, since none is without controversy.


I see those as seperate issues.

The problem is that ultimately we're facing a social problem that hasn't come up in real society before, because real society generally does have public (or state-owned) land - and does have somewhat better policing.

The Lindens give us the power to ban people from our land and sims but they do not allow us to ban people outright from the grid. We may not be happy about that decision, but it is a decision they have made, and that should be respected since SL is their world just the same as our land is our own (in fact, much more so!). But then, how many sims and parcels can a resident be banned from before they are effectively banned from the grid? What happens if the whole mainland joins BanLink and all the landowners trust each other?

IRL it is a difficult philosophical issue but only a philosophical one since situations like that cannot happen IRL yet - although they do happen in some limited areas, such as education (eg, a child who'll cause huge trouble at any school they're at, but they can't be expelled from every state school because education is a human right, but then how do you decide which school takes them?) - and I can understand concern over it in SL too. But until LL give us the ability to "see through" unverified alts it won't be a major issue.

Actually, this is pretty much exactly what happened with the Star Wars "Sith" RP'ers who use current version of Force Prophecies here in SL. In the previous version, the rating system was scaled positive to negative, with negative ratings being evil. In the current system, the rating system was changed, but the "Sith" players didn't understand this and were all vying with each other to see who could get the most negative rating. Now these are RP'ers, as opposed to griefers, so it's no great leap to conclude that the griefers would do the same thing.

A lot of pubs and clubs where I live share CCTV printouts of trouble makers. You get banned in one place, your face goes in the books of all of them and you will be denied entry. Some shops have started doing the same.

ok, thats really really bad then. I think someone from sl banlink should post here and explain how this can happen if their system is apparently so good.

unbelievable

Had an IM conversation with Travis Lambert, one of the cofounders of Banlink, which he initiated, earlier today. Looks like he is working on fixes for this and other issues. Look forward to seeing the outcome.

Last week when the Lab recommended RatePoint, I tried it out and quickly discovered that I could create and activate RatePoint accounts under anyone else's avatar name (assuming they hadn't already created an account there) despite their attempt at an in-world authentication mechanism.

That's no principle on which to run a world.

It is indeed an oversight, and one that is being corrected as we speak. BanLink is far from perfect, and the more constructive feedback received the better - we've been perpetually making changes based upon that feedback since we started.

Folks that are banned from a parcel do indeed get a message that they are banned when it is issued. However - there are some unanticipated flaws in this process - and the holes need to be, and will be plugged.

For example, what if someone is banned after the fact? In that case, no ejection occurs in order for them to be warned - and as a result, much like in Har's case - no notification.

Additionally - even if you do receive a notification, its not extremely clear where to go to file a dispute if you wish to do so. That also requires correction - and will be by sending a clickable URL along with the notification.

Edited to add: We actually had a pretty lengthy discussion on these forums about BanLink early in the beginning - where we asked for community feedback. Most of the ideas suggested back then have long since been implemented - other ideas, like making the entire list 'public' were later reversed due to concerns that didn't come up until later.

If you're interested, the thread is here: /108/32/131273/1.html

To be honest, I see something quasi-ridiculous coming, sure as the tide someday.

Most people delight in delicious irony, and what better way will they find to express that, than to submit the very creators of the systems *into* the systems.

Somehow, the common man finds a way to retain his humour in the face of almost anything.

I'm part of my own system, actually. I can rate people (and have done it), and be rated (quite a few people have rated me) just like anybody else. You can even rate me negatively, it's perfectly fine by me.

I'm not sure about the other creators, but I wouldn't have created such a system if I found anything wrong with being subjected to it myself.

You must not have read what you linked to. If you did, you would realize that Mera's post explicity said, "We are not tied to Linden Lab, nor are we being taken over by Linden Lab, as has been rumored."

http://www.cyber-rights.org/reports/demon.htm

You might want to read up on that. Just *carrying* defamatory content was enough.

Not a problem. First of all, I'm not in England.

Second, while TrustNet allows comments, only the submitters themselves see them. A sort of "My Notes" basically.

Third, given that all that remains is a list of statements "A likes B" and "B doesn't like C", I don't really see how you could claim that expressing not to like somebody with no extra info attached (something as simple as "I don't like <insert president>" is defamation.