I thought gambling was banned.... ???

Now why would I be joking?

Hehe you had me going, there, for a second.

Maybe it's like cybersex to him...

SqueezeOne,

All I was saying was that sometimes people might not log in for a week or two (or even a month, heck I just got married and I didn't log in to SL for about a month.) If there was going to be a major TOS change, I would like to have it e-mailed to me.

There's absolutely no reason to start hollering that people should be reading the login screen, when obviously they don't even get to that point... sheesh.

I didn't know anyone was hollering. I was just stating my opinion on the matter.

It'll be ok Oryx!

You are the only one paying attention.

Heh I've been noticing!

Just under 2 days, and the wagering policy announcement is no longer on the game's login screen....in favor of such important announcements like "10 debug options you should know about".

I think they should retool the login screen to include policy changes & other really important information like that in a more prominent fashion than just links to a blog post. And they can also add a check-box that you have to check to acknowledge that you've read it before it will allow you to log in. At least that way, LL could say "you said you read it" (even if you didn't actually read it).

I guess some people think they can plead ignorance.

They need to do what WoW does and make you accept the ToS everytime there's a major update. I was away for three days last week, I could have came back and had no clue there had been a major ToS change.

I think they can now!

The TOS only reference the Community Standards and the Billing Policy webpages. As such many residents do not know about the blog or its significance. It has now fallen off the headlines in the view so the population who only log on at weekends will not see it (and that is a sizeable population).

The suddeness of the announcement means there will still be some gambling places open so for many it will appear business as usual.

There will probably be some slotmachines still for sale - are we expecting a new signup to realise (given no hints in the TOS) that they need to check through archive of blog to determine what is or isn't permitted, and realise that they should buy these and set them up?

The larger casino operators and the SL old hands, I suspect, do know to check the blog regularly but that is a mere fraction of the population. Moreover the larger casino operators if they have enough money riding on it, could legally contest that they were not properly notified nor given appropriate notice period of the change.

Matthew

Why would the TOS need an update?

"4.1 You agree to abide by certain rules of conduct, including the Community Standards and other rules prohibiting illegal and other practices that Linden Lab deems harmful. "

"In addition to abiding at all times by the Community Standards, you agree that you shall not: *snip* (iii) take any action or upload, post, e-mail or otherwise transmit Content that violates any law or regulation; (iv) take any action or upload, post, e-mail or otherwise transmit Content as determined by Linden Lab at its sole discretion that is harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, causes tort, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable"

"Any violation by you of the terms of the foregoing sentence may result in immediate and permanent suspension or cancellation of your Account. "

(iii) may or may not apply, but (iv) certainly does.

Exactly, not everyone is paying attention.

Im surprised linden lab does not send out emails to every user with updates like this.

I consider myself to "pay attn" to the blogs now, but even I missed that it was banned. I found out by reading the forums. And MANY have no idea we even have forums, a very small percentage of SL population reads and participates here.

LL really does need to make it the log in screen message. Or impliment a new way to make sure EVERY player is aware of their new rules.

http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=195036

Problem they really do need a new way to tell us about rule changes. Nothing is more bothersum then finding out from others ( bla bla is not allowed) How many times these almost 3 years has this happened to me? I lost count. They just don`t care, BUT if you break one of those rules within a early stage of the change. They banned you faster then a rabbit can jump. This had happened to me before. Now frankly I can careless about getting banned........BUT for their lack of telling us in a fashion of HERE are they new RULE.......Well that shows enough reason why So many don`t understand the current rules. ( weapons caging etc...........) Shakeshead........3 years now and we are still in the dark ages of LLABS not explaining or caring to inform us about such actions in a clearway. LOL THE BLOG Oh yes.......you really have to love that piece of art............


Usagi

Because (as illustrated by the Bragg case), that clause is so unfair and one sided that if contested in court it wouldn't be worth the webpage it is written on.

It is also why RL companies are never going to do more than invest pocket money (if that) into SL, until LL provides proper guarantees as regards service provision etc.

Matthew

Because Kitty there are many people who do not realise there's a problem with gambling in the United States, they don't live there. When you change the terms of service so that an activity that was deemed acceptable is no longer deemed acceptable, then you should inform people in a clear and concise manner, failure to do so will not protect Linden Labs should the feds decide there is still an issue with gambling here.

Indeed, Ciaran - in fact if you had checked the knowledge base on Tuesday you would have find an article effectively saying that LL has no interest in policing gambling - that was strictly an issue between residents and their local jurisdiction. Indeed that article is still there.

So someone could have checked on Tuesday - confirmed that there was no problem running a casino since they weren't themselves affected by a law outside their country. Set up a casino, and gone away for a few days. On coming back this weekend, the top headlines are about voice viewers and debug menus. On coming back next week, the announcement will probably have dropped to the second page of the blog.

Bottom line, legally:

a) blanket clauses saying things like "sole discretion" are easily context in court
b) changes to policy statements on the blog are terms of the contracted service then cusotmers need to be informed in writing (e.g. via e-mail) or via means explicitly articulating in the TOS (which the blog isn't!) in advance of the change taking effect - otherwise they are easily contested in court
c) if changes to policy statements on the blog are not part of the terms of the contracted service then not notice or warning needs to be given, but any policy stated in the blog is very easily contested in court!

And morally:

a) expecting people to discover additional terms of service hidden in the blog or in the knowledge base is bad customer relations which leads to bad feelings when items are removed or accounts disabled on the basis of information which it is not reasonable to expect people to find or be aware of.
b) LL current practice of major policy announcements is not particularly professional which is a pity if LL wants to be taken seriously by the industry

Matthew

Exactly, also sometimes I click "Connect(Log in)" faster then the blog updates on that screen load, im sure there has to be others who do that as well.

Another thing, not everyone logs in every day, so they miss blog posts.

EVERYONE must see that welcome message when its logging you in, I always do, and til this day I wonder why they do not use that to announce new rule changes they expect us to follow.

Good point. not everyone login every day. And Blog post are another "IF"

as you said............




Well said!

I'm getting the distinct impression that these policy-change blog postings are Linden-ese for "*wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*". They did the same thing with the (completely bizarre and contradictory) pronouncement that "broadly offensive" content and actions were banned from Second Life: post it on the blog where only a small percentage of their residents will actually see it, and leave it out of the TOS.

My guess is that they say these things to satisfy RL governments, organizations, etc. but have no intention of actually enforcing anything unless someone actually complains. Problem is, that leaves LL without much legal ground if they have to follow up on a complaint and someone loses considerable assets as a result of breaking one of these non-TOS "rules"...but perhaps they're going to have to learn that the hard way?

In the sim next door, a casino owner returned to his land two days ago to find everything deleted! It was a big sky place (beautiful build in fact) full of really well organized freebies too. The land was completely empty. Some people in neighboring parcels lost a few things too. On the other side, a big casino that was just built was empty the next day with a note that said..'We have left SL; see you on the web". Seems pretty serious to me tho maybe the deletion was a strange glitch that cherry picked what was lost.

/me ponders the idea of spending any time searching for casinos, finding them, and then reporting them to Linden Labs.

Man, you are logged into a entire Metaverse of people from countries all over the glove, live events happening all over the place, you can create any content you want to add to the world around you -- and you spend time doing something linden labs could do in about 0.004 seconds by taking a look at the transactions of the day and doing something akin to

grep transaction_file roulette blackjack slot

I could see how "being a snitch is fun" -- but I doubt that the information you are providing is of any value to those you are providing it too.

By basic defination, being a snich means that you're supossed to get something from those you are giving your information to. Hate to say it, but you're not a snitch. You are just killing some time, and that's cool too

Maybe the Lindens are smarter than they appear. They must know that they are communicating the gambling ban poorly. If the feds ever do decide to pay SL a visit because of gambling, LL can say they posted the ban. If the feds say that they have found casinos still in operation, LL can say that they will give these casino owners a stern talking to (all the while LL would have been collecting money from existing casinos, knowing full well that their ban announcement was poorly circulated so casinos can still operate, and LL still makes money).

LL seems to be taking steps to eradicate gambling (unfortunately), while at the same time they are still giving residents the ability to operate and play at a casino(leaving the owners and players with the excuse that there was no official announcement). And by not updating the TOS, they must know that would be anyone's excuse if they are approached about gambling violations(all the the while LL still collects money from gambling while they seem to be proactively trying to stop it). No one gets hurt. LL has held up their end of the bargain for the feds, and they give their residents two good reasons why they cant get into trouble. Those who left from the initial scare, may have left too early to take advantage of the two built in excuses that are in place for the continuance of gambling, Oh well.

Um, there's a blog feed at the bottom of the starting splash screen... I hope most people would see that. (I was a little surprised it wasn't put into the MOTD though..)