lindens latest blog: dob a neighbour

I use Livejournal, I've seen how the volunteer abuse team work there. Part of the reason Daniel's blog has caused such uproar is because of how the Livejournal abuse team handled their recent issues (they're still apologising for it), there have been issues before with Livejournal's abuse team.

ID verification, Police forces, Daniel's blog, they're just causing more and more anxiety. Someone suggested the KISS approach and really, that's all it should need.

Banning the word "Lolita" from search results is just plain silly, it creates paranoia, it encourages people like the "Warriors of innocence" to report references to perfectly innocent groups. A situation is being created that could have been avoided. You don't need to spell out that child porn is wrong, everyone knows that.

We're now seeing the forums awash with "My morals are better than your morals" arguments, whereas we should just be getting on with life in groove town and using our own judgements as to what we report or don't report, what we view or don't view.

The onus should be on personal responsibility.

ok so the ten commandments are not valid then?
ta.

not anymore, seems the old testament doesnt count.


yeah im very anti xian as well, and i have no issue grinding your noses in it. the burning times are in the past and i do not fear anyones ignorance.

Hehe I've had this debate before, the old testament only counts sometimes.

NONE of what you complain of above would be in any way affected by any *new* rules/procedures in SL.
What you are describing are breaches of already existing and long-standing community standards.

If you consider that anything in daniellinden's blog post would have the slightest effect on what you describe, please explain.
What if If LL were to go further and make it impossible for an avatar to appear naked and additionally made it impossible in some magical way impossible for an avatar to rezz private parts? You would would still be left with non-naked, androgynous avatars behaving in exactly the same disrespectful way until some 'attitude-adjusting' event occurred.

"These are the types of ppl that do not, will not, and never will respect YOUR rights as an SL resident. No matter what your into."
YES! No matter what their appearance is, or what the manifestation of their disrespect is. YES!


I suggest to you that you are simply lashing out without first thinking the thing through.


What we all should be concerned with is the global issue of respect for others.
Sexual behaviour is just a subset of overall behaviour, and not the most important one.

With respect, I think you all are missing the whole point of this LL exercise. This statement was obviously crafted by the the legal department, and published for one purpose only: to cover their legal asses in lawsuits.

No one, least of all LL, realistically expects anyone to turn in their neighbor for "depicting" sexual situations. (I love that word!) But here's what will happen ...

LL will find some truly outrageous, egregious, bad actors and kick them out of SL. Not many, but some. This is for the sole purpose of escaping a 'negligence' rap in the (one or many) inevitable lawsuit waiting around the corner. They then can honestly respond: "Look! We published a policy and we are enforcing it. We can't be everywhere but we do what we can!"

And as our revered, recently departed Kurt Vonnegut famously said, "And that's the way it goes."

There is nothing I can say that is not just a repeat of what has already been said over and over again so I wont bother with a long post.

All I will say is that I cant stand the nanny state they are turning SL into.... if its going to be so "Safe" why have they bothered making teen SL..... if its as safe/will be as safe as they claim then surely it will be safe for 6 year olds to take part in.

one of these days LL is going to do something so stupid they collapse inside them selves... they are going to go broke with useless unused servers and dissapeer into the mass of liquidated companies that only Joe Blogs paper clip boy knows about in the company registration house knows about

(sorry my speelings awful )

is that realistic though? is it reasonable to expect a company with only approx. 200 employees to police a world consisting of more than 4,000 regions and with over 45,000 users online at peak times?

i was only around for a month before the floodgates opened to unverified accounts last year, and peak concurrency was between 6,000-8,000 if i recall correctly. it's telling that,
from the middle of June 2006 onwards, Linden encounters became more down to chance whereas previously, they were often to be found at welcome areas and not that difficult to summon via Live Help.

This post is incredibley vague and misleading. It opens the door to fear and repression. I would expect better from a "professional" company. When do we get to select burqa's as our first outfit?

Agreed there is not much that can be said that hasnt already been said. Ive always suspected the percentage of people who are into some type of fetish on SL was around 50%. but judging from the responce to this I now think its probably closer to 80%. So all I can add is that IF LL implements this are people start getting banned. The game is as good as gone. I know as soon as someone i personaly am aquainted with gets banned I will seace all activities and try and sell my land to recover some of the money i have invested in it. And ofcourse leave Taking my 100's of dollars a month i spend here with me. Good JobLL. And Great work.

I agree. From the blog post, it did not seem a reiteration of the TOS but instead it came across like he was asking Residents to go on a witch hunt into people's private mature places. As such if my neighbors were offended by the concept of homosexuality (or insert any other thing here really) and decided to cam into *MY* parcel and snap pics or receord clips of me engaging in whatever it is they find offensive, once reported, I would have my land seized and account banned.

If that is *NOT* the case and the TOS clause of PG on PG land and XXX on Mature land but not in public view, then what exactly was the point of the post?

However, taking photos or videos without permission is in and of itself a violation of the TOS. So do both parties get bounced?
Why is this so frigging difficult. Private Sims should be governed by the Sim owner. If he wishes to make the Sim Mature/Adult..then mark it as such. You don't want to see it..don't go there. Let LL make the entire mainland PG if they want, I don't care, then let the private owners deal with the Naughty stuff.( Or would that cause Premium members to move to private sims and "Gasp" cancel their premiums?)

Yep. If someone is gettin' busy with an adult encounter, and all communications are being held in IM's, and they're behind "closed" doors and away from public view...then the ONLY way someone can gather evidence against them is through a violation of the Community Standards regarding privacy.



I would simply enjoy seeing more residents take responsibility for their own behavior on the grid. If you're easily offended, then don't visit Mature/Adult areas. At the same time, landowners need to make sure their parcels/sims are flagged appropriately.

But if SL decides that the Mainland needs to be a completely "safe" enironment, then bugger that. I'll sell my parcel, cancel my premium account and move to a private sim.
There are two things LL can do to ease the tension around this situation...first, provide sim owners with complete authority over their virtual property...and second, move forward more quickly on open-sourcing the server-side code so people can truly own and administer their own sims.

The thread has gotten quite much longer the time I haven't looked, but I think it boils down to the point that the line between RL and SL is indeed blurring.

Second Life has become much more than a game, even more than the 'artist's platform' Philip Rosedale intended it to be. It has become much of a home, a marketing space, business platform and whatever else to many people.

That point is amplified with the added realism the experience of SL gets over time. For example, computer graphics get more detailed, gradually losing the 'cartoon-like' sheen. Wanted or not, the effect on people gets more intense because of this, letting themselves immerse even more into the virtual reality.

What I want to say, pixel rape, child avatar pr0n and such things have long stopped to be 'harmless fun', maybe between 'consenting adults' but moved into the same regions of the equivalent RL offenses which are condemnable by widely-accepted moral standards.

This should be in quotes, but I copied wrong
What I want to say, pixel rape, child avatar pr0n and such things have long stopped to be 'harmless fun', maybe between 'consenting adults' but moved into the same regions of the equivalent RL offenses which are condemnable by widely-accepted moral standards.[/QUOTE]


Except that nothing is done in SL without consent unless MAYBE its just the thought of such behavior is what you find offensive. I can't force you to hop on that sex poseball, any more than I can drag you kicking and screaming into a mature rated SIM. If you want to stick you head in the sand, fine. Do it in some nice Disney themed area where you don't have to worry about hearing those nasty comments or see half-dressed women running around. Its as simple as that.

...What?

I've said it before - to equate rape RP with actual rape is a slap in the face to people who have undergone ACTUAL rape.

By your logic, if I take out my aubreTEC Black Widows and shoot my partner, I'm committing an act of murder.

Where's your outrage against Jessie and Rausch? I am waiting for your moral crusade against pixellated violence, since obviously it's just as bad.

And I'd add learn to speak out of only one side of their mouth at a time. Just as in RL , people look to some other authority to make decisions and to regulate their behavior. I see it everyday with students, (and their parents). It's always someone elses fault. Someone elses responsibility. Once the legalities are settled, certain content should be in certain areas. Plain and simple. Violate that and your suffer the consequences. Fix the search engine, or make all ads have to be worded in ways that can describe what they are selling without being explicit. everyone who is complaining about in your face unwanted adult content is 100% correct when they say they should not have to see it unsolicited. Make it so you have to actively find it if you want. Some of the ad copy is jarring to me, if you are not expecting it. Instead of identifying the problem and fixing it properly, don't make wholesale changes in the name of doing something. Don't amputate an arm to fix a broken finger. Nobody ever wants to compromise here, it's eithr one entreme or the other. Personally I find the presence of RL Corporations and politicians far more offensive , than any 2 avies assimilating each other. So I will not go to areas where they are set up. If you see something that is offensive in a public area, and it is a violation of whatever TOS we are using that day, report it by all means. If it isn't a violation, then just move on. You won't turn into a pillar of salt. If you gaze takes you into a "private" are. Mind your business. Someone , somewhere can probably find fault with something you may do,and you'd be entitled to the same courtesy.

There is no "maybe" here. ANY kind of RP'd intimate encounter happens with the full and abiding consent of two adults in SL.

In your own words you have just condemned every single living, breathing female who has EVER had a fantasy that involves force. Are you really prepared to do that?

The only people worthy of condemnation are those bent on destroying another's enjoyment of this virtual world. They fit perfectly into my definition of what a true "griefer" really is.

I didn't read through all the posts too many to sift through. The kid shit has to go though there is no doubt about that it is uncalled for.

But it makes me wonder??? Can you really rape the willing? Right you can't it's rp. Where's the line get drawn on what is acceptable and what is not? If people are offended they should stay out of those areas.

I can sympathize with those who have been abused, but you are subjected to it in rl also jokes are made tv potrays it for viewer watching it's every where. I personally don't think the rape instances should be allowed call it something else if thats what you want to do take it to im. But you know what you do? YOU DON"T GO TO THOSE AREAS it's as simple as that. There are how many sims? why are you there in there in the first place if it's something you are offended by? I'm offended by people who are married in rl having sex in sl with people who aren't there real spouse, but does that mean I'm going to single them out and go ask for a vote that hey we need to know gender/whether somebody is single or not/please provide a list of children. Somethings are just stupid.

I don't know I only visited cause bdsm group seems to be in an uproar. Sure I like control/bondage so what? Am I sitting here telling you that you can't do homosexual acts because it's wrong, or that you can't be a furry cause you look like an animal and you are technically committing beastiality? (which by the way I'm not it was just an example) If Liden wants to make second life PG all around just do it, but don't single out particular lifestyles. The major misconception is that bdsm revolves around total abuse, and it doesn't anybody who thinks that is naive and needs to do research. The fact is there are many parts of bdsm a lot of people like myself for instance are not into it for torture or to be humiliated, but the problem is there ARE PEOPLE who like it. Does that mean there is something wrong with them? Why are people who aren't apart of the lifestyle and clearly IGNORANT of it dictating whether we get to take part in it. What's the difference between ignorance and stupidity? You only get to use the excuse of ignorance once and then it's your own fault for not understanding.

This is all revolving around the exploiting children, and that part I can understand they should be protected, but why isn't age verification in place yet? Stop taking away pieces of what people enjoy and just fix what is meant to be fixed and that is nobody should be exploiting children in rl or sl or even pretending to do so.

You can't shelter people in rl so why are you trying to do it here? This is called Second Life yet we are now being told how to live it. There's enough people in rl telling people how to live there lives we don't need it here too.

Accepted, and generally we do... it's when people bring stuff that, according to the blog post, is now not acceptable into the open, into regular areas, into PG areas, that the problems arise.

I can simply not verify, and not visit any of the 'adult areas' of Second Life, providing they are properly flagged as they are supposed to be going to.

But I can't stop other people coming into public areas, wearing their flexidongs and flopping about all over the place. All I can do is ignore it, or report it.

Broccoli

Yes it is realistic (to set out to enforce the existing M/PG region standards).
As in RL, it would be unrealistic to expect a community and police force to prevent all violations of whatever laws.
Where LL have fallen down IMO is to allow a climate to grow in which the Community Standards can apparently be flouted with impunity.


daniellinden must (surely?) have spent some time in formulating and posting his blog entry. Doubtless more of his time and that of other LL employees has been consumed in at least observing some of the fallout.

What if he and others had invested that time in simply logging in and searching PG-only for egregiously-Mature content, and then larting the owners?
He would have begun a proactive process to create a climate in which residents believed that the PG/M divide actually meant something.

Instead his use of LL time has triggered an immense amount of bad feeling, mistrust and uncertainty. His posting is acting like a poison to the SL community.



If it is not possible to police the grid as it stands, how will it be possible to police a larger grid? It appears that LL have improved their internal procedures for dealing with ARs. I hope that they continue to do so, and also make the process as transparent as possible.
Violations of the M/PG standards are simply a sub-category of AR.
LL can prioritise AR sub-categories as they wish.

Police Blotter?
If this is a guide to what the Community (inclusive of LL) consider to be negatively impacting "a safe and welcoming haven of creativity and social vision.", then where do M/PG violations really come into the picture?



There is *absolutely nothing* in daniellindens post that improves the position. People are posting the likes of - 'Congratulations LL for taking action to clean up SL' - but no action has actually been taken. It's just noise.


There was nothing new in that post - if you discount what was most probably an incredibly badly-worded and misleading piece of prose. The implication appeared to be that Adult content is "never allowed or tolerated within Second Life", despite the fact that catering for Adult content, and separately catering for avatar damage to the point of death (TP home), was designed into SL.
The posting put two completely different things into the same paragraph - Child-porn and Adult content. And sure enough, we have people in here posting that a defence of or an interest in Adult content is an implicit defence of child-porn. - One of the oldest dishonesties in the book of debate.

yes it has it's place it should not be in pg areas and people should respect that and know it is not always wanted where they are at and that is why we have the wonderful feature of IM.

It *never was* acceptable to bring 'that stuff' into the open, into regular areas, into PG areas.
It has *always* been a TOS violation. Nothing has changed.

That is 100% agreed. You definitely are within your rights to report it. But the tone of the Blog seems to dictate not keeping it where it belongs, but eradicating it totally. I don't agree withthat. Throwing out the baby with the bathwater is no solution. I wasn't a big fan of verification, at least not the scheme foisted upon us. Come up with a real way to verify, that satisfies the majority, that is sensible and 'safe" and I'll be the first to sign up.

Problem is LL habitually looked the other way, causing this mess.
However, I am pessimistic I'm afraid. I don't think keeping it regulated and segregated is going to be enough. The Corporates don't want anything remotely associated with "Questionable" morals associated with their SL presence (again I love the Hypocrisy, I wouldn't be surprised to see Mark Foley show up soon) and will demand that it be removed totally. And LL will bend over and grab their collective ankles. as they fill their wallets. And a lot of people will leave, probably not as many as predicted but more than expected. Will the Corporations stay long. I don't know. Is there any real bebfit to them being here. Are any of us going to buy there products because we see them here. I won't. I plan to avoid them totally. I know enough about them in RL. Anythingthey show here is not gonna influence me.

Someone asked earlier if we will be happy if we wake up one morning and Sl is gone. No, i won't be happy. But I won't be very sad over it either. It will merely be a case of the Chickens Coming Home to Roost. LL will have their money, the Corporations will go back to ruining our real lives and we will move on to the next diversion.

Actually having just read through the ToS again, there's quite a lot that the blog entry doesn't agree with. The judge in the Bragg v Linden Lab case also seems to be under the impression that the ToS is a mess. I believe Second Life has now reached a pivotal point, and whatever direction all this goes in is going to really piss off a lot of people.

I don't like the idea of verification either, although I am more objecting to the company and its reputation, than the idea itself.

Broccoli