Forum Guidelines: Discussion with Katt Linden

1) This is rather vague, and seems to be something new. Previously, it has been understood that a person can post chat logs, as long as they are not in SL, or on SL forums.

This seems to state that if a person posts chat logs "anywhere" that may make them "unwelcome in these forums."

So, if a person posts chat logs anywhere on the Internet and the person who is quoted doesn't like it, that can be brought to your attention? And at LL's discretion, the person who has posted those logs may be banned from LL's forums?

Some clarity on this would be welcome.

Forgoing any clarification, I'm going to assume it means exactly what it says: That if you post chatlogs anywhere - not just on LL forums or inside SL - that can be grounds for being banned from the forums.

Moreover, if this is the case, I don't think the concept of "community trust" should be extended to controls on free speech in non-SL venues.

I have never posted chat logs, to my memory, but I think people should be able to post whatever they wish on other websites and forums, without punishment from LL for it.


2) I believe banning (or even suspending) a person from in-world for what they have said on the forums is overkill, and not appropriate punishment to the infraction.

If you want to punish forum behavior, suspend or ban people from the forums. If you want to punish in-world behavior, suspend or ban people from in-world, AND from the forums, since they will no longer be an SL resident.

But to take away people's ability to do business, etc., in-world, simply because of what they said on forums, or an argument they had on forums, is innappropriate.

Banning them and confiscating their goods and money is likewise an innappropriate punishment for misbehavior on forums.

The appropriate punishment for misbehavior on forums is warnings, suspensions, and bannings from the forums. Then you no longer have the person creating a problem on the forums.

Rarely do people who get into forum battles cause trouble in-world. If a person causes trouble inworld, then suspend or ban him from in-world.

3) Put the above two together, and you could arrive at a scenario where a person is banned from SL and all his goods, Lindens, and business confiscated because he posted someone's chat log on a third-party forum or website out on the Internet.

If someone has a problem with the quoting of their chat logs on the Internet, then that person can take legal action if they so desire. For LL to provide punishment in the form of banning from the SL forums (and potentially from SL itself) is, I believe, overreach.

I'm sure such a scenario would never occur, and the Lindens would never do such a thing, but the fact that it is theoretically possible is troubling.

And all the more reason for limiting punishment to the arena in which the infraction actually occured, rather than extending it to in-world as well.

To me, that's like getting expelled from City Hall and forbidden to attend any more public meetings for being disruptive, then going home to find they have also, by the way, taken your house and all your money.

City Hall is SUPPOSED to be a place where people can talk without fear, except for fear of getting expelled from City Hall itself.

coco

It depends upon the circumstances. If it's merely a case of someone calling someone else names then it should stay on the forums, however there could be an extreme case where something said on the forums cause great harm to someone's inworld business, in which case I'd say an inworld punishment would be appropriate.

However it all boils down to someone actually studying the infraction rather than having blanket rules.

Point well taken. As I said, my opinion on this flickers back and forth a bit, and my post was trying to explore that ambivalence. I am 100% convinced that the current (and proposed) policy makes the risk too high. What's especially apt about the quoted snippet of your post is that, indeed, any common-sense application of the rule would nullify its deterrence effect--and I honestly can think of no plausible rationale other than deterrence for such a rule to be proposed.

What gives me pause is the echo of Strife saying somewhere that (the threat of?) this particular big stick was necessary for some occasions. And trying to reconstruct what eventuality could be so dire lead down a bunch of dead ends, and other passages where I just got lost (like the murky "evol alt" proto-theory).

......

To the GD/RA question: For a long time I promoted the view that RA functioned just fine as the combined place to get answers and to have fun. And for me, personally, it's just great, as-is. Except there are blessed few questions, and fewer every week, it seems. And if you look at the front page these days, well over half the threads *start out* as more debate than question. I think this is a grave disservice to the people we're trying to help there--not because they can't get answers, but because they won't ask the questions.

What I was trying to point out before is that it looks worse than it is, because when a question gets answered it quickly drops from view. But I'm convinced that, nonetheless, it now looks bad enough that we really are discouraging posters with legitimate questions--we've reached an off-topic "critical mass" that drives away the on-topic threads.

You had to have a minimum number of members.

My own "customer service" group crossed the threshold about 2 days after the creation of group forums was suspended

The whole Banned from the Forums equals banned from in-world concept needs to go.

It was a poorly thought out over-reaction at its inception. Some of us remember the drama that led up to it.

Its like an elementary school style rule and has no place being there as a threat to punish adults with.



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And before anyone mentions that I just want the rule gone for personal reasons, I will point out I have NEVER even received a warning email over my posts.

Katt - excellent start, and I am glad LL are taking this public and published forum seriously, and that there is an increasing presence of Lindens interacting with residents in here.

I absolutely agree that Resident Answers should be just that - a forum for Q&A. Not everyone that reads RA posts a comment, and there is a considerable amount of dross in many RA threads to wade through, so general discussion should be discouraged. There are plenty of third party forums for people to use for idle banter, and the community can also go in-world for chatting.

I also agree that abuse of the Forums, and the penalties applied, should be considered as part of the whole SL system. Abuse in either part of SL should be penalised in both. There is a flip-side to this, i.e. potential for malicious, spurious and frivolous ARs - and I agree, this should be considered as an extremely serious offense.

RA is also not a place for blatant plugs for businesses, either in posts or in signatures - an URL to a (clean) website or blog could be acceptable, but there is space in the profile for this anyway. Agree that content should be work-friendly - i.e. follow a PG guideline, and clear references to extreme violent or pornographic content should be more than frowned upon.

Keep up the good work!

Rudolph

Well Taff I tend to lean over backward to not moderate instances when someone posts harshly about Linden Lab or an individual Linden, even when I think that Linden was doing an awesome job --

(Though truly inappropriate posts, not like your example above, probably would be moderated, of course.)

If it was another Resident, and the accusation was more serious, then it's possible a warning may be issued, and I'd likely moderate the post, for instance to remove the name of the accused. It's not a judgment about the accuracy of anything, it's that "he said/she said" isn't helpful and can be a smear -- and is just as likely to start a fight or flame war -- so we ask that problems be reported in by Abuse Reporting or other appropriate channels, rather than having folks jumping into the forums and posting accusations.

Make sense?

RE: Third party forums.

While many of us enjoy being at those other forums too, they do not offer the Linden Protection some feel they need as posters. There are plenty out there but only one "official" forum. Making the "Official Forum" some kind of locked down Q&A goes against the spirit of Second Life as a social medium. LL encourages social interaction on one hand and discourages it on the other.

Yes. The irony that a place like Second Life which is primarily about socializing would have a restricted unsocial official forums is amazing.

Seems decent, but I have to echo what a few have said.

First off, never heard of 'Disemvoweling', and after reading the link, it sounds a bit immature. Either leave the post or simply wipe it and say "removed by admin due to ..." whatever the reason is.

The policy on chat logs needs a lot of clarification. For instance, just yesterday I posted a piece of chat log from a Linden Office Hour, since the particular Linden failed to post it to the Wiki is is the normal case. Because this is a chat log, would that put me in violation of this new prohibition? As far as I know, Linden Office Hours are a matter of public record.
/54/c1/273989/2.html

And I agree, Banning In-World based on what happens in the forums is akin to convicting someone of murder in RL for shooting a zombie in an computer game. One isn't in any way applicable to the other.

Thanks for the discussion.

Good point and one that was pointed out several times before they closed the General Discussions forum.

I rarely spend time on other Second Life related forums, because, honestly, I'm here to support Linden Labs.. well, SL anyways. While some might accuse LL of favorites, I see it happen a lot less here than it does on some resident run forums, so I feel better posting here.

If there was both a properly moderated Resident Answers and General Discussion, it would be perceived as Linden Labs caring very deeply about the community and the residents that make it up. This might help in new user retention, not to mention gaining new users. Example: I was drawn to SL because of that sense of community, having carefully read the forums before I joined up. I knew exactly how steep the learning curve was, how buggy the code was and how friendly and helpful the Lindens were.

This was kind of a buffer to the rather.. harsh reality of SL and getting greeted by a guy wearing little more than a boner and maybe some chicken feathers. Of course, it didn't take long for this guy to get booted from the old Welcome Area by a Linden who was standing by to help new residents and weed out the idiots. If I had met the dude without the buffering of the forums, I might have turned around, logged out and considered it a bad investment.

Separate Resident Answers from General Discussion.

Banning in world because of forums is overboard imo. Too much micromanaging there.

I just feel the need to say that I find the SL forums to be the most well mannered, polite and civilised I have come across on the internet.

Members are even quick to post apologies when someone gets upset or misinterprets something. I can remember a thread started by someone specifically to say sorry for an ill-judged post they made when they actually were ill, and not reacting very well because ot it.

Internet fora, in general, are not places for overly senstive souls - but these ones, even without moderation, are amazingly kindly, helpful, good humoured places.

I really appreciate the fact that all of *you* are here attending to the Forums, too. I agree that we have a chance to make them more useful, and I'm hoping to do so, including with things like these discussions, of course.

Too many good points for me to respond at the moment, but I believe that all Residents do now have the ability to read the Forums, although to post they will have had to log inworld.

If there really are fewer questions it may be because many that can arise have by now already been asked and answered so many times previously. Perhaps people can more readily find answers using search without having to post. There are also lots of blogs and outside websites that have hints, tips and SL help and they would show up in a Google search. I've found quite a few answers to my own q's using a general or a forum search and not needed to post a question in RA.

Edited to add:
I'd also like to say that whatever rules are formulated for what can or can't be posted in RA, I hope they're not applied too narrowly and enforced too strictly, as that in itself will tend to bring lots of ill tempered posts admonishing people for posting "against the rules". I believe this would make the forum seem a much more unfriendly place for newbies than any idle banter.

OK, Katt can make a new Resident Answers forum, and then rename the existing one to General Discussion. How's that?

lol the generic term, feel and nature of the forum is what has caused the present position

Or, Katt could just resurrect the old General Discussions so people can see how tame RA really is. The Lindens of the time stopped moderating it.. so it's a cesspool.

I am kind of uncomfortable with the idea of banning from the grid for forum posts. I feel that the ones that do come to the limit of banning from the grid due the forums will have already gotten themselves banned from the grid either way.

OR

If the banning from the grid is to still happen, I'd rather a Linden or two review the situation, including all posts, posting history and such before a punishment of this nature takes place. And it really needs to be a very last resort. I can see using it as the big stick for keeping things in line, but we need a clear due process on it, including an appeal system that actually works.

Agreed. I think that this threat is what curtails really bad behavior and keeps certain elements away from the forum completely. It should be a high ranking Linden's call, someone like Robin with a very public presence and a long history with the Company. A punishment that severe needs to be administered by people who are visible figures and are more accountable to the user base, not some new hire who may or may not have the emotional link with their land and property to sympathize.

I think its highly possible the threat keeps away more good posters that bad ones.

I don't worry about it. If people don't feel that they can moderate themselves, then they are better off in 3rd party forums only. How many times have people said here "we're all adults. we don't need moderation" and yet can't follow the guidelines like an adult should?

I don't think this ban should be used casually, and it hasn't. I do not fear for my property because I won't ever do anything severe enough that warrants that.

"Respect others. Try to be helpful. You are advised to bring your sense of humor"

Loool you should read the german subforum on this portal, no respect, no help, and a very very strangely kind of humor. I cant find there a base for objective discussions.

But as it is written, severity has nothing to do with it - just the number of offences. So you could be banned from SL for mild offences. Furthermore, they appear to be cumulative for ever with no relief for prolonged good behaviour. This may not be the intention, but it is what is written.

True, the policy itself needs much refining, but I agree in principle that it should be available.

The Forum and the World are not the same. Any threat of banning over what is said here should be taken away. I can't think of any other forum run by a service provider that if you were banned from you would lose you right to be a customer of their service.

There are good people that are not here because of the rule. They are not better off elsewhere, in fact the forum would be better off if they were here. It is the principle of the rule that keeps them away.. not whether they can self-moderate. I can think of a dozen or so people right now that this forum could benefit from having.. but are not here thanks to that ridiculous rule.

LL will do what they want with the rule but I stand firm that it is not something you laud over adults. It puts a dark feeling over the place that is not needed.

Ban from the forums when needed.. ban from in world if needed there. Keep the two separate if you want to be fair.

I also believe the re-evaluation of forum bans from the past should be looked at. There are some people who are long term residents who were banned that could be given another chance. Forever is a long time.. people do change.