Badly designed home security orbs. =P

[A SL user] owns a badly designed home security orb that teleports people 5k away if they're on his property for 6 seconds. =P I rated him badly on building and he rated me badly in return on everything and said it wasn't his fault. (He owns it but it's not his fault? Sure. =)

Screenshots removed by Original Poster, available by request. =)

The jist: I ran into his building, which 6 seonds later teleported me 5k away. Went back and rated him badly on building, he rated me badly on EVERYTHING as a "retribution". Continued on to my destination. He IMed me. I did my best to ignore it and do what I had intended to do in the first place. He teleported to my location without my summons and threatened to call the cops (GMs) on me and have my account suspended, unless I removed my negative rating, I said the neative rating stands because he sucks at building. He promised to make mofications to his building if I rated him positively. I rated him 'neutral' and said I'd switch it to positive when he finished building. (Mostly to get rid of him at that point since I had someone, er, something I very much wanted to do. =) He agreed and removed the 3 negative ratings he gave me and went on his way.

Yay SL drama. =)

Modifications made by Original Poster.

[The other SL user visible in the shots] is an innocent bystander who also got trapped in the building.

Modifations made by Original Poster.

Oh yeah, those home security orbs? They suck. =D

Clarification:

"Ran into his building" the same way someone might "run into a car" or "run into [someone they want to avoid]" I was flying over it. =) Not tried to run inside.

The 6 second warning I got doesn't account for lag. It came about 5 seconds too late to do anything, and about a second before I was zoned out. The building hadn't rezzed yet so I had no idea where the property lines were.

I'm not here to pick on you, but the terms of service DO mention that names and chat logs are not supposed to be posted to the forums. Might want to clear that up.

Aside from that, I DO dislike over enthusiastic security systems...

Whoa, dude, this thread breaches Community Standards in so many ways. Let's see, prsonal attacks, naming names, publishing chat logs... Good luck not getting suspended for this one.

So someone can threaten to call the GMs on me and get my account suspended, and if I take screenshots and post them, then they can call the GMs on me and get my account suspended? Nice system, well thought out. I'll remove the screen names from my post and put the shots on imageshack available by PM then.

So, back on the original subject. With names and screenshots removed, do you agree or disagree that home security orbs that teleport people 5k away after 6 seconds warning (in an area that can take 30s to 1m to res) are good or bad?

It's not that you're not allowed to take such screenshots. You're just not allowed to publish them. The proper thing to do is to use the abuse report system, enclose the screenshots there, and let the Lindens handle it. Trust me, they will. If the person you report is in fact in the wrong, they'll cut him down to size.

Taking the matter into your own hands by publicizing it is absolutely the wrong thing to do. Everyone, no matter how rude or offensive they may be, has the right to expect that what they say in private conversation will not be published. You're free to be as rude as you want in return, or to just walk away, or to use your superior intilect and sit back laughing while you watch the guy make a fool of himself with his tirades. What you can't do though is publish the chat.

And, by the way, was this person's threat of "calling the GM's" as you put it really such a big deal? Did you really see this as anything other than an empty threat? You have every right to neg rate someone. Your account would NEVER be suspended for that. If this guy did contact the Lindens over it, the only thing he would accomplish would be to convince them he's every bit the lunatic you've been making him out to be.

It sounds to me like what he really wanted to do was to goad you into doing exactly what you did, which was to start doing things yourself that would get you suspended. Publishing chat logs without the express consent of each and every person involved is a suspendable offense, as is attacking people by name on the forums. So congratulations, you fell into his trap. I'm just glad a couple of us were here to pull you out of it in time.


Yes, it is a nice system, and yes, it is EXTREMELY well thought out. SL is a civilized society with rules that are in place to allow the maximum amount of freedom while ensuring that people do not trample on eachother's rights.

I'd highly recommend you read the Terms of Service and Community Standards in their entirity that you agreed to when you joined SL. This is not like online games that thrive on conflict. If that's the kind of environment you're looking for, I can recommend plenty of them. However, since you chose to come to SL, please do us all the courtesy of bahaving maturely and positively, in keeping with what our community is all about. If you disagree with someone, fine, you have every right. Argue with them all you want. If they abuse you, report them. If they threaten you, understand they're just blowing smoke. As long as you retain your dignity and never lower yourself to their level, you'll never have anything to worry about.


Why are you so desperate to prove you're right? So the guy's a jerk, so what? The world is full of 'em. Is it really so hard to be the better person and just let it drop?

And by the way, publishing to third party websites is still a violation. The other person(s) involved in the conversation would have every right to consider you an abuser and ask that you be suspended or banned over it. Changing the venue doesn't negate their rights.

I edited my post, removed the names and screenshots, now what do you think about the actual topic? :>

BTW I am a new player, and as a new player, I'm telling you I don't know anything about the abuse tool, the effectiveness of the GMs, the rate of bannings or warnings, whether so-and-so is Special Friends with the GMs or not and will receive Extra Privaledges or whether they'll take his word over mine, HOW EXACTLY a new player should handle things when someone abuses their abundance of L$ and the ratings systems and then claims to be buddies with the GMs and if you complain you'll get banned, whether or not my account would actually be suspended over a netative rating, etc :>

Based on all previous experience, GMs are corrupt and everything he said could be true. :> Tho somehow I knew he was full of it and I just wanted to get rid of him so I could continue with my scene that he interrupted.

And yes I did read the Community Standards and the Forum Faq

You and another person said how I did what I did was wrong, I edited what you both said was wrong of me to do (see, therefore I agree with you?) and do want to hear real thoughts on the actual original topic, which was the kick ball thing. If I'm trolling, I'm sorry. Everyone else playing SL may love the damn thing but I have no way of knowing that, so I said I felt it sucked, gave my experience, and asked others what they thought. :>


Personally I like to avoid conflict. If I knew one negative rating for a building feature I find annoying would get me 3 negative ratings in return and the threat of GM retaliation, I wouldn't have bothered. =P (which is, I'm sure, his original intention. Scare the newbs away from using negative ratings or complaining about your building, and claim to be Special Friends with the GMs and you'll get banned if you say anything more)

You misunderstand me, which means I must not have explained myself properly, and for that I apologize. I'm desperate to prove that he gave me 3 negative ratings (one of which was impossible since I hadn't built anything) without meeting me in retaliation for the one negative rating I gave him on the way his building operated, and that he harassed me and theatened me with bannings and GM action for not rescinding my negative rating on him.

Please explain the correct course of action to take for these events, as I clearly don't understand. (And no I'm not being sarcastic)

Hey!

I'm too sleepy to find the threads for you, but a couple of Lindens have come out on the forums to discuss these security systems. From their remarks, I think that everyone got the clear impression that Lindens

1. regard any "security device" which employs a push, rather than a TP-home or simple eject mechanism, as abusive, and

2. are prepared to investigate any security device which fails to provide adequate warning before activating. One Linden stated that he thought a minimum fair warning would be 10 seconds, and while I don't think that observation carried the weight of a formal policy statement, every security system I've encountered since (except one) has fallen in line with that standard.

The Lindens have occasionally been accused of uneven application of their policies as their liaison staff grows to accommodate the rising population, but...corruption? Not in my limited experience. When there's a clear violation of TOS or CS, they'll move impartially. Just in the time I've been here, a couple of the Grid's best-known (and most passionate ) citizens have crossed a line or two, and they've gotten called on it.

Bothersome though it is, the advice you got about yanking the gory details was good...hostile security devices are an ongoing annoyance, and you'll see gripefests break out on the forum about them from time to time, but naming names and publishing chat transcripts will trump a nasty security orb every time for getting the Lindens irritated.

Neg rates: they're there for you to use as you see fit, period. It sounds like you tried to use yours responsibly, but that's entirely your business. When you neg somebody, right or wrong, you should be pleasantly surprised if you don't get counter-negged in retribution. People get irritated, stuff happens, and some of the nicest folks I've met on The Grid have a handful of those little scars from former scuffles. They fade over time. You'll run into some characters here and there who pride themselves on their massive neg ratings (given or gotten), but folks tend to know who they are.

So: If you want to pursue this, I think the proper action in your case is a pair of abuse reports. One for the out-of-compliance orb (the 10-second warning may be a soft standard, but the push was a definite no-no). And one for the load of crap the other avie apparently gave you for exercising your right of disapproval. Their allowed response was limited to a reasonable request that you reconsider, and a vindictive counter-neg if they so chose. Anything else, IMHO, constituted intimidation.

-- jj

Snipped the list. Thank you. =)




Like I said, previous experience proves GMs are 'only human'. I dunno how they operate in this game at all, just how they've operated in past games.

From http://www.thenoobcomic.com/daily/strip087.html : "When I was a newbie in Ultima Online I found them absolutely intimidating. The fact that they were dressed like a cross between an evil cultist and a KKK member who had washed his robe with a red sock didn't help at all. What the hell, they could even put you in prison!

Their responses were completely random (although normally it would be "I can't help you with that" and they seemed to be rather sadistic. Once me and a friend were fighting a guy who said the usual "I'll call my friend who's a GM", and of course we thought nothing of this. A minute later we'd killed the guy and were about to leave when a huge spawn of monsters materialises right on top of us. My friend dies, I manage to survive and run off a bit, just to have another huge spawn of monsters appear on top of me. All this in an area where normally you wouldn't even find these monsters. I guess that the guy had a GM friend after all."

So, there's plenty of examples of GM corruption. =D I haven't seen any examples of non-corruption in SL GMs, but that's because there aren't any examples one way or another.


And I did. =) In the circles I've been in before, screenshots (not just chat logs) and server logs are REQUIRED as a way to verify that something happened. I didn't know it was different here. ^.^;




I care not at all about the ratings, instead what bothers me is the claims of special relationships with the GMs, threatening to report my character for abuse for giving a negative rating, threatening to ban me, DEMANDING that I remove the negative rating, following my character around and harassing me, not leaving me alone when I asked, etc. =)




Thanks, I'll look into that. =)

I appreciate your informative response.


So what do you think about the "6 seconds to leave property lines you can't see or I'll teleport you 5k in a random direction" ball? :>

Good question. Sorry I skipped over that before. I completely agree with you. I hate such devices, and that one sounds like it's one of the worst of the lot. In my opinion, these devices constitute CS violations, and using them should be considered abuse. If someone wants people to keep off their property, all they need to do is turn off access. There's no need to lay down booby traps like that.


Okay, understood. Let me bring you up to speed then:

"Effectiveness of the GMs"
SL does not have "GM's" perse. What we do have are liaisons. These are people who work for Linden Labs, and have the job of helping users. Unlike GM's in some games, these are not specially privilidged players on power trips who like to abuse the little people. They are actual employees who exist solely to make sure you SL experience is a positive one, and they are very good at their jobs. I challenge you to find a liasion, or any LL employee for that matter, who is anything but easily approachable, perputually friendly, exceedingly polite, and just an all around great person.

"the rate of bannings or warnings"
That's hard to say because as a policy such things are not publicized. What I can confidently tell you though is that if someone violates the TOS or CS, they will be suspended or banned, depending on the severity of their crime. LL takes player abuse very seriously. They try harder than any online company I've ever seen to make sure that users are able to exist inworld with security and liberty.

"whether so-and-so is Special Friends with the GMs or not and will receive Extra Privaledges or whether they'll take his word over mine"
Despite what some of the more prolific chronic complainers might say on these forums, this doesn't happen. I've never seen LL judge a situation with anything other than an open minded attitude. In fact, just the other day, one of my best inworld friends, a guy who regularly socializes with many Lindens, including Phillip (the president), and who has contributed more to SL than anyone I know, had one of his threads shut down because he made the mistake of verbally attacking another resident. If they'll discipline him, you can be sure they'll discipline anyone.

Besides, you can feel reasonably copnfident that anyone who would act in the manner your booby trap friend allegedly does would not be capable of finding too many friends at Linden Lab anyway. Mean people don't often find it very easy to make friends with nice people.

"HOW EXACTLY a new player should handle things when someone abuses their abundance of L$ and the ratings systems"
Well, as for the ratings, there's nothing you can really do to "handle" the situation, other than to try to clear up whatever dispute or misunderstanding landed you the ratings in the first place. In this case, that seems unlikely. The ratings will fall off in six months by themselves, not that that's very comforting. It's unfortunate that you ran into the type of person who would abuse the rating system as this person allegedly did.

In the future, I'd recommend politely trying to settle disputes before resorting to handing out negative ratings. For all you knew at the time you ran into the booby trap, it could have been unintentional. A simple typo in a script could certainly cause it to push you 5000 meters instead of 5. Had you just politely IM'ed the guy, and said something to the effect of, "Hey, just wanted to let you know your security system might be a tad excessive. I don't know if you're aware, but let me tell you what just happened..." this entire incident could have been avoided.

"and then claims to be buddies with the GMs and if you complain you'll get banned"
The Lindens will never ban you for complaining about someone, as long as you do it the right way. If you come to the forums and publicly complain about someone by name, then yes, you'll get banned. If you go directly to the Lindens, and say "here's my problem..." they will thank you for bringing it to their attention and they'll try to help. In other words, you can rest assured they have good common sense.

"whether or not my account would actually be suspended over a netative rating, etc"
Never would happen.


As a gamer, I can totally see where you're coming from. I've had more than myfair share of those same experiences. Trust me though, SL is not like that. You can trust the Lindens to do what's right.

I might get flamed for saying that by some of the chronic complainers I referred to earlier who love to claim that LL never does anything right, but everyone sees those people for who they are. I don't know who they keep thinking they're fooling. That's a subject for a different thread though.


Good.


Goood job with the quick edit. No, you're not trolling. The topic is certainly worthy of discussion. You just went about it the wrong way at first is all. Now that you understand that, everything's on the right track here.

For what it's worth, I'm sorry that your early SL experiences haven't been more positive. First you get kicked around by that securtiy system on steroids, then you get in an argument with it's creator, then you run into a little resistance on the forums when you try to talk about it, definitely not the best way to start out. I hope you ca accept that these situations are not the norm for SL. Generally, the people you'll meet in SL are extremely nice, great folks. SL is really the shining jewel of the internet in that sense. I hope you can put all this behind you so you can experience what I'm talking about.



If everything you're saying is true, then it sounds like you're a good person who fell into an unfortunate situation. I didn't read the chat logs you put up, since they're none of my business, so I don't know what the whole conversation was (not that I'd be able to definitively determine the truth even I had; such things are easy to fabricate), but I feel comfortable taking your word for it at this point. All I can say is it would be nice if SL were 100% free of conflict, but it's not.

I just hope you're able to step back from yourself for a second and recognize that although you were clearly the victim in regard to the security system, you were just as much at fault in the ensuing fight about it as the owner was. I think you've hinted by now that you do have that capacity for self reflection, so I won't dwell on the subject. I'll just say that I hope you'll be more careful in the future to attempt to look at situations as misunderstandings worth trying to clear up before you resort to things like negative ratings and arguments. I really hope I'm not lecturing too much here.

Anyway, if you're looking for a place free of jerks and their annoying creations, I can tell you the North coast is full of nice people. Feel free to come on up & see us. I live in Indigo with many good friends. The surrounding sims are full of good neighbors as well.

Unfortunately I have no way of knowing that. As a new player, being approached by someone in a Storm Trooper suit who's floating and doing things I thought were impossible (IMing someone without being friends or near them, teleporting to someone without permission, rating someone without being in proximity to them, etc) is intimidating. O.o I didn't have a way to verify if they were actually a GM/Liason let alone friends with connections.



He demanded that I remove the neg rating or he'd report me for abuse. I refused. This was after he rated me negatively in return, thrice over.

I believed it was impossible to IM someone "out of the blue" unless you were friends with them or in close proximity to them. Which made getting IMed and teleported to ("out of the blue" by him that much more intimidating. O.o; (I would have IMed him first if I had known it was possible. BTW: How?)




Like I said I didn't know that at the time. =)



I didn't think that would happen but he was practically posing as a liason at that point.


Heh =)






S'why I kept checking. =D Wasn't sure if that's the way it was done here or not.





"life" happens. :> Apparently "second life" happens too. I know it's not the norm, seems like a pretty cool game otherwise, I just need to remember to give home security systems and the rating system a wide berth. :>





I like to think I'm a good person but deep down I know I'm a jerk. =D

The screenshots were done with SL, MS Paint, and IrfanView (To convert to JPG) Yes I could have made them up but I'm not that good.

From memory and screenshots, the Whole Story(TM)
The actual fight in SL wasn't as overblown as this post was. After getting back to where I was before I got bounced away, I rated the owner badly on building with a comment about the home security orb and then he rated me badly on everything with "back atcha" as the comment. Ignored that and continued to my destination, met the person I was going to meet. The owner of the orb IMed me, I ignored it, he IMed me more and I ignored those, (mostly him threatening me) chatted, bitched about how this person was IMing me (the other person laughed so I knew the owner wasn't a GM at that point) then the person teleported to my location, said "It's not hard to track you when I'm friends with the owner" [of the club I was in] (No screenshot of that, kicking myself for missing it) and complained more about the negative rating I gave him, said it wasn't his fault and didn't apply and that he would report me for abuse (And I said "but rating me negatively in return and then threatening me isn't abuse?) His main claim was that I didn't have to travel over the land and that he could bounce me out of it if he wanted, whereas I said I was flying, his land hadn't resolved, and I was way above it at any rate. He kept insisting I remove the negative rating I gave him or that he would file an abuse report on me. I said "bite me", but in nicer terms. =D He said I was being petty to rate him negatively, and I asked him how was it petty to rate someone negatively at building when they clearly can't build (again, I said so in nicer terms) and how does that pettiness compare to rating someone negatively in return for a negative rating, IMing them, teleporting to them, threatening them, bitching at them, etc? The fur I was with chimed in at this point to talk about how he had to relog twice to fix what the security orb had done. (Apparently, but i'm not sure, teleported him 5k BELOW ground) The owner of the orb said I "did not have the right" to rate him negatively because his land bumped me, and that I just shouldn't have flown over the land, and that he was trying to "resolve it peacefully", and I said "resolve it peacefully by threatening to report me to the GMs?" :> He said he wasn't threatening me, just stating facts, and that "it would be undone either way". I asked him to leave at that point, and he didn't. I told him I would reverse the negative rating when he changed his "keep out" method. He agreed and said he would remove his negative ratings when I did. I switched the rating I gave him to neutral (whatever that's called) and he asked me if I rated him positively. I said no, that it was neutral, and would be positive when he actually made the building changes. He seemed okay with that, removed my negative ratings, and eventually left.

(I took the liberty to mark the relevent details in italics=)

This took all of about half an hour in game.

But if you wanted a blow-by-blow you would have just read the logs, huh? :>


My day went great other than that. Got together with a nice fur after I chased off the person with the size problem ;> and then met a bunch of other nice furs and a new friend. =) So I know SL isn't all bad.


I know ratings don't really matter, I mention them because they're part of the story =)




Damn I want a smoke. :>


It's good to know, for future reference, how to handle this situation (ignore ratings, Help>Report Abuse for someone yelling at me, posing as a GM/Liason/Lindon, etc) but for the current "situation", as long as he actually makes that building change (from infinite height orb to invisible walls) I'll consider it resolved. =) Which is why I'm asking about the security orbs. :>

A related thread in Hotline
Another in Hotline - Robin acknowledging the problem!
A related thread in General (Really good one)
Another in General.
Yet another in General

So, ah, yeah. Crappy home security sucks for everyone.

Seems like this topic has been pretty well buggered to death already. =) Heh.

I still don't know how to IM someone without being friends with them or close enough to right click and select "Send IM" O.o

Some clarification I realize this thread needs:
I was on the mainland when this happened.

Use FIND. The options to IM people is in their profile, as well as other things.

You can IM anyone you can locate in the Find window. The other avie probably just either read your neg rating or queried his security device to get your name.

The whole bit about TP'ing to you unannounced is a bit spooky, though. As far as I know, you can't locate someone on the Grid using the built-in tools unless you've established at least a "Friends" status with them.

If your target's on the mainland and you're laid a little groundwork, you can launch a fleet of scanners to locate them within a couple of minutes, but indiscreet use of that technique will get you a majorly bad rep

-- jj

Ok. My find window is, uh, cut off since I run at 800x600 so SL will run. Oops. =)

Judah, he apparently knew the owner of the club I was at and found me that way. O.o
Probably not even a script required.

Considering I'm "Floofy Vixen", have a vixen AV, and was going to a furry club 100 meters from his house, well, gee, you might have to follow the breadcrumbs on that one.

But yeah I thought he might be a GM/friend of a GM at first, until I learned better. =D


If I'm too serious for too long my head explodes, so in lighter news:


Or wait, is that advertising? :>

Mmmm...Taco Hell...and Star Wars starts in about an hour...

just enough time for a trip to The Hell...mmm...

*heads out*

-- jj

Made by rats! =D

Well, this is the first time I posted and it was only because I had a problem. After all you know what Tycho says about forums. ;>

I've heard a lot of good things about SL GMs and that's very encouraging. =) Good to hear that someplace is breaking the mold, or not using the cast one, or whatever it's called. Definitely a nice change of pace.

I've had 2 hours sleep at this point. :> Back to bed.