1. I see it as a bad case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, or has done. It is chaos, but not malice.

Posted at 11:48PM on Jun 1st 2007 by Luciftias Neurocam

2. The wording in the Community Standards is clear. Now Daniel is claiming that something totally different has always been the policy. Except that's not what it says in writing. When something is in writing and has been for years, even politicians know better than to try to proclaim the opposite. A no-brainer.

Posted at 11:48PM on Jun 1st 2007 by Veronique Lalonde

3. I think it's incompetence. Daniel Linden directly contradicts the Community Standards and then says he didn't.

And don't get me started on how entries are posted to the blog. The Lindens are using it as a many-to-many delivery method, with no coordination, so we have an important announcement that a part of the service won't be available for considerable chunks of time, knocked off the top of the blog 17 minutes later so Torley can gush about lurid photos of the new sky in a post that conveys almost no information of any importance.

Half an hour later there's a notice of an update next week, followed a half hour later by a notice telling non-USians that it's their own fault if they don't understand what their financial institutions charge, and only half an hour after that another post about the same update, available on the beta grid.

With a demonstrated inability to communicate clearly and systematically, who the hell knows *what* Linden Lab means.

Posted at 1:23AM on Jun 2nd 2007 by Otenth Paderborn

4. I think LL is just covering bases.. or their asses....
which is okay.

I think all things will basically stay the same. Consenting combat violence will still be fine. Sex & escorts will still be fine.

It's more about the locale.... welcome areas are no place for furry sex. But at a sex club, it'll be fine

Posted at 1:58AM on Jun 2nd 2007 by Doubledown Tandino

5. @Doubledown: I hope you're right about that, I tend a little more toward a paranoid vision of what it all means. However, it's not really useful to envision all the bad things that could be implied by the confusing statements from the Lindens. But what is particularly troubling is just how disorganized they are when it comes to communication--right up to the highest levels; that does not speak well for the internal process as a whole.

Posted at 8:22AM on Jun 2nd 2007 by Alexander Burgess

6. I'd like to point out that people do get hurt in SL, and unfortunitly its the residents who get hounded, harrased and hated. I've been contacted by many residents that want advise or are saying goodbye because the whoel secondlife experience has become to stressed and is effecting their REAL LIVES. Residents are confused and dont know what is going on. They only know people hate them in SL and believe the Linden State hate them also. Its frustrating, everyone is just trying to have a good time SL.

Posted at 9:03PM on Jun 2nd 2007 by Loki Eliot

7. Maybe I haven't studied it well enough but I certainly never had the impression that this was SL's kind of policy. I truly hope those official terms don't get rewritten to 'clarify' this.

"1. I see it as a bad case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, or has done. It is chaos, but not malice."
Yep, assuming stupidity/foolishness/disorder before malice is definitely a good thing. Additionally...

"5. I think LL is just covering bases.. or their asses....
which is okay."
It seems quite possible that the biggest source of this mess around handling policy could indeed be outside of Linden Labs, in the hands of politicians. If this is what Linden Lab has to say to keep themselves out of a huge legal mess, so be it.

Anyhow, I really, really hope that the Lindens can make some clearer sense out of this policy-enforcing conundrum. Hopefully someone can come forward to discuss how Linden Lab may continue to respect citizens' ability to play how they wish in private. At the least, we could actually make sense of this if they tell us that this is all leading to some great news like less division between the Main and Teen grids, or something.

Posted at 11:25PM on Jun 2nd 2007 by Al Sonic

8.
The bad thing in regard to left hand not knowing what the right does is that those two hands belong to the same person. If you look at a workshop with Daniel ( http://slcreativity.org/blog/?p=32 ) you'll see that he's in charge for the community standards and that even his own idea of them is to keep them unclear and not specify them.

What's I'm really wondering about is when on earth he would then clarify them even in the most unclear ways with those examples.

I'll write it off as a blackout or use of mind altering substances.

Posted at 8:27AM on Jun 3rd 2007 by Nicholaz Beresford

9. I think something is changing. (What I'm most afraid of is that they plan to merge the teen grid with the rest of SL.)

"... Broadly offensive [behavior] must be contained within private land in areas rated Mature (M)."

"Our Community Standards have always prohibited broadly offensive behavior."

Prohibited is not the same as "must be contained to Mature areas".

Posted at 3:06PM on Jun 4th 2007 by gando

10. Perhaps we should be asking for comments from the "victims" of the "crimes"? Aside from underage people being involved in adult activities, (another point entirely) there is no way for anyone to be forced, coerced or hurt physically in any way in sl. Are people confusing RL and SL and forgetting simple realities that the "victims" cannot have any sort of sex without several steps such as: choosing and "sitting" on sexual pose balls, explicitly allowing animation of their avatar, and typing their part in the entire experience out to their partners?

If the "victims" are consensual then how does it follow that the perpetrators are "pre-criminals"? They are pursuing voluntary activities that satisfies their partners, are they not? So in fact the tables are turned, and the "victims" are most often the Purpetrators of the "crime" in sl since they have to agree and facilitate the entire experience, hence they are often in power in the relationship, which is very true for most Dominant/sub groups: subs are often stronger and more in control of events than Doms in the final analysis. A Dom that seeks to "please" a sub (even using an experience that includes bondage etc.) appears far from fulfilling their future as violent rapists IRL.

Given all this, and given that there is not a victim around who is an adult that can claim to have been forced into sex or abused physically within SL, isn't this entire thing simply a violation of our own bedrooms? Court precedent says in most states that policing ends at the bedroom door. If a couple on opposite sides of the country are in their respective bedrooms, both in their underwear, and both work together to stage a rape, are they not doing what they would do in the same bedroom?

Perhaps Al Gore is right and reason is in fact being assaulted.

Posted at 7:04AM on Jun 6th 2007 by praetor hax