Guess what will get you banned...

Posted Oct 5th 2007 1:00AM by Tateru Nino
Filed under: Stories, Linden Lab

No, really, because you do have to guess. You must comply with the updated Community Standards which are, as far as we can tell, not available to you.

Today, an abuse department Linden contacted a resident on a matter of sexually suggestive images involving minors. I've been passed a transcript, but I'd rather not quote the piece to avoid the resident suffering from any additional woes. The abuse Linden insisted that 'certain' items of content had to be removed, but refused to indicate which ones.

The resident was certain that they had no such content fitting the description of the infraction. The abuse Linden insisted that they did, but refused to indicate which items, only that the offending items be removed or face suspension/banning.

In order to support his case, the abuse Linden quoted the Community Standards. Only they're not the ones on the website, or in the library folder of your inventory. Apparently there's another set that has never been published.

Throughout the conversation, the resident pleaded, wheedled and begged for some clue as to what content they owned might be in violation of the rules. The abuse Linden adamantly refused to give any indication, repeating the same quotes over and over again. In fact, the Linden in this case was so on-message as to be almost incomprehensible.

What it comes down to is opinions. In the resident's opinion, none of their content was a problem. In Linden Lab's opinion at least one item is, but they adamantly will not say which one, resorting only to canned responses.

Not a good situation. Imagine if I turned in this post, and my editor said "You have to change some of these sentences."

"Which ones?"

"Some of them are offensive."

"I don't get it. Which ones?"

"The offensive ones. Change them to be less offensive, by tomorrow, or you're fired."

That's the situation our poor resident is in.

Tags: Community-Standards, Second-Life

Reader Comments

(Page 1)

1. This is troubling.

Posted at 3:50AM on Oct 5th 2007 by Kitten Lulu

2. Interesting but not surprising. Can we hear the part with nwritten Community Standards?

Posted at 5:32AM on Oct 5th 2007 by dandellion Kimban

3. This is ridiculous. Does Linden Lab *try* to hire incompetent imbeciles and then put them through training to further teach them how to be complete and utter useless drooling idiots? Do they just pull the first homeless person they find on the street, give them a laptop, and tell them to have at it?
We live in Real Life, we play/work in Second Life, but Linden Lab employees apparently live/work in an alternate universe where there is no such thing as integrity, honesty, and actually *working* for a living.
I swear, there are some days in which it would be nice to just have 5 minutes in a room with Phillip Rosedale and a baseball bat.
Problem is, I'm sure that line would be very very long.
California, specifically the San Jose bay area was once known for it's technology, as well as it's laid back approach to running such high energy corporations. The idea was to take a bit of stress out of the work environment. Linden Lab is the epitome of the "pendulum swings both ways". They represent the peak of the swing towards that "laid back" attitude. Where "laid back" has become lazy, unproductive, apathetic, and useless.
And now they seem to have added psychosis to the mix, making up the rules as their minds see fit to make things conform to their horridly sick mindset.
Is it really no wonder that something that should be huge by now is still, at best, growing slowly? Wasn't it Corey Linden who predicted something like 200,000+ online concurrency by this time? Where are all those people? *paging Linden Lab.. Paging Linden Lab. Reality calling on line 1*

Posted at 6:23AM on Oct 5th 2007 by neural

4. Does this qualify as offically sanctioned griefing?

Or is this deluded child role playing a private Catch-22 world in their own mind? "You have an IM from Major Major".

If this behavior is an example of the corporate culture of the Lab, it's no wonder a handful of grief-y vandals are tolerated as an essential component of Second Life.

Posted at 6:58AM on Oct 5th 2007 by Corman

5. Troubling, yes, but without actually reading the conversation hard to really put into context. frankly, without it this, no offence meant, really is just hearsay.

Posted at 7:55AM on Oct 5th 2007 by sirhc DeSantis

6. That's upsetting. How can you comply when you don't know what to change?

Posted at 9:54AM on Oct 5th 2007 by Mahala

7. "How can you comply when you don't know what to change?"

I believe that's the point. If you don't have the proper behavior and manner... bye bye. It's more of a self-realization to set people's manner and behaviors.

Not sure if it really cleans out the griefers before it happens. Who knows?

Posted at 11:23AM on Oct 5th 2007 by Nacon

8. Didn't I warn people about this in my SLelection campaign?

"Are YOU being 'broadly offensive'? How do you know? The Lindens won't tell you...until it's too late." (from Radio Spot #2)

It really IS time for clarity. Way past time.

Posted at 11:48AM on Oct 5th 2007 by Erbo Evans

9. Yeah, the cop Lindens are morons for the most part. I had one IM me saying they returned a big statue in the middle of my store (a shiny copper robot holding up the rest of the store) stating it was causing lag in the sim...which is pretty funny considering it was a 200prim object.

What was even funnier is that I had it on a temp_on_rez system so by the time I logged on and went to see what the damage was, the statue was back. She didn't know what the hell she was talking about or doing!

Honestly I kinda like how they're never online anymore if this is the quality of service provided.

Posted at 4:57PM on Oct 5th 2007 by SqueezeOne Pow

10. This is not enough information to go by at all.

coco

Posted at 9:38PM on Oct 13th 2007 by Cocoanut Koala

11. Hah! Tragically hilarious! I actually got a taste of this mentality from a Linden who asked me to remove a trademark violation from *PREEN*. I quite honestly thought all TMs were cleaned up from my stores, so I was literally baffled as to the location of the remaining offense.

The Linden initially wouldn't give me any specific information, just as Tateru described above, but I managed to wiggle it out of them by playing dumb. I deliberately removed one of my own shoe creations and said "OK, I removed the shoes, just as you requested! Thanks for the heads up! It wont happen again!"

And they came back with "UH...It wasn't the shoes." to which I replied "Huh...OH! OK I just deleted the green shirt. Sorry again for the problem and thanks again for spotting that for me!" I think she eventually got frustrated with me and pasted the name of the offending item to me. I hope she didn't get in trouble for doing that.

For the life of me I can't think of any analogous situation where the details of an infraction are withheld from a violator, nor can I think of any reason it would benefit Linden Lab to have this policy!

Posted at 4:04PM on Oct 5th 2007 by Aimee Weber

12. I recently found my own account banned because somebody else had been griefing an island using alts.

Myself, two other random users and the 'bad guy'/his alt all had a 3 day suspension imposed on them.

Considering all I do on Secondlife is socialise and shop, I was gobsmacked to see an email message come through to me saying that I had used alts to misbehave so my account was being suspended. I only found out the whole story upon my return.

I certainly wasn't pleased! And support at Linden Labs were made fully aware!!

Now I don't have a newbie avatar, but my guess is Linden Lab banned everybody on the island at the time who wasn't the complainant!

Posted at 5:08PM on Oct 5th 2007 by Shaz

13. it's simple actually. find out what the pay off amount is and pay up or the lindenafia will eliminate you and your business.

Posted at 8:46PM on Oct 5th 2007 by Ann Otoole

14. When someone produces what they say is a transcript of chat, what makes you think it's real?

Posted at 11:41PM on Oct 5th 2007 by SuezanneC Baskerville

15. I know who that user was, and she deserves it- she has private parts for child avies, not to mention sky boxes with child/adult sexual poses. The lindens are doing something right here- and although I understand some of you have had bad experiences with them, this user 100% knew what the linden were referring to, and playing dumb is she wasnt.

Sinagar

Posted at 11:50AM on Oct 7th 2007 by Sinagar

16. The chat transcript is consistent with other conversations that have been reported by other people. There doesn't seem to be any reason to believe that it has been fabricated or altered.

Posted at 2:48AM on Oct 6th 2007 by Tateru Nino

17. No Sinagar. Whatever particular user is doing,there are procedures established long ago, even before the internet. There is no such thing as "you're guilty, and you know of what" in the civilised world.

Posted at 3:16PM on Oct 7th 2007 by dandellion Kimban

18. Once in a while I get someone on my land who leaves spam items lying around, like those money pyramids or tip jars... when it happens i IM the person and tell them to come back and remove them.

Often they'll IM back and say "which items?" or "where are they?" My response is always "you figure it out."

I figure that if they're going around leaving these items in various places, and they can't remember what they left or where they left it, then getting banned from my land will teach them something valuable about proper SL ettiquette.

I know i can easily tell them the location and nature of the offensive items, and I can easily remove them myself, but, if they force me to do it for them, then I'll ban away with no regrets.

Posted at 5:21PM on Oct 7th 2007 by JR

19. I would normally agree with you, but I am aware screen shots of virtual child sex taken on the land were passed to LL which is what forced them to act, not to mention notecards saying 'child sex is ok if done in private' which violates the TOS.

So LL is being forced to Act and the user involved is problem stirring, its a known fact however that the user involved is famous for editing notecards and redistributing them fabricated evidence of people doing or say things they are not.

For all we know the logs could be made up.

Posted at 11:54PM on Oct 7th 2007 by Sinagar

20. This weekend my account was also suspended: disturbing the peace.
That LL has double standards in about all their actions is a given fact for a few years now. I have emailed, reported, pleeded to have action taken against someone who sells a copy of a bear i made.
If she would give it away i would not care, its SL we are surrounded by copycats but i made that bear for Valentine two years ago and sold it for 90L at that time, she sells them today (with a broken script because the script and texture inside the bear didn't copy) for 300 and 400L.
LL has done nothing, so i took the right to buy a piece of land right next to her shop and sell my bears there for 1L, also distributing a notecard with the reason why.
And my account got suspended.
See how service can be very different?
I have a rl company, we build sites for rl brands in SL, a low life with no imagination of herself can copy mine and other people's stuff and sell it for way too much and just be free to do that.
I can't sell my OWN bears right next door because i disturb the peace.
I am building a site for a dutch soccer team, i could not log in and do what i get payed rl money for.
I would rather have them not doing customer service at all, then this totaly random picking on people with NO investigation at all.
We own 13 sims and i'm about to get rid of everything because this is too crazy for words.
Thanks for letting me vent this here!
Leyla

Posted at 11:31AM on Oct 15th 2007 by Leyla Firefly

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