Is it against TOS to pass out landmarks?

[161488303349]

yes agree

is the repeating that gets people into trouble

whats subjective is what repeating means. like if i came once an hour and drop one on everyone present. once a day? once a week?

what if i not use bots either. what if i employ newbies to do it for me and then say am doing it to help them makes some money?

and on and on and on

+

for people who go to WA/infohubs regular they heard every possible excuse ever

 

[Phil Deakins]

---

Cortland Swindlehurst wrote:

"You are just another spammer and deserve every AR you get.

I don't file AR's for small stuff like that but maybe for you I'd make an exception."

 

Ah now, that's harsh.  I'm not a spammer.. I've been in and out of here for 6 years, this is this the first time I ever passed out landmarks and it was just 7.  

I had a shop before in the old days, now I'm doing an events type venue so this is new to me.

 

---

The thing is, although you don't see yourself as a spammer, and you didn't intend to spam, you did, in fact, spam people, imo. I'm not being harsh on you, because you didn't realise, but you did do it. You only sent 7, but suppose nobody has said anything to you about it. That would have been just the first 7 of many more in different places. You're not a spammer because you didn't intent to 'spam' and you won't do it again, but the act was spamming.

Since I read the first dozen or so posts in this thread, someone IMed me and asked if she could ask me a question. I said, "yes". She then sent me a pre-prepared IM, asking if I was interested in some vendor system, because I have a store (she was in the store). If she'd just sent it on a notecard without asking, as some people do, I would have treated it as spam and ignored it, but she asked first. That was unusual, but it was the way to do it.

[161488303349]

is ok. dont worry about it

+

we kinda started to derail your post. chatting about the WA\infohub policy in general now

[Pussycat Catnap]

---

Dilbert Dilweg wrote:

It is posted at all info hubs with this sign

---

There is at least 1 infohub that lacks that sign. Its a very popular one, and also gets a small regular crowd of SL nudists as a result of said sign being absent.

Haven't been there in a bit though.

[Nova Convair]

---

Cortland Swindlehurst wrote:

Ah now, that's harsh.  I'm not a spammer..

 

---

Oh yes, you are. The typical selfish one that thinks he is alone in the world. But you aren't alone, there is an army of spammers and you are a little part of it.

Due to the mass of spam there is no reason to be nice or polite to a spammer, especially when the spam comes outside of commercial areas/clubs. And if I have a chance to AR I maybe even overcome my lazyness and file an AR. hehehe most probably I'm too lazy though.

So the best way to become ignored / muted / kicked out is to send some unwanted spam.

[Rosemaery Lorefield]

There are better ways of advertising. Find venues where your target market goes and buy ad boards, join business groups related to your business, get an ad in a magazine, blog, etc.

People at info hubs may or may not be interested in the business you are promoting and most of them will feel spammed if you send unsolicited LM.

[Rosemaery Lorefield]

It must be nice to be the one perfect person who has never made a mistake or needed help/advice on something.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

"Now, you abuse reporters out there.. chill out.. use all the common sense tools to resolve problems yourself before filing a report.  Ask the person to stop.  Block them.  If all those tools you have for self-resolution don't work and it's something serious like somebody using alts to disrupt your sim over and over then fine report it."

------------------------------------------------------

Agreed.

I'm a little surprised at some of the responses here (and the posters of those responses).  How many times have we had some breathless poster come here and whine and cry about avatar "A" annoyed them in some way (almost always some trivial thing such as "he said my avatar was too short and threatened to report me")?  And what is our response?  Something like "Get over it", "mute and ignore", or "drama queen"?

As far as I can see this was an honest question where Cortland seemed genuinely concerned about getting some sort of disciplinary action taken by LL for a pretty petty offence (not even a ToS violation, but could be a CS violation........interpetation is everything).  There is absolutely no indication that spamming took place.......and I believe the term was only used because spamming is a ToS violation (and AR'able) and using some creative interpetation of the passing of a landmark to someone makes an argument to bolster their statements. 

So, yeah, I say chill out too.

[Griffin Ceawlin]

---

Rosemaery Lorefield wrote:

It must be nice to be the one perfect person who has never made a mistake or needed help/advice on something.

---

I was thinking the same thing.

[Cortland Swindlehurst]

"Here is the link to the Community Standards, part of the TOS, 

https://secondlife.com/corporate/cs.php

  Item number 6: Disturbing the Peace includes: repeated transmission of undesired advertising content."

"(ii) Post or transmit unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, or promotional materials, that are in the nature of "junk mail," "spam," "chain letters," "pyramid schemes," or any other form of solicitation that Linden Lab considers to be of such nature;"

I know what exactly what legalese means, and the above is pretty clear what it's intended to cover:  "pryamid schemes," "chain letters," and such, and honestly the above was written by lawyers it's meant to cover out of world advertising.  You can't apply it to normal use of Second Life for things which Second Life is all about in the first place -- creating a space for other users to enjoy and then passing a landmark.

One could interpret the above so broadly that any IM is considered junk mail, it's not like Linden approves every bit of in game advertising for every business in here, we're talking about essential use of the platform.

Passing one landmark in SL doesn't constitute 

"junk mail," "spam," "chain letters," "pyramid schemes." 

"Every Resident has a right to live their Second Life. Disrupting scheduled events, repeated transmission of undesired advertising content"

Now that is very clear and we can all tell what it means, the key word here is REPEATED.  GETTING PASSED ONE SINGLE LANDMARK is not being griefed, now if someone stands there and keeps dropping lm's on you or writes spam in im or local and does it over and over then that's "repeated."

Ideally, community standards should be updated to specifically address dropping an unsolicited landmark, but guess what -- they probably don't consider this to be a non-intended use of SL.  Residents pass each other landmarks all the time.  Where it becomes griefing is if someone keeps pasting you with landmarks over and over -- which has never happened to me, I do what most people do if I get a IM someone saying hi and I don't want to talk I close out that window.  Sometimes I do talk.  This is a social platform enabling strangers to communicate with each other.  It takes a split second to click that little ex and the window is gone.

THINK ABOUT THIS.. what is clearly allowed in SL and nobody would disupute it is if someobdy IM's you and strikes up a conversation, THEN mentions the public venue that's available for residents to visit.  That whole process takes a lot more of the other persons time, reading a paragraph rather than a landmark link.  This is all silly -- one landmark is not being spammed, that's the bottom line, just as a resident saying hello to a stranger isn't spamming.  Whereas if you keep talking over and over even when the other doesn't respond, that's spamming, but Linden can't regulate everyone 24/7, best thing to do is click that little x on the IM window or block the person.

The linden video I watched about AR's is an old one I guess.  Since I never AR anyone I don't know what the dropdowns are.  If there's one for spam, I stand by what I said -- one LM is not being spammed.  Spam is repeated advertising, and yes that's disruptive.  Even here they need some more specific language to clarify what they consider to be spam.  

I'm not going to drop any random LM's on anyone anymore anyway, because of my own ethics, I see now some people are clearly more bothered by it.

Whatever Linden wants to do, I'm fine with.  It's not going to happen again anyway, nor will I even visit a infohub.  I don't see the TOS violoation here, but I ackowledge it was a infohub rule infraction (*maybe*, I didn't actually try to sell anything it was juts a LM but I'll cede this point that in the spirit of the rules passing someone even one landmark violates the "recruiting" rule).

If they consider this infohub rule infraction to be serious, I think a warning is appropriate considering I've never had an AR in 6 years.  I asked some friends inworld by the way, and they all said "yes that's spamming you have to talk to them first" (and not at an infohub).  But I'm not going to do even that unless I just happen to get to know someone -- for one thing, I really would want to get to know THEM before I even know if I want them in my place.

 

 

 

[Phil Deakins]

You are defending way too much. You asked a question which has been answered, The concensus response, backed by the ToS and CS quotes, answered that you shouldn't have done it, so why ask the question and then argue against the answers? I realise that you were hoping for approval of what you did but didn't get it. The best thing to do is accept that you shouldn't have done it.

This is some of how you are defending too much:-

---

Cortland Swindlehurst wrote:

I know what exactly what legalese means, and the above is pretty clear what it's intended to cover:  "pryamid schemes," "chain letters," and such, and honestly the above was written by lawyers it's meant to cover out of world advertising.  

You can't apply it to normal use of Second Life for things which Second Life is all about in the first place -- creating a space for other users to enjoy and then passing a landmark.

---

Second Life is not all about "creating a space for other users to enjoy and then passing a landmark" in the unsolicited way that you passed them.

---

Passing one landmark in SL doesn't constitute 

"junk mail," "spam," "chain letters," "pyramid schemes." 

---

You didn't pass one LM. You passed 7 and you would have continued. But just one is "junk mail" and "spam" if it's unsolicited.

Each person who receives an unsolicited advertising email or advertising phone call is just "one" and has been spammed, even if it is only sent to one person. The same applies to unsolicited advertising IMs, LMs, and notecards. They are "junk mail" and "spam". If you only sent it to one person, it would still be junk mail and spam, but you sent it to 7 people and you would have continued and sent it to many more if the other person hadn't said anything.

Imagine what SL would be like for you if all inworld places sent you an unsolicted LM, IM or notecards but each only sent it once. There are thousands of such places - stores, events, places to hang out, clubs, etc. etc., and you're arguing that it's ok for them all to send out one of those things to every user. If you hadn't gone on the defensive, I've no doubt that you really want them to stop spamming you every time you log in.

You really should accept the answers you asked for and stop arguing against them.

In my previous post, I said that you're not a spammer because you didn't realise that you were spamming, but now that you're arguing that it's really ok to do you did makes me wonder if I was mistaken.

 

[Nova Convair]

---

Rosemaery Lorefield wrote:

It must be nice to be the one perfect person who has never made a mistake or needed help/advice on something.

---

And who is that person? Maybe you? Then it's good for you.

If you are referring to me - do you know anything about me? No? LOL - don't expect to be taken serious.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Phil, I don't think Cortland is arguing that what he did was okay.  He's arguing that the ToS does not forbid the passing out of landmarks (but the wording in the CS seems to forbid such practice).........that, of course, is my take on the discussion so far.  He has admitted that what he did was not okay.  He also told everyone that he did not know it was not okay when he passed the seven LM's to seven different people.  It was only apparent that he upset anyone when this one person made a stink about receiving the LM and threatened to AR (or maybe that person did AR).  He stopped doing it claiming ignorance.  He came here to try to get some clarification about if he was going to get in trouble for the seven LM's he passed out.  And, immediately he got jumped and called a spammer......I don't blame him for trying to make people understand his intentions and purpose of passing out LM's was not spam.

No one is accepting his explanation.  It's all a very minor transgression (if it's even one).  His question has been answered (sort of).  The consensus is that he did violate a CS rule (but some still think it's a ToS violation too......which I don't think it is).  And the big answer he was looking for is if he's going to get in trouble.........and that answer is "probably not".  But since he's been called a spammer (not a particularly nice thing to call him when he was ignorant of the problems that a lot of people have with unsolicited anything).  I think you are taking the term "spammer" a little too far.  You may be technically correct about the spam.......but not about Cortland being a spammer.  If your computer is infected with a virus and is part of a botnet distributing spam or phishing attacked to all your contacts and you don't know about it then, by your definition, you are a spammer.  I don't think so......and I think you might agree.

I know you're a fair person........lord knows how you were attacked a few years ago.  This "attack" on Cortland is not nearly as vicious and heated as yours was but it's very very similar.  Just think about it.

[Phil Deakins]

I accepted that he isn't a spammer - not intentionally, anyway - and I wrote that in my first post. But some of the things he wrote in his last post do seem to me to be arguing that there was nothing wrong in what he did (which I agree was a minor thing). I still think he's not a spammer because I believe him when he said that he won't be doing it again. I just don't see any purpose him in arguing points like the ones I quoted, because they do appear to be arguing that he did nothing wrong.

Btw, I am totally against any posts that tell him words to the effect of, "You're a spammer, plain and simple, and you should be punished." Such posts don't belong in this forum - there's a current thread about that sort of nasty post.

ETA: You remember that attack on me? lol I don't think I'll forget it. I don't hold a grudge about it but it's not something that was easily forgettable for me. There is one person from it who I treat differently because of it, but that's because she's the only one I remember who was involved. It's not a grudge though.

[Pussycat Catnap]

This is a good example of the vultures thread also currently on the front of this forum.

The guy asked about something he did - was it wrong and why.

Some folks pointed out some issues with it.

He got a little defensive, but also conceeded he had been in error - a natural reaction and an change of heart. Impressive IMO on his part.

Then people dove in on the attack. And you get the folks who join in with "oh now you say that, but before you said this..." (a complete failure to recognize a change of heart for what it is). And he naturally got MORE defensive. Which of course made him sound worse.

So more people dove in on the attack. So he gets MORE defensive... which makes EVERYONE LOOK BAD...

- If people would accept his original change of heart at face value, this would never have descended into drama...

 

 

[Cortland Swindlehurst]

"LL defines advertising as being "any content that explicitly promotes any space, good or service whether in Second Life or elsewhere."  This definition is located via the following path: 

• Section 8.3 subsection 6 that states that users will not violate Second Life Mainland Policies. (Section 14 of the TOS titled "Additional Terms and Policies" lists Second Life Mainland Policies as being part of the TOS.)

• The Second Life Mainland Policies includes their policy on "Ad Farms". "

Is passing a landmark considered content?  Is "content" defined?  Sounds like that part of the TOS is meant to cover ad farms.

 

"In the AR drop down these are two choices in regards to Advertising:  1. Disturbing the Peace: Unwanted Advert Spam. 2. Disturbing the Peace: Repetitive Spam."

Hm.. I still don't see "spam" precisely defined anywhere.

There's a part of the TOS that says "repetition."  Getting one landmark isn't repeated, and it's still a question as to whether a landmark is "advertising."  As for "unwanted," how do you know when imming a stranger if it's unwanted until they tell you it's unwanted?  The guy that reported me, he first asked me if I'm female well that was definitely unwanted, I only answered because it was in local.  If it were an im, I would have clicked that little x just like I would with any other unwanted message.

Anyhow, if this really is a big issue then honestly Linden needs some precise direct langauge about it, somewhere other than the AR dropbox itself, just like in the TOS they are precise about "ad farms."

(I don't know how to reply with quote by the way.. thank you for the info you gave.. I think I need to do a test AR just to see the dropdowns, that's easiest way to know the rules)

P.S. I could have done 2 AR's today and added to lindens mountain of AR's.  I got one IM from someone not in the same sim as me, talking about a 1/4 sim for rent.  I'm not sure if that violates TOS or not though, it wasn't in infohub but from what you just posted an AR can be done for any "unwanted" advertisement.

Second thing that happend, I was at a club and someone dropped something large and knocked us all out.  Nobody filed an AR.  We laughed about it.  If it had been repeated, THEN that would be griefing.   My general point here is.. people should TALK to people before they file an AR.  Also, relax, consider whether you TRULY feel "abused" before filing an "Abuse Report."

Lastly.. despite liking access to the Blake Sea.. I need to move back to a private estate.  I actually had a friend warn me aobut Mainland, he said "Mainland????? what are you thinking...." Now I see why.  There are people sitting around filing AR's.

 

 

 

 

[Peggy Paperdoll]

I've had my plot on mainland ever since I joined SL (that that was long time ago).  As far as I know I've never been AR'd (I have been banned from clubs though).  People are not AR happy on mainland........not any more than they are on private estate land. 

I think you're just upset because some moron threatened to AR you.......chances are he never did.  LL won't tell you so all you have is his say so........and he seems like quite a piece of cake so weigh that when you decide if he actually went to the trouble (AR'ing is not hard but it must be complete which takes a few minutes and some thought).  And, despite all the quoted parts of the ToS that people are tossing around, the ToS is intentionally vague about spam......that gives them some wiggle room (which would be necessary as your situation shows).  Taking the discription as quoted from the ToS you could not IM someone without first asking if you could.......that is stupid and anyone would know it.  Dropping a LM could be advertising a business......but so could a club owner or manager IM'ing you and telling about a group for club members (a little creative thinking is all it takes.........you know the same crap lawyers are paid big bucks to do).

What you did is considered impolite and/or rude.  But as far as a violation of anything of importance it's nothing (and I still don't think it's a ToS violation until it's  repeatedly sent.....the wording in the Cummunity Standards is a little less ambiguous so it could be an AR'able offense by that standard.....but I doubt it).  I really don't think the abuse team would get past the word "landmark" if they recieved an AR stating that someone gave them an unwanted landmark before the delete key was hit..........if anything thing they might warn the person making the AR about abusing the AR system (and that is a specific ToS violation).  I'm pretty sure you are safe and have a clean record in SL as far as LL is concerned.

[Cortland Swindlehurst]

"and he seems like quite a piece of cake so weigh that when you decide if he actually went to the trouble (AR'ing is not hard but it must be complete which takes a few minutes and some thought)."

Thank you, if people can just say "ya he sounds like a jerk" then I'll shut up in this thread.  

Who asks a newcomer in local "are you female" that's just weird.  Either a) he's looking for fun with a infohub noob b) he's blind or c) a jerk because I have long hair or d) I was rezzing and he was trolling to do AR's ready to report on a topless woman.   

I assume the best about people, I actually passed that jerk a LM -- then after he said "muted and reported" I realized he really is a creep.

This thread has gone on long enough, but a general issue with these AR's are people who use them to grief.       

"Dropping a LM could be advertising a business......but so could a club owner or manager IM'ing you and telling about a group for club members"

That's a very good point -- right there that shows, that of course the special "mainland policies" don't cover all of mainland because as you say a club owner couldn't even IM people in his own place.  That part of the TOS is about ad farms.

I admit it was wrong in retrospect, Linden will probably not even think it warrants a warning but I'm fine with a warning I just hope they don't see that "spam" category and suspend me because that's not fair.

Should be a warning at most, unless whoever is going through these all day gets tired and clicks "suspend."  You see posts like that on this forum, people can't even figure out if they're suspended or not or how to contact anyone to find out anything.  Ergo, people.. please.. do NOT frivolously AR folks!  It's wrong.         

[Phil Deakins]

---

Cortland Swindlehurst wrote:

"and he seems like quite a piece of cake

so weigh that when you decide if he actually went to the trouble (AR'ing is not hard but it must be complete which takes a few minutes and some thought)."

Thank you, if people can just say "ya he sounds like a jerk" then I'll shut up in this thread.

 

---

People did say words to that effect early in the thread

 

A comment about something you said in your previous post:-

It's we people who use the word "spam" to describe the receipt of unsolicited things. The ToS doesn't need to use that word. Also, spam is not about the receipt of "unwanted" advertising, as you put it. It's about the receipt of "unsolicited" advertising, such as emails, phone calls, letter box junk, notecards, IMs and LMs. LMs may not advertise in words, but they do mean "come to this place", so they are effectively advertising.

[Cortland Swindlehurst]

"spam is not about the receipt of "unwanted" advertising, as you put it. It's about the receipt of "unsolicited" advertising, such as emails, phone calls, letter box junk, notecards, IMs and LMs."

First, you can't assume everyone knows what "spam" means -- SL is quite international now.  The rules should be specific, Linden should clarify, there are differences of opinion in this thread. (unless spelled out then it's subjective, my personal view of spam is copypasta type text and someone keeps pasting it over in local or ims it over and over to same person -- and this is just what the TOS mentions, that key word "repeated," it's repetition that makes the Spam)

Secondly, the word "unwanted" is what appears in the AR drop-down box.  It says "unwanted," not "unsolicitied."  Language matters here they mean different things -- for a thing to be "unwanted" that requires you tell the person you don't want it.  So somebody keeps imming you, you ask them to stop, and if they keep doing it then at that point it is unwanted.  Even here you should block and not do AR, my opinion, save Linden some labor for serious AR's.  

But you must inform the person it's "unwanted" or there's no way for them to know -- they can't read your mind.

If we ban "unsolicited" IM's then that means people can't IM any strangers if it connects to any kind of promoting -- which includes every interesting sim on the whole grid, except infohubs and Governor Linden's mansion and that cool beanstalk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Phil Deakins]

---

Peggy Paperdoll wrote:

What you did is considered impolite and/or rude.  But as far as a violation of anything of importance it's nothing (

and I still don't think it's a ToS violation until it's  repeatedly sent...

---

Leaving the OP out of it, but keeping the fact that an unsolicited LM was given to 7 different people...

How do you define "repeatedly"? What you've written suggests that it's ok to send an LM to every single user but not to send it to any user more than once. If that's what you're saying, I disagree. For me, "repeatedly" means the act, and not the recipient. For me, 7 different people, who neither asked for it nor agreed to receive it (unsolicited) is "repeatedly". For instance, suppose I wrote a bot that TPed around the grid 24 hours a day, giving an advert to every avatar it came across, but not giving more than one to any avatar. It would hand the ad out to many thousands of avatars, and I'm sure that most people wouild consider it as repetition. Or suppose it wasn't a bot but it was a person/avatar spending hours every day doing the same thing, or sending the ad to avatar names on a list. It would be repetedly spamming in many or most people's eyes - imo.

[Phil Deakins]

---

Cortland Swindlehurst wrote:

Lastly.. despite liking access to the Blake Sea.. I need to move back to a private estate.  I actually had a friend warn me aobut Mainland, he said "Mainland????? what are you thinking...." Now I see why.  There are people sitting around filing AR's. 

---

I've never had anything but mainland, and I've never had any problems with it.

There are pros and cons with both mainland and private estate land, but ARing isn't one of the cons.

[Dresden Ceriano]

Jeez... how dense must someone be to not realize that people just don't want random LMs dropped onto them by complete strangers, thereby making them automatically "unwanted"?

...Dres

[Phil Deakins]

---

Cortland Swindlehurst wrote:

"

spam is not about the receipt of "unwanted" advertising, as you put it

. It's about the receipt of "unsolicited" advertising, such as emails, phone calls, letter box junk, notecards, IMs and LMs."

First, you can't assume everyone knows what "spam" means -- SL is quite international now.  The rules should be specific, Linden should clarify, there are differences of opinion in this thread. (unless spelled out then it's subjective, my personal view of spam is copypasta type text and someone keeps pasting it over in local or ims it over and over to same person -- and this is just what the TOS mentions, that key word "repeated," it's repetition that makes the Spam)

 

---

It's true that different people have different ideas about what spam is, and there is no absolute meaning, other than it's a brand of luncheon meat Nevertheless, I think there is a general global opinion as to more-or-less what it is. "Spam" really isn't a word to use in the ToS or in the legal system. As you said, specifics are needed for those.

"Repeated" is repeating the act, and not repeating the recipient. Handing the same ad to 7 different people is repetition, but not necessarily spam. Handing it to those 7 different people without ascertaining whether or not they want it, and without even having any contact with them at all in advance, is repetitive spam.

---

Secondly, the word "unwanted" is what appears in the AR drop-down box.  It says "unwanted," not "unsolicitied."  Language matters here they mean different things -- for a thing to be "unwanted" that requires you tell the person you don't want it.  So somebody keeps imming you, you ask them to stop, and if they keep doing it then at that point it is unwanted.  Even here you should block and not do AR, my opinion, save Linden some labor for serious AR's. 

---

The thing about "unwanted" is that you had no idea whether or not any of those 7 actually wanted the ad, and it would be safe to say that some of them, perhaps all of them, didn't want it. If I'd been one of them, for instance, I wouldn't have wanted it. It's unrealistic to assume that everyone that an ad is passed to, unsolicited, actually wants it. That is, unless they are in the same field. E.g. a new company starts to make pens and sends an ad to pen sellers, but who didn't know the new company existed. Handing out ads to anyone in sight is globally considered to be spam. There's no real difference between that and sending it to a list of random names, such as spam email shots. Only the quantity is different.

 

---

But you must inform the person it's "unwanted" or there's no way for them to know -- they can't read your mind. 

---

You don't have to read anyone's mind. You have to assume that it's unwanted unless they tell you differently. Assuming that a random stranger actually wants your ad is wrong, because many or most of them won't want it, so you have to ask first. If that's too much trouble, and if you don't want to spam people, you have to find a different way of promoting the place.

 

 

---

If we ban "unsolicited" IM's then that means people can't IM any strangers if it connects to any kind of promoting -- which includes every interesting sim on the whole grid, except infohubs and Governor Linden's mansion and that cool beanstalk. 

---

But you can IM strangers if you want to promote something to them. IMing isn't spamming. Sending advertising IMs out of the blue is spamming. Earlier in the thread I gave an example of a stranger IMing me out of the blue just yesterday (or was it the day before). Her IM asked if she could ask me a short question and I said "yes". Then she sent a pre-prepared ad IM that concluded by asking if I was interested. She did it without spamming me. I don't know what your LM is for but suppose it's a new club. You could IM strangers, simply asking something like, "We've just opened a new club. May I send you an LM for it in case you ever want to visit?" That way, people can do the same as they can do with leaflets in the RL street - accept it, say "no thank you", or just ignore it.

[161488303349]

just on broadening the debate like you mention earlier

+

is two kinds of ways laws/regulations can be made: descriptive and prescriptive

some context:

ToS = law. things like Community Standards = regulations

regulations are made under a provision of a law

is not the same as RL law/regulation. is contextual equation

+

when people ask is this/something/whatever against SL ToS? most people interpret this to mean is: will/can i be sanctioned/banned for it?

the answer is yes, when is written in the law/ToS itself or is described in a regulation/CS

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where it gets messy is when we wants to argue that something/whatever is not against the law when is not exactly allowed/proscribed in a law. is messy because it avoids the main point: can i be sanctioned for it?

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descriptive vs prescriptive

linden choose to use descriptive method in ToS, Community Standards, etc

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the reason is that when you use the prescriptive approach then it is used/interpreted in two ways

first way: can do anything you want except for the banned things on this list

second way: can only do what is on this list. everything else is banned

the prescriptive way of governing behaviour can get quite bureaucratic very quickly. also can spend huge amount of time chasing people who operate to the letter and edgecasing every prescripted item to pieces

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in a descriptive method of governance you just give an example of what is meant. example = a description of behaviour. not a prescription for behaviour

so, basically what the descriptive system means is that the lawmaker/enforcer is the final authority and not the law/regulation

is quite a big difference in the two approaches