Petition

[Laufiair Hexicola]

This is an idea I'm fishing around since it's happened to myself and 3 other people. Here's the low down...

To all the avatar residents in SL. Everyday people are falsy accused and banned by Linden Labs for crimes in which they did not comment. Anyone who has an avatar in SL knows how much L$ and time that is put into the creation of their personal avatar giving their avatar a personality and soul. To ban an innocents account is no diffrent than killing a small part of that person. Human, Vampire, Furry, Neko, it dosn't matter we all hurt the same when a griffer bullys us, and/or convices LL that "we" the victum should be the one banned. We the avatars of SL want fair trials in such cases. So please help us stop this injustice by signing this petion which will be printed and sent to LL in California. This is not a joke or scheme this is a real issue here on SL, and we need to show LL that we are not just mindless avatars we are people with feelings.

[Canoro Philipp]

i think we already have a system in which banned users can appeal the case.

[Laufiair Hexicola]

.. but the apeals system ll has set up is the nice way to say they dont care about us. I know of several(myself included) that've gone this route with little or no response from LL.

[Griffin Ceawlin]

 

Laufiair Hexicola wrote:

.. we all hurt the same when a griffer bullys us, and/or convices LL that "we" the victum should be the one banned.

---

 

I'm guessing that what you're "guilty" of is retaliation against one or more persons who were somehow "griefing" you. It may not seem fair, but it appears that LLs position is that two wrongs don't make a right, and I would tend to agree. If you're having issues with certain people, why sink to their level, especially if you're aware of the possible consequences (not that ignorance of the law is a defense..)?

[Laufiair Hexicola]

no, but my specific problem is irrilevant. What is relevant is that someone needs to stand up for these wrongful bannings and I know people agree with me(12 of them so far). I also know people are affraid that LL might do something to them. I'm not affraid and no one else should be either.

[Canoro Philipp]

i am pro-justice, and yes, if anything can help improve our justice system, im up for it.

what can we do:

i suppouse sending a letter saying that we want a better justice system woould not be enough.

sending it with some proposals would be better heard.

now, Linden Lab is passing thru an economic difficulty, so having more people to review banned people will be a little difficult, they are paying for programmers, maintenance people, customer support, etc. hiring more people to review the cases doesnt sound like a close solution, not unless they pass this economic crisis. because of the lack of people assigned to review abuse reports, a complain can take long to be reviewed. another solution would be for those employees to have better training, very clear and rigid rules to identify if someone brakes the TOS.

in the case of the person who was griefed and griefed back in defense, in a perfect justice system both would be banned.

[Griffin Ceawlin]

Yes, I know some people, as soon as they're banned, proclaim their innocence. "But, I did nothing wrong!!!!1!!1!" Are we to believe that LL bans for no reason whatsoever? Just on a whim? I, for one, don't believe it.

If you or anyone else were unfairly banned, that's why the appeals process exists. Appeal. Or not.

[Laufiair Hexicola]

the apeals system is both inadequite and in insult. I guess my specific problem is relevant now lol.. I was transfering 2 hits of L$10,000 from SL to Paypal(which is allowed) from store sales(I ran a store for breedables/furnature/auctions/etc...). LL saw it, and put the account into limbo quite out of the blue(no warning whatsoever). I know of at least 3 other folks that've tried transfering linden in excess of L$40,000 and were both put into limbo as well. This is wrong, I mean some folks(like myself) actualy rely on making real mony in this virtual world. It's wrong for the high rollers to sit in their chairs and make their fortunes while the rest of us fight to get anywhere.

The basis of the petition is for LL to reverse the ban on named accounts that were wrongfully banned. Yes, I can see if say, someone was banned for griefing or hacking, but this is not the case. This is not the stereotype I'm gearing for.

[Griffin Ceawlin]

So, were you banned? I don't believe LL bans people for Lindex transactions unless there's some sort of fraudulent activity involved.

It's more likely it triggered a hold, pending a review. Have you tried calling Billing?

[Laufiair Hexicola]

I have and they dont know whats going on, according to them the account was placed on admin hold.

But if something like this is happening to me, I can imagine whats happening to others(LL economic problems or not).

[Griffin Ceawlin]

So, the answer is: No, you weren't banned. Your account was placed on hold. Quite different things.

You can either wait for the results of the review, or keep calling Billing. If you're persistent enough, you might actually get someone to look into it further and speed up the process.

A petition, especially one that obfuscates, is useless.

[Laufiair Hexicola]

I dont believe so. You have your opinion and I have mine.

[Griffin Ceawlin]

Ok. Well. Good luck with that. :smileyindifferent:

[Laufiair Hexicola]

Thank you ^.^

[Nancy Hilltop]

Nancy Florence Carlson

[Laufiair Hexicola]

Thank you Nancy, you make #13 ^.^

[Magnus Brody]

A while back, Torley made a distinction between suspension and banning.

It sounds to me your account has been suspended pending review and, although I can see this is annoying and inconvenient for you, consider: if you had not made this cash-out transaction, your account had not been suspended due to activity perhaps inconsistent with your usual, if someone had hacked your account and transferred your lindens to their paypal, then I think you'd be much more annoyed.

It is not unusual for my bank or credit card company to phone me to confirm a transaction is genuine.  In fact, many years ago, I had a credit card suspended because three charges were made by a restaurant in one evening.  As it turned out, only the first charge was for my meal, the other two were staff taking cash from the till and charging it to my card.  Was I embarrassed and inconvenienced later when I tried to pay for after dinner drinks elsewhere, only to have my card declined? Yes I was.  I was very angry.  It was a first date and didn't make me look great.  However, once I found out what had been happening, I was very happy with my card provider's actions as, without suspension, the person who had my card number could have continued merrily along.

So, it may be the case, the Lab's financial transactions software has highlighted your account activity as unusual and auto-suspended your account.  Less inconvenient than sorting out a situation where your account had been hacked.

[Laufiair Hexicola]

Yes and the whole thing has made me quite poor(I actualy had to go out and look for rl work again lol).

My argument for getting this petiion is still valid however.

[Mags Indigo]

This is interesting - recently I has cause to buy quite a lot of L$ inworld (through the system on the viewer -so all legal). My ability to buy any more L$ was put on hold and I presume LL had a quick look to make sure I wasn't doing anything dubious.

After a few hours my account was reactivated and all I had lost was some shopping hours while I couldn't access money. A bit inconvenient but I'd rather LL were alert than otherwise.

Now if I had contacted LL and perhaps allowed my frustration to show by becoming somewhat over-excited or a bit abusive I might have found the situation took longer than a few hours to be resolved.

Sometimes approach is everything I find, and I'm always hesitant to make too many comments about other people's issues - because you never have the full story - even when they insist you have!

Good luck though.

[Laufiair Hexicola]

Very true and thank you for the encouragement ^.^

[Tolya Ugajin]

I'm sure you've received lots of "stupid idea!" (not to mention, "who taught you to speak English?") feedback, but I'd point out that I have been deliberately provacotive to Lindens and never even received a temporary suspension.  So, I find it hard to believe there are more than a handful of truly innocent avatars permabanned.  And for those few who are - them's the breaks, set up a new account and off you go.  Better yet, have a backup account with full edit rights so you can get a bunch of your stuff back if it's left out inworld after the ban.