How do I question an unexplained ban?

[Reg Eberhardt]

I have been on SL for many years, I know the rules and etiquette.

I have visited  a particular location many, many times. Now I find I that i am banned from it!

I can honestly say that I am not aware of doing anything, anything at all wrong. I just hang out and chat.

How do I find out what I am supposed to have done so as to have the right of "innocent until proved guilty".

 

[Nalytha]

The phrase "innocent until proven guilty" is an American one, if I am correct. Second Life is not America. Anyone can kick you from their land for any, or no, reason. They have no obligation to tell you why. They could kick you for wearing ugly shoes. 

I know this may not seem nice or fair, but that's just the reality of the situation. You can ask the landowner. Hopefully they can give you some insight so you might avoid that behavior in the future (if you in fact did do anything wrong). Otherwise, just forget about that place and move on =) 

[Reg Eberhardt]

Thanks Nalytha, totally understand someone can do that. It just makes no sense for it to suddenly happen for no obvious reason. This is a "General" region I am talking about and I have always acted appropriately there (unlike many others I see and "hear"). 

This is one of the most popular areas in SL and I can understand the need to make sure there is no inappropriate behaviour ,but the right to face your accuser is universal - Certainly nothing to do with America, just common good manners! TBH I assume it is a mistake, but, as my main point says, I need to find out what has happened and why.

[Rhonda Huntress]

I would send the owner a notecard and ask as politely as possible what happened to warrant the ban.

[ETA]

I was once ejected and banned form a very popular 80's rock club for saying "Welcome to <club name>, the craziest bunch of animals in SL."  I don't know what the nationality of the security was that night but he took it as an insult to the customers. 

Edited March 22, 2017 by Rhonda Huntress

[Reg Eberhardt]

Thanks all. I have had a reply from the landowner. So my explanation is: met a girl, chatted with her, asked if she wanted to come and sit on a beach. She said yes so we did.

His explanation is that she was "one of their accounts" and I lured her to an adult beach. So, a Honey Trap.

Judge me if you like but I didn't know it was wrong to meet someone on "General" land, strike up a friendship and go to Adult land when the person in question agreed. If she had said no then I would have respected that.

Oh well, we live and learn.

Edited March 22, 2017 by Reg Eberhardt

[Rhonda Huntress]

Sounds like a great place to avoid.  It was nice of them to let you know that.

[Nalytha]

I totally get the idea of "good manners." I'm just stating the reality of Second Life. Land owners are under no obligation to give any reason for kicking you from their land. I did a Google search for <edit: the place you mentioned> rules and there actually are some that are quite vague and leave much room for interpretation. That alone reads to me as: We can remove you for any reason.

I'm glad to hear they were kind enough to explain their decision, even if it wasn't the response you were hoping for. Many people get no reason at all. 

Edited March 22, 2017 by Nalytha

[Marigold Devin]

44 minutes ago, Reg Eberhardt said:

Thanks all. I have had a reply from the landowner. So my explanation is: met a girl, chatted with her, asked if she wanted to come and sit on a beach. She said yes so we did.

His explanation is that she was "one of their accounts" and I lured her to an adult beach. So, a Honey Trap.

Judge me if you like but I didn't know it was wrong to meet someone on "General" land, strike up a friendship and go to Adult land when the person in question agreed. If she had said no then I would have respected that.

Oh well, we live and learn.

There's certainly no law against taking someone from a G or M rated sim to an A rated sim, and that doesn't make you any kind of perv.

What I read in this story is that the landowner is annoyed that anyone should come along to their precious "popular" sim and take off their traffic to somewhere else.

 

[Perrie Juran]

2 hours ago, Reg Eberhardt said:

Thanks all. I have had a reply from the landowner. So my explanation is: met a girl, chatted with her, asked if she wanted to come and sit on a beach. She said yes so we did.

His explanation is that she was "one of their accounts" and I lured her to an adult beach. So, a Honey Trap.

Judge me if you like but I didn't know it was wrong to meet someone on "General" land, strike up a friendship and go to Adult land when the person in question agreed. If she had said no then I would have respected that.

Oh well, we live and learn.

You haven't stated the nature of the location but reading between the lines here it sounds like you were at a place where people RP at being minors (under 18 year old). Now I could be dead wrong about this and if so I apologize. 

Many owners as well as I think the majority of Residents take the ban against sexual ***** very seriously.  So if the Ava you invited to an adult beach was portraying themselves as under 18 year old, while you could possibly deem it paranoia on the owner's part I can understand their concern.  In other words it was not for nothing that you were banned.

 

Edited March 22, 2017 by Perrie Juran

[CheriColette]

6 hours ago, Reg Eberhardt said:

Thanks all. I have had a reply from the landowner.

Im I surprised you did hear back. And at least its an explanation even if you think its unfair. It could be as simple as 'you stealing customers' but maybe the 'girl' reported you.

I have heard of  people being banned, not for anything they did but for the GROUPS they are in. 

But as was said before, landowners dont need to give reason, its their place, they can do it if they want. 

[Talligurl]

I got banned for being in a group, I joined a group to dance at a strip club, I did it about a week and decided I didn't like it (the club, not dancing) months later a friend of mine starts sends me am IM, he eventually invites me to come watch him dance at another club, I go I sit in the chair next to him we chat awhile eventually I leave and log off. A few days later he invites me back, but this time I can't get in. I ask management why and they say people from the club I was a group member with, had been coming over and trying to steal thier dancers, so they banned me in case I was doing that to. I told them I hadn't been there in months and had no plans to go back, they unbanned me on the condition I leave the other group, which I was willing to do since I was done with the place.

 

[Reg Eberhardt]

Thanks all. It is mostly the injustice that rankles me. His explanation of my alleged behaviour was a statement that I had done something and that there was no question about it. My words to him to deny this were not listened to at all. He signed off with a "LOL - bye".

This is what i think is going on:

He monitors tp requests into his land from adult places. Assuming that he can't listen in to IM chat then he seems to make the assumption that the tp request is unsolicited. He told me that I had "lured" someone away with an unsolicited tp request and had done it before.

Now, I would never even have thought of doing that until now! As he can't listen to IM chat then he wouldn't know that boy meets girl, asks if girl wants to come to the beach, girl says yes, love to. Boy then has to go to the beach to send the TP (I suppose you could give them a landmark but it seems a bit odd).

If girl says no thanks then boy says, OK have a nice day, nice meeting you...

But, in the case of the "honey Trap" employee of his then he would have been able to see the IM log and would therefore see that she was happy and willing to go to the beach. So, that baffles me really! 

It seems that he is taking some sort of moral custodian role and not allowing residents to make their own decision. Very odd. Totally unrelated to this incident but I was once exploring there and suddenly got a pop up saying "this area is for new residents only you have been banned for 60 minutes". Is he really paranoid that us old-time SL vets are going to pervert HIS newbies?!!

(In response to suggestion that someone may have been underage (or playing underage) then no, absolutely not. Not something I tolerate either. (Beach was Naturist Sunland Beach, no age rp there that I have ever been aware of).

Hopefully he reads this and could give his side of the story here as I am having to make assumptions about his behaviour.

EDIT PS not very likely as I notice the mods have stripped the name of the region from these posts! Not very helpful.

Edited March 23, 2017 by Reg Eberhardt

[Rhonda Huntress]

You made a move on a girl he likes that either turned him down or he has not had the nerve to peruse. Now he's jealous.

Just let it go. SLife is too short.

[Marigold Devin]

7 hours ago, Reg Eberhardt said:

Thanks all. It is mostly the injustice that rankles me. His explanation of my alleged behaviour was a statement that I had done something and that there was no question about it. My words to him to deny this were not listened to at all. He signed off with a "LOL - bye".

This is what i think is going on:

He monitors tp requests into his land from adult places. Assuming that he can't listen in to IM chat then he seems to make the assumption that the tp request is unsolicited. He told me that I had "lured" someone away with an unsolicited tp request and had done it before.

Now, I would never even have thought of doing that until now! As he can't listen to IM chat then he wouldn't know that boy meets girl, asks if girl wants to come to the beach, girl says yes, love to. Boy then has to go to the beach to send the TP (I suppose you could give them a landmark but it seems a bit odd).

If girl says no thanks then boy says, OK have a nice day, nice meeting you...

But, in the case of the "honey Trap" employee of his then he would have been able to see the IM log and would therefore see that she was happy and willing to go to the beach. So, that baffles me really! 

It seems that he is taking some sort of moral custodian role and not allowing residents to make their own decision. Very odd. Totally unrelated to this incident but I was once exploring there and suddenly got a pop up saying "this area is for new residents only you have been banned for 60 minutes". Is he really paranoid that us old-time SL vets are going to pervert HIS newbies?!!

Undoubtedly.  This is how some people in Second Life get their kicks. They have absolutely no power in real life, so this makes them feel that they have some kind of power. Quite pathetic I know, but true all the same.  Also, have you considered that the "young woman" that you allegedly lured to another place was actually an alt of the person who banned you from their land?  Another little "hobby" that some people have. Pathetic, I know, but this does happen. And now you have been well and truly p1ssed off, he has won, hasn't he?  

To me you do not seem to have done anything wrong or unusual.  Second Life, as far as I was always concerned, was a place where you meet people and share nice places to visit; certainly it was how things were in my early Second Life.  And - as you have said a couple of times - anyone you invite elsewhere has the right to refuse.  

(In response to suggestion that someone may have been underage (or playing underage) then no, absolutely not. Not something I tolerate either. (Beach was Naturist Sunland Beach, no age rp there that I have ever been aware of).

Hopefully he reads this and could give his side of the story here as I am having to make assumptions about his behaviour.

He/she will be reading this, undoubtedly. But I doubt you will get a response. They got what they wanted from you. They either want people who will go and stay and build up their traffic, and invite people from other venues to their venue.  So they are the most popular. What you did was not against any terms of service, as far as I can see, from what you have told us all here in this thread.

EDIT PS not very likely as I notice the mods have stripped the name of the region from these posts! Not very helpful.

Oh yes, what is against the rules is naming and shaming, either people or places. 

 

 

[Reg Eberhardt]

Thanks Marigold for cheering me up! I genuinely had a sleepless night over this last night, mostly the injustice, but also an outrage that someone can set themselves up as a dictator and casually spoil my day, and laugh at me about it! 

I know I am getting this out of proportion and I'll get over it , but after nine years in SL this has, for the first time, made me not want to bother with it any more. 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

4 minutes ago, Reg Eberhardt said:

Thanks Marigold for cheering me up! I genuinely had a sleepless night over this last night, mostly the injustice, but also an outrage that someone can set themselves up as a dictator and casually spoil my day, and laugh at me about it! 

I know I am getting this out of proportion and I'll get over it , but after nine years in SL this has, for the first time, made me not want to bother with it any more. 

Speaking as someone who has been preemptively banned from whole swathes of Second Life that I'd never even visited, I entirely understand your sense of injustice.

But . . . Second Life was built by a libertarian, and the structure of just about everything relating to the platform -- community standards, land controls, consumer protections (or the lack thereof), currency trading, etc. -- was designed with that ethos in mind. Despite the incursion of a few overarching rules enshrined in the CS at the time that the new maturity ratings were put in place, and which reflected a new concern over corporate responsibility and public relations, that seems to remain the case.

There are no "human rights" in Second Life, and "power," such as it is, derives almost exclusively from property ownership. It's all very American, in an Adam-Smith-End-of-the-Eighteenth-Century sort of way. Those of us (I have no idea if this is your case or not) who come from other cultures, with other, very different assumptions about the relationship of the state to individuals, freedom, and so forth, sometimes find that difficult to understand.

[Marigold Devin]

19 minutes ago, Reg Eberhardt said:

Thanks Marigold for cheering me up! I genuinely had a sleepless night over this last night, mostly the injustice, but also an outrage that someone can set themselves up as a dictator and casually spoil my day, and laugh at me about it! 

I know I am getting this out of proportion and I'll get over it , but after nine years in SL this has, for the first time, made me not want to bother with it any more. 

I am glad if you have cheered up a little; I have been very bent out of shape mentally by some of the (mostly moronic when I look back) situations I have been in; misunderstandings with some people, general fall outs (which turned out to be for the best), and certain situations even have me laughing out loud many years later.

You have done really well to get to nine years and never having felt like you didn't want to bother with SL any more. I've taken quite a few breaks, the last one being for a good couple of years (I am still not back in world properly - doubt I ever will be).

But, it would be a great shame if one person's attitude was what put you off Second Life. 

One day even that particular sim, as popular as it may be now, may disappear off the face of the map of Second Life. Some truly fabulous and tremendously popular places have.  

And for sure much better places with much more amenable people will be found again. Take heart. 

Edited March 23, 2017 by Marigold Devin
edited because my O level English failed me :(

[Marigold Devin]

Having a chuckle to myself remembering when I was ejected and banned from a newbie-friendly sim, when I was a newbie, because a friend teleported me in and I landed in the middle of what appeared to be a dance floor, and literally came face to face with a naked female crotch, which I stated in open chat to the friend who had TPd me in.  It would appear the owner of the land was also on the dance floor, took immediate offence at me chortling about landing face to stranger's crotch, and I remained banned for quite a long time.

An old friend of mine was in a sandbox and thought weapons HUDs were fun, and didn't really care about silly rules, so caged a random bloke, who happened to own the railway lines in/near to one of the well-known sims on the SL mainland. We found out he was banned quite by accident when we tried to visit the trains one day, and my friend's name was there on the banned list, and found out the hard way that caging strangers is never acceptable.

Some of us ain't bad people, we just do things that other people think are bad     

[Reg Eberhardt]

Once again, thank you to you all. To clarify a few things: I am English (and do vaguely remember sitting an O Level English exam too!!! That dates us!).

I embraced all that SL had to offer for a few years and then took a break of about 6 years. Now that RL has given me an emotional gap to fill (!) I came back to SL a few weeks ago, and was loving it! The main thing I notice now is just how sparsely populated it is in comparison to the old days. Hence I was pleased to visit the place-that -shall-not-be-named (but is a City that happens to be the capital of England) as it is full of people!

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Ah. I know the place whereof you speak (as I imagine do most people here). I always found it rather dull, myself: lots of avatars standing around engaged silently in IMing each other madly, with very little sense of community. But maybe it's changed?

I'm sure that there are other cool, or even cooler places, to hang out and meet people. Although you may have a more difficult time finding curry and chips there.

[Marigold Devin]

54 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Ah. I know the place whereof you speak (as I imagine do most people here). I always found it rather dull, myself: lots of avatars standing around engaged silently in IMing each other madly, with very little sense of community. But maybe it's changed?

I'm sure that there are other cool, or even cooler places, to hang out and meet people. Although you may have a more difficult time finding curry and chips there.

I looked through my stuff, and knew I had visited the place before, but it seems not since 2012 - The Queen's Diamond Jubilee year in fact. As no one spoke to me when I was there (I was not in as Marigold, but on an alt exploring), I got the feeling a lot of the avatars I saw pole dancing etc., were alts just to pad out the figures. 

 

1 hour ago, Reg Eberhardt said:

Once again, thank you to you all. To clarify a few things: I am English (and do vaguely remember sitting an O Level English exam too!!! That dates us!).

I embraced all that SL had to offer for a few years and then took a break of about 6 years. Now that RL has given me an emotional gap to fill (!) I came back to SL a few weeks ago, and was loving it! The main thing I notice now is just how sparsely populated it is in comparison to the old days. Hence I was pleased to visit the place-that -shall-not-be-named (but is a City that happens to be the capital of England) as it is full of people!

The distribution of avatars does seem to have changed since the time you took a break from SL.  When I logged in on Saturday afternoon (in the UK - it was around 8am SL time) there were 48,000 avatars logged in, which sounds like a lot, but when you divide that number across all the sims that exist, and take into consideration there are sims that are fully populated, it does mean a heck of a lot of sims are ghostly quiet. (There aren't even ghosted avatars any more !)

Did you take your break from SL before or after Zindra/Adult Continent appeared?  

When I most recently logged in, I was checking out some of my old landmarks, and found a lot were no longer even on the grid. Its like starting all over again.  But there is another thread that might interest you (it interests me) 

No guarantees about the destinations at this time, and its a new project by the avatar who has posted that informative thread, but its an alternatively to the official Second Life Destination Guide (which still is interesting of course), but Saul is endeavouring to build up some good quality places to visit.  Word of mouth and personal recommendations always being the best way to find out where is worth visiting - in any world.

[Reg Eberhardt]

Hi Marigold, thanks for the info I shall check it out.

In answer to had Zindra appeared last time I was using SL?  I am not sure. But, I do remember that at some point out of the blue I was told I had to provide age verification, which I think was connected with Linden tightening up in response to criticism over adult content.

I had the same (disappointing) experience as you upon discovering that my old haunts no longer existed

Someone also told me recently that my avi and clothes were rubbish and out of date. Which got me looking at the whole mesh thing (that def did not exist when I was last there). But, no way I could change my avi - he is like an old friend!!

[Reg Eberhardt]

PS not sure we are talking about the same capital city place as there is certainly no adult stuff like pole dancing as far as I was aware. It is very much a newbie gateway as I understand it. Seemed pretty vibrant though with lots of dancing and non-im chat. Lots and lots of "Support" staff there though - I really think the owner has paranoia issues!

one of the reasons I hung out there is because I like helping newbies if I've got nothing else to do. Pass on the wisdom of my years etc.

[Perrie Juran]

23 hours ago, Reg Eberhardt said:

Thanks all. I have had a reply from the landowner. So my explanation is: met a girl, chatted with her, asked if she wanted to come and sit on a beach. She said yes so we did.

His explanation is that she was "one of their accounts" and I lured her to an adult beach. So, a Honey Trap.

Judge me if you like but I didn't know it was wrong to meet someone on "General" land, strike up a friendship and go to Adult land when the person in question agreed. If she had said no then I would have respected that.

Oh well, we live and learn.

I may have misread the phrase "one of their account" to mean an Alt of the owner.

11 hours ago, Reg Eberhardt said:

Thanks all. It is mostly the injustice that rankles me. His explanation of my alleged behaviour was a statement that I had done something and that there was no question about it. My words to him to deny this were not listened to at all. He signed off with a "LOL - bye".

This is what i think is going on:

He monitors tp requests into his land from adult places. Assuming that he can't listen in to IM chat then he seems to make the assumption that the tp request is unsolicited. He told me that I had "lured" someone away with an unsolicited tp request and had done it before.

Now, I would never even have thought of doing that until now! As he can't listen to IM chat then he wouldn't know that boy meets girl, asks if girl wants to come to the beach, girl says yes, love to. Boy then has to go to the beach to send the TP (I suppose you could give them a landmark but it seems a bit odd).

If girl says no thanks then boy says, OK have a nice day, nice meeting you...

But, in the case of the "honey Trap" employee of his then he would have been able to see the IM log and would therefore see that she was happy and willing to go to the beach. So, that baffles me really! 

It seems that he is taking some sort of moral custodian role and not allowing residents to make their own decision. Very odd. Totally unrelated to this incident but I was once exploring there and suddenly got a pop up saying "this area is for new residents only you have been banned for 60 minutes". Is he really paranoid that us old-time SL vets are going to pervert HIS newbies?!!

(In response to suggestion that someone may have been underage (or playing underage) then no, absolutely not. Not something I tolerate either. (Beach was Naturist Sunland Beach, no age rp there that I have ever been aware of).

Hopefully he reads this and could give his side of the story here as I am having to make assumptions about his behaviour.

EDIT PS not very likely as I notice the mods have stripped the name of the region from these posts! Not very helpful.

I'm not sure what "monitoring TP's" means or how it could be accomplished.

Which leaves me to believe that desite her "happy to be with you" conversation with you that she thought otherwise and she reported you to the owner.

And while you may have been judged wrongfully and harshly in this matter, regarding the "moral custodian" I do know Club owners who strive to maintain a harrasment free environment for their woman patrons.  Unsolicited and untoward sexual advances are still one of the leading complaints I hear from my female friends in SL.

[Reg Eberhardt]

Fair points Perrie. I was making assumptions that he could monitor inbound TPs as I really couldn't understand what else he meant by "unsolicited TPs". Yes, you may be right that someone complained despite me not being aware of anyone I chatted with being unhappy with the situation. I suppose someone who said "no, not interested" may have reported the exchange despite my gallant behaviour of respecting that no means no.