strange response to an abuse report

[Secretary33]

hi, I got this response to an abuse report, or rather, part of this response from the Governance Team says: "... We know that you are eager to continue to enjoy your time in Second Life, but that you might also be curious about what will happen as a result of this report .... "Dear Governance, I'm not curious, but when I see the person I reported on the next day and the next and so on, they keep attacking me , then it does not take particular intelligence to understand that there is something wrong. So, dear Governance, it is not a question of curiosity, but of mere observation of the facts. Thanks and good job

[Rolig Loon]

For what it's worth, Abuse Reports can fail to produce the results you might expect because:

• The report was missing important information that could identify the time and place of the event or the identity of the person you're complaining about.
• The report is vague or unintelligible ( "he done some bads stuff two me")
• The report is not a violation of the TOS or Community Standards ("She stole my boyfriend.")
• The report was fine, but the Governance Team was not able to verify facts, or found contradictory evidence.

 It's also possible that Governance imposed a sanction, but it's not something you can see easily.  In any case, once you have submitted an AR, you will never receive more than that standard memo acknowledging that they got it.  

[Aduviri]

I have just been the recipient of harassment, a fake profile, intimidation, etc. I filed the report but to be fair, they need time to research everything-  I would think if I was under investigation for something I would hope they would look at every detail before making a decision towards final disposition. They too are also people, the people who do the inquiry we submit. If I want that for me, I want it for everyone. People say all the time "Life isn't fair" - but how often do they actually have the patience to allow fairness to occur?

 

[Marigold Devin]

On 1/31/2022 at 9:52 PM, Secretary33 said:

hi, I got this response to an abuse report, or rather, part of this response from the Governance Team says: "... We know that you are eager to continue to enjoy your time in Second Life, but that you might also be curious about what will happen as a result of this report .... "Dear Governance, I'm not curious, but when I see the person I reported on the next day and the next and so on, they keep attacking me , then it does not take particular intelligence to understand that there is something wrong. So, dear Governance, it is not a question of curiosity, but of mere observation of the facts. Thanks and good job

Belated welcome to Second Life forums.

The Governance Team response seems to have changed since I last submitted an abuse report.

The Governance Team also are unlikely to be taking much notice of the forums.

I'm not really sure what the purpose of your post is, except you obviously feel the need to vent.

As a fellow resident of Second Life I can only advise you to mute/block an individual who attacks you, just banish them yourself into the Land of the Non-Existent. 

 

Edited February 3, 2022 by Marigold Devin

[Alwin Alcott]

12 hours ago, Aduviri said:

I have just been the recipient of harassment, a fake profile, intimidation, etc. I filed the report but to be fair, they need time to research everything-  I would think if I was under investigation for something I would hope they would look at every detail before making a decision towards final disposition. 

after sending a abuse report you will never be notified about the outcome, also take in mind some things we experience as griefing and harrassment, are not so clear as we think. When sending a abuse report it is best to let the issue go, and prevent as much possible yourself to stay in or get involved in the  situation.

The only time LL will contact you is when they need more information. ( As far i know that is very, very rare, as they have, of course, other ways/tools as residents)

Edited February 4, 2022 by Alwin Alcott

[Rolig Loon]

3 minutes ago, Secretary33 said:

But I never got an answer .. The "Abuse Report" is completely useless

Nope. And you never will.  Abuse Reports are for reporting a possible TOS violation; they are not the start of a conversation with Linden Lab.  You make the report and that's it as far as your participation is concerned. From there on, it's LL's job to investigate to see whether a violation has occurred, and then to decide what to do about it. Most of the time you will never have a clue about how it was resolved, but that doesn't mean that the report was useless.  That's just the way that privacy works.

[animats]

2 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

You're being willfully obtuse.

Is there still a "how to protect yourself in SL" class at Oxbridge Caledon? Did Lindal Kidd teach that? Seems to be needed here.

For the original poster: Second Life is not a "safe place". But you can carve out a safe place for yourself if you want.

You can block an avatar from communicating with you. That's a standard feature.

Landowners can keep people off their land. If you're being harassed in a club, you can ask the club owner to ban someone. Some club owners will, some won't. Some may ban you for whining, though. There are places such as London City, Caledon, and Firestorm Social Island which require reasonably good behavior from visitors, and have staff who will eject annoying people.

If you buy or rent land of your own, you can ban people from it. This works for both Linden Homes and property you buy directly. So, if you have a home, you can make it a safe place. You can even keep everybody but you and your friends out.

So you have access to the tools to deal with this problem. It's pretty much do-it-yourself.

This is a strength of Second Life. Roblox and Meta/Facebook Horizon have an sizable army of outsourced low-wage moderators with ban hammers. Second Life does not. There are some jerks, yes. Second Life has the land area of Los Angeles, and jerks can only annoy for about a 100 meter radius. So they're just not a big problem.

Now, something a lot of new users don't get. By default, Second Life deposits you at a "social island". Those places are like bus stations. They're transit points; you go somewhere else from there. The bigger social islands have big rooms full of gateways to other locations. The smaller ones just have things you click on to get lists of places to go. The people who hang around those places are like the people who hang around bus stations - losers and predators. (This is especially true of Social Island 10, the Port Authority Bus Terminal of Second Life.) Open up the Destination Guide and go someplace better.

 

[Rolig Loon]

12 minutes ago, Secretary33 said:

I have waited a long time, but nothing has happened.

How do you know that nothing has happened? Certainly Linden Lab will never tell you how they resolved the case.  There are many possible resolutions that you will never see evidence of.  Perhaps the most common is that the Governance Team closed the case without action because they could not corroborate the details of your report, or found conflicting evidence, or simply concluded that the reported action was a "dispute between residents" and therefore not a violation.

LL TOS, Sect 6: "We are not responsible or liable for the conduct or content of any user. We reserve the right, but not the obligation, to monitor or become involved in disputes between you and other users."

 

 

[Lindal Kidd]

Abuse Reports are not useless, but many residents misunderstand them. Here are some points to ponder:

• LL reads ALL Abuse Reports (or at least they tell us they do, and I see no reason to disbelieve them).
• LL gets several thousand ARs every day, and the Governance Team is very small. They have to read, and act, fast to keep up.
• Many ARs are poorly written. Be sure you describe the abuse clearly and as concisely as possible. Include dates, times, locations, screenshots and any other corroborating evidence. If this is a report on a repeat offender, reference earlier reports to help establish a pattern.
• Avoid "emotional evidence." Statements like, "He caused me great mental anguish" are not helpful. A statement like, "He called me a (insert offensive racial or religious slur here) in violation of CS Section ABC" is more effective.
• Abuse on other platforms, e.g., Facebook, Twitter, or emails, is outside LL's ability to investigate or control. If you have evidence of a Real Life stalking or threat situation, contact your local police. In the USA, the FBI is the agency charged with investigating cyber-stalking; contact them as well, if the situation warrants it.
• To LL, "abuse" means a violation of the Terms of Service or Community Standards. Very often, annoying, harassing, or offensive behavior is reported by residents, but the behavior does not rise to the level of a ToS or CS violation. In this case, the Abuse Report is "useless" from the viewpoint of the reporting party. However, residents have other, much quicker, tools available to them. Tools like Blocking, ignoring, and banning abusers from your land are effective in many cases.
• LL will never tell anyone what penalty, if any, they imposed as a result of abuse. Penalties can range from sending the abuser a warning, to a short suspension, to a complete and permanent ban...but the person who submits a report will only see whether the abuser is still in world, or is gone.
• Remember that LL does not want to be the SL Police, and does not want to ban people (they are customers, after all, and LL needs customers). They will only ban someone when it's clear that the harm they are doing is costing more than their potential for generating revenue. Approach your AR with this in mind.

[Lindal Kidd]

13 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

In any case, once you have submitted an AR, you will never receive more than that standard memo acknowledging that they got it.  

This is the important part. Linden Lab protects everyone's privacy, even that of nasty griefing evildoers. Beyond the "thanks for submitting a report" acknowledgement, you will not be told anything further about the outcome of the report.

[Lucia Nightfire]

"Don't expect thoust foes to be smited so easily."

[Secretary33]

On 1/31/2022 at 11:27 PM, Rolig Loon said:

For what it's worth, Abuse Reports can fail to produce the results you might expect because:

• The report was missing important information that could identify the time and place of the event or the identity of the person you're complaining about.
• The report is vague or unintelligible ( "he done some bads stuff two me")
• The report is not a violation of the TOS or Community Standards ("She stole my boyfriend.")
• The report was fine, but the Governance Team was not able to verify facts, or found contradictory evidence.

 It's also possible that Governance imposed a sanction, but it's not something you can see easily.  In any case, once you have submitted an AR, you will never receive more than that standard memo acknowledging that they got it.  

I have suffered and suffer a thousand violations of the TOS or Community Standards. I made a thousand reports providing names, photos, logs of the attacks and all possible evidence. But I never got an answer .. The "Abuse Report" is completely useless

[Lindal Kidd]

4 minutes ago, Secretary33 said:

I have suffered and suffer a thousand violations of the TOS or Community Standards. I made a thousand reports providing names, photos, logs of the attacks and all possible evidence. But I never got an answer .. The "Abuse Report" is completely useless

You're being willfully obtuse. People here have provided you detailed information about how the Abuse Report process works. In addition, LL has provided you with detailed descriptions, in the ToS and Community Standards, of what constitutes unacceptable, actionable behavior.

MOST "attacks", while highly annoying, don't rise to the level at which LL will sanction an offender. Instead, they provide residents with numerous tools to protect and defend themselves. Instead of whining about how "useless" your reports have been, consider using these tools to reduce the impact of offending people on your Second Life.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Secretary33 said:

I have suffered and suffer a thousand violations of the TOS or Community Standards. I made a thousand reports providing names, photos, logs of the attacks and all possible evidence. But I never got an answer .. The "Abuse Report" is completely useless

That's a lot!

[Rowan Amore]

Thousands?  I've maybe made a handful in over 12 years.  Perhaps it's time to find other places to go and different people to be around?

[Lindal Kidd]

2 hours ago, animats said:

Is there still a "how to protect yourself in SL" class at Oxbridge Caledon? Did Lindal Kidd teach that? Seems to be needed here.

There is, and I do. 12 noon SL time on Saturdays, Caledon Oxbridge University Lecture Hall

[Codex Alpha]

On 3/31/2022 at 11:57 AM, animats said:

Is there still a "how to protect yourself in SL" class at Oxbridge Caledon? Did Lindal Kidd teach that? Seems to be needed here.

For the original poster: Second Life is not a "safe place". But you can carve out a safe place for yourself if you want.

You can block an avatar from communicating with you. That's a standard feature.

Landowners can keep people off their land. If you're being harassed in a club, you can ask the club owner to ban someone. Some club owners will, some won't. Some may ban you for whining, though. There are places such as London City, Caledon, and Firestorm Social Island which require reasonably good behavior from visitors, and have staff who will eject annoying people.

If you buy or rent land of your own, you can ban people from it. This works for both Linden Homes and property you buy directly. So, if you have a home, you can make it a safe place. You can even keep everybody but you and your friends out.

So you have access to the tools to deal with this problem. It's pretty much do-it-yourself.

This is a strength of Second Life. Roblox and Meta/Facebook Horizon have an sizable army of outsourced low-wage moderators with ban hammers. Second Life does not. There are some jerks, yes. Second Life has the land area of Los Angeles, and jerks can only annoy for about a 100 meter radius. So they're just not a big problem.

Now, something a lot of new users don't get. By default, Second Life deposits you at a "social island". Those places are like bus stations. They're transit points; you go somewhere else from there. The bigger social islands have big rooms full of gateways to other locations. The smaller ones just have things you click on to get lists of places to go. The people who hang around those places are like the people who hang around bus stations - losers and predators. (This is especially true of Social Island 10, the Port Authority Bus Terminal of Second Life.) Open up the Destination Guide and go someplace better.

 

Yes, and to clarify for many who still don't understand the concept.

There is no single tool more powerful than ensuring a safe space for oneself than to use the ignore/block button.

Such a powerful tool, I'm not sure why many haven't utilized when they need it. Perhaps this can be added to the Welcome worlds tutorials, and screamed from every rooftop. The power for 'safe spaces' is in our own hands. Hit that button! Make it so safe there is no one left to talk to! 

Edited April 10, 2022 by entity0x

[Secretary33]

all useless and out of place answers, I have read the Tos and the Community standard, Both violated with me continuously and of which I have provided the evidence and I have waited, I have waited a long time, but nothing has happened. So if you have something useful to say, go ahead and do it otherwise avoid writing nonsense. Thanks

 

[Secretary33]

then we agree duck, "Abuse Report" is useless, but that's enough, however, shut up a little ... quack quack ...;)

[Persephone Emerald]

1 hour ago, Secretary33 said:

then we agree duck, "Abuse Report" is useless, but that's enough, however, shut up a little ... quack quack ...;)

That's a chicken. Not a duck.

[Kathlen Onyx]

1 hour ago, Secretary33 said:

then we agree duck, "Abuse Report" is useless, but that's enough, however, shut up a little ... quack quack ...;)

Well with this intelligent response I can't see why you have had to submit over 1000 abuse reports <<<---Sarcasm.  I can imagine that maybe the same amount has been submitted against your avatar.

Here is some sound advice. If you are still getting harassed and don't feel that Linden Labs is doing what they need to be doing then you have two choices.

1. Stop using your current avatar and create a new one. Don't go back to the places or congregate in areas where you have suffered said abuse.  

2. Don't log in to Second Life anymore.

Both options will give you the results you are looking for and the good thing is that you don't need Linden Labs help to do either.