Ineffective Altruism

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 hour ago, BJoyful said:

This is also just your opinion.  If you (or anyone else) have an issue which you feel is being ignored, I'm sure you could file a Support Ticket explaining the same, and ask that it be directed to the attention of @Tommy Linden as he is the Linden who looks after Governance.

I am afraid that I have to side with Zalificent and Prok on this one.

My parcels have been repeatedly harassed by a handful of named individuals with legacy accounts (at least 12 years old in all cases), all belonging to the same network of pretty obviously griefer groups (very political, very "hacktivist," using Soviet-style iconography and language, and resembling in some regards the old Woodbury U griefer group). The harassment is not of the sort that might be "subjectively" read as anything else: we're talking attacks with self-replicating spamming objects, access to an entire parcel blocked by pushing huge megaprims from SLRR land onto mine, insulting signs posted, etc. These aren't cases of a hedge straying over the parcel boundary or someone saying nasty things to me in chat: these were absolutely clear, unequivocal attempts to prevent access to my parcels, and/or attack the groups with which they are associated. In one instance, I wasn't quick enough to notice the griefing (I was on a sky platform), so an alt was sent to point it out to me. It's no fun unless I am sent scrambling, apparently.

None of these individuals, despite repeated ARs from me, have been banned. And such sanctions (suspensions?) as may have been levied against them were clearly not sufficient to prevent them from doing it again: they obviously felt a sense of impunity. And, again, these aren't "throw away" accounts: they are all at least a dozen years old. So while I don't know what, if anything, has resulted from my ARs, it should be clear to anyone looking at the pattern of the griefing and of those ARs that it's not been sufficient to stop it.

I have not been griefed, it needs to be said, since the direct intervention of the Linden to which Malificent alludes. I'm hoping that the warning issued was strong enough to prevent future attacks, but we'll see. The accounts still exist, however.

I have a theory about all of this. In most cases (but not the last which, while it rendered the front of my parcel literally unusable, was not something I could remove myself) I was able to remedy the griefing myself, by returning objects, etc. I think LL's attitude towards inworld governance is generally, "give them the tools to deal with griefing themselves, so we don't have to."

And I am certainly grateful for such tools. But the problem is that this approach does nothing to deter future attacks, because it in no way threatens the griefers. The situation I found myself in was that, yes, I could remove the griefing (once I noticed it), but two weeks or a month later they'd be back again, once more harassing the parcel. I find myself in the position of having to spend 15 or 20 minutes each time I log in inspecting my parcel to make sure I haven't again been griefed. That is surely an intolerable situation?

Possibly the most recent response to this harassment can be read as "proof" that the system works -- assuming that the griefing has now permanently ended. And I AM very grateful for the intervention of this particular Linden (whom I won't name, but who is pretty well known).

But I've been dealing with these same people for two years now, off and on. Even if my particular story does now have a happy ending (which . . . we'll see, I guess?), I think that suggests that there are some serious problems with the system.

Edited November 9, 2023 by Scylla Rhiadra
Typo

[BilliJo Aldrin]

All this drama, what are you guys gonna do when Second Life finally closes it’s doors?

I personally will cry and mourn my loss, because part of me will have died with Second Life’s passing

Edited November 9, 2023 by BilliJo Aldrin
added stuff

[Teresa Firelight]

3 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

 

2. Prokofy is "he".

 

so sorry...  that one is my fault. I referred to you as "she" in my post. Apologies for getting that wrong.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, BJoyful said:

This is also just your opinion.  If you (or anyone else) have an issue which you feel is being ignored, I'm sure you could file a Support Ticket explaining the same, and ask that it be directed to the attention of @Tommy Linden as he is the Linden who looks after Governance.

We were recently instructed not to tag Lindens regarding certain situations, in case you missed it. 

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Teresa Firelight said:

so sorry...  that one is my fault. I referred to you as "she" in my post. Apologies for getting that wrong.

"They" is always safe, and if used properly is not awkward at all!

[Prokofy Neva]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

"They" is always safe, and if used properly is not awkward at all!

Fortunately, there's only one of me, however.

[Prokofy Neva]

3 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I am afraid that I have to side with Zalificent and Prok on this one.

My parcels have been repeatedly harassed by a handful of named individuals with legacy accounts (at least 12 years old in all cases), all belonging to the same network of pretty obviously griefer groups (very political, very "hacktivist," using Soviet-style iconography and language, and resembling in some regards the old Woodbury U griefer group). The harassment is not of the sort that might be "subjectively" read as anything else: we're talking attacks with self-replicating spamming objects, access to an entire parcel blocked by pushing huge megaprims from SLRR land onto mine, insulting signs posted, etc. These aren't cases of a hedge straying over the parcel boundary or someone saying nasty things to me in chat: these were absolutely clear, unequivocal attempts to prevent access to my parcels, and/or attack the groups with which they are associated. In one instance, I wasn't quick enough to notice the griefing (I was on a sky platform), so an alt was sent to point it out to me. It's no fun unless I am sent scrambling, apparently.

None of these individuals, despite repeated ARs from me, have been banned. And such sanctions (suspensions?) as may have been levied against them were clearly not sufficient to prevent them from doing it again: they obviously felt a sense of impunity. And, again, these aren't "throw away" accounts: they are all at least a dozen years old. So while I don't know what, if anything, has resulted from my ARs, it should be clear to anyone looking at the pattern of the griefing and of those ARs that it's not been sufficient to stop it.

I have not been griefed, it needs to be said, since the direct intervention of the Linden to which Malificent alludes. I'm hoping that the warning issued was strong enough to prevent future attacks, but we'll see. The accounts still exist, however.

I have a theory about all of this. In most cases (but not the last which, while it rendered the front of my parcel literally unusable, was not something I could remove myself) I was able to remedy the griefing myself, by returning objects, etc. I think LL's attitude towards inworld governance is generally, "give them the tools to deal with griefing themselves, so we don't have to."

And I am certainly grateful for such tools. But the problem is that this approach does nothing to deter future attacks, because it in no way threatens the griefers. The situation I found myself in was that, yes, I could remove the griefing (once I noticed it), but two weeks or a month later they'd be back again, once more harassing the parcel. I find myself in the position of having to spend 15 or 20 minutes each time I log in inspecting my parcel to make sure I haven't again been griefed. That is surely an intolerable situation?

Possibly the most recent response to this harassment can be read as "proof" that the system works -- assuming that the griefing has now permanently ended. And I AM very grateful for the intervention of this particular Linden (whom I won't name, but who is pretty well known).

But I've been dealing with these same people for two years now, off and on. Even if my particular story does now have a happy ending (which . . . we'll see, I guess?), I think that suggests that there are some serious problems with the system.

1. Bring back the police blotter, only this time in full, every single AR, every single action taken or not taken -- yes, taken or not taken. In an automated system this shouldn't be an issue. The only thing you don't save here is face. 

2. Name names, as you would have to in a court of law in RL. So ARs that didn't work, or are specious, also become highly visible. People who speciously AR will stop from the public shame; griefers will be documented and shamed and may or may not stop, but then it's obvious to the Lindens.

If the argument is that you can't publicize names due to the fear of retaliation, well, wait, what kind of show are you running here? You mean people whom you are banning retaliate? Then perma-ban them?

Since this is unlikely to happen, someone should start a blog where they document griefing. The only thing I can do is publicize names at my store of those who grief or vioilate my rules or the TOS and will no longer allowed to rent.

Edited November 9, 2023 by Prokofy Neva

[Qie Niangao]

4 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Fortunately, there's only one of me, however.

This wins the Internet today.

[Love Zhaoying]

5 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Fortunately, there's only one of me, however.

..or so "they" say..

[Polenth Yue]

I would disclose how many of me there are, but the fungal takeover isn't altruism, so is off-topic. The original post is about trying things that didn't really work and how that was handled, which is a useful thing to discuss. My reply was on that basis, discussing what I'd done and couldn't maintain and what I do that can be maintained.

If you had a project fail, be cautious about taking away the wrong lessons. My observation would be that projects rarely fail because some mean person attacked it... they fail because they got too big, couldn't be managed, exploded, there was drama, and someone got mean because of the stress. So you can't avoid repeating the past by avoiding that one person. You avoid it by setting strict limits on the project scale.

It's noticeable that projects that are a region or less tend to fizzle quietly at the end. It can be a bit sad, but it isn't as dramatic or harmful to people. If people want to build stuff around a project to link in, that's great, but the main project shouldn't take on that land if those people leave.

It's also important for mainland projects to leave people be if they're not in the project. Even if that means you have a fullbright sphere with banlines around it in the middle of your project, because someone has a temple to the goddess of fullbright. There are other options for projects if random ugly neighbours would be a problem.

So I'd boil this down to keep it small, be critical about whether it's working, and acknowledge that it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea. If you'd do anything to keep the project going, this is actually a bad sign, because you'll do things you shouldn't. Sometimes the right choice is to say it'd work much better at half the size. Sometimes it's that it isn't really working.

[BJoyful]

6 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

We were recently instructed not to tag Lindens regarding certain situations, in case you missed it. 

I did miss that and thank you for letting me know   I don't often or regularly spend time in the Forum except for Topics and People I Follow and to post things I enjoy and/or find humourous and hope others might also.

[Aethelwine]

21 hours ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

And as usual, you mis-understand. t's not negativity about SeconfLife, t's negativity about arrogant people who THINK that only THEY know what's best for everybody else.

The arrogant, ignorant permanoob fossil, who unilaterally decided that part of a Mainland continent NEEDED an ugly, unfinished, broken, rail-fail, desecrating 7 regions, because Vehicle Fanatic Induced Planning Blight Rules OK.

The arrogant, ignorant people who assume that EVERYONE wants to live next to a sodding Airport, or the ugly concrete carpark and corrugated metal warehouses of those sodding STFU Hubs

 

The person you are talking about vanished from SL in 2020, half way through building their project after reporting an illness. The land now abandoned that could have avoided the innovative but now broken teleportation effect to complete the route was not an option for them and not evidence to support your criticisms.   

My thoughts are for their health and their family.

 

Edited November 10, 2023 by Aethelwine

[Aethelwine]

I might also point out that thanks to sense of community amongst my neighbours land I have in Yeeowler has access to that same railway that blights your experience so badly you have felt the need to speak so negatively about it. So far as I am aware the "blight" it causes you is welcomed by most other landowners and visitors to the area. I have not heard any one else speak about it in anything but favourable terms, or of concern for the fate of the owner.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

3 hours ago, Aethelwine said:

The person you are talking about vanished from SL in 2020, half way through building their project after reporting an illness. The land now abandoned that could have avoided the innovative but now broken teleportation effect to complete the route was not an option for them and not evidence to support your criticisms.   

My thoughts are for their health and their family.

 

I'm aware of exactly what land was and was not occupied on that region, when the rail-fail went through, the tunnel wasn't due to "oh theres no available land" because there was, the tunnel is due to the total lack of planning, lack of surveying the route, failure to start the build in the right place at the highest elevation and then work from there, failure to check teraforming limits before trying to dig cuttings and embankments, and generally due to a total lack of any skill at building.

Further, they asked land owners along the route to "build railway themed structures on their land, I only ever noticed ONE existing land owner along the route do so, so maybe the reception wasn't so universal as you claim. One of the land owners along the route was so pissed off by the rail-fail due to it being an ugly eyesore, and due to blatant encroachment, and trespass, that they threw up banlines, ripped down their white picket fence and replaced it with an 8 m high wall to block out the eyesore, and when that failed to block the terror-forming and a 4 m high full bright wall on some vehicle fanatic induced planning blight "job center" across the tracks up the hill, they then "skyboxed on the ground" until the jobcenter closed down and vanished, and the trains stopped running.

So no I'm NOT the only person along the route wo hate the bloody thing

And lastly, while they may have been away for the two years that they left that broken fullbright eyesore mess rotting away, they certainly came back, because they did that land cutting and the illegal advert monoliths while fraudulently claiming that sticking an adfarm parcel in the corner of multiple sims was "a public service".

As for visitors to the area... There have been precious few, so few that one of your vehicle fanatics club members who built an art gallery store next to the rail-fail to cash in on said visitors, abandoned it due to total lack of customers.

 

Obvious rail-fail is an obvious fail.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

5 hours ago, Polenth Yue said:

It's also important for mainland projects to leave people be if they're not in the project.

I am reminded of a threaad right here on the forums in which certain loudmouthed vehicle fanatics launched a campaign for a short stretch of new unwanted, unneeded, unused, and utterly useless road, to connect two equally useless roads.

They mapped out a tortured route from one road to the other across empty land, ending in an empty road side parcel .

But then "Oh WOE unto the Republic! Some evil, inconsiderate stranger who wasn't a forum user, or part of their snotty little clique, BOUGHT the road side parcel, totally derailing the vehicle fanatics Grand Plan.

These people then harassed the new land owner to get them to sell up and sod off elsewhere, then tried offering to exchange the land the new owner had wanted for some dump of a parcel they didn't want, elsewhere. Because The "Community of people who don't LIIVE here" outweighs the mere plebs who do, right?

 

This is also a major reason I don't support these self appointed "altruistic" do-gooder wannabes, working hard for a "community" that doesn't really exist, and certainly doesn't include the locals.

[Aethelwine]

1 hour ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Obvious rail-fail is an obvious fail.

 

And yet even in its unfinished state it makes for a route that can be travelled by foot or horse that people along the route have made in theme builds for creating a pleasant link between the south tip of the continent and the road systems.

You can count it a fail, but even in its partial completion state I would count it a success and its impact positive. 

[BilliJo Aldrin]

1 hour ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

I am reminded of a threaad right here on the forums in which certain loudmouthed vehicle fanatics launched a campaign for a short stretch of new unwanted, unneeded, unused, and utterly useless road, to connect two equally useless roads.

They mapped out a tortured route from one road to the other across empty land, ending in an empty road side parcel .

But then "Oh WOE unto the Republic! Some evil, inconsiderate stranger who wasn't a forum user, or part of their snotty little clique, BOUGHT the road side parcel, totally derailing the vehicle fanatics Grand Plan.

These people then harassed the new land owner to get them to sell up and sod off elsewhere, then tried offering to exchange the land the new owner had wanted for some dump of a parcel they didn't want, elsewhere. Because The "Community of people who don't LIIVE here" outweighs the mere plebs who do, right?

 

This is also a major reason I don't support these self appointed "altruistic" do-gooder wannabes, working hard for a "community" that doesn't really exist, and certainly doesn't include the locals.

Why didn't they just offer him money? I'd have sold it for 10 times profit 😂

[Zalificent Corvinus]

18 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

 

And yet even in its unfinished state it makes for a route that can be travelled by foot or horse that people along the route have made in theme builds for creating a pleasant link between the south tip of the continent and the road systems.

You can count it a fail, but even in its partial completion state I would count it a success and its impact positive. 

In theme builds along the route ? 

You mean the Japanese rural rail stop? The one who's builder claimed they built a JAPANESE themed rail stop to "be in theme with the other builds on the region"? Despite the fact that when the rail stop was built, the ONLY other builds at ground level on the region were a Cruciform Headstone as a memorial to a dead loved one, that was encroached on and eventually driven away by the rail fail, and a stepped pyramid, neither of which were noticable for being  "Japanese Themed".

That's just about the only 3rd party rail theme build still standing along the route. And while you, an OUTSIIDER, might count it's impact as positive, I doubt many of the locals agree.

Would you like to guess how many "people" travel along the rail-fail? You can count them on the fingers of one hand of a blind carpenter.

 

Also, it DOESN'T link to the unused road system, it stops, some distance away, and the only way to get from the rail fail to the road is to TRESPASS on residential property.

It was built to connect NOWHERE to NOWHERE, I know this because I watched the thing being built. I am well aware of it's history of induced planning blight, in all it's gory detail.

 

[Aethelwine]

Braelynns parcel in Yeeowler, Jinny & Treacles in Lipshin, Tiger's in Slitheen, Aeris vehicle shop, Blossom's in Mawdryn.

As for the route a bit of abandonned land gets you to walk through Alec Rogue's route in Baghhera that has been clearly deigned to encourage passage from the station to the road.

Edited November 10, 2023 by Aethelwine

[Aethelwine]

Also I am not sure labelling me an Outsider is quite accurate as the land I have in Yeoowler is connected to the railway via my neighbour and the build they made to reflect mine. We are both I believe in a similar situation one parcel removed from it.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

12 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

in Lipshin

The half region sized double decker primcrap anti gravity airport occupied by two traffic gaming AFK's perma-parked on the taxi-way? Or the Empty A frame cottage with the "decorative" wrecked car in the yard?

14 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

in Yeeowler

The non fuctional shell of a "train shed".

18 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

in Slitheen

A rail stop, on a rail line, that appears to be part of the rail line.

20 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

in Mawdryn

You know, if *II* was trying to "connect the rail line to the road for transportation infrastructure," I'd have built that 4 regions south, not where it ends, on the wrong side of a sodding lake.

24 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

in Baghhera

This is where the rail fail should have gone if it was intended to link with the road, but, it doesn't, the actual end of the track is further north where road access means crossing a lake and other peoples property.

They could have done a right turn instead of building fake tunnels, and ended the track by the road, within spitting distance of one of those STFU Hubs.

The whole project SCREAMS arrogance and incompetence. Typical of overentitled outsiders deciding what's best for a community they are not part of.

[Love Zhaoying]

Omg, this is still going on? I thought that horse would be long dead and carved into prime cuts by now!

[Zalificent Corvinus]

13 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

Also I am not sure labelling me an Outsider is quite accurate as the land I have in Yeoowler is connected to the railway via my neighbour and the build they made to reflect mine. We are both I believe in a similar situation one parcel removed from it.

So, in fact, you and your friend don't actually live next to the damn thing at all, and access it by TRESPASSIING on other peoples land. So typical of the Vehicle Fanatic Movement.

"What's mine is mine and what's YOUR'S is mine too because I have a vehicle!"

 

[Aethelwine]

17 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

So, in fact, you and your friend don't actually live next to the damn thing at all, and access it by TRESPASSIING on other peoples land. So typical of the Vehicle Fanatic Movement.

"What's mine is mine and what's YOUR'S is mine too because I have a vehicle!"

 

Since my neighbour encourages visitors, I don't think that would normally be considered trespass.

You are right however we probably have very different reactions to Trespass. In the UK it was mass trespasses that led to the creation of our National Parks.

In SL the rules are what landowners set with the tools made available to them.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

44 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

In the UK it was mass trespasses that led to the creation of our National Parks.

I live in the UK too, and the existence of "National Parks" hasn't made it legal to get from A to B by trespassing on private property owned by strangers. So you can drop that SPURIOUS argument RIGHT there.

47 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

In SL the rules are what landowners set with the tools made available to them.

Thank goodness for banlines and zero second "punt & ban" security orbs.