Is Second Life more toxic than other games in general?

[Luna Bliss]

6 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

19 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

The word "toxic" implies something very strong or extreme. I wonder if our OP more meant "negative".

TOXIC:

2.

very harmful or unpleasant in a pervasive or insidious way.

Toxic is when you eat sometime and it kills you or makes you sick. Therefore, don't ingest it.

Poisonous is when a creature attacks you with venom. Stay away from those creatures. Don't try to fight them back unless you absolutely have to do so to protect yourself or others.

Well in modern day nomenclature the word morphed into something not quite so severe as what you've described.

Despite that fact...it still feels too extreme for its usage here.

[Love Zhaoying]

21 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

The word "toxic" implies something very strong or extreme. I wonder if our OP more meant "negative".

TOXIC:

2.

very harmful or unpleasant in a pervasive or insidious way.

Not necessarily.  People tend to use the "wrong word" on purpose to exaggerate their injury.

(This is sometimes referred to has "butthurt".)

 

[Silent Mistwalker]

1 hour ago, Ceka Cianci said:

Everone knows a damn bird caint fly with just one dang wing!!

Well, maybe not everyone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oozlum_bird#:~:text=A variant of the oozlum,disappears up its own fundament.

[Luna Bliss]

The eye-roll is interesting to consider.

It can simply mean you're annoyed with someone, but it can also express contempt:

Feeling that a person or a thing is beneath consideration, worthless, or deserving scorn.

"he showed his contempt for his job by doing it very badly"

Similar to scorn and denigration.

 

I can't say I've ever used an eye-roll for the latter use (contempt).

 

 

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Despite that fact...it still feels too extreme for its usage here.

Yep, that's the point.

Poor things, raised in a bubble and suddenly exposed to the deadly, toxic environment that is Second Life.

* imagines "Bubble Boy", who had zero immune system, suddenly being forcibly ejected from his bubble into a sea of germs *

 

[Luna Bliss]

2 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

24 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

The word "toxic" implies something very strong or extreme. I wonder if our OP more meant "negative".

TOXIC:

2.

very harmful or unpleasant in a pervasive or insidious way.

Not necessarily.  People tend to use the "wrong word" on purpose to exaggerate their injury.

(This is sometimes referred to has "butthurt".)

Could be on purpose, but we just don't know.

Could be that the OP was really hurt by something severe that happened to her in SL.  She didn't say, but I've certainly heard stories of extremely mean people in SL who enjoy griefing others.

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

The eye-roll is interesting to consider.

It can simply mean you're annoyed with someone, but it can also express contempt:

Feeling that a person or a thing is beneath consideration, worthless, or deserving scorn.

"he showed his contempt for his job by doing it very badly"

Similar to scorn and denigration.

 

I can't say I've ever used an eye-roll for the latter use (contempt).

 

 

More often, when done "unconsciously", it could be a reaction to someone who exaggerates / overreacts.

A body language version of, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

 

Edited December 27, 2023 by Love Zhaoying

[Persephone Emerald]

8 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

The eye-roll is interesting to consider.

It can simply mean you're annoyed with someone, but it can also express contempt:

Feeling that a person or a thing is beneath consideration, worthless, or deserving scorn.

"he showed his contempt for his job by doing it very badly"

Similar to scorn and denigration.

 

I can't say I've ever used an eye-roll for the latter use (contempt).

 

Husky eye-rolls are the best.

[Janet Voxel]

21 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

I've certainly heard stories of extremely mean people in SL who enjoy griefing others.

There definitely are people like that in Second Life and there are places you can go that are verbal fight clubs where no one is safe.

It is not, however the norm. That doesn’t exclude you from running into someone like that or those people temporarily spilling onto your favorite sim briefly.

If someone wants to Troll or Grief, there are definitely better places on the internet to go. I think you’re right. Even suggesting SL is toxic is a bit on the hyperbolic side.

[BJoyful]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Helicats?

If you never heard of Orville, the beloved pet taxidermied by his owner as a drone..

 

This can lead directly into Faked Death Drama (Not)...  🥰

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MswXiMzGsd8 

^^ video of pet flying squirrel who fakes his own death (probably everyone has seen it, anyway)

 

 

 

 

Edited December 27, 2023 by BJoyful
why video not working? Hmm idk

[Silent Mistwalker]

1 hour ago, BJoyful said:

^^ video of pet flying squirrel who fakes his own death (probably everyone has seen it, anyway)

If it's the one that fakes the broom falling on him then yup, seen it.

 

It's not SL that is toxic; it's some of the people in SL that are toxic.

Edited December 27, 2023 by Silent Mistwalker

[KharmaObscura]

This seems like a good place to start this topic. I think that the problem with Secondlife is that the people who are toxic have sometimes stayed in the game despite reports of directed harassment and griefing for over 2 years. I know that over 200 reports have been made about one individual person, the reports are ranging from hate speech, using another account to impersonate someone and use that avatar to grief, hitting someone with griefing weapons on a public sim, causing disruptions and being hateful to groups of people in public. This is a 2 year pattern of abuse by one person to an entire community and if LL has not figured out that its a pattern of abuse yet?

There is at least one toxic person who has messed up many peoples enjoyment of Secondlife for a long period of time. They have broken TOS and community standards for long people are just giving up. I feel like no one even cares about this. Many others feel that same. 

 

Why are none of these abuse reports being linked? i myself have pages of public chats, a lot of nc's of IM's.  I have some screenshots and videos, I have a lot of notecards sent by alts and this person literally attacks in IM or in public anyone who speaks to me and since this person is so blocked they cannot reach me they will harass my friends or rant in public. They will bring in real life details of my life that are false sometimes or true sometimes but brining up someones rl habits or tendencies over and over again is doxing whether it is the truth or not.  this is a pattern of abuse that Linden Labs has not even once contacted me or any of the other filers of abuse back. A friend of mine has sent a clearly video clipped abuse reports showing herself being griefed on public land, others have told me without provocation that they have filed reports. as many as ten or twelve a day, for over a year.

WHY HAVE NONE OF US been contacted.

WHY is a bully with a pattern of abuse allowed to be toxic? Secondlife may not be more toxic than other games, to be honest i do not think it is. However, I am greatly saddened and discouraged about how many people and the amount of times I have seen this person get away with everything with no reprisal. There is an entire group of people who want to talk about this, but we are not getting contacted.

So if Linden labs does not have the ability to see a pattern of abuse, and if they do not make it easy to hand over a lot of documentation that in pure volume would show a major pattern of abuse to an entire community of people,  Sadly, seeing this I have no other option than to say that this continued blind eye by Linden Labs contributes to toxicity as much as the behavior of the bully. I blame some of this toxicity on  Linden Labs for not paying attention to an insidious and repetitive breaker of tos and community standards.

Yet strangely they are still here. And a lot of people wonder why. I want to know what has happened with these abuse reports. I want to figure out how to actually talk to someone instead of screenshotting what? an hour of harrassing conversation? I have the pdfs of chat in public. they are too big to attach. there is no person who will sit with me and others in this group and discuss this. its absolutely destroyed the mental wellbeing of many people around them, as well as showing such a huge pattern of abuse that I cannot believe there has not been at least some kind of intervention where the people and there are many who are reporting this person are not put in a room together and allowed to show/ discuss this behavior. this is not a one person problem, its a community problem, its a pattern that is bigger than each action, and its not been address for two years.

 

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour ago, KharmaObscura said:

Linden Labs has not even once contacted me or any of the other filers of abuse back.

They never contact a filer of an abuse report as far as I know.  The filer will not be told the outcome of a report either.  

[BJoyful]

@KharmaObscura This sounds terribly frustrating!  Have you tried using Live Chat (bypass Boxy 3000 by typing "Agent") and ask the Linden in Live Chat how to send the documents to someone in Governance?  Tommy Linden is the Linden who leads the Governance team, so you could also ask how to send the documents to Tommy Linden, possibly by Submitting a Ticket which does allow you to attach documents.

I'm not sure if this is a good idea or an acceptable approach, but it is what I would do if this was happening to me.  It would be very helpful if the acknowledgement of a filed Abuse Report would alert us if our AR has been accepted or needs more information or has been filled out incorrectly, so at least we know if someone will look at it or if it went straight to the trash due to incomplete info or for some other reason.

I have noticed that if multiple Residents AR the same incident, that does help as it shows its affecting more than one person's enjoyment of SL.

Personally I've had mostly successful reports and I know because usually my ARs are about encroaching objects into a Public waterway or Road... and the objects do disappear.  Good luck and hopefully you will find a way to resolve this and get back to enjoying your Second Life ♥

Edited December 28, 2023 by BJoyful
sp

[KharmaObscura]

Just now, BJoyful said:

@KharmaObscura This sounds terribly frustrating!  Have you tried using Live Chat (bypass Boxy 3000 by typing "Agent") and a

No I have not. thank you for giving me something I can actually use

 

[Luna Bliss]

@AmberJoyBliss

I'd like to offer a free Reiki treatment. I was trained in Reiki.

Contact me inworld if you're interested.

[Silent Mistwalker]

4 hours ago, KharmaObscura said:

WHY HAVE NONE OF US been contacted.

LL isn't going to contact you regarding an Abuse Report. That has been policy since day one. LL will never tell you what action(s), they take regarding abuse reports. That is between LL and the person reported.

Quote

Abuse reports submitted by users are normally reviewed within 72 hours, although the process may take longer in some cases, depending on the type of report and information provided. We cannot comment on specific accounts, and therefore users who submit abuse reports are not notified about actions taken as a result of their reports. Unfortunately, that may lead some users to feel as if their reports may be ineffective, even when they actually result in account bans and other enforcement actions."

 

https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2018/01/linden-lab-second-life-dmca-enforcement.html

Edited December 28, 2023 by Silent Mistwalker

[Silent Mistwalker]

2 hours ago, BJoyful said:

I'm not sure if this is a good idea or an acceptable approach, but it is what I would do if this was happening to me.  It would be very helpful if the acknowledgement of a filed Abuse Report would alert us if our AR has been accepted or needs more information or has been filled out incorrectly, so at least we know if someone will look at it or if it went straight to the trash due to incomplete info or for some other reason.

It's not really. Filing a support ticket would be though.

When you file an AR, it generates an acknowledgment email. Check your spam folder.

[Prokofy Neva]

On 12/26/2023 at 10:28 AM, Paul Hexem said:

Have you ever played any online games? Ever?

Yes I have.

I don't like them because they are stupid, repetitive, and even if I don't get killed in the first frame, I have to do so many repetitive and stupid things to avoid being killed in the next frames that it just isn't fun or interesting. 

 

[Prokofy Neva]

On 12/27/2023 at 5:34 PM, KharmaObscura said:

This seems like a good place to start this topic. I think that the problem with Secondlife is that the people who are toxic have sometimes stayed in the game despite reports of directed harassment and griefing for over 2 years. I know that over 200 reports have been made about one individual person, the reports are ranging from hate speech, using another account to impersonate someone and use that avatar to grief, hitting someone with griefing weapons on a public sim, causing disruptions and being hateful to groups of people in public. This is a 2 year pattern of abuse by one person to an entire community and if LL has not figured out that its a pattern of abuse yet?

There is at least one toxic person who has messed up many peoples enjoyment of Secondlife for a long period of time. They have broken TOS and community standards for long people are just giving up. I feel like no one even cares about this. Many others feel that same. 

 

Why are none of these abuse reports being linked? i myself have pages of public chats, a lot of nc's of IM's.  I have some screenshots and videos, I have a lot of notecards sent by alts and this person literally attacks in IM or in public anyone who speaks to me and since this person is so blocked they cannot reach me they will harass my friends or rant in public. They will bring in real life details of my life that are false sometimes or true sometimes but brining up someones rl habits or tendencies over and over again is doxing whether it is the truth or not.  this is a pattern of abuse that Linden Labs has not even once contacted me or any of the other filers of abuse back. A friend of mine has sent a clearly video clipped abuse reports showing herself being griefed on public land, others have told me without provocation that they have filed reports. as many as ten or twelve a day, for over a year.

WHY HAVE NONE OF US been contacted.

WHY is a bully with a pattern of abuse allowed to be toxic? Secondlife may not be more toxic than other games, to be honest i do not think it is. However, I am greatly saddened and discouraged about how many people and the amount of times I have seen this person get away with everything with no reprisal. There is an entire group of people who want to talk about this, but we are not getting contacted.

So if Linden labs does not have the ability to see a pattern of abuse, and if they do not make it easy to hand over a lot of documentation that in pure volume would show a major pattern of abuse to an entire community of people,  Sadly, seeing this I have no other option than to say that this continued blind eye by Linden Labs contributes to toxicity as much as the behavior of the bully. I blame some of this toxicity on  Linden Labs for not paying attention to an insidious and repetitive breaker of tos and community standards.

Yet strangely they are still here. And a lot of people wonder why. I want to know what has happened with these abuse reports. I want to figure out how to actually talk to someone instead of screenshotting what? an hour of harrassing conversation? I have the pdfs of chat in public. they are too big to attach. there is no person who will sit with me and others in this group and discuss this. its absolutely destroyed the mental wellbeing of many people around them, as well as showing such a huge pattern of abuse that I cannot believe there has not been at least some kind of intervention where the people and there are many who are reporting this person are not put in a room together and allowed to show/ discuss this behavior. this is not a one person problem, its a community problem, its a pattern that is bigger than each action, and its not been address for two years.

 

Yes, I've noticed that many times.

And I've made those kind of documentations and wondered, my God, what does it take.

And the reasons can vary, I guess. The person might be the son of someone famous the Lindens need to keep happy. The griefers may have the capacity to get on either social media or even mass media and make it seem like they are innocent victims of this evil company -- I've seen them do that many times over. The Lindens like to avoid controversy and media. 

Or perhaps the person in question pays them a lot of money for islands, islands you can't see.

Or maybe they don't have the staff to follow all this up and think you're a whiner or I'm a whiner as a result.

They also are wedded to this religion that you can control your own experience and gosh, you must be deliberately riling up the griefers and you must enjoy them griefing you at some level.

That griefers can harass you from Linden roads which are "safe" for them doesn't matter. That they can buy into a sim on an alt and use that as a perch to launch toxic particle takes doesn't matter. That they can stalk you in both SL and RL using God-mode and hacking doesn't matter. Etc. Etc. They think you should just ban a person or put in a security panel and shut up.

And maybe they aren't wrong, because you could try that on another sim, another alt, before they IP track your or use some other social engineering to stalk you.

The Lindens don't want to be a government or even play government so they let some resident groups they bless play government and try to do their minimal best with the CS staff, and call it a day.

SL is indeed more toxic as a result because people have more and diverse and devious ways to make people miserable they don't like or whose ideologies challenge their own, and they deploy them happily on a platform where the providers either share their technolibertarianism, technocommunism, or nihilism, or just don't have staff. Whereas a huge game company has to maintain the peace better to have more customers and keep selling games. The dynamics and levers are different. The Lindens could stop policing all griefing instantly tomorrow and there would still be 20,000+ islands bringing them in their basic revenue.

WoW or Fortnite or Minecraft could never afford to do that, and don't.

It's a truism that the Lindens will never contact you, never discuss a case with you, never report what they have done about a situation, you will never know. RL isn't like that, and is a better place as a result in most countries. You know, the right to face your accuser; the publication of the charges, the plaintiff, the defendant, a court of law, a verdict, etc. etc.

None of that obtains here and someone could be flying around named "KillProkofy" crashing my sims on the daily and the Lindens will shrug because they don't like my blog or something. Years later, you may learn that some miscreant who is now a university professor was actually banned by the Lindens for harassing you and may have ruined his career for a time. But most of the time, no one will ever give you that satisfaction.

In these kinds of situations, I could recommend multiple ARs from different people (not alts) -- that can get their attention and persuade them you're not just a whiner, it's a public nuisance.

You can document and blog all of this outside of SL and try to name and shame people in general but you have to have stamina for this, they will retaliate, and the Lindens will pounce if any of this is put inworld.

Etc.

 

Edited December 28, 2023 by Prokofy Neva

[Amanda Crisp]

How do YOU define Toxic?

Subjectively, I see the RL Resident demographic shifting, which changes the behaviors I encounter. I resolve that by subjecting the ones who bother me (I have a thick skin) to Mute + De-Render and kick them out of my subjective world.

Its good to keep in mind the global nature of SL and as new areas gravitate to it, they bring with them different cultural and social mores.

 

Edited December 28, 2023 by Amanda Crisp

[Myth Valeska]

The beauty of SL is that peace is but a TP or mute away lol. Drama and toxicity can be found in every corner of the internet as many have already said. I personally don't participate in it and go to my happy place and decorate my house!

Edited December 29, 2023 by Myth Valeska

[Arielle Popstar]

On 12/26/2023 at 4:34 PM, Luna Bliss said:

Can you share the actions you take to get out of feeling insecure and unworthy?

I suggested a couple ways to get out of a funk (writing, speaking to a trusted friend) but I'm sure there are other methods people find works for them.

After thinking about it a couple days and looking back over the last few decades, I'm realizing that the short answer is being open to acknowledging, accepting, forgiving and making amends for one's own toxicities in what ever form they take, that one loses the insecurity and feelings of unworthiness that some of us are prone to. 

The techniques for doing all that may differ but those are in my own opinion and experience the principles needed to be worked towards.

[KanryDrago]

Anyone who considers sl to be toxic obviously never played eve online, there was a truism of eve that there are no friends merely people you have not as yet shot/doublecrossed/betrayed

[Prokofy Neva]

12 hours ago, Amanda Crisp said:

How do YOU define Toxic?

Subjectively, I see the RL Resident demographic shifting, which changes the behaviors I encounter. I resolve that by subjecting the ones who bother me (I have a thick skin) to Mute + De-Render and kick them out of my subjective world.

Its good to keep in mind the global nature of SL and as new areas gravitate to it, they bring with them different cultural and social mores.

 

Always and everywhere, since time immemorial, since Cain and Abel, since Beaver and Eddie Haskell, griefers have pretended that they are cultural or political and you are behind the times and that you just haven't learned to use de-render. 

"Am I my brother's keeper?"

"Gee, Mrs. Cleaver, that's a lovely dress!"

It's a method in and of itself so I don't buy it and never have. Move along.

 

Edited December 29, 2023 by Prokofy Neva