jwenting

Qie Niangao wrote: LuciaRiley wrote: And no, I'm not talking to the user about it either. They refuse to be reasonable, and I want an opinion. I was told this by a person on SL just for calling someone out for being a sex fiend. "i will get ahold of all the land owners grid wide and tell them about this drama and they will not allow u on there land as well" end quote. Can people -really- do this, or is this unjust? The only person who could get you banned everywhere is you. It's a lofty goal--I don't think anyone has yet succeeded--so you'll need to be diligent about it. highly unlikely to succeed. Many sims are closed to all but a few people, no way to get in without being allowed access by the owner, and owner isn't going to invite you. That's no ban, you never get around to getting banned

Triple Peccable wrote: Ceka Cianci wrote: still the ones that are unhappy..they are still here..so there has to be something they like about the place hehehe Yeah, it's called addiction... no, it's pathological complainers. They'll complain about anything and everything, all the time. Nothing is ever good enough, things were always better in the past. Yet they also complain about how change isn't coming fast enough, that XXX is needed to make things perfect, then complain about XXX as soon as it's announced or implemented. It's a constant in online communities, even more so than IRL. I shrug it off. It's a small but very vocal group of people doing it, making themselves appear to be much larger by using multiple accounts each, talking to themselves to make it appear to the world at large there is a massive group of malcontents, that the world is BAD because of whatever. Are there freeloaders in SL? Of course there are. Are there more than in the past? Quite likely, the economy isn't good as you may have noticed so there are more people with no money to throw around. The ones I realy pity are the officious oafs who claim that anyone not having a premium account and willing to pay thousands of L$ just for the privilege (non-refundable of course) of looking at a sim aren't decent residents and should all be shunned. Met one just yesterday, first thing she asked me was how many L$ I had. When I refused to tell her I was kicked from the sim. Come again?

depends on how the tier is paid for. If it's like the sim I live on, it's run by one person (the leader of my family) who pays it all, others anonymously donate into a tipjar as and when they are able to. But yes, simply withdrawing your contributions to the sim is a good way to show you're pissed off. Of course anything you installed on the sim is inaccessible to you unless you can create an alt with access to the sim that can retrieve it for you (or contact a friend who has access and give them rights to return your stuff).

Shockwave Yareach wrote: IP bans are simple to evade -- just unplug the cable modem from power and the coax for an hour, then plug it all back together again. The cable modem will get a new IP address at this point. depends totally on your ISP. Mine issues me a 1 year (I think it is) IP lease, automatic renewal too. So I effectively have a fixed IP address.

Phil Deakins wrote: Ann Otoole wrote: I am one of the people that simply decided it is easier to be on SLM only and stop handing LL every dime I make. I still have a home parcel but I think I will ditch that and drop to free account status and maybe invest in second inventory before it is too late. Or just write it all off as a very bad investment decision. For a very similar reason to yours, I decided to do the opposite. I decided that LL saw how much money was being spent on stuff and decided to get a cut of it, and they came up with the marketplace for that reason. My response to it was not to put anything on the marketplace, precisely so that LL wouldn't get that cut. I admit that your way of denying LL money is better than mine, because it denies them much more than my way does. But I did do a little bit to deny them tier. As I downsized in two stages, from a sim to a quarter sim, I abandoned land so that LL would lose tier on it for some time. Much of that land remains abandoned but, unfortunately, some sold after some time. When the store closes, probably sometime this year, I'll keep the account active(ish) and I won't lose any of my stuff - in case I fancy starting all over again sometime in the future with my better stuff. When my premium runs out early next year, I may go to basic. And why do you want to deny LL the income they need to keep SL running? Why do you deserve an income but they don't?

Melita Magic wrote: Yes, I think most shops are either labors of love, or of boredom and frustration. (Creative outlets.) I think many (successful) shops have pulled up stakes and moved to other virtual worlds where their operating costs are lower. I think some have gone into selling things online instead, such as mesh creations. They simply have very little overhead that way, purely online, and can also potentially reach more customers. I do not think all shops who close were failing, in other words. Some simply want to make more money, be *more* successful. Second Life residents are a unique breed in my opinion. We need a billion-dollar investor in order for it to really become what it could become, but those don't seem too interested so far. Problem is that so many potential customers are unwilling to spend any money. You may get a few thousand visitors a day on a good day, but 99% only come for the group gifts and MM boards, and 90% of the rest are just windowshopping. Even with that, your potential sales volume still outstrips that of any other virtual community by a wide margin simply because of the sheer size of the SL userbase. Myself, I no longer use the marketplace to buy much (except maybe a freebie, demo, or discounted item). I use it to browse, find something that looks interesting, then go find it in world to buy. If the in world store is abandoned or non existent, I see that as a sign there won't be customer support if needed, and will likely move on to another brand. As to big companies investing in SL to "make it better", I don't see it happen. SL is pretty successful as is, LL doing a good job at improving a vastly complex system and keeping it reasonably stable (yes, it is, for something this size and complexity it's remarkably resilient and stable). And remember that whatever they do, people WILL complain. They complained for example there was no mesh, so LL created mesh. Now the very same people (to an extend) complain there is mesh and their 5 year old viewers don't support it. This is human nature, you will see it in any large enough community (and large enough means more than a few dozen people, if not less).

Pussycat Catnap wrote: Qwalyphi Korpov wrote: Princess Gata wrote: I seem to be having a bit of an issue with the TOS rule of not naming offenders and abusers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ While I don't agree with most of your post I'm mystified by your first sentence. I've never seen a rule that says that. I hope you're not referring to the rule that says: 8.2 You will not post or transmit prohibited Content, including any Content that is illegal, harassing or violates any person's rights. (v) Post, display or transmit Content that is harmful, threatening or harassing, defamatory, libelous, false, inaccurate, misleading, or invades another person's privacy; Because that's there to stop people from offending and abusing. Yeah that - now I remember this. I agree with you that there might not even be a policy against naming abusers and griefers. As far as the ToS states - you can say "estate manager X done cheated me out of my Y" or "store A is selling copystolen goods from store B". - BUT... the forum community here -believes- it is a ToS violation to post that, and the moderators also tend to often believe this, eroneously. And as you can see by my post just before this one, I too often forget that the rule doesn't exist. and you're wrong. That clause expressly states that defametory comments about a person are not allowed. And "naming and shaming" would definitely fall into that category. If you had logs, and the TOS allowed you to post those, it'd be different, but we'd still only have your word for it that those logs aren't fakes, edited, or otherwise manipulated to make a person look bad, we'd only have one side of the story. e.g. you claim to have been "cheated", and produce log fragments showing that someone took money from you. But you omit the log fragment where you took delivery of the items offered. Now the seller looks bad, you sullied their name, that's abuse and exactly the reason you're not allowed to do this,.

Rosemaery Lorefield wrote: <<can I just add that in the last week one of the kids in a family I am with had rl paedophile convictions>> Why are you sharing personal information with people in SL? How do you know this person is a pedo? << and that when I tried to make a report on another with evidence **bleep** all was done for like ages>> I don't think you can AR people for something they supposedly did in RL. I have no snuggly feelings for pedophiles, but to be honest, you have no proof that any person is a pedo. You cannot accuse people of being pedo in SL just because they approach a child avi. While that is nasty, in all reality that child avi is NOT a child at all. Really, I see this as a demand for LL and everyone to play along with your RP by acting like child avi's are actually helpless children who cannot take care of themselves. If you are having problems with "pedo" avis harassing your "child" avis, then try keeping your RP to a private area. Be more careful about who you allow into your RP. Heck, keep your list of naughty avis if you want. It won't do much of anything though. well said. And do remember that past convictions should NOT influence a person's life. Sentence is over, penalty was served, give them a chance to live a normal life. By continuing to push people into fringe millieus after they've served criminal sentences, you only drive them back into crime. If former convicts can't get jobs because of their former life, they're forced back into criminal endeavours to pay the rent, fill their bellies. That's what both idiotic laws do that restrain people with prior convictions after their sentences are served, as well as (and even more so) vigilante lists of people "reported" by whomever to be pedophiles. People end up on such lists for no more reason than having been seen near a school, especially single men (I know of one guy (rl) who had his life ruined because someone for whatever reason reported his name to "pedo hunters", had to change his name, get cosmetic surgery, and now lives in another country, that's what vigilante lists do).

MasoDevotina wrote: Princess Gata wrote: ..... I believe that there should be people in world you can go to who have lists of names of all potential abusers. ..... Now, tell me, how do you define a potential abuser? Somebody used the term witchhunt, and that's exactly what this will become. the term "alive" comes to mind. Simply by existing you're a potential abuser... After all, it's almost impossible for someone, somewhere, at some point to not dislike something you do or did at some point, somewhere, for some reason whether they were present or not. E.g. I do not go to church 5 times on sundays. I'm pretty sure some people would be offended by that.

Qwalyphi Korpov wrote: Princess Gata wrote: I seem to be having a bit of an issue with the TOS rule of not naming offenders and abusers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ While I don't agree with most of your post I'm mystified by your first sentence. I've never seen a rule that says that. I hope you're not referring to the rule that says: 8.2 You will not post or transmit prohibited Content, including any Content that is illegal, harassing or violates any person's rights. (v) Post, display or transmit Content that is harmful, threatening or harassing, defamatory, libelous, false, inaccurate, misleading, or invades another person's privacy; Because that's there to stop people from offending and abusing. and publicly posting someone's username in order to defame them and make others shun them would definitely fall under this clause.

Venus Petrov wrote: Dillon Levenque wrote: I'd forgotten I was going to be on the road this morning. Some good answers, but I think I like Kelli's Mod/Trans/No Copy best. Banned in RL is close, though. I did not realize this was a contest. we have a winner I'm in a few groups where I'm honoured to have been invited to, wear those titles with pride. No need to create a title of my own.

some sims have their own internal security/peacekeeping force tasked with ejecting/banning troublemakers. The sim owners should be able to help you there.

New Citizens Inc (NCI for short) I think organises such things. One problem with in-world teaching is that the teacher can't see your screen, and you can't see theirs. Especially with people using different (and differently configured) viewers is that simply telling someone to for example click "Avatar->Health->Lag meter" to bring up a window may not work for everyone. If you have specific questions, most people are more than happy to help newcomers (if it doesn't take too long of course, many won't have the patience to do a one on one session lasting hours to get you to figure out how to use your inventory). As to the videos being old: many are but are still mostly applicable (certainly the basics). Things may look somewhat different on your screen but you should be able to figure it out.

Phil Deakins wrote: jwenting wrote: what offends a lot more people is the attitude displayed by OP that it's up to him to decide what offends people and should be allowed... If he's so worried, why not contact the sim owners? No, he has to brag about finding the place in public and get it banned (and the owners too no doubt). I honestly don't think that a lot more people are offended by people ARing something, or asking about ARing something, than are offended by accidentally coming across open sex activity where it shouldn't be. I am sure that you are offended by someone asking about it, but you don't constitute a lot of people. I realise that there are some who are so into pixel sex that they want it to be allowed everywhere, without any consideration for other people, but I'm sure there aren't many such people. There appears to be a few in this thread, but that's not many. I didn't read the OP's post as having an "attitude". I read it as someone coming across, and asking about, something that s/he thought was against the ToS and, if it was, it was a serious controvention. It was so serious a thing that it caused LL to go to the great lengths of creating Adult land and all that that entailed in the switch-over. I think your "banned" statement about the OP was nothing to do with reality. Do you have the same attitude concerning traffic-bots? They are also not allowed. Do you think they should be left alone as well? Of the two, open sex is by far the worst because it's as offensive to some in SL as it is to many more people in RL, whereas traffic-bots don't "offend" anyone. you would be wrong... Bots offend every sim owner who suffers because of them, and every visitor to those sims who has to deal with the increased lag caused by them. Specifically the ones used to cheat in contests by sending in dozens of alts just to vote for someone. You're projecting your own (IMO perverted or at the very least overly prudish) morality as applying to the entire population base, implying that anyone who isn't offended by some flesh as being a sex crazed pervert. It's quite possible, and extremely healthy, to leave other people alone. It's a large world out there, don't like what others do in a sim, go somewhere else. It's people who go around gawking and looking for technical violations and then screaming bloody hell and murder when they find them that are the perverts.

offer withdrawn after not being contacted for 10 days.

Phil Deakins wrote: Arkady Arkright wrote: Sigren Panthar wrote: Well, you could join the Gestapo? THIS ! Why are there so many nosey-parkering busybodies in SL ? Have they nothing better to do than prodnose whenever they find something slightly not to their taste ? That's a bit unfair. There are plenty of people who like to get involved when they find bots around that don't affect them at all. Adult land was created so that people wouldn't accidentally come across adult activities on Mature land. And, believe it or not, there are a many people who prefer not to come across it, which can't be faulted. It's not something that's "slightly not to their taste". It's something that offends many people, just as it would offend them if they came across it in RL. I'm not one of them, incidentally, but I do know that it offends people, that it's against the ToS, that it's the reason why Adult land was created in the first place, and that such things should be ARed out of existance what offends a lot more people is the attitude displayed by OP that it's up to him to decide what offends people and should be allowed... If he's so worried, why not contact the sim owners? No, he has to brag about finding the place in public and get it banned (and the owners too no doubt).

Amethyst Jetaime wrote: Sigren Panthar wrote: Well, you could join the Gestapo? Quite honestly....have you really got nothing better to do than consider yourself one of the moral police? Let LL deal with any TOS violations: that is what they are paid for, and you are not. Griefing is going on wildly in many areas, affecting the game enjoyment of many, yet LL - and you - are impotent to stop it. Worrying about adult pose balls on a mature beach is not going to destroy SL. If you are sooooo pyschologically damaged by this, and worry that all us poor residents will plunge into the abyss of debauchery then why not try the hundreds of PG sims....and stay there. Adults should be able to go to Mature regions without seeing people having sex in public. That is why there are adult regions. If that's YOUR thing go there. Its easy for the private estate owner to change to an A rating, so there is no excuse for it. If the area is on the mainland, its clearly not supposed to be there. I'm not a prude, am age verified, and believe whatever two consenting adults do is ok, I don't mind nudity or most things in a M region, but I don't expect or want to see people having sex in public unless I go to an adult sim. People may have family in the room in RL that can see their monitors or other legit reasons for not wanting to see it in an M region that have nothing to do with being the "morality police". LL doesn't police this and relies on people reporting it to enforce the policy. Personally, I'd AR them and so would a lot of other people. What I'm worried about is the attitude of people like OP who (and I see that time and again here) seem to deliberately go looking for sims and avatars to report for TOS violations. It's a recurring theme. They're griefers, people intent on getting others banned. Whether they're the self appointed morality police or get high on causing other people trouble is irrelevant to me, what matters is the end result. I've run into things that are skirting, or even breaking, the TOS. I won't report any of them unless they're actually breaking the law or actively harassing people (scammers, pedophiles, etc.). If we all did the same the world'd be a much nicer place. Wouldn't surprise me if the poseballs on that beach weren't sexballs at all, but just hugging and cuddling (if that). Knowing LL tends to ban first, ask questions only when confronted later (if then), OP knows full well he'll get what he wants: a sim in trouble.

never had trouble with LL charging me offshore fees, but of course it's your CC company charging LL and LL simply passing along the charges to you. Their rates seem competitive, and no need to give your CC to yet another company you know only through some website.

Perrie Juran wrote: Griffin Ceawlin wrote: Perrie Juran wrote: But on the other side we also looked at it from the customer experience point of view. Getting bombarded with land mark givers, group inviters, a dozen lines of text, etc, etc, the moment you arrive does not make for a good customer experience. That's why we didn't have gadgets throwing those things at people as soon as they TPd in. They would be greeted, given a little time to "acclimate" themselves, and then an invite would be sent. The convenience factor comes into play. Personally, as a general rule, I dislike land mark givers. If I'm smart enough to get to your store I am hopefully smart enough to make a LM. But I can see the convience of the simple click. I do wish more places did use event timers in the givers. It isn't rocket science. you maybe, I've met people who've been in SL for 2-3 years and don't know how to make a landmark themselves. I do wish more places would check grouplists before sending group invites, can't be rocket science, it's a tad tiring to get invited to a group you're already in every time you enter a sim As to people sending me random group invites and tps, if they're not on my friend list they tend to end up on my blocklist.

they got lucky the system didn't crash because of the coding errors in it. NO piece of software is free from errors, be they errors in its own code, the code of the compilers or interpreters used to generate machine code from it, or the code of the environment in which that machine code is executed. Given the complexity and size of SL, I'm (as an IT professional of over 15 years) deeply impressed by the stability and relatively trouble free operation of it all.

my feet and name. Feet because they're the best looking ones I've seen so far and being barefoot more often than not I want them to look good (I take them off when wearing shoes because they conflict, but always reattach them). My avatar/display name I've been using online for well over a decade now, it's more me than anything and persists across communities.

Deej Kasshiki wrote: Thanks for the info Qie. It would be nice if someone at the Lab would make this info more widely available. Not everyone can make the inworld meetings and this is something that affects the entire grid. the statuspage is publicly available, anyone can access it whether you have an SL account or not. How much more widely available do you want it to be? And as to "a lot of problems": I was online most all day wednessday and encountered a grand total of 3 sims that were down for a few minutes (one of them was restarted twice in the middle of a game tournament, causing minor problems restarting matches, but that was the worst of it).

Melita Magic wrote: Technically the creator is supposed to fill out the DMCA. You could try ARing it I guess. I don't know if bystanders have that many options. A worsening economy will only bring more pirates and morally challenged folk out of the woodwork. SL can't act unless the copyright owner complains. If they banned or investigate everything someone reported as potentially violating someone's copyright, they would have to ban everything at all because there's always someone trying to grief a creator or misidentifying something. This is why some new laws regarding enforcement of IP online are so dangerous for network providers. They make the provider responsible for even unknowingly propagating/transmitting IP not belonging to the parties it is being transmitted to or from. Effectively this would then require anything being sent by email, IM, uploaded on a website, downloads, etc. etc. to have its delivery delayed until lawyers determine the IP indeed belongs to the sending and/or receiving parties. And that's exactly why LL won't act on random people screaming about IP infringements. If you find stolen goods, contact the IP owners and tell them where to find them on the grid/marketplace. If they care, they can take action (but most don't care).

and for many others it's the other way around. I can't use Phoenix because it pops up windows half off screen, meaning I can't move, use, or close them. FS works like a charm. Fast, stable, no trouble whatsoever.

A lot of those bots and alts are run by visitors trying to manipulate sploders and contest boards, not by the staff.