Scylla Rhiadra

Well, yes. It's pretty simple: I don't understand her reference. And I certainly wasn't talking about her. Simply put, I'm asking for a clarification.

In general, I don't disagree -- although every community develops its own culture and way of doing things. I don't think that's a bad thing at all. It only becomes an issue when (and I think it's pretty rare here, even if it does happen) we immediately criticize or ostracize those who may not subscribe, or even yet know that culture. Overall, though, I agree that we should be tolerant of different approaches. Mostly, I think we are.

I have no idea whom you might be fingering as "part of the problem," Arielle, but I'd agree that there are occasions when we, collectively, are a little quick to jump all over new posters. The "problem," insofar as there is one, is that forums have developed their own expectations and culture, and noobs posting here often violate those without knowing it. Or, as I say, they are themselves jackasses, which certainly happens.

Why?

Woot! Got my first in-world hate mail in . . . probably a couple of years! By someone who also spammed my Flickr account and started contacting random members of one of my groups to crap on me! Today's going swimmingly so far . . . 🙄

I'm always a bit dismayed when I read this kind of reaction to the forum. Sometimes, it means we've failed. (Although sometimes it means the person is a jackass, too.) But there are also so many busy parts of this forum with their own dramas and culture, like the Land Forum, that I rarely visit that it's hard to know what is being referred to. I honestly had a difficult time working out exactly what the OP was saying, though.

What?

Meh. I don't see this, myself, as a very important issue. I think I've accidentally posted in the "Now" thread a few times -- they're easy to confuse -- but otherwise I more or less just ignore that one. I know I was "invited" to post in the Now thread via a group DM here when it first started, but I declined because I was a bit uncomfortable with the premise and motivation. And there are some kind of catty comments early on in that one that reinforced that sense. But in an odd way, I think that it may have actually reduced the drama on the "Today" thread by giving people who were unhappy there another place to post instead. The issues that underwrote that drama are now pretty much gone, however, and most of the people who were most enthusiastic about the "Now" thread don't post here anymore -- including the OP, so I don't think it serves much of a purpose at this point. I would imagine, however, that merging the two threads would not be easy, in part just because of their sheer size, but also because it would mean a whole lot of duplication within the same thread. Someone would have to go through and delete all those duplicates, peoples "reputation" would drop as a result, the moon would turn blood red, and there'd be anarchy on the streets, etc. Just let it motor on quietly by itself, I think. It'll die a natural death. The other threads Coffee have mentioned (two of which I created) are a bit different because they are themed. The "spicy" one, as I recall, just predates the decision to allow nudity in the Adult forum -- it was intended to provide a place in Adult where people could safely post more sexy pics. I'm not sure it serves much of a function anymore. The Friendship one was for posting pics of, well, friendship. By definition, it tends to be a bit different than the vast majority of the selfies in the main vanity threads. I agree that the SL Today thread should serve a very different purpose, and that's generally how I use it: to showcase stuff I'm doing, rather than posed pics of me or others.

Just having fun. I am not 27 years old. 😏 The passage is actually from the movie, rather than from the novel itself -- although Charlotte does say something rather similar (and more subtle, as is characteristic of Austen), and it accurately represents her predicament as an "older" woman of an impoverished family in the gentry in Regency society.

"Your World. Your Imagination." 🫤

OMG OMG OMG OMG

This is another version of the "slippery slope" argument -- "Well, if this, why not also this other bad thing?" Again, I'm not going to argue whether Nazis are "bad" enough to warrant banning. They are. If others want to make the argument that police RP, or whatever, should be banned, that's another discussion, and we can have that elsewhere. This, however, is relevant, and one of the reasons why I'm surprised that LL isn't moving:

Very true. And that's just one of the reasons why I am, on the whole, against "bans." Nazis are of course already on the dark web -- vastly more so than in SL. But what bans in-world can do is drive the activity underground, or cloak it in plausible deniability or edge-casing. "No, really, I may not look it, but my avi is over 18! Here's my fakey birth certificate!" In this case, however, it's the visibility of this stuff that is damaging. Nazis gotta Nazi, one might say, and they're not going to be less so if they are banned here. But letting them openly parade in Nazi regalia and RP it gives them a specious veneer of acceptability and legitimacy, and it makes others, particularly those historically targeted by the movement, feel unsafe.

Nazis are bad. End of story. It's not a "debate." If Arielle wants to run around ARing all of the "abortion clinics" in SL, she's welcome to. The real question here is . . . why is nothing being done? Lack of resources? Priorities? Or a policy decision?

lol @ this. Opposing the representation of genocidal Nazi killers is a "slippery slope"? That damned Woke Crowd. What will they go after next? Animesh puppy dogs? Sexy Concentration Camp Commandant RP? /me shakes her head. There are indeed at least two options here. One, very relevant to the title of this thread, is that LL doesn't have the staff on governance to handle even something so fundamentally egregious as Waffen-SS roleplay. That would be disturbing. The other is that they looked at this and decided, "Meh, guys running around in SS uniforms wearing swastikas -- so, what's the big deal?" And that would be horrifying.

I'll agree, except I think Cinn looks pretty gorgeous in any colour.

I'm twenty-seven years old, I've no money and no prospects. I'm already a burden to my parents and I'm frightened. So don't you judge me, Lizzy. Don't you dare judge me! I'm going to do a proper pic with this dress later, but here's a quickie of me looking as "Regency" as I can (for the moment). I've always wanted to be a Jane Austen heroine (except for Emma or Fanny. Yeah, no.) ,

I'm more than a little sceptical about your point regarding regarding Panzer divisions, as my researches don't seem to bear it out, at least until the last year or two of the war, when the Germans were cannibalizing regular divisions to create or fill out badly depleted SS divisions. This page seems to list a great many tank divisions that were not Waffen SS. (There were only ever 38 SS divisions in total.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_divisions_in_World_War_II I'll also note that earlier, in another thread, I voiced some discomfort with representing German WWII troops at all, in part for the reason you give above. But no matter. The most important point regarding "historical accuracy" is that I don't care. I'm pretty sure that all sorts of matters of "historical accuracy" are going out the window in these "re-enactments," and if one those happens to be a Waffen-SS designation . . . well, gosh, that's just too bad. Nor does the Community Standards document make an exception for hate groups if they are "historically accurate."

This thread asks "Where are the Lindens." Well, wherever they are, they aren't out there policing their own CS and ToS. The Lindens don't only work on the technical side of SL. Sorry you are bored by discussions of LL's failure to enforce their own guidelines though. ETA: I missed Quartz's post before I put this up, but it is entirely the point I have been making. And yes, we don't need to have far-reaching discussions about Nazism. We can and maybe should focus on the enforcement and interpretation of LL's own CS.

I'm not following you once again down the path of a reductio ad absurdum, Arielle. A relativist "well, sure the Nazis were nasty, but just look at Planned Parenthood!" argument is beyond ridiculous. Actually, I'm pretty much done with this argument. It verges on offensive that I have to explain why representing the murderous racist, homophobic louts who were eager participants in one of history's greatest and most appalling atrocities is really not a very good thing that clearly violates LL's own written policies. Take it to Reddit, and have fun there. I'm not going to argue further about this.

A movie isn't RP -- no one is pretending to be a Nazi because they enjoy playing Nazis, they are doing so in service of a fictionalized representation. What's more, the Nazis in the Indiana Jones movies are, I can pretty confidently assert, being critiqued for being Nazis. A movie that makes them into protagonists and "heroes" would be a rather different thing. ETA: I don't want to punch anyone. Not even a Nazi -- that's too much like adopting the techniques of the Brown Shirts. But (and I know that this is not what you are arguing, Love -- this isn't directed against you), LL's CS document undertakes a commitment to creating an environment free from hatred, fear, and intolerance. That's a pretty lofty and, we can agree pretty much unattainable goal in any pure or absolute sense. But if representing literal Nazis doesn't represent something that violates that undertaking, then the CS's provisions for "tolerance" are quite obviously a very poor joke.

Not sure of your point Innula. It's "ok" if they're RP groups . . . as opposed to, you know, actual Waffen SS? So, by that token, RPing Auschwitz is ok because, well, it's just RP -- and it's awfully difficult to RP Nazi Germany without also representing the death camps. You really want to make this argument?

Were they responsible for an unequivocal genocide? Then I have no problems with it. Someone erected a statue of Lenin a while ago at my group parcel. I removed it without hesitation. If I knew of anyone who venerated Stalin in my groups, I'd boot them in a moment.

You and me both, Love. And more than a few other people. If a group like the Waffen SS doesn't clearly fall afoul of the "Tolerance" clause in the CS, then I seriously don't know what does. I can't even Godwin myself talking about them, because, well . . . Is it time for some dark humour yet? Apparently, LL needs to watch this? They don't seem to have quite caught on to the possibility that these are "the baddies."

Oh, I don't think there's any question. But they're still fictional, and that remains a fairly distant reference to them. And, more to the point, the Stormtroopers aren't being represented as "good guys." I don't think this is about representations of "evil" in SL. It's about specifically representing a group and an ideology that was directly responsible for the murder of millions of people. And there ARE holocaust survivors still living today to bear witness to it. There aren't any modern political groups that identify with Lucas's stormtroopers. There ARE literal NeoNazis around who venerate these psychopaths and think they had entirely the right idea.