sophrosyne_sl: The Middle of the End

Sophrosyne Stenvaag (

sophrosyne_sl) wrote,
@ 2007-09-18 23:14:00

Entry tags:

politics

The Middle of the End

Identity Verification and Flagging Parcels for Restricted Content

What is defined as Restricted Content?
As a general rule, Restricted Content is any content that is explicitly sexual or excessively violent in nature. For guidance, consider AO-Rated (Adults Only) video games or R-rated movies.

("An R-rated motion picture may include adult themes, adult activity, hard language, intense or persistent violence, sexually-oriented nudity, drug abuse or other elements")

What is the meaning of “flagged as having restricted content”?
Estate and parcel owners will be asked to flag the presence of restricted content on their land. This flag restricts access to verified Residents only, and provides notice to adults that content within may be objectionable to them.
.....

If Residents and businesses choose not to do this, land containing adult content that is not clearly marked will be easily identifiable by the community. Resident can raise concerns directly with the landowner or with Linden Lab via the Abuse channel.

As has always been the case, Residents are morally, socially and legally responsible for their actions and content in Second Life. Clearly, any illegal activity or content will be investigated and appropriate action will be taken.

After Robin Linden's first statement, some of you, who I respect and love dearly, told me this was no big deal. That my conclusion that I would be banned from my own home if I chose not to Verify was clearly mistaken.

Um, nope. If I don't flag my parcel, my estate owner will have to flag it, and all other occupied parcels, or face an Abuse report.

At which point I won't be allowed in my own home unless I provide information that does nothing to "verify" my age or identity, but does open me up to the prospect of identity fraud. And, why should my verification status be of any concern to another Resident? Yet LL will be displaying that on my profile. Why?

Needless to say, I cannot bring myself to invest in or build any place where Residents will be forced to disclose sensitive personal data to an unreliable third party in order to enter. I want to build a nightclub, build a sim for those who share my vision of a positive future. But I'm reluctant to see my investment lost, my account suspended, myself banned from my only world, the first time a Resident "trust vigilante" files an abuse report at the sight of "adult activity" in my home or club.

I'll stay and fight, even if I have to go back to sleeping on a park bench the way I did my first week of life. But I don't know if I'm willing to throw away a large amount of $USD to do so.

There are so many other things wrong with Everett Linden's statement ("illegal activity"?? How did we get from nudity to criminal behavior?), but I'll leave those to people much more talented at analysis than I am.

For myself... I read this loud and clear as "Your kind isn't wanted here... but we'll tolerate you in a ghetto." And I do not like that message, not at all.

(Post a new comment)

vannesh
2007-09-19 07:20 am UTC (link)

This is so idiotic -- it's LL's way of using us to cover their butts.

The point is they have no foolproof way to prevent a 13 year old from getting on the grid, and seeing "porn" or sex or what have you. This unsupervised kid commits an act of identity fraud by using his or her parent's credit card to gain access to the grid. Now, illegal kid goes to say, Xcite, and sees dildos and sex objects. Parent comes around and sees what junior is looking at, goes ballistic, and threatens to sue LL.

How could they have any successful lawsuit? The kid commited an identity fraud, logged in saying he/she was at least 18 (so lied, committed another fraud), and used a system that was closed to people their age. There is no way that LL could be held lible for anything the kid saw since the child had to LIE multiple times.

But rather than see things in the obvious light, now they want us to "register" with a third party system that is known for selling information. And this information, like name, where we live, age, could be made public to the denziens of SL at any time.

If a person knows your name and where you live (even just the city), it's about $20 to get your exact address and your previous addresses. So you open yourself to some kook coming to pay you a visit. Nice.

One other thing, this company already has your information. What they will do is use what you give them to match it to what they already have. I have a SL friend that is in the credit card business, and she deals with these companies all the time. She says you would go pale with terror if you knew what they already have on you. The danger, though, is that a link to that information would now exist from SL to that company. A very savvy ID thief could use that.

And while they propagandize this system as "building trust with other SL users," it's really about covering their posteriors and creating a Stasi that will go around and complain about a single sex ball in a private house that's on land not marked "restricted." Nuts.

As far as your sim, it's pretty simple -- you buy the island, then make it totally private, allowing only people you trust on it. Or on the parts that would not have "adult content".

The thing is, very few people are going to register. Which means that to keep in business, the large majority of adult content providers won't restrict their land. But LL will be covered, allowing them to take a wild eyed Mom and Dad directly to the land owner to face their wrath. "Hey!" says LL, "We gave them all the tools they needed to keep your unsupervised youngster out of their strip club! It's their fault, sue them, not us."

Either way, I see this as a lose-lose proposition.

V

(Reply to this)(Thread)

sophrosyne_sl
2007-09-19 04:01 pm UTC (link)

Yeah, that's one of the really striking things about this - it doesn't in any way *actually* keep any minors off the grid, but it inconveniences what I can only assume is a large majority of adult Residents, and creates another ground for divisiveness, hostility and mistrust among Residents.

All in the name of "legal compliance" and "trust." It's literally the most Newspeakish thing I've ever seen.

I hope you - and Galatea - are right, that this will prove unenforceable, and a paper CYA. I hope.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

It is a washing of hands, but it still stinks

londonspengler
2007-09-19 07:24 am UTC (link)

By now, I think we all suspect that flagging is a way for LL to secure their legal asses (Gwin has a good article about it). So is it the ToS, that become more and more abusive with each change.

That doesn't means that the effects will not be messy, and that residents shouldn't be worried. I don't think I will ever register, don't even know if I can, being from Spain... and my home has a nude cuddle caldarium; it is possible that I end ejected from the land I love? Will I have to tame the place to satisfly all the biggots that find it? and will it be enough?

I still have the hope that when the rule applies, they will start at the more obvious sites, that there will be too many denounces and they will be ignored, as they do now with general griefing... but that whould leave them legally open again, so it is easy they will simply restrict first and never ask back.

I feel like the sleeping Britain, seeing the nazis eating Europe bit by bit. I don't want to fight now, but maybe later will be too late (it almost was then, isn't it?). But how can I fight?

Not with words, I'm afraid. LL has other objectives in mind that the wellfare of their long term users, and will not listen to them. They want to avoid lawsuits, and will keep targeting quantity against quality.

I don't say that's bad or evil; it is their enterprise and their objectives. But it is bad for me and my friends, and even so I'll probably stay slumbering, hoping that my little corner will be ignored, while Europe falls.

I miss the dream.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	Re: It is a washing of hands, but it still stinks galatea_gynoid 2007-09-19 08:20 am UTC (link)
	Wow, it only took two comments before Godwin's Law reared its ugly head! That doesn't bode well. Once a discussion reaches that point, any hope of reasonable discourse is long gone. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: It is a washing of hands, but it still stinks (Anonymous) 2007-09-19 11:22 am UTC (link)
	I had to Google "Goodwin's Law", and when I found it I felt a bit anoyed, even if I understand why you said that. I wasn't callilling LL nazis, but myself the slumbering Britain :-p. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: It is a washing of hands, but it still stinks londonspengler 2007-09-19 11:24 am UTC (link)
	Whoops, I forgot to log before posting :-p (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: It is a washing of hands, but it still stinks

londonspengler
2007-09-19 12:24 pm UTC (link)

Not only I love Google, I love the Wikipedia too:

"However, Godwin's Law itself can be abused, as a distraction or diversion, that fallaciously miscasts an opponent's argument as hyperbole, especially if the comparisons made by the argument are actually appropriate. A 2005 Reason magazine article argued that Godwin's Law is often misused to ridicule even valid comparisons."

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: It is a washing of hands, but it still stinks londonspengler 2007-09-19 12:27 pm UTC (link)
	/me wonders if there is a limit of the bleeding of the posts... maybe they will end as a single char column? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: It is a washing of hands, but it still stinks londonspengler 2007-09-19 12:28 pm UTC (link)
	I meaned indentation. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: It is a washing of hands, but it still stinks londonspengler 2007-09-19 12:29 pm UTC (link)
	Seems it is going to rain, don't you think so? And I was looking for a beach day :-p (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: It is a washing of hands, but it still stinks sophrosyne_sl 2007-09-19 04:10 pm UTC (link)
	I'm calling an atomic-world override, and taking the wetware swimming. My tension and upset is doing bad things to it, and it's a beautiful day out there... (Reply to this)(Parent)

	Re: It is a washing of hands, but it still stinks galatea_gynoid 2007-09-19 06:15 pm UTC (link)
	Wonderful quote that I absolutely agree with. Please tell me you don't think any comparison of current events in SL to the monumental events of WWII wouldn't be hyperbole in the extreme. o.O (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: It is a washing of hands, but it still stinks

londonspengler
2007-09-19 08:40 pm UTC (link)

/me pouts, because it doesn't keep shrinking anymore.

Now, about you...

You dismissed my comment because I cited WWII.

You dismissed my explanation about not calling LL nazis suggesting I should weight the strength of a metaphora with the weight of the facts; what is it, don't talk about whales when studing rabbits?

But what I am afraid of is; do you really believe in it? Do you think I was being flaming the first time, and then justifying myself the second?

I whouldn't mind if you do, because that whould be open ground for discussion; I could keep telling that it wasn't my intention to be grandilocuent, only to use the example about slumbering that comed to my mind, and you could keep dismissing my arguments.

But if you don't believe what you are talking about, if you are only playing dialectics... I don't like to do it, and that whould be a sad way to lose my time.

I don't need to fight small battles, when monumental events await me :-)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: It is a washing of hands, but it still stinks

galatea_gynoid
2007-09-19 09:24 pm UTC (link)

I don't dismiss your comments, I just object to the hyperbole around this whole issue in general. And then, right in the middle of my trying to think of a way to say people are making mountains out of molehills here, I see a textbook example of Godwin's Law. I couldn't help but point it out, given how I feel on the issue.

And I never said you called LL Nazis, nor is that required by Godwin's Law ("... probability of a comparison involving Nazis ..."). You don't have to call anyone Nazis. They just seem to naturally pop up somehow, someway, somewhere, in any discussion where the hyperbole has reached stratospheric heights.

Considering the original blog entry continued pounding the "verification is the end of the world" meme, any post that isn't hyperbolic, any post that is at all realistic, is naturally going to sound somewhat dismissive. But I really don't mean that personally. And I do believe what I say. I just, quite honestly and truly, cannot see how anyone can realistically take this all that seriously. The fact that someone is that worked up about this is, in my mind, clear evidence that they aren't being at all realistic about things. They've bought into the hyperbole and now confuse it for reality, when the world they talk about is not only very different from the world I see around me today, but there isn't even any clear path from here to there, much less that that world is the inevitable or even likely results of the forces at work today. I feel like a bus driver whose passengers scream the moment I turn in the direction of the sea that we're all going to drown, never mind the fact that the sea is two miles down the road. Yes, maybe I'm driving down the road, and the sea lies in that direction, but get real. That is not, in and of itself, reason to be certain or even concerned that we're all going to drown. Of course, I have this same objection to virtually every "slippery-slope" argument, and usually because the "slippery-slope", whatever it is, is actually uphill. Taking a reasonable step in one direction does not inevitably lead to a headlong rush to disaster. But *every* step LL ever takes is treated precisely like that. After nearly two years of listening to it, you start getting a bit dismissive of such talk. My apologies if I've caused any offense.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: It is a washing of hands, but it still stinks
(Anonymous)
2007-09-20 02:14 pm UTC (link)

This is how they take your freedom, Galatea. Bit by bit so that you don't notice. My guess is that you've gotten used to it since it doesn't effect you. You seem all too happy to agree with and allow anything that LL pushes on you. Some of us don't want to and we shouldn't be forced to, but the problem is that LL is making the implicit assumption that we will.

LL has taken a lot of steps that are, quite frankly, ridiculous this year. They have done a lot of things that the residents publicly opposed. They have taken SL down a path that leads to big business with a "I don't give a crap what you think" attitude.

I am by no means alone in this feeling. The "Avastar" wrote about LL's attitude a few weeks ago... if I can find the article I'll put up a link.

What I find really amazing is the capacity of people such as yourself to put up with the crap that LL is dishing out. There is no reason for IDV, none.... in fact I just signed a TOS with LL when I logged in yesterday which:

1) Affirms that I'm an adult and
2) Absolves LL from any responsibility.

Such a legal agreement is sufficient protection for LL in that case of minors on the grid. If they are here and they are underage, then they are fraudulently entering into the agreement and LL is not responsible for that. Period. So, I believe that there must be some other reason for this ridiculousness.

I believe that the real thing that is happening here is that LL is getting some kind of monetary kick back from Integrity/Aristotle for all of the information they are going to be providing them. I would like to see the agreement between the two companies, but I suspect it's private since it very likely contains a lot of provisions for keeping customer data that the residents would have a problem with. I would sure like to see that agreement.

At any rate... people can go ahead and bow down in sycophantic acceptance of any and all of the things that LL pushes onto us. I, for one, wont.

Anony Mouse
"Accept nothing, challenge everything." ~ Unknown

(Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: It is a washing of hands, but it still stinks

sophrosyne_sl
2007-09-19 04:08 pm UTC (link)

I agree down the line.

I hope, with you and Vanni and Gala, that this will prove unenforecable, or unenforced.

If I were a director of strategic planning for LL? I could see a strategy of, as Nobody Fugazi said, doing to SL what Mayor Guiliani did to Times Square - intentionally driving out the small businesses, the sex industry, the colorful locals, to invite in the bland megacorporations. I could see it.

Problem is, SL will never be the winner in the 3D chatroom market. Other companies *designing* their spaces to that market can do a much better job - I was just reading about Sony's Home on Gwynyth Llewellyn's blog last night: it's MySpace with paper-doll AVs in 3d, but with Playstation-level graphics. That's going to bring in the MySpace/Facebook millions of teens, and SL's creator-focused world never will.

But the lure of being the next *big* thing, instead of doing a medium-sized thing right? Yeah, that overrides good sense more often than not. LL may very well *want* us gone, in order to turn SL into SecondDisneyFaceBook...

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: It is a washing of hands, but it still stinks http://getopenid.com/dandellion 2007-09-20 04:43 am UTC (link)
	Oh no, please don't compare SL with Home and There. Whatever Lindens do to SL, it will never be the artist's nightmare (http://metaverse.acidzen.org/2007/home-is-where-you-are-free-to-build) as those two corporate mind prisons. (Reply to this)(Parent)

I was tired of it shrinking :-)

londonspengler
2007-09-20 09:41 am UTC (link)

Ok, so, considering that you aren't simply playing dialectics, I am going to forget the main thread in a olimpic way and simply leave this question, where you (Galatea) and I seem to have stalled... is this phrase hyperbolic?

"I still have the hope that when the rule applies, they will start at the more obvious sites, that there will be too many denounces and they will be ignored, as they do now with general griefing... but that whould leave them legally open again, so it is easy they will simply restrict first and never ask back."

I don't think so, but if you think it was we could had talked about it... if my next paragraph, that yes, mentioned the nazis, hadn't deprived me of my rights to do it.

Yes, now I've readed about Goodwin's law...

"There is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically "lost" whatever debate was in progress."

I don't mind to "lose" to a rule I didn't knew... since I wasn't debating.

So, I should find a better example of inaction in the face of a rising risk, only because this one involve nazis or, worse, it seems to be associated to Goodwin's law? Am I flaming or desmesurate?

In your own words:

"Any post that isn't hyperbolic, any post that is at all realistic, is naturally going to sound somewhat dismissive."

No, Galatea, dismissive is ignoring a post because a metaphora on it seemed inadecuate, or because it is related to a certain rule.

So yes, you have caused an offense; I felt antagonized and ignored in a friendly place, while writng a friendly post. But it is my fault, too, since I answered back; it is silly to keep a debate about peccata minuta when you are only interested in exchanging oppinons; in fact, not even interested in that now :-p.

I accept your apologices, and give mine to you; I could had simply mentioned that your comentary made me feel bad, instead of fighting about it. Maybe next time both of us will be more polite.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

galatea_gynoid
2007-09-19 08:56 am UTC (link)

"Um, nope. If I don't flag my parcel, my estate owner will have to flag it, and all other occupied parcels, or face an Abuse report."

Um, nope. I've been to your home. You don't have an adult sex shop or brothel operating there, there isn't even any sexually explicit material lying around in public view. There's precisely zero reason your parcel would need to be flagged. Afraid of people sneaking peaks at you while you change clothes or worse (or should I say better? :) ? Sorry, but a peeping tom can't have you arrested for public lewdness if they don't like what they see peeking through your keyhole.

BTW, you know what LL does with the vast majority of the abuse reports it receives...

"But I'm reluctant to see my investment lost, my account suspended, myself banned from my only world, the first time a Resident 'trust vigilante' files an abuse report at the sight of 'adult activity' in my home or club."

And I see no reason to expect this outcome is at all likely.

"For myself... I read this loud and clear as 'Your kind isn't wanted here... but we'll tolerate you in a ghetto.' And I do not like that message, not at all."

What we see depends mainly on what we look for.

Actions speak louder than words. Wake me up when they actually *do* something worth complaining about. There's a million things they *might* do, many things they *can* do, and for every little thing, even minor ToS changes, I've seen public discussions with people screaming about what this now enables them to do and how horrible it will be. And yet, whenever I see them actually *do* anything, they apply the rules reasonably, with a good deal of common sense.

Yes, it's entirely possible they *could* do as you say. But it's ridiculously unlikely that they actually *would*.

Again, actions speak louder than words. Show me one case where these adult content rules have been applied in a ridiculous manner. Just one. Do we actually have even one single shred of evidence that they will be? I've seen plenty of speculation, but no facts to support any of it. Not one bloody of case of LL ever doing anything even remotely like what everyone seems to be convinced they're certain to do.

LL is infamous for its hands-off approach to everything, to the point of not getting involved in cases where they really ought to have. Why is everyone so certain they're suddenly going to become so bloody pro-active? It's utterly out of character for them. Even getting them to comply with a DMCA notice is like pulling teeth from what I understand, and there's some serious legal consequences there if they don't and it turns out there was real infringement. But now suddenly one abuse report is going to get people banned without the slightest thought? I just don't see how we get there from here. This seems an utterly unreasonable conclusion -- it flies in the face of every action I've ever seen LL take (or, more usually, not take if they can at all avoid it).

(Reply to this)(Thread)

londonspengler
2007-09-19 12:36 pm UTC (link)

"Show me one case where these adult content rules have been applied in a ridiculous manner. Just one."
http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/2007/08/29/censorship-at-burning-life-again/

And about LL inactivity, it has been suggested that people will be able to flag other's people items as restricted, leaving to their creators the responsability to correct the situation; there you whould have an ass covered LL that, as usual, will not get involved correcting the wrong thing. I don't know if that's true, but sounds like a doomsday idea to me.

And yes, I agree with you, it is too soon to start worring about that kind of things; but a bit silly to dismiss them in advance, too.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

galatea_gynoid
2007-09-19 06:40 pm UTC (link)

*nods* This is a wonderful example of the kind of hyperbole I'm talking about. I ask about justification for the belief that LL is going to go on a campaign of banning people from SL, or at least suspending accounts, or doing anything like what the blog entry I was responded to said they would do, and what do I see in reply? A link about how a Linden threw up a couple of boxes to cover bits of a statue located on PG land. o.O

"And about LL inactivity, it has been suggested that people will be able to flag other's people items as restricted, leaving to their creators the responsability to correct the situation; there you whould have an ass covered LL that, as usual, will not get involved correcting the wrong thing. I don't know if that's true, but sounds like a doomsday idea to me."

This is relatively mild compared to some of the things I've seen suggested. If you don't know if that's true, or have a decent source to quote on it, why did you even bother repeating it here? Honestly, this reminds me very much of the emails I used to get forwarded to me by friends about the dangers of tampons. "I don't know if it's true, but just in case..." That whole paragraph screams "tampon scare" or "modem tax" to me.

"And yes, I agree with you, it is too soon to start worring about that kind of things; but a bit silly to dismiss them in advance, too."

That's the same argument I've gotten from every friend who's ever forwarded me the latest email hoax. In fact, it's utterly silly to do anything but dismiss this kind of rumor without some evidence to back it up from an independent source from the original source. Here we don't even have an original source.

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Fucking tired of this.

londonspengler
2007-09-20 01:12 pm UTC (link)

When I writed my two previous posts, I had missed your answer here. Then I was sad; now I am angry. You know, that kind of anger that slowly builds when you see how it doesn't matter what you say, that the world seems to be full of pettiness?

You promoted the idea of LL inactivity and asked for an example that denied it... even more, you asked the action to be ridicule. That's what I showed to you. It demostrates that LL can actuate in a short-sighted, too self covering way... a way that can make registration dangerous. Calling the answer hyperbolic and changing the request doesn't help; again, dialectics against reasoning. Circular, hypocrital thinking in the spite of an idea. I HATE it.

Yes, I don't have proofs that people will be allowed to flag other people; it was another example of things that could go wrong with registration. I am not saying it will go wrong; it is you who dismiss any possibilty of danger. It is you who choose the worst way to look at what I said, exagerating it and dismissing it after it.

And I keep saying dismiss because it is what you keep doing; it seems your arguments are fireproof, while mine are hyped, Goodwined, spammed without proof and in a general way, tampon scare hoax. I try to read and understand what you say, while you try to distort, trivialice and soak in menstrual fluids what I write.

There is people that close their eyes and says, it will not be wrong, nobody is so silly.

Then griefers thrive after the removal of payment info, bots kill the newbie mainland parcels, content thieves go rampant, a new script to skip autoreturn appears as a good thing, we lose items from our inventory and, after reading a new, more abusive ToS after each update, we lose faith and interest.

Yes, LL aren't evil. And yes, they aren't stupid, too. But they don't worry about us, at least not much... and it is logical, they have their own problems. They want numbers, they want go corporate, they want to be the multiverse; they cannot stop to find and protect the "nice users" and they cannot risk lawsuits. And here is where you got it all wrong.

If pressed enough, they will fuck us without a second thought. And bigots are loud people, good for applying pressure.

I could add that sometimes the wolf is truly coming, but I don't know if this is the case. What I know is that there is danger in the woods; ignoring it doesn't makes us safer... Wait, maybe isn't an adecuate metaphora; maybe woods are to big to be compared to our small situation and I am hyping things... let's say that it scares me when the driver of the bus ignore the danger of the curve in front of the sea, and don't even brake a bit.

But at the end, I truly hope you are right. I will gaing nothing discovering that the user registration and parcel tagging ends affecting my park, since nude cuddles are allowed, and everithin ends in another blunder. I've seen too many. Lot's of good people had seen one too many blunder, and now they aren't here.

Do you think I am still hyping? No; there had been some negative comments about it already. Of course, there are always negative comments about everything.

But in a way, things are changed. Now I see that I am not Britain willingly closing my eyes to the danger; you have earned that place... upps... nazi metaphora; thread closed, I lost the argument. Isn't it Goodwin's Law?

Good, that way I will not even have to come back and look for your answers, and find another example of how wrong and distorted I am, and how measurate you are.

To be true, it is a relief. My inflated ego whouldn't be able to take the shock of discovering that again, none of my opinions have a weight and I am only a hyped, spamming woman that is scared of tampons. I still am angered, and pained.

I am going to be a bigot myself and tell that I know your type. You had been taking notes and thinking ways to answer this long comment. You still think you did nothing wrong, that you was only defending your point of view and showing my mistakes.

All of this has been useless and painfull for me, but at least I hope you had fun.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Fucking tired of this.

galatea_gynoid
2007-09-20 09:42 pm UTC (link)

"When I writed my two previous posts, I had missed your answer here. Then I was sad; now I am angry. You know, that kind of anger that slowly builds when you see how it doesn't matter what you say, that the world seems to be full of pettiness?"

Honestly, no, not a clue. I've never gotten angry with someone merely because they disagreed with me in a discussion of some issue, nor assumed they were being petty because they refused to come around to my point of view. The range of emotional responses and continuous misreads (or mischaracterizations) that you've made from my comments, from the very beginning, is utterly inscrutable to me.

"And I keep saying dismiss because it is what you keep doing; it seems your arguments are fireproof, while mine are hyped ..."

Hmm. Yes. If I don't agree you with, if I continue to hold what I believe to be true, that means my arguments are fireproof, and obviously I'm just dismissing yours if I don't agree with them.

Alas, I know your type as well. You have the "I'm always right" attitude of the worst sort -- one where you don't even admit you have it, even to yourself, but you most certainly do. If someone doesn't immediately acknowledge that you are right and they are wrong, they're obviously being petty, hypocritical, and acting like they're fireproof. How else could they possibly your infallible reasoning? You actually get angry about a simple discussion of a controversial issue when your opponent has the temerity to disagree. My apologies, your highness, I didn't realize you were beyond questioning. I shall refrain from doing so in the future.

We clearly have different views here. You think you're right and I'm wrong, and I think I'm right and you're wrong. That's perfectly natural, and I'm perfectly okay with that. I'm also perfectly okay with the idea that each of us should feel free to share our opinions on the subject. I've got no problem with that fact that you say I'm wrong, but you explode in anger when I do the same to you. You're more than happy to do it to me, but somehow I'm an evil petty dishonest spiteful woman for doing it to you? And you call me a hypocrit? That's pretty rich, coming from you...

From your replies to my very first reply onward, you've been engaged in a game of baiting me with personal comments, making wrong and inflammatory comments about my motives, questioning my honesty and integrity, accused me of playing games (because it's apparently incomprehensible to you that I actually don't accept your words as gospel -- only explanation is I'm playing a game, I can't honestly disagree, right?), and saying things about me and how I must be and constantly making it an attack on me. This whole time, I've tried and tried to stick to the issue itself and not descend into the slimy little mud-pit you love to inhabit and try to drag people into. Well, congratulations, after all the abuse I've taken from you, I've finally been moved to respond not to your ideas but to your character, or rather your lack thereof. I really hate getting engaged in these kinds of arguments with emo drama-queens like you, having to descend to your level to fight on your own turf, but there's really only so much abuse I can take from abusive, hateful, petty instigators like you before I just have to stop ignoring the constant barrage of personal attacks and respond. Of course, now we're completely sidetracked from the issue, so congratulations little troll, you've won. I give up...

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vannesh
2007-09-19 04:28 pm UTC (link)

Excellent post, Gala. Just a couple points:

There's precisely zero reason your parcel would need to be flagged. Afraid of people sneaking peaks at you while you change clothes or worse (or should I say better? :) ? Sorry, but a peeping tom can't have you arrested for public lewdness if they don't like what they see peeking through your keyhole.

In atomic life that's true -- my neighbor can't peek through my window, watch me with my lover, and then call the cops saying that I'm doing the nasty in public. SL is different in the sense that "public" can be anywhere in theory, and there is no clear definition of what they mean by it. As they say:

"Estate and parcel owners will be asked to flag the presence of restricted content on their land. This flag restricts access to verified Residents only, and provides notice to adults that content within may be objectionable to them."

It doesn't say "restricted content in public places or gathering areas on their land," it just says "on their land." So that could be read in a loose sense to mean *anywhere* on our land. If I have a sex bed 500m in the air in a private dungeon, will that count as "restricted?" A case could be made for or against it. And I believe that LL is keeping the wording deliberately vague so they can deal with complaints from "horrified residents" just that way.

Actions speak louder than words. Wake me up when they actually *do* something worth complaining about. There's a million things they *might* do, many things they *can* do...And yet, whenever I see them actually *do* anything, they apply the rules reasonably, with a good deal of common sense.

I agree with you in the sense that they rarely do anything. The anti-gambling thing has resulted in casinos closing (their main intent), and once in a while you hear about someone complaining that a Linden returned a sploder or some such device, but the "end of the world" hasn't shown up yet. I still have two 'sploders in my clubs, and no Stasi has come around yet to send me to the Ministry of Love for having them :P

What worries me more is that without a percise definition of what constitutes "restricted," some puritan could come to my land, see something they find "unacceptable" and report it. What would happen? We don't know. While a full bore strip club with "lewd" behavior might be one things, would a room in my house with a sex bed and some BD furniture be treated the same? What if I keep it private so only people on the entry list can come in? Does the fact that a kid could camera in and see said "lewd" behavior still mean that I have to restrict it?

I guess I'm just a strict Constitutionalist at heart. I get annoyed with people that say "The Constitution is a 'living' document that needs to be read in a modern light." When I hear our solons say things like that, it usually means they are planning to take away more liberty. So when I see a very loose definition of "restricted", and that breaking this new rule could cause me to be in theory kicked out of SL, I get just about as worried.

V

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galatea_gynoid
2007-09-19 07:03 pm UTC (link)

"there is no clear definition of what they mean by it"

This is more or less my point. In the absence of a clear definition, everyone seems determined to assert that the definition will be as strict as possible, all arguments proceed from the fundamental assumption that anything that could possibly be construed by anyone as fitting the bill will fit the bill. I see no evidence for this fundamental premise of these doomsday arguments. In fact, just the opposite -- LL regularly shows a great deal of common sense and latitude, indeed, a strong desire to *not* interfere unless they really, really have to.

"What worries me more is that without a percise definition of what constitutes 'restricted,' some puritan could come to my land, see something they find 'unacceptable' and report it. What would happen? We don't know."

We don't know for certain, but we have good reason to believe, based on past behavior, that LL won't even bother to check it out unless they receive multiple complaints, and if they do, some Linden who probably isn't a puritan will come out, take a look, and flag the reports as "ignore" like they usually do.

To assume any other result requires a belief that LL is going to do a 180 on its established behavior of trying to do as little as possible to solve any problem that occurs in-world, and to seize upon any possible justification to ignore it and do nothing at all. I just don't see that happening.

You can argue all you want about how things *could* be interpreted and what they *could* do, go ahead, and I'll acknowledge it's possible, but when it flies in the face of existing evidence, I need more than speculation to take it seriously. What boggles my mind is not that anyone has considered the possibility, or even that so many people are worried about it, even when I think such worries are overblown -- what boggles my mind is how many people are *certain* that that worst case scenario is what's going to come to pass. I can understand where the concern comes from, even if I don't agree with it, but that *certainty* seems *utterly* irrational to me.

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(Anonymous)
2007-09-20 02:21 pm UTC (link)

"This is more or less my point. In the absence of a clear definition, everyone seems determined to assert that the definition will be as strict as possible,"

History dictates that when a definition is left loose it's usually interpreted VERY widely. The problem most people are having is that this could very easily be used by LL in a very broad sense.

Anony Mouse
"Those who don't remember history... are doomed to repeat it." ~ Unknown

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	cyfishy 2007-09-19 07:26 pm UTC (link)
	What worries me more is that without a percise definition of what constitutes "restricted," some puritan could come to my land, see something they find "unacceptable" and report it. What would happen? How many "puritans" even show up in Second Life to begin with? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

sophrosyne_sl
2007-09-19 08:12 pm UTC (link)

That's a good question.

IMO, more and more - but more importantly, the ones there are will be doing the dirty work of the corporations, who don't want their brand names identified with something seen as a red-light district - and remember, most all of the mainstream media coverage of SL has focused on sex, ageplay, etc.

Plus, anyone with a grudge against anyone can file an abuse report....

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galatea_gynoid
2007-09-19 08:41 pm UTC (link)

"Plus, anyone with a grudge against anyone can file an abuse report...."

And they frequently do. Because of this, LL is quite used to the fact that the majority of abuse reports they receive are bogus. That's why it's so hard to get them to act on them. It's usually futile to even bother filing one, unless you can organize a number of people to do so, and document your case very well. Things like "BanLink" have sprung up precisely because LL's standards for taking abuse reports seriously are way beyond what most people desire. Personally, I think BanLink is a bad idea, open to precisely the kind of abuse you fear (I've seen it happen), but it's interesting to note that you have to go to resident-created solutions to find what you fear here.

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sophrosyne_sl
2007-09-19 04:39 pm UTC (link)

Dear heart, I think you're probably going to prove right that LL *won't* enforce these rules. OP talked with a veteran of the LiveJournal hoohaa this summer, who said pretty much what you did - that it'll just prove unenforceable against the Residents' refusal to comply.

But, I've got to disagree with your beginning. You're looking at the issue as if SL were the atomic world, where citizens have rights and laws are fairly clear and unambiguous. But SL isn't that world, and the TOS and Linden declarations aren't up to that world's standards.

Everett's post said, we expect you to flag content that would merit an R rating in a movie, and we're going to rely on Residents to report alledged violations by filing abuse reports.

I can't see any reading of that other than, if I have sex in my bedroom, if I leave the cross out, I'm displaying adult behavior and adult themes, and any busybody, or anyone who doesn't like me (anymore) could file an abuse report on me. If I were TertiumQuid, with six or seven figures of my own $USD at stake and LL leaning on me, I'd flag all the properties on my Mature sims to cover my *own* ass (and I'd be thinking about a financial exit strategy).

At which point, yeah, I'm banned from my own home.

*Will* it happen? That all depends on whether LL leans on the land barons and earls to set an example. If they don't, if this is all a paper CYA as you and Vanni and London suggest, then, np.

But if they "encourage" Anshe to comply, to keep her favored status, and Anshe says, not unless my competitors have to, and the next level - Azure Islands, Caledon, and so on get swept up....

I think you're probably right, love. One thing I'm seeing is that the Residents have pretty good sense, and don't follow LL blindly. If LL doesn't push the barons, and the vast majority of revenue-generating businesses ignore verification, then everything's fine. *Except,* we all live in a regime where any day, after one scandalous news story, or one grandstanding district attorney, LL *could* use the powers it's given itself to shut us all down.

Maybe that's the best deal we can hope to get. But it feels like a banana republic, not like a mature and stable country, doesn't it? You know I'm no fan of "governing" busybodies, but you really crystallized things for me - I *want* to live in a digital world where I'm secure in my home, where the criminals are people who commit multiple acts of fraud to get to my property to snoop and report on me, rather than me for living my own life.

*sigh*

Goddess, all I want, love, is to be with my family and build a community. I wish to hell all this would go away so I could live in peace. But it seems I can either gamble my peace and freedom on LL's continuing laziness or shreds of good sense, or get involved in a futile movement to claim some rights and protections for ourselves.

I *hate* lawyers and politicians and squabblers and pundits and talking shops. I'll probably join London and take my chances in quiet seclusion....

And, if it were a matter of the same kind of verification you need for any adult content on the web, *and* if it were between me and LL only, I'd verify. But, not if my verification status is going to be displayed on my profile, and not if I need to provide more ID than for any other online transaction anywhere. The whole thing is just crazy...

*And* and, I'll say it again, because it's the most important thing in the world to me. I don't take our disagreements (and they're more over interpretation than facts, and optimism/pessimism than politics) personally at all. And I know you don't, annoying as you find this doom & gloom :) I love you with all my heart, Galatea Gynoid, and nothing changes that.

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galatea_gynoid
2007-09-19 08:20 pm UTC (link)

*shrug* For my own part, I have no intention of even flagging my business as restricted. I've seen handcuffs in toy stores. I've seen people chained spread-eagle in PG movies (e.g. Goldfinger). It seems paranoid to me to expect to be banned from your home because you left the cross out. Unless you're actually there staging a performance of explicit sexual acts, there's nothing R rated in your home, even if we include the skybox. Well, okay, maybe some of the pictures on the wall.

Most likely scenario: nothing ever happens.

Worst case scenario: you end up having to install a security system to keep strangers out of the skybox.

"But it feels like a banana republic, not like a mature and stable country, doesn't it?"

No. Banana republics are much better organized. ;)

"I don't take our disagreements ... personally at all."

Of course not. It's not like we're arguing about anything *really* important, like stealing the blanket at night... :) Compared to such things as love, who can be bothered by politics, religion, or other such trivial things...

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	sophrosyne_sl 2007-09-19 08:24 pm UTC (link)
	Okay, you just totally blew my winning streak - I'd gone a good couple months without crying! :) I love you utterly, Galatea! (Reply to this)(Parent)

argent_bury
2007-09-19 04:21 pm UTC (link)

Personally, I hope Gala is right, while at the same time I fear London is. My response to this issue at any given moment depends on where I am on the sliding hope-fear continuum.

As for people inclined to "fight"...the way I see it your options are as follows...

1) Leave SL, although the Lindens will probably not miss you unless you are Anshe Chung or another major land baron. There are another million people behind you in line waiting to spend money.

2) Find new worlds to live in - Open Source Grid, etc, but it may never be quite the same as SL

3) Write another Open Letter. Instead of bug fixes the last one got us JIRA, Voice, and Windlight

4) Enjoy the time you have here, hoping that these changes will mean little in the end, and leaving if they do wreck things. This is my typically stoic and fatalistic "Argent answer" that I like to give, although I'm not totally satisfied with it myself right now.

5) Fight a delaying action - create private SIMs and other spaces for free minds to gather in-world, build walls against the change

6) Fight for changes in the wacked U.S. legal system that allows parents (and people in general) to push responsibility off themselves and onto everyone else, and to generally sue others for any excuse under the sun.

Personally, I'm going with a combination of answers 4,5,and 6 for now.

::Argent Out::

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gira_bryant
2007-09-19 05:57 pm UTC (link)

I fall somewhere between the Chicken Little sky-is-falling category and the who cares anymore category.

They've been talking about verification and this tagging of restricted parcels for a long time. Since Feb. or March if I remember correctly.

There was big bruhaha then, I imagine there's one now. I'm a premium account. I already pay them money, they already have my billing info and I buy regularly on lindex. There's no reason in the world anyone couldn't get at that info if they really wanted it.

I also pay my utility bills online, my cell phone bill, do online banking, buy from online retailers, etc. etc. And eBay.

It is my opinion that if someone really wants this information about me, in particular, they're going to find it.

After spending two months away from SL this summer, I realized one thing.

To me, SL is about people. It's about being with my family and friends.

It quite honestly doesn't matter if that happens in someone's living room or a full fledged dungeon. We're all Xcite equipped and I think we *maybe* touch those buttons two or three times in any given month.

It's all about the chat, it's all about the face time, it's all about the words and setting the scene.

Now if I were an adult retailer, say, frex, Xcite or Stroker, then yes, I would be pissed about now. It will seriously eat into their revenues.

OTOH, the economy spends billions of dollars a year on internet porn and people give all sorts of personal info to do so.

So, I don't really know that it will have as large a day-to-day impact on personal resident's lives as they'd like to think.

I was pissed as hell when LL singled out ageplay to be forbidden. Really, you have no idea. But I coped and no, all the egl stores didn't close overnight, and honestly there's just so much to do. So much to see, so much to get involved with if you want.

LJ OTOH just continues to piss me off and I will not be renewing my premium account when that payment comes due in November. I moved to my own webspace rather than continue to deal with their ongoing emotional drama.

At some point, I think, I just realized that I personally was overly emotionally invested in my online life and that what TRULY mattered to me was not whether some corporation would be asshats - that's the nature of being a corporation - but spending time with my friends. It's made things easier for me. Obviously everyone has their own path.

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sophrosyne_sl
2007-09-19 08:21 pm UTC (link)

I like your conclusion, love, and that's wisdom to take to heart.

But, IMO, the debate between Gala and London up there is rooted in something *personally* important to me: what do *I* do when I see something wrong?

Do I go, "meh, *I'm* all right," and forget about it unless and until the day comes when my sim owner has locked me out, because, nice a guy as he is, he's got a *huge* financial exposure to the Lindens and can't say no?

Do I let the sex retailers and clubs go under, because I can live without them?

Do I read the Lindens' posts and go, "well, they'll probably be reasonable," and go on with my life?

Do I willingly lower my own quality of life and spend time doing things I find heinous - politics- to prevent things getting worse for myself and others?

Sure, Godwin's Law calls out the hyperbole of the comparison. But the moral question is real, and I believe that how we act towards the small things really determines how we act towards the big ones.

That said, I don't have any answers, other than I'm not going to roll over, and I'm not going to be quiet (oooh, big shock, both of those, I know! :P ). Beyond that....

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gira_bryant
2007-09-19 08:55 pm UTC (link)

It's important to have issues that are important to you, and I hope I wasn't coming across as otherwise, because that's not what I meant.

The first day of the war in Iraq, I, along with thousands of others, took to the streets of San Francisco in protest. I had taken part in several protests up until that point and I took part in several protests in the months after.

I don't know that it did any good but I do know that it changed how I felt about myself, to stand up for something. In my own life, I'm much more likely to take a stand for someone else, or an ideal, than for myself.

On the ageplay issue, I did speak out, I did speak up in comments, I did sign the open letter. It did squat.

So I guess, more or less, I am not questioning the importance of being attached to values or the importance of defending what one believes to be right, but the efficacy.

Much like you questioned the application of 18th century solutions to 21st century problems.

IRL, I'm a manager. I'm solutions oriented. I look at what works v. what has to be done, and in the end I opt for what works, every time.

I don't think any of us have a solution to what will work with LL or how to get them to recognize that their largest most important asset is their customers. You and me, vs. the money they *could* make *if they only*...

a bird in the hand and all.

I have no doubt that by mainstreaming themselves they will appeal to a broader audience. I have no doubt that sex and pervsions of all sorts will continue to run rampant. In a day and time, however, when one cannot place an international phone call without being monitored, it just seems more and more (and this is the pragmatist and realist in me talking, not the idealist) that there is very little that can be *effectively* done to stem the tide of eroding freedoms. In this sense SL very much mimics rl.

So, the question for me is not do I think LL is wrong. Yes, I do. The question is have they done anything that has made SL entirely untenable to me as a consumer? Apparently not.

I don't think at this point even a mass exodus of an organized caliber would be sufficient to impress upon them the seriousness of paying attention to their current customers. They're convinced they can get more - who don't know and love the old SL that's rapidly fading away - and, truthfully, they can. The more sanitized they become the broader their appeal to the mainstream. The broader their appeal, the more they'll make. From a business sense, as I tried rather unsuccessfully to point out on the 2nd sex blog, what they are doing makes absolute sense. Financially, everything that they are doing makes a lot of sense. Until or unless someone can come up with a way that proves that what they are doing will cost them money long-term, they will do what is most effective at raising revenues now. Because, bottom line, it really is about the shareholders and customers are not shareholders.

Being in business and having a head for business, I'm clear on what they're doing. I'm not so clear on any solutions to improve the customer end of the experience while allowing them to achieve their mainstream goals.

My ex-partner proposed that there should be a separate SL grid for mainstream and alternative lifestyles. So that those who don't want to see it absolutely won't, and those who do can run amok. I still think it's a good idea, but I don't think it's one that will ever happen.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	http://getopenid.com/dandellion 2007-09-20 04:37 am UTC (link)
	I was pissed all these months. I am still wearing that Verify This t-shirt. But, maybe it was a good sex lisat night, maybe it is a good horoscope, maybe I just became lucid for a moment.... But it ain't gonna work. No way. (http://metaverse.acidzen.org/2007/why-identity-verification-is-not-going-to-work) (Reply to this)

My apologices

londonspengler
2007-09-20 11:07 am UTC (link)

Sigh. I know I always say I am short of time, but it is true. Short enough to centering in my own problems and missing most of the wonderfull comments at this thead (yes, being pissed off helped too). Now it is too late to participate, only my last (and probably hyperbolic :-p) comment.

I've seen the changes at SL in the last two years, and didn't like a lot of them.

I've seen the death of many online games and communities.

But this time is different; this time is life. We say SL is about people, and we are wrong there... for me it is about some people; my kind of people. I don't know if London will be here next year, but I know she will be alive somewhere (well, at least if her RL counterpart does, of course :-p), still loving her friends and probably with them.

Meanwhile I'll endure what SL brings, as I've done the last years; with open eyes and a happy heart.

(Reply to this)

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