Justice for all in Second Life?

Some disturbing revelations have surfaced recently regarding a "citizen watch group" in Second Life called Justice League Unlimited, which allegedly has been collecting the personal, real life information of SL residents they view as "griefers."

You may have seen them before patrolling the grid -- specifically, public sandboxes -- wearing superhero costumes. If you'd like to read more about their alleged activities, a summary thread is available at SL Universe, as is the massive 300+ page originating thread. Additional coverage can be found at the Alphaville Herald and Search Engine Watch.

Among the allegations leveled is that the JLU has a private wiki which contains intelligence on residents -- from both their "First Life" as well as their Second Life -- who may or may not be members of griefer groups. The "private," "secure" wiki has been compromised at least twice, mostly recently last month -- it remains unclear whether the wiki was hacked externally, or if there was a mole within the group itself that leaked the information.

I am writing about this issue now because as an SL resident of three and a half years, I'd never really heard of this group until recently. And I am concerned about the consequences of the JLU's actions.

Now I have fortunately only been the target of griefing, or the witness to griefing, a few times during my Second Life experience.

In each instance, I used the tools which Linden Lab provides residents to report abusive behavior of other residents -- whether that be the official LL Abuse Report system, requesting the assistance of Estate Managers on private sims, banning people from my parcels, or simply muting them.

And each time I have had no further problems with the resident or any objects created by that resident.

But apparently this is not a typical resident experience -- at least according to anti-griefing groups like the JLU. No, according to them, as SL residents we are all in serious danger of being stalked and harassed by nefarious griefer groups who reside in Second Life solely to make us all miserable.

Let me back up for a moment and be clear: I don't condone the serial harassment and stalking of SL residents, including "outing" the alts of SL residents, creating alts to further harass specific residents and circumventing account bans, or breaching SL resident privacy by publicly connecting their real life identity to their SL identity -- which, BTW, are all against SL Terms of Service. (More on that later).

But "griefing," as subjectively defined by the JLU, is a pretty broad spectrum of objectionable behaviors -- even something as simple as disagreeing with them (which for U.S. citizens, is a First Amendment right) -- in fact, by my writing this, I'm very likely now listed in their logs as a griefer, if you can believe that.

My definition of griefing is obviously far removed from the JLUs: When residents are purposely disrupting the livelihood of SL merchants and land owners, that's griefing -- oh, except most people call that copybotting, not griefing, which is a far greater disruption to the grid than self-replicating penises.

Before all this information became public, I probably would have welcomed a group that was devoting time reporting copybotting to merchants and to Linden Lab.

So why doesn't the JLU monitor alleged instances of copybotting? That would be a far greater service to the SL community. That absence of concern would seem to speak to the collective mindset of the group's membership... their "policing" methods are more closely aligned with those of totalitarian regimes than it is a selfless effort at true community service.

Obviously residents desire and deserve security on the grid. But it is simply not the job of any "citizen watch group" to be policing the grid. That should be LL's job.

While there is disagreement as to whether LL may or may not be providing adequate tools or support for some residents to protect themselves from abuse, that isn't tacit permission for any resident, or resident group, to be monitoring and reporting the activities of other residents.

There is also disagreement, however, as to whether Linden Lab is aware of -- or condones -- the activities of the JLU, and others. There is no longer an LL staffed Governance group, and this group's leadership claims they have several individual Lindens who are sympathetic to their cause. But I highly doubt the Lab would approve of a private resident group collecting the real life medical information of its residents. Or would they?

Obviously residents desire and deserve security on the grid. But for LL to potentially give what essentially amounts to a vigilante group free reign to enforce LL's Terms of Service is just wrongheaded. And dangerous -- considering they are using the exact same TOS violating tactics as the people they allege to be "protecting" us from. Tactics which are the very legal definition of cyberstalking.

I am glad to see that "stakeholders" -- merchants and landowners -- are slowly beginning to speak out about this. The more major landowners and merchants who stand up and publicly voice their concerns  -- the people who pay the electricity bills on LL's Battery Street building in downtown San Francisco -- the better chance the Lab will sit up and listen.

It would also put to rest the (erroneous) claim that anyone disagreeing with the JLU's mission must be a griefer, or a griefer sympathizer. That couldn't be further from the truth.

Whether you or a merchant or land owner or just an "average resident," I urge you to express your feelings to Linden Lab CEO Rodvik Linden about this situation.

Getting back in the groove

March 2011 marks a year since I was diagnosed with breast cancer in RL. It's been a long haul, but my prognosis is excellent.

As you can see from the date of my last post on this blog, I had to stop posting last summer when I started chemotherapy. Treatment was a real struggle; I ended up going into the hospital twice, and eventually we decided to stop chemo treatment early, because it was making me so ill.

After some recuperation, I jumped head first into radiation treatment and that took a lot out of me too.

Throughout the last few months I've kept a low profile on SL, mostly focusing on maintaining the creative and business side of Montagne Noire. When I've felt well enough to sit in the computer chair for long periods of time, I've released some new outfits; when sitting was too tiring, I had to limit myself to addressing customer service issues.

So one of the things that fell by the wayside during the last few months was this blog. I simply couldn't justify the effort and time for it... but now I'm intending to make a re-commitment to it. While this blog has but a small following, I think it's an important exercise for me as a RL writer.

One of the lingering effects of treatment has been trouble with words... Word Amnesia would be a good term for it. There's a neurological condition the oncologists call "chemo brain" which affects different patients in different ways; it just so happens that it's affecting my ability to spell correctly and conjure the correct words for people, places and objects. What it hasn't affected fortunately is my ability to create clothing. That must go on in a different part of my brain.

My posts will likely be brief in nature, mostly announcing new releases, sales etc., as I did before. So please stay tuned!

"It's just life..."

Yesterday my friend and fellow blogger Diogenes Kuhr got something off her chest about the perception that Second Life residents have no "First Life." You can read it in its entirety here.

But since Blogger seems to have something against letting Mac users comment on other people's blogs, I'm posting my comments in my own blog. Which is probably for the best, because usually my responses end up meandering off course.

Dio's post got me thinking when she said that this time of year can be tough for SLers who visit family and try to explain this "other life" to them. "...and they kind of smile, while their eyes regard you with this mixture of pity, contempt and confusion. And maybe even fear." I had to laugh, because since I have a smallish family and live close to most of my relatives, I get that a lot myself all year round.

What it really got me contemplating, though, was the notion that this time of year actually proves what a wonderful platform SL is and its potentials.

For many people who don't have families, who don't have close relationships with their families, or can't afford to travel to see their families, this can be a lonely time of year.

Sure, in "real life" you can exchange phone calls, emails and Christmas cards with family and friends, but it's not the same as seeing them. The SL experience, however, gives you the next best thing.

Many folks spent Christmas *in* SL this year, having dinner, opening presents, leaving cookies and milk for Santa. They spent it with friends and family, some from SL and some even from RL. To me, that's the closest thing to "real" that you can get.

SL is also responsible for the happy Christmas an SL acquaintance of mine got this year. After marrying her SL partner in RL, thanks to help from her SL friends, she and her son were able to make the trip overseas to reunite with her husband. They were a day late for Christmas, but the three of them are now finally together as a family. What better gift could that be?

So while we may "live" in a pixelated world, there are flesh and blood people behind every one of those IP addresses that log on. It's really no different than texting or using Twitter or Facebook to communicate.

If anything, SL offers more intimate and meaningful interaction than those communication services, because it not only happens in real time, it also provides a rich visual experience and a deeper context to the communication.

You may not be seeing the "real" physical person via a webcam or photograph, but through an avatar, what you *do* see is even more revealing about a person. The avatar is a virtual manifestation of how we really see ourselves, deep down, and how we would like others to see us.

Yes, there are plenty of ethically challenged and morally bankrupt dickheads in SL, and at times it can be a struggle, without benefit of body language, to accurately interpret whether someone is trying to insult you or is being sarcastic. For the most part, however, Second Life is really just an enhancement of our "First Life." A "Second Home," as it were.

I know I feel the richer for having moved in.