A Coup in Second Life

I've been sickened for weeks thinking about this, watching it -- sickened metaphorically in the virtual world, but physically nauseated as well. It's been awful to watch -- made all the more awful by finding that few are noticing, few are bothering to care; those who do see and do care on their own, or when it is pointed out to them, don't have the time or energy or capacity to do anything.

The irony of course isn't escaping me. For years on these online worlds, there'd always be talk about the hateful resident government. Nobody could ever take over! Well, of course, you could be clever and run an avatar named Nobody who was ostensibly anti-resident-government, anti-"having people take over" and then get himself elected on that platform and...take over -- in the most thorough way, winning trust, literally rebuilding everybody's house (as happened in the The Sims Online in Test City when Guard of Traxx pulled this stunt) -- but not take over much, as the game is pretty much a static walled garden inside a magic circle made by game-gods.

Second Life is bigger and more complex and more serious, of course, so it took a little more doing -- a little more studying, planning and effort -- but not an awful lot.

All those people on the forums aren't doing anything about this now  -- the jackals and jackasses and jack-off artists -- who were screaming hysterically about illegitimate and undesirable resident government when a group of land-owners asked for a meeting with the Lindens in August 2005 in order to...obtain a copy of their ethics guidelines for their own behaviour -- among other issues involving conflict of interest from the "your world/your imagination" gang. The Forums Five-Percent FIC booed and hissed viciously over an interest group -- which is a normal thing in a democratic society -- demanding -- and getting! -- the telehub payback plan over a potential claim of "bait and switch" (one of the biggest victories for civil society in Second Life, though it isn't official entered into the tekkie's history books; you won't find it on the SL History Wiki; and the Lindens themselves, who love to tell war stories about the Prim Tax Revolt as proof of their liberalism, are only embarrassed to remember this chapter.)

Yes, all those forum-watchers, all those nay-sayers and haters who would pound to smithereens anybody who raised up their heads in Land and Economy or Poly Sci to say they had a plan to take over and a great idea for running a society or even just a sim -- they were all completely oblivious to this coup that has taken place.

Here's how it worked -- and bear with me, as I am still studying it.

First, a furry -- hey, what are you against furries or something??? -- came into the world on March 3, 2006. His/her (I'm not sure about the gender or cross-gender status so I'll call him 'he' just for practical purposes) name is Angel Fluffy -- what could be more cuddly??? "I'm a friendly, soft wolf/angel cross who seeks to enjoy, learn, and improve. Respect is mutual :)" he writes -- and what could be sweeter and nicer?

Those attuned to the BDSM set-ups in SL of course will hear a warning bell go off. Here's a guy hung up -- nay, obsessed -- with respect. Respect is something that the BDSM types often wield not only in their own sims and their privacy places but in the public domain -- in a manipulative, duplicitious and indefensible manner.

That is, they invoke respect as a concept that civil and democratic society recognizes as something of a value -- we must respect one another, we must listen to one another, speak respectfully, not angrily, etc. However, in the BDSMer's hands, "respect" begins to acquire an edge, an undertow and a heavy manipulation. Respect me...or ELSE. Respect -- or I will not only claim you've violated my sectarian BDSM code of the private sphere -- I'll claim you're violating your liberal values in the public sphere. This is one of the most common sleight-of-hands that the BDSM cultists use on those who aren't part of their cult, don't wish to be part of their cult, and are made uncomfortable by their cult. In 9 out of 10 tries, they get what they want -- they silence discomfort, quell dissent, and make criticism of something that people are naturally and rightfully critical of seem like "intolerance" or "disrespect". Hey, nice work if you can get it!

Angel Fluffy of course draws heavily on this manipulative trait, and not only demands "respect" but tells you "it's mutual" -- you behave nicely and decently to me, I will to you too -- well, what could be wrong with that? Sounds like the Golden Rule, no? Except...it goes so, so much farther.

For Fluffy has *rules*. Rules that YOU must obey -- whether you are in the BDSM group or on his sim or in his private domain *or not*. It's a good example of how the problematic BDSM ethos bleeds out into the public sphere and begins to take hold, all the while clamouring for respect of privacy, tolerance of lifestyles, concession to the hallowed SL credo of "I can do what the fuck I want on my land and fuck you". Except...now we're in a different place. We're in the world of interactions. It's what Travis Lambert calls "SL Citizen Mode" -- a kind of space and place and mode of being that he tries to carve out as a kind of PG, neutral area where all these lifestyles -- some of them pretty repulsive and pretty raunhy stuff -- have to keep their stuff at bay. Except...Travis is one of those overthrown in the coup...as we shall see.

So...as some people instantly realized, and as others gradually came to see...Fluffy has rules. Rules for this, rules for that, rules for the next things. Rules that you MUST obey -- and, you won't mind because they're eminently sensible, no?

The kinds of rules he establishes are the notorious kinds of rules that secret police organizations the world over are famous for. It works like this. You get a person on the hook -- say, an informer that you need to inform on someone else. They agree to work for you -- perhaps for money, perhaps for ideological zealotry. You start them out on the small stuff, getting them just to do a few things - things that won't trouble their conscience or make them realize they've joined something as nasty as the secret police. So you get them to send you, say, newspaper clippings. What could be wrong with sending newspaper clippings? They're just stories in the public domain. The KGB would have them anyway, geez. So you sent a clipping? That doesn't mean you're an informer.

...Yet. So in that same logic, if you agree to Fluffy's rules, and speak only in the way he tells you on his profile, you'll merely be doing the common courtesy, no? Fluffy tells you not to speak in vague generalities like "tomorrow" or "later today" with so many people on so many time zones! Hey, respect here, people! Instead, use terms like 5 pm SLT! That's the RIGHT thing to do! So...you'll comply on that...and a few other things...and you're in. They've got you. As you'll see.

The Helpful Hal or the Helpful Hannah role in SL is the most insidious, and one I've constantly railed against. It's the most emotional and manipulative card people play in a game notorious for its sheer hardness to learn, it's sheer impossibly steep learning curve. So the experts and helpers and trail blazers and smoothers acquire power -- over the newb, who feels so helpless. That's why you find a lot of people keen to gain reputational enhancement in SL in the newb-help biz. Angel Fluffy is of course no different in this regard and even better, having put together an *incredibly helpful* guide to just about every form of BDSM/Gor/stuff there is in SL -- and then some. The group "Angel Fluffy's Pet Play Guide" is something that gets you savings off products; keeps you in the loop for upgrades, etc. -- and puts you under Fluff's power. That's the idea, for all of this activity -- power. Over you.

But in a world where BDSM is actually a bore, where the clanking of chains and the collaring of men and women in slave markets and the creation of kennels underground where humans are supposed to sit in their animal avatars and feed out of bowls as "pets" are all things that people are actually terribly jaded about and thoroughly inured to now  -- you really would have to come up with some really new franchise idea to make your mark. So what could that possibly be? Ageplay has been done and re-done; there are pets and pony girls and all manner of obscene variations. What's left?

Here, the Fluffy talent for merchandising and franchising of the control role-play reaches new heights. With the Capture Roleplay group, Fluffy accomplished a number of things.

First, he drew into his circle legions of newbies looking to be told what to do. There are no shortage of them in SL. Young people, often staying that they are 19 but often no more than 15 or even less, using their parents' credit cards or cell phones or simply nothing at all (you don't need a CC anymore to get the free accounts) come in and look around for a protector -- SL can be so thuggish and cruel, and you can get ripped off emotionally, if not literally. The roleplay sims with their gorgeous builds, their phalanxes of eager helpers looking for new recruits, their generous dommes willing to incorporate you into Mistress' circle of subs might seem repugnant to adults who feel they are modern liberals and products of the women's rights era.

But to new, uneducated people from the wasteland that is America's suburban tracts and warehouse high schools, to people fascinated with any kind of mass American culture -- they seem like the parents and neighbours and friends they never had. BDSM/Gor/etc in fact fill a gigantic, gaping wound in America and Europe -- the wound left open in society by women achieving equality and going to work yet not achieving enough freedom from male domination to obtain equal help at home from males in household management and child-rearing. BDSM and its roaring popularity and violent virulence spreading in online games is not only about filling the in loco parentis missing in so many homes because the parents are literally not home; it's about providing relief from the stresses and strains of what women's lib has meant for both the women and men who had to adjust way too quickly, and without much help, to the tides of the last century.

Women in Second Life now even *more* aggressively defend their right to "chose submission" and their concept that BDSM is "consensual" than they defended the feminist ideals. And feminists, who don't have a lot of good ideas left these days, are rendered silent and uneasily passive by this ultimate of all "rights to choose" from their own gameplay book of "choice".

Trust me, all of this is really, really not pretty. And will get even more unsightly. And will begin to get lots more scrutiny from the RL media, RL congresses and parliaments and such -- except, with the coup under way, it's going to be an interesting battle.

So the group Angel Fluffy made, "Capture Roleplay," involves having humans hunt down other humans and rape them, or humans hunt down animals and have sex with them, or however you wish to describe it. The builds, rituals, chat, socializing are all elaborate. As Frank Lardner, that odious student of the seamier cults of SL which he likes to style as communities worthy of study by his Law Society of SL (where he is the sole officer), put it, he found intelligent and helpful beings on the sims where the capture roleplay was underway.

Here's what CARP has to say on the group charter -- and note the theme we've already established as the hallmark of the ill-named demonic and iron-fisted Angel Fluffy, the control with rules about what people should do in public spaces.

"Group for CARP, the consensual, BDSM roleplay area based around the theme of predators (dominants) hunting, capturing and using prey (submissives). We are not Gorean, but polite avatars of any race/sex/sexuality/etc are welcome.
IMPORTANT 
1) NON-STAFF TALKING ON THIS CHAN GET EJECTED/BANNED! DON'T TALK HERE!
2) For information about how to get an invite to join this group, or other information about CARP, put "Capture Roleplay" into Search->Places, visit our HQ, and click the sign in our lobby. Enjoy :~"

So don't chat in the group! Go in the other, controlled group called Capture Roleplay Chat for that!

And remember to contact Fluffy *only* in the way he prescribes at his hard-to-spam secret email address; remember your manners listed on the Picks Rules page ("1) When you want to talk, get straight to the point. Instead of saying "can I ask a question", just ask :) )

.... and keep in mind that Fluffy, whoever he/she/they is, is very happy with his RL and doesn't wish to speak to YOU about it!

And in fact, that's just it. Who is Angel Fluffy? It could be one person or 10 (in fact I suspect it's more than one judging from several clues). He could be 21 as he claims, or 51. He could be US or UK or Hong Kong -- and who's to know? It's not our business. Indeed, it is not.

And who could care, if Angel Fluffy gets together a whopping 1,100 people to be in Capture Roleplay? Hey, that's pretty big for a group! that's possibly the largest group in SL. Yes, in less than five months, a furry, without any help even from the existing furry franchises like Lusk, was able to create and sustain a gigantic group of 1,100 people -- just like that. Anyone who has ever tried to get a group going about anything  in SL knows how hard it is to get and keep people involved.

That is, if I were to put all my tenants in one giant group, I'd have more people, or Anshe would have many more people, but I don't do that, to make management easier. Perhaps some other sex group has as many -- but I think it's probably safe to say that Capture Roleplay, if not the biggest (we don't know the sizes of groups in SL) is among the top 5. Power. Clout. Swinging the Lindens. Telling them hey, we're a big constituency, we bring in *subscriptions* so listen to us.

What, are you intolerant or something? You're going to criticize a group of furries...furries chasing each other...furries engaging in consensual acts? What, do you have something WRONG with you? Are you a bigot? A Nazi? You wish to control others? Is that what's this about? But SL is about tolerance!

So they influence the Lindens, get into forums, get into meetings, get their way? Who could care about that? That's life. Democracies mean that big interest groups form, and form as majorities. Minorities, especially in the tekkie wikian wiktatorship view of democracy, where minorities are urged to leave rather than to enjoy protection, don't count with the Lindens. Right now, the Lindens want two things: a) subscriptions b) community leader residents to manage newbies and keep constituencies in the game. So Angel Fluffy and the others like him accomplish this goal handily for the Lindens. They're reliefed. That's why they've even feted the Goreans and BDSM in their latest Second Opinion. If Angel Fluffy didn't exist, the Lindens would have to invent him.

I'd like to think the Lindens themselves aren't practitioners of BDSM but of course, I sincerely doubt it. They're practitioners of so much else! I used to think Will Wright didn't really facilitate the Sim Shadow Government, either...

But...hey. Why should we care? So some furries want to chase each other around  in a maze and then lift up their tails? I mean, honestly, this is a game? And not our business, anyway? Well...but there's a LOT more up, as you'll see.

Study all of Fluff's groups, and you'll see he's strategically joined the mainstream groups to carry out his mission -- groups like Thinkers and Sci-Fi Geeks which are the time-honoured Brahmin groups of Second Life -- as well as some of the very new and popular and fast-growing creator-fascist FIC groups like the bullying Sellers' Guild. He's got all his bases covered with his FIC pipelines, Linden pipelines, furry pipelines, BDSM pipelines, and GLBT pipelines established, flowing...and keeping him mainly visible and in charge in most of the groups --with little dissent (because you're not allowed to chat in these groups unless he says so).

Which brings me to the *real* coup perpetrated by the non-cuddly and not-so-soft Fluffy -- the takeover of the Feature Voting Tool. I've written about this before, and held a meeting or two about it, but it's really quite breath-taking. I don't care about people's lifestyles. It truly isn't our business what they chose to do. Neither Lindens, nor RL governments should become involved. But when these groups with "lifestyle culture" of force and dominance and respect take over democracy itself, and its tools, then I complain loudly.

Within the space of a few weeks, hiding out in "Feature Suggestions," Fluffy was able to systematically catalogue and analyze *every single one* of something like 1,400 voting proposals; present them to the Lindens; get many of one he and they felt extraneous, redundant, not doable, etc. removed, and establish himself as the go-to vote guy.

This remarkable feat was only greeted with shock and awe by those who bothered to notice. Because the FVT is badly broken, silly, and complex. It's filled with junk, hard to use, and yet...and yet...the one window for democracy we formally possess. Surprisingly, people -- people who tend, when left alone, to actually prefer freedom and not chose being dominated by others -- like to express their voice. Lots of people make proposals; even more vote on them. It's the single most impressive community effort in Second Life, dwarfing just about every other resident activity in size, numbers involved, and persistence -- in spite of a badly hobbled tool made by the Lindens, where, as I often point out, you can't even vote "no" on the damn thing.

I've already written at length about the most broken part of this device -- the inability to vote no -- and of course Fluffy pushes proposals to remove that flaw way down on the list as he covers the different features, and he himself very duplicitously says that while he concedes it as an observation, he doesn't advocate "no" himself. Of course...he wouldn't. He doesn't want people EVER to say no to Angel Fluffy! And they won't be able to, under his rule.

By culling, gathering, sorting, analyzing the monstrous mess of the voting page, Fluffy brought relief to busy Lindens feeling guilty about not attending to the voting feature. That is, when we trailblazed this issue through several rounds of interest group lobbying with the Lindens in the summer of 2005, long before Fluffy was born at least in this incarnation (he was likely present in another), we urged them to take the voting tool seriously, respond to it, do more than just give a pony in the Welcome Area, answer that they couldn't do certain ones sooner, etc. They vowed to clean it up -- and did. Then fell behind, not surprisingly.

So...Angel was there to help them. Helpful Hal! Who could complain? What, did YOU work on the voting, Prokofy? So STFU, etc. And...if you have any comments or criticisms, why, you can join the group called SL Voting Awareness, founder/owner Angel Fluffy. It's got Jeska and Jean Linden in it! It's official! of course...Angel is the only officer. And...you're not allowed to chat in the group! You can ONLY chat in the group forums...where Prokofy cannot post, and which the Lindens are going to dump in 90 days, so they say. But...you can complain by email...or IM...just as long as you are RESPECTFUL.

Would you find anything to criticize about this amazing work, however? After all, we can all agree that stupid crap about pandastrong's cock as a voting proposal is rightly removed from the list. people write badly spelled nonsense about getting higher stipends -- no can do. They urge all kinds of stuff that is badly conceived and even more impractical to actually do. Let's say 50-100 out of that morass has any viability -- well, Fluffy is here to guide you to that core.

Of course along the way, he dropped the half dozen proposals urging that "no" be put in (Fluffy doesn't *like* no -- no is gamed, no is a spam, no shouldn't be allowed). And he dropped Prokofy's proposal to name forums abusers. He cleverly concealed this act even by IMing Prokofy helpfully to point out Prokofy's link to his own proposal was now broken (and such links instantly pulling up a proposal aren't even available anymore, oddly enough, although you can put them into the browser manually and still pull it up.)

Angel *might* have taken me on and put my proposal, which is borderline on the not-feature type, and axed it. But...why antagonize the Infamous Antagonist? He just let it go...because it's about the forums, the forums abuses that happened in General...and General is no more. Any more elaborate poroposal about naming names and getting transparency in justice in SL will not be a feature, but a policy. And everyone *knows* we don't have policies in the FEATURE Voting Tool because well, this isn't our world, the Lindens run it and it's their call. After all, they know best.

And they know best when they can have experts -- helpful, positive residents who don't just flap their jaws, but *do the work*. Like Stalin, they take the notes, keep the record, and handle the administrative work! So how can you complain? YOU didn't do that work!

So...that's why Angel, alone among residents, gets a sticky in the forums. An entire sticky unto himself called "Voting Awareness" which, like that destrcutive notecard written by oldbie land-baron-haters about land in SL, is tendentious sometimes in subtle ways under the guise of providing generic information. Who wouldn't be for becoming more aware about voting!

Now...there's lots more work to do -- and I don't have time even to do it all myself. But the thing to watch carefully now is to see what agenda Mr. Fluffy in fact has buried under this mountain of rules and Helpful Hal work. This isn't just public service. You don't get 1,100 in a group, take over a group forums; start or man dozens of groups in SL; write the definitive handbook to all forms of BDSM in SL; and do the work of 10 Lindens and 20 residents culling out the crap from the voting pages with  just the idea of being a cheerful, friendly, soft, fluffy, furry. No. Not on your life.

It's about power, control, sometimes for its own sake, but of course, possibly covering for something more sinister, it's hard to say. So...what are some of Fluffy's actual ideas, when you strip away all the roleplay stuff?

Well, one thing is SECURITY. Fluffy, as we see from his groups, is big on strategic, masterful, management thinking. Big Picture. Concepts. Large groups. So, no accident, comrade, that we find Fluffy front and center in something called "Proactive Security".

My, what a welcome group, with all this griefing we're having in Second Life!

" group for estate owners/managers, owners of popular SL locations, and others with a serious interest in SL security.

We unite to share infomation on how to proactively prevent griefing via the use of shared ban lists like BanLink (http://www.slbanlink.com).
Sharing of ban lists amongst group members is suggested, but not required.

For more information, contact Angel Fluffy."

Travis, of course, went to great lengths to tell us how his BanLink is not a master shit list. He claims that it is opt-in and trust-based and appealable. But now...now...it's in the hands of Angel Fluffy. And we know Angel likes rules. And he doesn't like group discussions. Here, he was forced to give officer status to some of the community leaders of SL -- but they wouldn't have it any other way, no doubt.

Pay attention to what the charter says, however: "like BanLink (http://www.slbanlink.com).
Sharing of ban lists amongst group members is suggested, but not required."

So now, the ironclad rule that Travis claimed for his service is eroded. It's eroded by saying "like" BanLink. And it is eroded by "suggesting, but not requiring" sharing of ban lists...but we all know that will lead to sharing. Of course it must. Because griefing is so rampant in SL.

Getting Michi Lumin and Cindy Claveau and others running venues harassed by griefers gives Fluffy further street cred as a community manager and organizer -- and oh, so helpful! What, you're against banning griefers or something???

So what else is there? A key proposal Fluff has been pushing in his groups is the concept of a secure notecard, like a texture with permissions. Hey, this would be a revolution in SL! As an author, Fluffy says modestly (remember he's the author of the BDSM guide to end all BDSM guides!) that he is concerned about copyright. He'd like to be able to check off "no copy" on his notecards. Of course, there's another reason, and that's to keep people in line, to keep power over them, to make it impossible for people to cut and paste and save chat and move it around. The erosion of the right to distribute information freely will start with ostensibly preserving "author's copyright" and making it optional to check off "no-copy" on something you send to one other person. How much further it will go and how fast is anyone's guess.

Which brings me to my actual confrontations with His Fluffyness in world. I had one confrontation where I challenged him on the voting take-over. That was just plain wrong. Such an effort should have been organized by Lindens and residents together in a more democratic and accessible group, with a *process*. It might have been slower and less efficient -- democracy always is -- but more legitimate. Instead, all that's happened is the tekkie-wiktatorship has once again been strengthened -- why, an expert and someone who bothered and who was obsessed came along and cared. They did the job. Now it's done. Why are you bitching? Join the wiki...join the group where you can't talk...and change things yourself.

At a meeting of Digital Cultures organized by Tom Bukowski, the transcript of which he is not giving permission to publish (he doesnt' have that custom unlike the Thinkers), Angel Fluffy was in fine form. The meeting was about the group tools -- where Angel was quick to promote his concept of having granularity of group chat and mutes to be added to the tool set. That would enable masterful managers such as himself who didn't want backchat to set permissions on other people -- deciding who got to talk and who didn't in each group. Hey, we're very very VERY far from the old Lindenworld hippie days when groups of tekkies all talked at once and any majority of them could overthrow even the group's founders! These are the new flexible group tools, remember?

However, I feel that in matters of national importance in the public interest, the conversations in public spaces at public meetings openly advertised on the events calendar, should be openly quoted and discussed. We certainly can't do that on the forums! They're closed!

So here's the sort of thing cropping up at this meeting, where I was the only one to challenge Angel Fluffy:

"Prokofy Neva: the group tools are typical of things the Lindens make to try to take care of the governance problem and try to mechanize human relations
You: they have illusions this will "scale" and be "efficient"
Angel Fluffy: perhaps in future, there could be a 'democratic' style of group where the owner (renamed to 'president') is elected, or something?"

" LL will have worse and worse knowledge of everthing going on in sl as it grows, and resident self-governance is thus the wave fo the future," says Tom -- and here, he's saying nothing different than what Philip Linden himself says inworld. The world is too big; they can't follow it; they wish to turn it more and more over to residents.

That they haven't created a viable and legitimate process for this is painfully, acutely obvious. But...they have helpers...helpers like Angel Fluffy. Contemplating the notion of how presidents could possibly legitimately come and be elected out of large groups, says Fluffy, "I don't know, ask the Lindens? I suspect they're too busy to do it soon, but it might be possible in future."

Busy, busy Lindens! Fighting off crashes, glitches, bugs, and this big hack, and much much more. And their VC money will start to run out soon...they will be heavily stressed...and more and more, they will just want *somebody to do it*. Somebody to take care of the world they wish to turn their backs on. Take care of newbies, and management, and groups and finding something for people to do so they stay on line, buy Lindens, are happy and add more subscriptions. Angel Fluffy is here to help!

So there's more:

"Angel Fluffy: this is true. I do suspect that the Lindens realise they can no longer control or even know all of SL, so they're delegating a lot of the mangement to residents."

Oh, they are? And how does that happen? By just...doing it? But...how? Just putting up a sticky when someone is helpful. Joining their group when they've done a lot of impressive work. Giving them the nod to speak...to chair meetings...to take charge.

I know I didn't ask to have a BDSM furry pet owning capturing roleplay obsessive take over my world. Not on your life. Nor did I agree to have just one resident, self-appointed take over content and remove it (proposals he felt were extraneous) -- a new and highly troublesome chapter for Second Life, where the Lindens have always been scrupulous about leaving people's content alone and acknowledging their IP. It's been made palatable by being related to the morass of the voting list with the junk on it from jackasses like Siggy. That shouldn't obscure the principle at stake: one resident has removed content by other residents with barely any Linden supervision.

Jeska -- Jeska who does everything! -- got to pass on it...and Jeska's a member of the Voting Awareness  Group! Where you can't talk. So...talk to the busy Jeska if you feel anything you put in was unfairly removed. You'll not likely come up with much, however, and if proposals for "no" or Prok's own proposals are what's moved or missing, well, that's just sour grapes, it's a partisan issue, nothing generic about *that*!

And here's more, from the same session -- me raising the larger matters of principle, like the importance of not conceding too much power in governance to groups and individuals, but agreeing ahead of time on a rule of law, a framework under which the process can take place -- and Helpful Hal talking about very specific ideas for adding more control, control, control over other human beings, and Tom bobbing his head enthusiastically:

Prokofy Neva: Law should be above the tools and the humans implementing it -- if you don't have a sense of higher law, you get tyranny by those who are the programmers of the tools.
Angel Fluffy: here's a question. What are the most urgently needed additions to the group tools? Personally I would suggest a way to limit who can send/recieve/replyto group IMs (to limit spam on popular groups), better muting options... group financial options too.
Tom Bukowski: those are all great ideas Angel
Angel Fluffy: thank you Tom :)

Angel Fluffy: Tom: one of my current projects is finding ways to use the new group tools for anti-griefer security. So far I've come up with a few, though one major one was removed from the group tools ("bypass no scripts"), others ("bypass no rez", etc) still exist :

"Angel Fluffy: anyone have interesting ideas about how to use the group tools for security? I'm writing howtos on it atm for SL residents, so if you have suggestions, please offer them and I may use them in the articles :)

You: The single greatest thing the Lindens could do to curb griefing is not have more scripts and orbs and mechanisms but have their police blotter longer, fuller, and with all names named of abuse reporters and perpetrators and Lindens
You: I wonder really who you all think you will get to live in this mechanized world that only you control?
Angel Fluffy: I'm not sure where I will post them. I'm talking with the Lindens about various methods of adding my writings to the SL docs, either in the official guide, via forum stickies, notecards added to the 'Library' or other means.
Angel Fluffy: If you're interested in them, IM me in a week or two and I will let you know :)

(Note all the smug little smilies -- smilies deployed aggressively like that are always a sign of absolute arrogant smugness, I find -- and the absolute arrogant and unshaking confidence that Lindens will put Angel in the library..)

Now, here is where Tom's meeting ends, and my own debate with Angel begins, and I really bear down on him for his arrogant notion that HE alone should get to write manuals on voting and group tools and have them just put in the library, just like that!!!!:

Angel Fluffy: Prok: they're not just blindly adding my ideas - they are reviewing them first :) I make mistakes in places, I have had to correct flaws in my work on many occasions before the Lindens would accept it should be distributed to residents.
You: Angel, I didn't elect you.
You: I didn't acclaim you.
You: I didn't nominate you to fix up the voting tools by "just cleaning them up"
You: so your notion that you just "just get to do it" is illegitimate
You: ugh
You: you get to just work up stuff and have the Lindens distribute it?
You: and we don't get to discuss the *powerful influence* you will have by just taking on "a chore" like the voting tools? hello???
You: hell no
Angel Fluffy: no :) They read it and check it first, often requiring me to make changes to my work on points of factual accuracy. :)
You: Since when does one resident just get to "add their ideas" into the client???
You: Yes, and with such modesty too I see : )
Shutter Renneville: easy
You: And, so qualified!
You: easy nothing Shutter
You: This is an outrage
You: this is what the hell is wrong with this world
You: a few pets of the Lindens come in and take this or that feature over of what is supposed to be *our world*
You: *ours*
You: that means more than just you and your Linden pals
You: ?
You: how does that work?
You: I make suggestions in the forums in open with a group discussing it about changing the group tools
You: it was debated for months and months
You: I didn't just sidle up to the Lindens and say "add my writings to your wiki, would you?'
You: ?
You: I mean this is about *process*
You: The voting tools have much that is wrong with them.
You: Starting with the failure to ensure a "no" vote.
You: You completely sidestepped that and completely shoved down to the bottom all the proposals to put in "no"
You: simply because you don't like that idea
You: well, why? who are you?
You: Honestly, this isn't a process, it's tyranny, it's wrong.
You: I've never seen it so aggressively defended with fake smilies, either!
Angel Fluffy: I'm just a normal resident who has stepped up to the plate to try to help. I don't really have any control of what work of mine is passed - the Lindens check it and reject parts of it.
You: At least most people who get the Lindens to throw this platform their way do it in secret or on the IRC channel.
You: Well I'm a normal resident TOO
You: and I make suggestions too
You: but they are put in a process called "the forums"
You: which are no more
You: or in "the covenants groups" -- which ceased to work
Angel Fluffy: Y'know, you can email Lindens too.
You: I was in a black box all through the previous
jYou: I kept raising things and bug reporting them and only getting funneled answers.
Tluffy: Take care jesz :)
You: There are a number of us who have howled about the voting tools and suggested some key reforms
You: why should just one person be fixing them? hello?
You: with no accountability
Shutter Renneville: maybe her Ideas are solid?
Shutter Renneville: well written?
Shutter Renneville: nicely offered?
Shutter Renneville: she said they were reviewed
Angel Fluffy: Prok, I just try to be helpful. I do read around, I do try to do what is right... I do try to consider all points of view. I fail sometimes, but I try, and I make sure to never make it personal - we're all trying to improve SL, why not co-operate?
Scope Cleaver: Take care every one, thanks Tom. :)
Angel Fluffy: be well Scope :)
Tom Bukowski: cu soon Scope - thanks for coming!
Shutter Renneville: bye :)
You: No, they are not solid shutter
You: they were not reviewed with us
You: nothing about us/without us
You: there is no "no"
You: there cannot be a voting system with no "no"
You: that's just morally and legally wrong in every way
You: Angel, this is all fluff, what you say.
Angel Fluffy: Shutter: thank you for your suggestions. I try to make my work as good as possible. I try. If you have any suggestions to improve em, please let me know, I'm always open to new ideas :)
Tom Bukowski: when you vote for mayor or city council or whaterver, there's no "no"
You: You never consulted; you railroaded this through
Tom Bukowski: I guess you can leave the ballot blank
You: I'm challenging it fundamentally at the root in the most profound way I can.
You: Tom, that's ridiculous
You: ther'es more than one candidate for mayor!
You: and if the city has a proposition
You: like "should we balance the budget?"
You: there is YES or NO
You: that's the equivalent
Angel Fluffy: Prok, with regards to the 'no "no"' objection... actually, I have supported the ability of residents to object to proposals for a long time, I just think that objections are better served by giving reasons and arguments, either instead of or in addition
You: I'd love to see you try to live in Real Life with no "no"
Angel Fluffy: to a 'no' vote. Debate, after all, is the most constructive way to move ideas forward most of the time.
You: no you don't supoprt it and don't talk tripe that way
You: then turn around and disprove it in the next sentence
You: that's really disingenuous and I call you on it
You: it's a very important feature of a democratic society
You: not to be socially engineered and pushed and pulled into only producing "positive proposals"
You: but to be able to vote "no"
Angel Fluffy: Please Prok, I am not referring to anything you say as 'tripe', or labelling you as 'disingenuous'. I realise you may not like me, but please be civil to me when talking with me. [Note disingenuous, over-polite, controlling invocation of 'rules'--PN]
You: that forces these game gods to pause from a moment from their creation of a this dystopia
You: to see what are they doing that isn't right?
Angel Fluffy: I don't ask you to agree, all I ask is that you're polite in discussing it :)
You: there is no other way for feedback, you cannot require everyone to fight the other competing proposals
You: only the Gorean master with 800 subs to push around can then flashmob the machine
You: other people with reasoned and democratic debate put up 87 votes and don't count
You: no is the only way to correct that skewed situation
Angel Fluffy: so, you're saying that more democracy is the best way to combat 'mob rule'?
You: Angel, you are using an extremely disingenous method of rhetorical debate and need to be called on it.
You: You say you support these proposals.
You: But you do not!
You: so at least be honest about that
You: you turn around and then trash them in the next sentence
You: where is the support?
Angel Fluffy: erm... what makes you say that?
You: you deliberately down-played them in your presentation
You: read what you wrote Angel
You: it's a fake technique, I'm sorry, I'm calling you on it
You: read what you wrote
You: "Prok, with regards to the 'no "no"' objection... actually, I have supported the ability of residents to object to proposals for a long time,"
You: that's what you wrote
You: to give yourself all the rhetorical value of *appearing* to support it
You: but then here's what you said *next*
Angel Fluffy: to be fair Prok, there were *so* many ideas I had to deal with - I tried to cut down the list to a few of the most important ones. I understand you are mad that your pet proposals were not in my list, but please don't take it personally.

You: "I just think that objections are better served by giving reasons and arguments, either instead of or in addition"
You: so you completely trash it under the guise of sounding "woeful and reasoning" -- it's fake.
You: and yes, the answer to mob rule is MORE democracy not less
You: No, Angel
You: it's disingenous to claim that my principled objection to your high-handed hijacking of the voter feature
You: is about my pet proposals
You: they mean nothing really
You: the no "no" has OTHER people making them besides me
Angel Fluffy: Prok, I do not pretend to know what you are thinking, or to know what you really believe. Please extend me the same courtesy by not acting like you have a detailed knowledge of what I think.
You: it's definitely not about that but the principle of the thing -- that no one resident should be allowed to hijack something like the sole democratic machine in this dystopican mechanistic world.
You: It's wrong.
You: Wrong, wrong,l wrong.
Shutter Renneville: O Kaaaay...see you mr livid and everyone else :)
You: It's so of a piece -- taking away the forums, allowing someone to just "fix up" and "shape" the voter
You: it's really awful.
Tom Bukowski: See you soon Shutter!
Tom Bukowski: Thanks for coming
You: Well that's how you lose your freedoms.
You: That's how it happens.
You: You roll over and take the removal of the forums lying down.
You: And this is what you get now -- closing off the voting feature to one person who will "mechanize it better"
Tom Bukowski: I've gotta go eat irl, so I'm gonna log out myself, but feel free to hang here as long as you wish!
Shutter Renneville: thanks c ya
You: Of course the Lidnens *love* this.
Tom Bukowski: thanks again everyone for coming
Tom Bukowski: cu soon!
You: I will fight you hammer and tongue Angel.
You: You cannot just hijack something like this, it's wrong.
You: With all your sectarian beliefs, too.
You: You are doing it in stealth;
You: most people don't even realize the consequences.
You: I do.
You: I see it.
You: And I will go on publicizing it.
You: And challenging it.
You: And I'll be calling you on these fake rhetorical devices you use, too.
You: "I just think that objections are better served by giving reasons and arguments, either instead of or in addition"
You: THAT is what you said, don't pretend otherwise.
Angel Fluffy: What makes you think that I am taking the removal of the forums lying down? Also, the Lindens review my ideas selectively... they make the choices, not me. Finally... fighting with me is pointless, you'd be better off with me as an ally.
You: "better served"
You: No, I don't wish to have as an ally someone who thinks they can just go and hijack something.
You: No thank you.
You: Not at all.
You: I don't WISH to be your sub or be co-opted by you.
You: I don't wish to have your *lifestyle choices* bleed into the body politic.
You: and I will resist that sort of method of doing things
You: that only "masters" get to run things
You: hell no
You: and that's *exactly* what is up, and you know it
You: we see it
Angel Fluffy: ... you have a vivid imagination Prok :)
FireTyger Stonecutter: ...Don't run...
FireTyger Stonecutter: ...we are your friends...
You: No, I have clear insights : )
Ludo Merit: Oh, let him run. That might shut him up.
Angel Fluffy: Prok: if I am so different to you that you are opposed to my whole lifestyle, then maybe, just maybe you don't understand my lifestyle?
You: Oh bullshit
You: That's the argumentation you sorts always use
You: everyone is always in the wrong
You: they never "understand it"
You: they must be "initiated into its mysteries"
You: they aren't educated
You: they are always to be kept off balance
You: this is the argumentation always used by cults
You: no one can understand them -- ever
You: unless they "believe"
You: well, I don't believe, it's not a basis for civilization
You: I reject it.
You: : )
You: So no, I won't be "educating" myself and "studying up" and "understanding"

You: you can study up on my belief systems then and be in the wrong about my cult if you like LOL. Angel Fluffy: You can understand lifestyles without believing they are right for you, that is fine. But please do not assume that other lifestyles would try to get you into them unless you wanted to be there.
You: yes cults are are all over SL
You: it's a ripe matrix for them
You: they flourish
You: Oh? then why do they go after our voting tools?
You: hmmm?
Angel Fluffy: so, you're saying there are all these cults out there trying to take over SL and bend the world to their own agendas?
You: why are they in the public domain?
You: with these beliefs?
You: Of course there are.
You: All over, and you 're in them yourself LOL.
You: I don't have to buy your belief systems and I don't.
You: I think you'll find that these Lindens you now feel you have eating out of your hand
You: will bite back hard
You: all you who suck up to them find that out
Angel Fluffy: the Lindens are *not* eating out of my hand at all.
You: ROFL
You: You just told us how they reviewed your work and how you just add your writings -- after review of course!
You: lol
You: what the hell system is that?
You: that's a new one
You: "if you have an ideology to add to the client, why, just do it!"
Angel Fluffy: I have no problem with Prok :)
You: no thanks
You: I'l be exposing this crap wherever I see it
You: the voting tools need to be reformed
You: but not by one tekkie grabbing them and hijacking them
You: pretending to "help out" and then subtly grabbing at them
bump: R2 BOMB
bump: R2 BOMB
bump: R2 BOMB
bump: R2 BOMB
bump: R2 BOMB
bump: R2 BOMB
bump: R2 BOMB
You: jok bye

[END]

It ends in someone bombing me out of the sim. Whatever.

So...stay tuned. Watch for more stickies, groups, essays, hey, even notecards in your *library* for God's sake, from Angel Fluffy.

I've already begun a number of efforts to counteract the Fluffization of Second Life. I don't have any illusions they'll be successful. Why? Because the Lindens just want someone to do the dirty work of managing a lot of unruly kids, and it takes a rule-y kid to do that -- so they don't care how unpretty it is.

What it prefigures for our Metaversal civilization is highly troubling, however.

I wish I could have said this better, shorter, more effectively. But it's a complicated and long story with many parts, and most people haven't noticed most of them.

In later years after dictatorships get started, people sometimes ask -- but you were near that dictator...but you were in a beer hall with him...but you were at a party meeting...why didn't you shoot him...why didn't you strangle him with your bare hands right then, and there?

In a virtual world, you can't strangle an avatar --even shooting him only teleports him home. And you wouldn't want to advocate such violence anyway, in the polite and thoughtful discourse at something so elegantly called "Digital Cultures".

Comments

[Troy McLuhan]

This Angel Fluffy character reminds me of Grigori Rasputin, who would brag about his influence over the Tsar and Tsaritsa (and who was also known for his dissolute *lifestyle*).

[Yumi Murakami]

I've seen Capture Roleplay (I remember wanting to make a giant pac-man avatar and run around that maze shouting "wakka wakka wakka")

Why the huge group membership? I think the main reason is because the scripted objects they use for "playing" check the groups of the people involved. I know that if you fly into their area without the Capture Roleplay group selected you get an advert notecard, and I suspect other features there don't work unless you're in the group either. So of course it has a huge membership because it's enforced. Imagine if each of the BDSM collar makers made a collar which only worked if you were in "their" group, they'd have far more than 1000 members ;)

As for the rest of the issue I think it's just the same thing I've railed against before - that innovation, the pushing of limits is a great thing for SL but the Lindens need to make it clear what limits are allowed to be pushed. Most people, like you, assume that if the Lindens take charge of something then that is equivalent to them making a statement that it's something the Lindens ought to do and for someone else to do it in their place would be going against a decision the Lindens have made and thus immoral and antisocial. When it then turns out they didn't mean it that way, it seems perfectly reasonable that people should protest that they didn't make it clear, when they have effectively been penalised for trying to be good citizens.

It's the same as the issue with mutant prims, or even with skins (I'm prepared to bet that when the first skin came out, there was someone who protested that they could have done that long ago, but because the texture box on the Appearance dialog actually says "Tattoo" they assumed this was a statement from the Lindens that this feature should only be used for making literally tattoos)

However, flashmobbing the voting tool has always been an issue. I think pretty much everyone knew that the only way to get a feature vote noticed was to create forum drama about something, and then at its height link the busiest drama thread to a vote. How often is the existance of the feature voting tool announced in world? Once in a blue moon on the MOTD? Just see what happens if the Lindens modified things so that every time you got an error message ("eg, pieces too far apart"), they added a button saying "click here to vote for this error to be removed" and see how popular it becomes then. :)

[Prokofy Neva]

>Most people, like you, assume that if the Lindens take charge of something then that is equivalent to them making a statement that it's something the Lindens ought to do and for someone else to do it in their place would be going against a decision the Lindens have made and thus immoral and antisocial.

This is a very, very important point you've made Yumi. Say it often! I think you're right, "most people" think this. But I'm not most people. I never, ever think this and never thought this -- ever.

Most people think that if the Lindens put Aimee Weber or Marcos Fonzarelli on their front page and throughout their website, that they are the best, merited to be in that place, and that the Lindens have the right to do this because it's their game; ultimately I was permabanned for this from the forums - a sacrifice few would make.

I didn't think that -- just because it's their company, they get to unfairly pick and chose and play favourites with their customers, pitting them against each other. I protested. I didn't think that a game where I pay, too, should have a set-up like that. It wasn't and isn't fair. So I protest and protest again, even though it's viewed as anti-social; it's viewed as even 'wrong' because the notion is that the Lindens should do stuff and the Lindens should run everything.

I didn't think that when I proposed to a group of disgruntled land barons that instead of fuming or planning revolts, like making our own currency when GOM was GOM'd and then they put in the telehubs to devalue our land, I suggested me make a petition, assemble to articulate our grievances, meet with these Lindens, just as you would real-life government officials. Play along with their fantasy, and call their bluff on it.

For doing this, I put up with all kinds of vile grief from the forums and still get slammed over doing the most normal and natural thing you can do in society; form an interest group, work your interest.

They want to play federal government? Fine, we'll play interest group and lobby them!

I love this gag a couple guys have running (or maybe they're half serious), "Vote for Me as Linden". I think that's a hoot. The idea that we could elevate *from our own number* a Linden and *ourselves decide* who got to level up to Linden is grand! I'm all for that! I don't know if those two characters are Linden material, but I applaud them for trying. It would be great if in fact the general public *could* nominate Lindens who might actually be better at the job of liaison as a result - not sure about that.

So, no, I don't automatically cede entire areas of civic production to Lindens -- and just because they joined a resident voting group and blessed only one resident, I don't have to accept it. I don't. I make other groups. I protest. I do my thing. In fact, I hope alternative BDSM groups alarmed at the overweening power of Master Fluffy get started -- there'd be hope for pluralism as a result.

In fact, I really think we need another round of querying to the Lindens as to why on earth they've been joining so many resident groups lately -- it's rEALLY unseemly. I don't think groups like Gay 4 Philip should have so many Lindens in them, especially when half the members in it are W-HAT griefers.

Your other concept is also intriguing -- the old "product circle democracy" trick. Of course you are likely right, that in order to get the maze or products or whatever to work, you have to be in the group. So perhaps there are 1,100 people who felt like trying this game, then never took off the group. In fact, I was surprised to see when I called a meeting about the problem of this hijacking of the vote tools, a couple of people who were unhappy about the voting tools in general AND this group came to the meeting.

I think it's hugely unscrupulous to proclaim democratic legitimacy or social legitimacy from forcing people into a group because they need to, in order to buy something or come on your land.

If I did that with my rental groups, it would be wrong and customers would rightly leave. Those people merely wish to rent a house or shop or land. The vast majority of them never heard of me, nor wish to hear of me. Some percentage might have read my blog; they likely disagree with it or simply don't care. They come to SL to do their thing, business or pleasure, they don't enfranchise themselves to me merely by clicking on a rental box.

That's one of the major beefs I had with Anshe Chung in August 2005. I felt that by rapidly making resident groups out of tenants and essentially bussing them to the polls to vote for their landlord, that it was reminiscent of the communist system of bussing factory workers utterly dependent on the Party and the State for their wages to the polls, where they had to pick from just one choice often on the ballot. That's wrong.

In my view, people in Ravenglass or people who bought my tier calculator or whatever don't represent any kind of interest group even; they likely have many views. Their interest in placing prims on rental land or counting prims doesn't really constitute anything of note. Of course, Snowcrash and Mr. Lee's Hong Kong don't think that way; they believe in franchulates very much tied to commerce and commerce leaders.

Arguably, Anshe could say that Dreamland represents a more holistic experience. She calls the people "citizens". They have more they're getting from her in terms of an interactive website; town hall meetings; a newspaper; low-cost prefabs; groups to chat in, etc. I only provide some of that; it's the sort of thing that requires staff and money.

But...I'm troubled at the idea that you can make a factory town and then call all the people in it your loyal subjects.

A number of people have tried flashmobbing the voting tool. Gorean Magnum Serpentine successfully flashmobbed it for p2p, and that enabled the Lindens to say, see, people want this!

Another vote organized I believe by Lewis Nerd with already more than 700 votes calling on the Lindens not to shut down the forums is ignored; they said they'd respond to anything with 500 votes -- they aren't. They'll likely say "can't do -- policy, not feature".

It's natural that the geeky clunky voting feature with it's inability to say "no," and it's inability to easily aggregate similar proposals through some kind of mechanism to merge votes through offers to other people, as in a parliamentary bloc, is very inadequate -- and hence only worked by tekkies like Fluffy.

It would be great if a group got to work doing what really needs to be done there -- picking out a sensible platform of a civil society feature set that got rid of push automatically defaulted; that banned the security orbs; that published names of offenders, abuse-reporters, and Linden prosecutors just like real life; that did a lot of other things that need doing in SL.

Once Lasivian Leandros tried to grab the tekkie vote in this fashion. He made a group with a name like Rock the Vote and got all the most odious IRC channelers from Maxx Monde on down into it. They were going to pick a set of items and flash mob them. They may have done that, not sure. The group seemed to dissolve, possibly because even Lasivian's fellow geeks found him to be an insufferable ass.

It would be great if people could form more voting groups. I remember once when I began to ambitiously hold voting discussion groups. Of course, Lasivian came and griefed them, resentful that somebody else was doing this topic he wished to run.

I offered free or reduced rental space to anyone with a voting proposition. There were few takers because most people don't bother to make proposals; when they do, they don't bother to advertise them or work them. Only a few geeks of the kind that used to be in student government bother to put it in their siggy, etc.

Civil society won't be able to get started and galvanize itself fast enough to take over this flawed mechanism and force reform on it before the Lindens socially-engineer it successfully to maintain power over the residents.

They're likely cooking up a policy-voting feature that will also be heavily rigged, without any "no" vote (even more horrible for policies than it's horrible for features) and taken over by Helpful Hal geek types like Fluffy.

It's always the case that evil gets organized better and faster than good, but that's ok, because it doesn't triumph for ever. I think people should be galvanized into protest more at the prospect of not only the Lindens turning over governance to residents like this without due process, but turning it over to *these* residents who are unelected and unacclaimed.

When it then turns out they didn't mean it that way, it seems perfectly reasonable that people should protest that they didn't make it clear, when they have effectively been penalised for trying to be good citizens.

[Mysterious Rationality]

The tekkie wiki is responsible for the Fluffy takeover. It is clearly the case that Fluffy's use of tolerance to induce innocent people into capture roleplay is a sign of tekkie wiki morality at work.

I do not mean that the tekkie wiki morality itself includes capture roleplay as a morally acceptable idea, but the toleration of such is supported by the tekkie wiki nonetheless, as we lack the ability to say "no".

To have a civil society, we need to explain to the FIC and the tekkie wiki that their behavior is not acceptable, and that we do not stand for such morality being enforced at the cost of general contentedness in the world of second life, mine in particular.

I do not believe they will be convinced by argumentation however, however lucid. We need something more: a democracy, something the tekkie wiki and their bourgois supporters in the FIC have always resisted as something unnecessary and unwise.

Their strategy is to make our thinking appear ridiculous, ignoring the clarity of our argumentation entirely. With Plato I say that this is a dangerous illusion.

The forums, that place of sometimes heated but also insightful debate, were a thorn in the eyes for the tekkie wiki, as it made it clear that a large majority supports the democratization of Second Life and the removal of the cliques that permeate the society's control structures presently.

Moreover, it is clear that the FIC is also supportive of a non-civil society where such evil practices by Fluffy are condoned. Fluffy in effect rules my experience in Second Life, even though I never met him and possibly never will.

I do not have, and do not wish to acquire, enough skills at the technology underlying Second Life, to galvanize support for democratization in Second Life myself, even though of course I have enough intelligence to learn it if I wished to do so.

I have better things to do. My primary concern is convincing a critical amount of people that change is needed, if Second Life is not to become a mass of individuals doing the things they desire doing, instead of a civil society which is more in line with true democracy.

Power, like the tekkie wiki/linden labs/FIC conglomerate has, is a dangerous thing to have. If you have strings to pull the chances are the people on the other end of the strings will start pulling back. This is exactly what is needed, but we need to pull in one direction in concert, to avoid the pulling apart of Second Life entirely.

We, trying to do the right thing, are penalized right now. Good might still win in the end -- I have not yet given up entirely, but a long dark night is ahead of us first. The tekkie wiki, brainwashed by Snowcrash and countercultural values infected by left wing thought, will not be capable of avoiding it.

Metaversal civilization is in its infancy. It should not be modeled after the "civilization" of the internet, which has been corrupted by tekkie interests so much it is hard to find an original voice. We have the chance to build something new, but not while we are being pulled by the strings of Linden Labs, lacking democracy or at most having a rigged setup supporting the vested interests.

Leaving people to do their own thing may sound appealing to the bourgois mindset of the tekkie wiki, but their minds are so crowded full of thoughts of technology and geekiness they are not capable of true clarity, and thus they are not capable of admitting the evil happening under their eyes.

Truly nefarious people like Angel Fluffy make use of this. I cannot stand for his attempted domination of what I do in Second Life, and have to stand in the way, right there, at the birth of metaversal civilization.

Prokofy Neva is a voice of clarity and has been able to succinctly express what my feelings were all along. A rationality that is not caught by artifical brevity is visible in his words. I recommend all to read his words carefully, and not give in to the forces that be that want us to ignore him.

Succinctness and brevity are present in the expression of Prokofy, like they are in mine. Meaning is not expressible in a single sentence, as it will get lost and minds are not truly affected by the deeper rationality below.

If that glorious future dawns, we will have to remember that besides the tekkies and the FIC, and other power structures that need to be revised and adjusted come the great change that hopefully awaits us, there is one structure of truly nefarious power that still remains. We should be forever watchful.

This group has been suspected by Prokovy Neva but never fully did he describe them, and I believe I am capable of adding a little contribution to the discussion so very ably conducted by Prokofy. By calling attention to this group I hope to contribute, if in a small way, to the prevention of future harm.

A group of people exists that seeks to cloud in words their underlying lack of clarity, convince by voluminousness of verbiage instead of by true clarity. If such a group of people reaches a large enough group with such muddiness of thought, a mentality of verbosity might still corrupt that dawn of rationality.

I dub this group the Loquacious Guild. Let us never rest and be watchful of the Loquacious Guild, and if necessary, fight them with every word and every breath.

Thank you,

Mysterious Rationality

[Yumi Murakami]

Well, the issue with the group is a reasonable one. The thing is, it's a group with closed enrollment and technical enforcement and those will ALWAYS be the last ones anyone wants to leave. If I need to leave a group, I'm going to leave something like Learning Japanese or similar - even though I'm very interested in that - because I can always get back in, and if I want to go to a Japanese class I can say "sorry, I ran out of group slots". I can't leave (say) Mentor because I'll lose the ability to go to HI until I can convince a Linden to re-invite me; there's no "sorry, out of slots" button on the "teleport denied" dialog. I can't leave Timeless Gadget Shop because I won't be able to update my vendors there until I can contact Timeless and ask to be invited again.

But you haven't as far as I can tell presented any evidence that Angel was using the however-many-strong membership of the Capture Roleplay group to flashmob feature voting, so I'm not seeing where that's coming from. (Oh, and by the way, I did actually speak to Angel Fluffy and he's apparantly submissive - in fact most of the BDSM builders are, which is a really curious state of affairs I think.)

From what I can gather from you and Angel, what happened here was that the Lindens in charge of the feature voting tool got overstretched and couldn't pay attention to it, and then someone took the initative to volunteer to sort it out by reading through the whole thing, and they accepted that help. I think attacking Angel is the wrong position here - the problem is that the Lindens should have told the community that they didn't have time to read the FVT and that they'd appreciate help, so that the community could try and provide it or at least thrash it out amongst themselves, whereas in fact most people assumed that their votes were either being rejected or had not yet reached the threshold.

[Prokofy Neva]

I hardly think "Rationality" is a SL last name now, but I'll leave that word salad to rest there, it's amusing. I think most actually rational beings see the problem here -- someone with the valuation of the BDSM ritualistic power exchange ideology is bleeding this ideology into the public domain, simply taking over the voter tools simply because nobody stopped him, and the Lindens reward Bolshevik activity like that instead of mitigating it.

The proof is always in the pudding. The pudding that Angel is mixing up is about control, about keeping others out, about keeping others subdued, contingent, dependent. On him. You can give Angel ideas. He can give them to the Lindens. You could just give them to the Lindens on your own, without him, but he doesn't even envision such a state of affairs, because he just blandly, with utter assurance and complacency, assumes that he knows it all, gets it all, did it all, and gets to just then run the voting tool subject and own it. Not so. Non pasarant. I object. I refuse. I say "no". And I work at alternatives.

Yumi has bought a total bill of goods here assuming the cliche that if someone *is* a sub that they must be submissive. Everyone knows that the sub possibly has more power over the dom than the dom over the sub; the dom can't be a dom without a sub; it's rather like the power the debtor nations have over the lending nations.

The idea that if someone happens to be a "sub" that they aren't bleeding the BDSM ideology into the public space is an absurdity. BDSM is the ethic being put forward, not as merely a lifestyle, but an entire civilizational way of life -- you have this rule, that rule, this guidebook, that sticky, and they must all be OBEYED. One of the most hilarious thing Angel did was make a list of suggestions for how to make proposals to Lindens. Some of them are obvious; by publishing the obvious he can make it seem like when people do the obvious they followed his orders; some of them are overly obsequious in ways we don't need to be with Lindens, but like I said -- if Angel Fluffy didn't exist, the Lindens would have had to invent him -- and in fact they may have, who knows. It's that kind of place.

I don't doubt for a minute that we could well see a Fluffy Linden appearing in 90 days.

Perhaps he's a sub in his little furry personal life. Yet in his groups, his voting tools, in everything else, he is all about brutal dominion. Notice how he tells you not to resist him, but to make him an ally. Or else!

I don't want a 21-year-old furry BDSMer running a capture roleplay to rule my world, to affect the very tools of my democracy, to affect what the very rules of the world are. No. No *fucking* way. Nor will a lot of people, once they figure it out. I don't care if Torley and Jeska and Jean blessed this monstrosity. They're not terribly bright or concerned about things in the big picture, they tend to get consumed in this minutae of Linden-driven life, and just let stuff get done because they're overstretched. And of course their bosses and love machine mechanics lead them to have other priorities.

The problem with Angel hijacking the voting tools isn't that he may flashmob the voter with his captured capture roleplay folks. That may or may not be the case. The problem is simply that Angel *himself* grabbed this sphere and hijacked it. Like walking into Logan airport with a box-cutter. There was nothing to stop him. Nothing.

The Lindens didn't open it up to a general public, as usual. They made their little inside jobs, their little inside picks, and put their little pet in place -- evidently after the fact, in this case. In this case, it seems they were in fact presented with a fait accompli, although it's hard to tell. I'm not sure the visible sequence of events is in fact what happened. It seems really too pat that Angel reviews 1,400 voting proposals and categorizes them and weeds them out, then Jeska blesses them and makes the cuts within 24 or 48 hours. Pretty wierd, eh? A set-up, or something really awful, or both.

Yumi, every time I've tried to reason with you, I've found you to take the most literalist tekkie take on whatever the topic was, first land or whatever. So it doesn't surprise me that you don't see the problem of Angel Fluffy. Perhaps you will, down the line. Perhaps some controlling assholes who smile fakely with fake smilies and flaunt their "expertise" impress you, charlatans though they may be.

Any adult who has read "We" or "1984" or "Darkness at Noon" or any simple work sees the strains of would-be totalitarianism in these ideologies and methods. They're visible to be seen.

Let me outline what should have happened. The Lindens, seeing they were overstretched, should have been willing to share power. They never are. They need to become more so. So they could have said, we'd like to start a group of volunteers to help with this. Let's have a committee, a group. But they never do it that way. Either they join what residents make, or they make their own strictly-Linden group. They aren't willing to plan ahead.

Had they been willing, they might have gotten 30 enthusiastic volunteers, but 10 who'd really only do the work. That's fine, a bigger group can be unwieldly -- as long as they have a sense of social responsibility to openly prepare an agenda and present it to the public fairly for input.

They could categorize, make a list of the obvious junk, etc. Many hands make light work. This might have taken a week or two. They might have also come up with suggestions -- voting 'no' would be a big one; creating a mechanism to blend similar propoals into one bloc would be another. Then present it for discussion.

The way it is now, is fake discussion. Angel writes and drafts in secret. We don't see what he submits to the Lindens. He assures us that competent Lindens are reading it and reviewing it. Oh? They are? Which ones? Jeska? And...Jeska has *what* credentials for running something as complex as a voting system in a democracy???

They could also try to figure out how to create inworld voting stations that people could vote from inworld, and have it add to the webpage. That might help in creating the connection to the world and increase participation. Fluffy claims to promote voter awareness -- but everyone knows how hard this is to obtain, and that mostly what will happen is that Fluffy will tell people how to vote -- in a vacuum where no one else will likely bother unless people wake up and push back now.

But...what should have happened at the Lindens' behest didn't happen. Fluffy just took it and did it. He then pwned it, got the Lindens to put up a sticky, and made him the "expert" like, I dunno, they consider Oz Spade or Frans Charming "the experts" on whatever their tekkie thing is. Of course, there's nothing particularly technical about this job, it's merely a sorting job that a certain obsesssive compulsive mind who likes order by his own lights will be good at.

Bless this ordnung with a sprinkling of Lindens in a group that is open, yet really closed to discussion, and you have a fig leaf. Add to it the fake social legitimacy of 1,100 captured people (that's where they come in, not to vote, but to add social legitimacy) and you sound like a democrat. Of course, you're not.

There's lots of OTHER things that need to be done now. I don't wish actually to expose them all here now because it's a decidedly hostile climate.

The worst thing I've seen around it is that Jeska and the other Lindens are on it so demonstratively. Yuck. The voting tools is the natural follow-up to the forums. It would have been nice had we shook loose Jeska and col. when the forums were closed -- that would be the one real benefit of the forums' closure -- that the censorious hand of Jeska, Torley, and company would be removed and become irrelevant.

Now we see they are all over the voting like white on rice. No accident. So it will take some conscious planning to work this issue around them, in spite of them.

I'd suggest people to take their own proposals that they care deeply about, and really own them, their promotion, their publicity, their discussion, and not let Angel co-opt them. After all, it isn't Angel who made these 1,400 proposals. It's everybody else. They need to constantly feel their own empowerment in spite of him.

[Brace]

Aight first of all - as far as I can tell the forums are SHUT down already. The General is gone to Archive along with a few other areas of interest.

Now please take this next thing I'm gonna say as however you want to, buts its done in the spirit of well, I dunno - tryin to help you not get into a blood pressure situation.

First of all I could give a flying fuck if Fluffy or FooFoo or whoever has decided to do the work for the lindies and clean up their hopelessly muddled vote thinger or whatever.

Geez Prok you been here longer than I have and you've SEEN that none of this shit even MATTERS. Do you know why? maybe you've forgotten - but I haven't

LL is a complete mess. Every now and then some wierdo resident "rises to the occasion" and does something or other - and the lindies get coerced for a few months or so and hop on they bandwagon.

Cuz you know, they used to doing that sort of thing.

Then a few months later another shiny resident shows up and they dump the current resident of the hour and go hop on the new wagon and so on and so on and so on.

And you know what never changes for the good? Second Life. It just get worse and worse because its destined to happen that way - until philly wakes the fuck up and starts running shit like its a business instead of kindergarden playtime do what ya like, when ya like.

There is no power there with Fluffy or FooFoo or whoever. Absolutely none. That's like saying WOOT I'm the captain of the Titanic: Hear Me Roar!

You might classify me as one of those who just won't or doesn't have the energy to deal with these typs of "uprisings" or whatever you wanna call em.

Go ahead if you want. Because its a useless thing to get the blood pressure all up on something that doesn't exist.

I worry about ya darlin I DO. I think you should take a leave of absence and like have someone else take care of ya rentals and just pull away and get some distance from SL.

Its got you all wound up in knots, and well mebbe I'm wrong, cuz I just couldn't read the log you posted - logs drive me batty - but from the first part of your post at least, there seems to be WEH too much concern over a nobody.

The only power that people have is the power that you hand them. This person might set themselves up as a self-styled power of SL, and you know - they can go on right ahead. I sure ain't handing anything over to FeeFee and I don't think you should either. LL is doing a fanstastic job of screwing shit up and there's nothing you or I or any Flaffy can do about it.

Cuz come January or February 2007 they gonna be old ass news and you all KNOW THIS. As for large groups having sway its bullshit. I had over 750 people in the NCI before the griefing happened, and we STILL can't even get them to change servers on Kuula to support the numbers we have daily.

Its like goddam molasses up in there - and we fill the sim almost every day. But noooo the lindies don't wanna listen to anybody about THAT - numbers be damned. And sorry I think 750 in a group is nothing to sneeze at.

Anyhow back to the Floofy or whoever. You give them way to much credit by even bloggin about em. They are nothing, a nobody and they aint doing any permanent damage or good to the SL landscape.

Really. They aren't. Talk to me in February about Fluffy who? Mark my words.

[Kerian Bunin]

As much as I get along with Prok, I really agree with this. There are certian things that really need offical accountability. While I find the feature voting tool cluttered with nonsense, and the actual tool its self clunky and poorly designed. A resident has no business deciding what deserves to stay and go. This really should be Linden territory. I don't know that happened to the idea of people staying late at work to tie up loose ends like this. Its a shame that Angel seems to have hijacked Travis' potentially cool idea. I'm an estate manager of a sim near Angels. I honestly have no problem with thier roleplay thing over there. Its really an neatly coded maxze thing. But I get perturbed when I get pressured to suscribe to Angels banlist. Long story short, there are some things residents should not be able to dabble in, (in my opinion especialy library content), at least without a democratic process involved. This entry just hits close to home, literally, due to my proximity to CARP.

[Prokofy Neva]

Brace,

The group forums are still open, you can still see them, and they are going to be left for 90 days, with the idea that these groups are all supposed to move to their own new forums. Some did already.

Since nobody is manning them and fighting them, the Lindens will likely close them -- unless people fight back.

But the FEATURES SUGGESTIONS, which is where Angel Fluffy has set up shop with not one but TWO stickies from His Muchness, and miles of threads about the 1,400 proposals, will live on until the heat death of the sun.

As for "it doesn't matter" -- I disagree. Perhaps it doesn't matter if I vote for my state assemblyman either. He doesn't seem to really be able to do something about the ridiculous ConEd bills we get in the winter and he's unable to really affect our local issues. Still, I vote for him, complain to his office, interact with him. That's how life is.

I know full well that the Lindens lurch from one resident showboat to another, they have their crushes and fascinations. They lurch through the mess, GOMing, Lindenizing, co-opting, feting, and it's all part of just managing the mess. But that doesn't mean that we should just let the mess fester.

I'm glad I can feel revulsion about evil, and expose it, Brace. That doesn't mean that I'm somehow obsessed or incapacitated. I soldier on. I continue my projects. I don't give up. I think that's important. I don't think it is the Titanic at all. I could be wrong. But I think it's worth fighting for. It's important.

I don't hand power to these people at all. I'm busy creating my alternatives, small and modest though they be. That's always what I've been about. It's immensely satisfying to succeed at the little things I do.

I'm happy to talk to you in February when Fluffy is President. Perhaps president of a sim that is like wading through molasses, but president none the less.

It's interesting that Kerian has turned out to share some of my concerns. I would hope that people from different factions and parties who may not at all agree about the shape of SL in the future or what its priorities are now could at least agree about the problem of PROCESS.

The Lindens seem completely oblivious to the need to create process. That is...they may have in fact muddled through and created it by having their quiltwork of SL Views, Community Round Table, and Recognition of Resident Initiative (RORI)

It won't be long before we see Torley roaring with approval about the RORI plan as just woot, the gosh darn best ever grassroots plan the world ever saw.

I don't see why, if you are on an island, you'd have to join somebody else's banlist. Or was this on a mainland sim?

[Kerian Bunin]

Thats just it. It is an island, which is why I agree with the need for due process, and accountability (the two realy go hand in hand). Angel has came to the sim and pressured us to use Silvermoons slbanlink list. In the context of your original post, it just seems a means for Angel to extend control and influence (kind of "if you mess with me you will be banned from so many sims" style). However, I really stress accountability, along side due process. If I recal, I put my votes behind accountability in the police blotter way back when.

[Prokofy Neva]

I'm just not getting the technical issues here. Islands are not contiguous. They have space/voids around them. So there is no way that someone can, say, hide out on your island, just because it's next door, and harass people on Angel's island. That happens on the mainland all the time, but I'm not getting why it's an issue for islands.

[Kerian Bunin]

because the valley sims, which silvermoon is a part of, is 18 islands big.

[Kerian Bunin]

as clarification. Its 18 islands that is done in more of a confederation style. There is no guarantee that you and your sim neighbors will get along super well.

[Mysterious Rationality]

The situation is indeed grave. Bolshevik agendas are being pushed through and the tekkie wikki nor linden labs are there to stop this, and aren't even aware of this. Our job is to make sure they are aware of this by describing what is going on carefully, succinctly, and in detail.

Angel Fluffy is a furry of dubious morality engaged in practices many of us have no truck with. Capture roleplay and ageplay and other bolshevik practices we have no truck with.

The rising civilization of Second Life needs to support democratic ideals, and suppress the bolshevik leanings of many in the tekkie wiki. Angel Fluffy is a member of the BSDM community and the tekkie wiki, which shows the dangerous confluence of interests.

I believe the bolshevik interests in SL are now strengthed due to the change in registration policy, which makes it possible for European and Asian residents to appear en masse, contributing their sometimes dubious morality to the still growing community.

If we are to have a civil society, it is important we communicate in the same language. If the options for the main language to communicate are English, Polish, Greek and Turkish, the choice must be English and not these other languages. Polish in particular has bolshevik leanings.

This situation were are now in was in fact foreseen by Aristotle in his Politics:

"Every state is a community of some kind, and every community is established with a view to some good; for mankind always act in order to obtain that which they think good. But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good."

What do we believe the state is in this emerging metaverse? This is the essential question, and something which Snowcrash leaves unanswered or at most skirts over with attempted humor. The tekkie wiki therefore does not consider this as a serious form of discourse.

Again, to speak again with Aristotle: "Now, that man is more of a political animal than bees or any other gregarious animals is evident. Nature, as we often say, makes nothing in vain, and man is the only animal whom she has endowed with the gift of speech. And whereas mere voice is but an indication of pleasure or pain, and is therefore found in other animals (for their nature attains to the perception of pleasure and pain and the intimation of them to one another, and no further), the power of speech is intended to set forth the expedient and inexpedient, and therefore likewise the just and the unjust. And it is a characteristic of man that he alone has any sense of good and evil, of just and unjust, and the like, and the association of living beings who have this sense makes a family and a state."

The nature of the power of speech brings me again to the most serious threat faced by the emerging metaversal civilization: the Loquacious Guild. This grouop exists to hide insights deep inside excessive verbosity, hiding their true agenda from us all.

SL's government is currently one that combines many forms, and is not aware of its own existence, which leads to misdirections and dangerous developments like the Angel Fluffy case. Aristotle has something to say about this as well:

"The whole system of government tends to be neither democracy nor oligarchy, but something in a mean between them, which is usually called a polity, and is composed of the heavy-armed soldiers. Now, if he intended to frame a constitution which would suit the greatest number of states, he was very likely right, but not if he meant to say that this constitutional form came nearest to his first or ideal state; for many would prefer the Lacedaemonian, or, possibly, some other more aristocratic government. Some, indeed, say that the best constitution is a combination of all existing forms, and they praise the Lacedaemonian because it is made up of oligarchy, monarchy, and democracy, the king forming the monarchy, and the council of elders the oligarchy while the democratic element is represented by the Ephors; for the Ephors are selected from the people. Others, however, declare the Ephoralty to be a tyranny, and find the element of democracy in the common meals and in the habits of daily life. In the Laws it is maintained that the best constitution is made up of democracy and tyranny, which are either not constitutions at all, or are the worst of all. But they are nearer the truth who combine many forms; for the constitution is better which is made up of more numerous elements."

The Loquacious Guild is aware of this, but does not summarize nor speak with brevity and wit like myself and Prokofy, and those others who stand with us against the irrationality of bolshevism and deviance that is currently pervasive in Second Life.

It is important to work against the Loquacious Guild with our every breath, lest if we do not we might be confused with them. Impenetrable word salads would otherwise be the result, as aptly observed by Prokofy. We need to continue to strive to get our points across clearly and succinctly, to stop the Loquacious Guild: it cannot be allowed to complete its plans. It cannot be allowed to disrupt civil discourse this way.

[Nixande Teazle]

Despite AngelFluffy doing or not doing what you describe, I feel a huge loath / hate feeling towards bdsm here.

Just to take one example:
having a group channel and a chat group channel is NOT about sub/dom but about common sense. I left several groups because people could not get their act together and keep quite on a group channel.

Enforcing such a rule (dont chat on the main channel but here is a place which is linked to this and where you are encouraged to do so) is a totally understandable way.

How would you have bashed it, if the person stating this rules was obviously non bdsm?

'like banlink' is a wording used when you want to encourage others to use it but make it clear that it is not the only option.

How would you make your argument work if the person writing this would not fullfill your target goal as being a dom person?

Reading the chat protocol I see a lot of whining on your side and polite answers on the other side.

For making an argument for yourself, this is not a good quote to use ...

I don't know either of you personally, but just (just!) reading through this article there is one thing standing out: You seem to be hyperjealeaous that somebody else is getting what they want while you are not as successful.

Did it come to your mind that instead of "taking over other groups" there might be actually reasons why some people / groups are nearer than others?

And another question; Do you call everybody doing any kind of scripting a grieving stupid script kiddie?

Because that is roughly the equivilant of you accusing a sub person to be without will, intelligence and reasoning.

Pointing out that somebody is using the clout they have built up to use it on a feature like the voting system: good.

Although this is obvious what happens every time you have a bigger group entering such a space.

Using it to channel your own personal frustrations and make a claim 'everybody should comply with'? Sorry, but that I cannot take seriously.

[Prokofy Neva]

>feel a huge loath / hate feeling towards bdsm here.

Oh, I do have a huge loathe/hate to BDSM as a philosophy, as any kind of recipe for civilization. When it leaves the bedroom and leaves the sim and comes on *my* sim or worse, comes into the public commons, I do indeed scream. It's the right thing to do. I do not believe BDSM is intellectually defensible, nor the basis for civilization.

Groups can be arranged and group channels organized without being a dom about it. I have a simple rule on my lease that you can't spam the group chat. When people do, they are reprimanded. But it isn't so rigid that I post GULAG-like notices about it or immediately expel people. Sometimes people get on with a legitimate emergency, "Hey, there's a fire-prim bomber in Baileya what do we do?". Sometimes someone asks quickly, hey my furniture is returning, and a few people say, "activate the group don't just join it" -- and the matter is quickly taken care of. If they spam, or swear, or put crap on the voter, they're expelled -- it happens rarely. There's a rule on the card, and it is upheld voluntarily by all in the group who don't want spam.

I don't like the idea of making groups so rigid and stratified that rather than having the default be openness and everyone to be communicating, I have to go through and toggle a permission to a set of channels for each of a thousand people. It's insane.

What Angel does is scatter "rules for living" all over his profile, his groups, his manuals.

Whatever he wants to do in his capture group, having a public ostensibly open group called SL Voting Awareness in which he rigidly, with domination and oppression, tells everyone they can't speak in this group, is controlling -- and wrong.

Example: the Law Society of Second Life, also run by a tyrant who has only himself as officer and refuses to hold inworld meetings, at least is open to chat, and since the owner isn't online, that's a good thing. New people come on and use it to find others of like mind and ask about things like digital rights or when the meetings are held (they aren't) or what other groups are there to join, etc. -- there are short conversations, or sometimes even longer ones, that are quite useful and helpful and interesting. Only a self-selected, pretty educated group are going to join something called "Law Society of SL".

Same for "SL Voting Awareness" -- voting is one of those topics that in a meta way, is usually not hugely attractive. So to be anal and controlling about people wishing to chat in the group is insane. They need to be able to chat, and group chat, especially when meetings are hard to organize across time zones, are vital for thrashing out topics.

I don't think Lindens have any business joining groups that are anal and controlling like that, which force people to go join a website -- which will likely become a third-party website where the controlling owner can now add grabbing people's IPs and other information to his other control-freak options.

I'm hardly jealous of some furry who has made a maze to play tag in. My God, that only lets me know where YOU are in the food chain in Second Life, imaginging that the entire world revolves around jealousy.

I do my own thing quite happily and am pleased to do things even on a smaller and quieter basis than this tyrant -- it's more effective.

And I have plenty of attention and successes for what I do that I don't need to be jealous of some obsessive anally-retentive tekkie who spent thousands of man-hours reviewing 1,400 proposals on the voter thing. Please.

I find that most scripters, even if they aren't griefing script kiddies, defend to the death the right of griefing script kiddies. They never met a script they didn't like. They whine whenever the Lindens control or -- gasp -- deprecate a script.

I find my resolute resistance to the tyranny of Angel Fluffy to be as eloquent as it can get under conditions like that, where a tyrant's takeover of a meeting isn't expected. I think most educated adults would agree.

I don't see how you can justify the smug, over-confident assholery of someone like Angel Fluffy telling a room full of people that he is going to get his writings in the fucking *library* for Chrissakes. The LIBRARY. The Lindens are going to just quickly review his opus and park it in the library? I can't help thinking there are at least some Lindens reading that and chuckling at this young pup.

Doms and subs may or may not be without intelligence; but it is a corrupted intelligence as BDSM is not intellectually defensable.

I don't spend time debating about BDSM in SL because you can read the debates about it in the back pages of the Herald.

If all I've done for you is raised a bit of alarm about someone trying to take over the voting tools, good! They don't get to do that!

You don'to have to like me; you can hate me; you can find my argumentation whining and self-serving. I do hope you personally will think what it means for you and your own freedom in SL that Angel Fluffy has taken over the entire list of voting proposals and decided by his own lights, with only the most cursory review by very busy and distracted Lindens, what is worth keeping and what should be deleted. This is a hugely dangerous precedent for Second Life and I want people to become acutely aware of it.

[Lance Sismondi]

Prokofy has brought up a critical and very valid point. The public's voice and freedom of speech is a critical issue and anything that impacts that should have the SL public involved. Even if I give Fluffy the benefit of the doubt and assume his or her positive intent, there is a major critical flaw in Fluffy's logic that cannot go unchallenged: Assuming that he or she is doing us all a favor by taking on the chore of cleaning up the the voting system. This function, although broke, is far to critical to be left in the hands of a self-appointed custodian. Prokofy, in my humble opinion, you are correct by challenging Fluffy's assumption. As paying residents, we have a right to weigh in on these issues and challenge the hi-jacking of critical tools by self-appointed "volunteers".

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Well... thanks for raising the alarm, Prokofy. As usual, this made for interesting reading, and much to think about. I guess that any proposal for making the voting tool more democratic will be rejected now, since Angel has "taken care" of it by now. Ah well. It was a hard fight to get the feature voting tool up in the first place, as a way to encourage democratic participation in the decision processes, so I'll be sorry to see it go away after a year or so... *shrugs*

In any case, I don't think that Angel Fluffy is *deliberately* trying to "take over the world". He/she is rather much more clever, and has learned very quickly what it takes to be "near the Lindens" — offer constructive criticism with politeness and a smile, volunteer your time to work for them (instead of against them), and get some "public support" from a community of users. These are all traits that Angel has, and Angel has found out, step by step, how to capitalise on those.

I think that our minds are often clouded because we forget that SL is not a democracy, and, from the way things are going, it will never be. There is simply no way to "enforce" a democracy when nobody — starting with the Lindens, and finishing at every single user — really wants it. Angel's quite clear on that — he/she equates democracy with mob rule, something that has to be quieted down at all costs. The Lindens agree. They have seen what happens when they *ask* people something — the results are unpredictable, and very often, they give very bad results. People like Angel will just wear a condescending smile and say "See, that's what wrong with democracy — everybody gets an opinion, even if they are *wrong*".

The problem here is oversimplification — while *direct* democracy might not work (except for Switzerland...), *representative* democracy works rather efficiently. I'm not going to take over the comments on your blog to state a case for representative democracy, Prokofy, but just leave a small alert here: be wary of those who claim that "democracy is mob rule, and it doesn't work". They'll be appealing to the hidden fear that people have of *direct* democracy, and they will get good results anywhere. I can imagine Angel's suggestions to Jeska to be like: "See what happens when you give *everybody* the right to express their opinion and vote on things? What a mess you get! There, there, don't worry, let *me* handle it..." and this will always be a very defensable opinion in the public mind:

"Well, the voting tool was a mess, people can't really do this direct democracy thingy, we all know that doesn't work, and it was good that LL actually saw this and quickly changed it"

*sighs*

Yes, that sort of argument is one that I've heard too many times. It's one of the types of arguments that will appeal to the minds of many, who don't truly understand the difference between a direct democracy and a representative one, and, having to chose between a direct democracy and a benevolent dictatorship, will pick the latter, just because it's more efficient in dealing with things!

Now, I can't say I have anything against Angel Fluffy. He/she seems to be not only very clever, but far more intelligent than the majority of us — to the point of having "outsmarted" the Lindens neatly. I don't know if Angel did anything deliberately, in a Big Conspiracy to Take Over The World. Rather, it seems that Angel is just building up on his/her experience, see what people want (residents *and* Lindens), and give them what they want. Always nicely, and politely.

And what do people want in SL?

It seems simple enough:

People want order *without* (direct) democracy.

Well, it's clear that Angel provides that — even better, Angel *excels* at that. It's no small wonder, then, that Angel will be recognised as someone who gives people *exactly* what they want — and Linden Lab will listen to Angel just because of that. After all, I think that most (but not all) people at LL want the same: order and peace.

Oh yes, "1984". Or "V for Vendetta". It's weird how SL mirrors RL so closely: when people feel the need for more order, and are disappointed with democracy, there is where they'll turn to: leader figures with charisma, who promise order without the "inconveniences" of "too much democracy".

Frightening, but somehow, it seems to be a recurrent theme.

Speaking for myself, my enthusiasm regarding the Feature Voting Tool cooled down considerably when I saw that it wasn't working. I'm partially responsible, I guess, since I suggested often to LL that they should set something up like that — it's just the "nagging details", in this case, that completely borked the system. I'm sure that Angel will make a far better job out of it.

I've just browsed the last 20 "features" proposed there. *Sigh* All of them have been consistently posted every month again. All those votes lost and scattered, it could make me cry. Ah well. Now Angel will handle that for us.

[Brace]

OK Prok I feel ya, I do. I also understand your feelings about all of this being worth it. I respect your opinion and I'm sticking to mine.

It just seems a waste of time when the so-called powers that be can't or won't do what their supposed to do.

Thing is, if fluffy foo foo becomes president of whatever it is yer worried about - SL? The half closed forums? The mainland? Life is not going to change much for the regular folks.

The majority of the people are still gonna go around to clubs, play house, shop and have sex.

I guess what I'm saying here, is not one single resident is going to bring SL crashing to its knees. I don't care if they the self-appointed queen of BDSM or Groups or what the fuck ever.

You know something? YOU yourself have already impacted SL a TON more than any upstart with grandiose ideas is EVER going to do.

As for the whole "wrote the handbook on BDSM" its completely laughable. Take it from someone who's been in the REAL LIFE BDSM community for over 10 years. All this online piddling around means absolutely nothing.

Perhaps you aren't involved in the BDSM community in SL. This is like the 6th or 7th be all end all handbook on BDSM thats popped up. More will come.

Its boring, really, and meaningless because if anyone knows BDSM like they should - THERE ARE NO RULES aside from being Safe, Sane and Consentual.

There are protocals to each individual group or club you might attend and that's just normal stuff, like you got rules in your own home so stuff doesn't fall apart into chaos.

The very notion that someone comes along to make a set of rules and guidelines for the Life is a laughable one be it in Real or Online - especially online when more than half of the people stumbling around in BDSM have no fucking clue.

So. If Fluffy whoever wants to take over SL and rule it or whatever, I'm not concerned. I vote too in RL, and I make noises, and bug my congresswoman - but I've lived long enuff on this planet to realize no matter who's in office or who's calling the shots - my life changes not drastically in the least.

Maybe I'm special like dat - but I've no fears or concerns for anything drastically going down in SL. And even if it did: I guess my bottom line is that I simply don't care.

I used to care - oh yes - I cared a whole bunch. And all it got me was more grey hairs and a budding ulcer. Fuck that. You all enjoy :)

[Prokofy Neva]

You're enabling dictators with that attitude, Gwyn, and you shouldn't be so passive when in fact you're aggressive in merely wanting to find which power structure works and seems clever and beloved by Lindens, and then suck up to it. Ugh.

Direct democracy is very troubling because it's flash-mobbed and gamed -- and the programmers get to game it most of all. I'm wary of calls for direct democracy when I see the gaming of it and the way in which memes flash through mobs without education and real democratic debate about the options.

Anyone who lives under Bush would also be skeptical of representative democracy and feel that it is bought and sold by big corporations and PACs and all the rest -- and that is how you can get this attitude among young people that democracy sucks and they need BDSM masters and subs to tell them what's right lol.

I'm not for caving to such cynicism, despair, and quietism.

First of all, the Lindens aren't going to close the voting feature within a year -- it's one of their crown jewels that they can show off as a way of proving that they are democratic and listen to customers in a way that no game gods in the metaverse have ever listened, even Andrew Tepper in ATID (and I hope Brace will comment more from experience how well that really works in ATID).

But let's look at how the lobbying system REALLY works, Gwyn. Everybody ganged up on Anshe, me, and others who lobbied the Lindens, though we did it methodically, openly, in an open and visible group, with published appeals that were available in notecards in meetings that were open.

Not so Angel Fluffy and the gang of ban-mad furries who lobbied the Lindens to get them to raise the ban lines up high. I was just informed by someone with knowledge of this issue inworld that the way the ban lines got raised high due to their lobbying. They could capitalize on two things: a) rage everyone was feeling about griefing after 6/6/6 and people's huge desire to keep their skyboxes secure for private sex without interruption and b) the Lindens' desire to have griefing be handled by residents, not themselves.

So they got their way. It took a HUGE outcry from vehicle makers and users and others of us just concerned about quality of life deteriorating dramatically in exploring the world to get the Lindens to undo this.

THAT the Lindens would raise up ban lines like that all the way up, despite their own considerable investment and participation in the vehicle/script/exploration lobby and platform lets us know that there is either a faction fight within the Linden camp, or just this faction/camp trying to flex their muscles and just see what they can get away with. But it's wrong. It's an example of the FICdom that I constantly rail against. Everyone keeps laughing at the FIC. I keep lengthening the list of examples that prove that a few people can lobby Lindens and get their way, in secret, without transparency, without public discussion, over and over and over again.

Now, Gwyn, one thing that really hobbles you is your fascination with tyranny and American corporations, as if they have endless power and can be ceded all kinds of rights and control over us. Why?

We participate extensively in this particularly company. These folks get $2000 US from me a month and get endless unbillable hours of labour from me per month. I don't get to have any say in this company? Hell, no. I pay that kind of money to only one other entity -- my RL landlord. And he doesn't tell me he's not a democracy and that I need to shut the fuck up and swallow his every policy. He meets with the Tenants' Committee; he puts out bulletins; he holds community meetings; he is the subject even of *legislation* and *laws* that control tenant/landlord relationships. He has been forced to heel by court decisions. And so forth and so on. There's nothing "magic" about a game company or a software company, real life or simulated life. They are in a context; that context is law; that context is business partnership where the partners have to have some say.

This is widely recognized by more enlightened companies and those with a social responsibility bent in particular. It's even fully and amply articulated by chairman of the board Mitch Kapor. So for you to keep going on and on and on at this late date about the "essential undemocratic nature of a company" is wilful and obdurate -- it's merely a *wish* for it to be that way so that it becomes *easier for you to suck up to it and be part of the power bloc over others*. That's all : )

Of course Angel Fluffy is deliberately and methodically taking over the world -- and not without inside help, obviously.

The idea that Lindens can also be little BDSMers and control the way we speak to them and insist on these rigid little rules of POLITENESS AND RESPECT blah blah is ridiculous. Of course anybody deserves some polite discourse.

But I think that when I open up my library and find 7 landmarks from top clothing stores in there, the right and proper thing for me to do is to write to Jeska and say 'WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING PUTTING LANDMARKS IN THE LIBRARY?""

Others made find it more productive to suck up and say "Dear Jeska, I noticed I have some extra landmarks in the library. is this a bug or a feature?"

But in a context where Jeska lets her mentors deliberately sling landmarks at newbies; in a context where Angel Fluffy can casually talk about how he is getting to write manuals for the fucking LIBRARY, the ONLY posture is hard, unyielding, slams -- and quick, and painful. It's wrong to put landmarks in the library of only some residents.

Opinion-makers like Phoenix Psaltery saw absolutely nothing wrong with the Lindens selecting only 7 clothiers and putting their landmarks in the library; he defended the practice before it was explained that it was a bug or a mistake (more accurately). That lets me know the climate we have to deal with here -- Lindens and influential people with newspapers who believe it's more than fine for the Lindens to fete and privilege the minority, and who even keep bleating that it's a conspiracy theory to protest it lol. That's the climate that is the *default* here and that's why it has to be fought hard.

The Lindens need to get short, sharp, hard yelps on this or they will take it for granted that they can keep rolling over all of us. They cannot.

If I thought that Lindens were reasonable and acting in good faith, and were seriously trying to create a process for gaining and heeding public feedback, I'd adjust my tone.

But I see no such thing.

I see things like SL Views and the usual crap. So I think the only thing they can understood is force, and hard, sharp remarks.

That is, what I see is that they force, goad, prod, and channel people into their approved forms of feedback. Don't like the group tools? Come into the preview, with all its difficulties, and file bug reports, which is difficult, and defend your perception that they are bugs, or at least unanticipated features, which is difficult. That is, they make the strainer and the filter and the vetting you must pass through very rigid and very difficult to be heard. Trust me, I've scaled these walls and struggled with these filters; I don't think it's a viable way to manage feedback or dissent in particular.

They may hate this; you may find it counterproductive; but I have $2000 US plus in this boat, and I don't see that I have any normal, legitimate, *non-technical, non-prescribed* regular channel of communication with these people. None.

These are people who could expel me on a whim from the forums because I called their pet's name "like a prom queen". These are people who could expel me from the community round table mailing list because I pointed out that THEY were guilty of disclosure for publishing everybody's emails (!).

These are people who can wait for hours and days and months to remove from the game (or never remove them!) people who publish rape stories about me on the forums and allow them to spew the tub girl particle pictures all over my sims.

I wish to keep on investing in something very important to me. But I also don't wish to roll over and suck up this incredibly harsh re-nationalization of the world that the Lindens are now engaged in, and have been engaged in for the last year.

I think unless they get the stiffest of resistance they will take everything I listed, starting with the events list and ending with *our land on the mainland*. I don't expect to go without a fight.

Of course as a proto-corporativist and fascistic entity in the Metaverse themselves, LL is tropic to the Angel Fluffies of the world. They deserve, again, stiff resistance, hard hand slaps so that they realize this is no-go, that even those IRC channelers and W-hats that they love and fete don't care for this sort of unaccountable process.

I really don't think the Voting Features should be left to this young, controlling, sick fuck. It's just that simple. The Lindens should feel a sense of shame and embarrassment -- unless they are young, controlling, sick fucks themselves -- in which case it's better to learn that sooner rather than later.

[Prokofy Neva]

BTW, if someone finds my remarks to be "intolerant of lifestyles," I care not a whit. It's mine to express the natural revulsion that many feel. When it leaves the privacy of the home and the sim and invades the body politic, I yelp -- and yelp hard. It's wrong. I don't want that shit in my face.

The Lindens can understand that -- or they may wish to hide behind their intolerance propaganda -- but then, they're in on it.

[Spin Martin]

This is odd, I mean I have no idea who any of these people are, they don't affect me, and you'll prolly put me as one of the tekkie wikinista-tators heh who view SL as 'Our world, Our Imagination (with no majority Senate vote)' type thing. But Angel Fluffy and half these people don't affect me as a business type and as a creative type that wants to wander around and do nothing also.

Are you talking governance in a space where there's the oppression of other gaming worlds?-- if it's not the developers' The-Technology-is-the-Government-stupid, it's the RPG/gaming/class system governance (hi, Jedi counsels anyone?), it's the intellectual property tyranny of people like Blizzard (World of Warcraft).

I mean when I exist in a world say, in an XBOX world, I can live in it in isolation (governed by tech rules) or live in it with mob rules (XBOX live, networked game play).

Even if there was a Government, Inc. in place, does it *really* affect us? I mean there's lots of gov'ts in RL and the US is the big bohemoth on the block but does that really afffect the other cultures? Or does it just make for great role-play backstory.

The more I read your blog, learn about all these factions, the more I think I could seriously cash out by making one massive RPG based on some really creative concepts and theories.

Thanks for that.

[Prokofy Neva]

Spin,

Due to lack of education and experience in anything but your field of Internet technology, music, etc., you're unable to see the larger issues here. I can only attribute it to that.

You can say that these sorts of things have no affect on you and that you just run your own sims your own way and never care about the rest of it.

But let me try to concentrate your mind more wonderfully here.

You use the software like anybody else; this software has features. How do these features get made? How are they prioritized? Who decides? These issues are hotly contested, fought over, and the subject of political factions in the world and in Linden Lab. Surely you can't remain ignorant of that.

I've just gotten done explaining that the Angel Fluffy faction threw the Lindens over on the issue of putting those ban lines WAY up. THAT didn't affect you? Well, maybe on your little one sim. But aren't you aspiring to more in SL? Running a travel recommendation site; hoping the world, even the mainland will grow and prosper? Hoping to have Jesse, a mainland sim, redeveloped? Can't you see past your own little sim right now to the larger issue of what it means to have Jesse or any area awash in high ban lines? Yet that was done...and getting it undone took a huge battle, and it's not a secure win.

Multiple that by thousands of issues. Notecards not being able to be distributed. Huge extensive arbitrary and vindictive ban lists that sooner or later WILL affect you because it will affect your CUSTOMERS even if you not personally.

You've never had your purchases in Second Life devalued or rendered useless, so you aren't getting it. Stick around, and it will become clear.

[Spin Martin]

Right, and that's different from life *how* exactly?
That's beyond a simple video game.

People in control and with power don't like the upstarts, and the upstarts don't like the poeple in power and with control. The cycle repeats.

You have your own lobby, so what's the problem?

[Spin Martin]

Besides, you people ever learn how to adapt? Jesus so the ban line goes up. Ohnoes! Roadblock!

Come on, people.