Griefers' Steam Theme Sim Taken Offline by Lindens, Accounts Banned

 

So, faster than is usually the case for the Woodburies/The Wrong Hands/goonds/b-tards/e-hoodlums, Sandvich, the Valve theme park sim in Second Life, was taken offline. The accounts have been banned, and the Lindens have once again confiscated a sim related to Tizzers Foxchase (Jordan Bellino) -- for the fourth time now since 2007.

Sandvich -- so named for what a Russian NPC called his lunch in some game -- was planned by Chris Toumanian (Sarilia Tryce), business partner to Tizzers in real life to serve as a base for Steam fans -- as Second Life is going to be listed on the popular gaming network Steam. Both had been active in first a Reddit sim that then was banned and respawned (or was renamed one step ahead of the G-team) to Sandvich.

Chris is crying the blues on Twitter and making it seem as if he did nothing wrong except provide a creative outlet for Steam fans, and used permissible copying as in "fan art" and "fan fic". He's bawwing that Linden didn't even send him a DMCA notice and they "should have talked to him first". Why?

Chris is also QQing on Reddit -- where there is a thread about the banning which isn't at all in the top view, despite the, um, "hordes" on Reddit -- about which we'll hear more in a minute.

Chris implies that the Lindens removed him because of copyright concerns, i.e. swiping Valve's artwork from games.

But I doubt that was really the issue, or at least, not the only issue.

The first issue was alt abuse. If you were permabanned from Second Life on one account, it's a violation of the terms of service to return on another, new alt account -- and that's what Tizzers did with this sim by making yet another alt, called Hissyfits, with the in-your-face display name of "Tiz" to let the Lindens know that he felt he could act with impunity.

I don't know the history of Toumanian's accounts in SL or whether any were banned, but it doesn't matter -- if he aided and abetted alt abuse, he would be implicated. And indeed he did, as Mud Kips and other notorious SL griefers like Jim Korpov of Korpov Korpov Korpov infamy were all re-spawned and gathering there.

But there's more. When I swung by (I've visited exactly twice), I saw that all the items there had been made obscene. The statue of Valve CEO Gabe Newell as a white jello-like sculpty now sported a dick, as did that little creature in the gas mask whose hand he is holding as a statute (ugh). Mud Kips was running around with a naked cock as were others. I abuse reported the maker of the obscene statue. Somehow I think that Gabe Newell would draw the line at "fan fic" or "fan art" that portrayed him in an obscene manner worse than even slash fic.

Why did I cross the Metaverse to go to this silly griefer installation and make an AR? Not out of any vindictive sense of net-nannying, although I could be understood for that. I never visit their sims and very rarely AR them for things they are not doing directly on my sim (I can think of one other time when they were griefing Anshe's land -- the very first time I encountered them inworld in real time, in fact -- when I AR'd them).

No, I went there looking for any evidence of those very alts harassing me all the time with effigies and land setting overrides (and they are indeed exploits and bugs as is widely recognized by those who actually examine the situation). I didn't see them, but while I was there, I saw Mud Kips (I believe he was also Hazim Gazov) who also used to grief me on my sim regularly -- and that's alt abuse. Whenever I saw their alts come back, I'd AR them if I saw them in the info hub. So it was alt abuse and adult behaviour in Mature.

Likely other things went on. The whole sim was filled with objects flying on physics and crashing, particles, people doing crap that undoubtedly crashed it.

This account (Chris?) is whining about how he lost his sim (and it must be Chris as he always indicated he was the owner.

And there's a fake "Prokofy Neva" (not me, as my account is named just "Prokofy" on reddit) spouting about Lenin and the NKVD in fake Prokofy-talk.

Coincidentally, we heard that Yoz Linden was fired today, and basically sent a fuck-you to the Lab by saying on Twitter, "Never forget you are building a fucking world."

I have no idea if his departure was at all related to Sandvich -- likely not, as I never knew him to hang with griefers or tout Woodbury as some Lindens did -- but I definitely don't view making Sandvich as somehow legitimate world-making, as from the beginning, it was -- as I explained perfectly well -- taking up the place that the real fan base of Steam would have occupied had they made a sim. And it was taking it up with fakers who had already used a commuter college and the popularity of the Bronies to trojan their way into SL with griefing and harassment, PN style.

Note that they made a Valve theme park -- to spoof the company and get in their face -- not a Steam theme, really. That's pure Pixeleen. And boring. Because it's not good parody that's even funny. Like I said, the repetitive jackboot on your land with effigy litter, the repetitive penises on everything and everyone -- boring, and the banality of evil.

My estimation of the Lindens has gone up immeasurably. This was record time for their getting rid of the Woodburies/goons -- every other time, it was when Jack Linden and Philip or M or somebody else was in charge, not Rod. Rod didn't get rid of the Bronies invasion, but he did get rid of some accounts. This is the first sim he's taken offline -- and for cause. Good! Why mess up the Steam thing? And it's they who *would* mess it up, not me who has *rightly* expressed fears of griefing upsurges in SL when we are listed, and has *rightly* AR'd this gang for their world-salad Eddie Haskell crap yet again.

The Wrong Hands imagined that if they could just find a popular Trojan horse, they could keep getting away with murder, and the Steam and/or Valve thing looked perfect -- bullet-proof. I actually thought it might take a year or more to get the Lindens to decouple, especially when I saw Torley praising it on his feed, Cheesey and Wheesey -- or whatever these new Linden names are -- going to visit, etc.

There was this strange interlude with Danger Linden on Twitter -- I still have no idea whether that is a real account or not, it's not verified and he hasn't confirmed inworld that it's him.

Tizzers -- who confirms his link to the Wrong Hands in case anyone doubted by putting their old website URL on his profile -- is making classy tweets like this one:

Tizzers ‏@Tizzers

"You don't advertise a premium brand in a toilet." -Mercedes Benz on leaving Second Life. #secondlife

I see no evidence that Mercedes, which was briefly in SL, ever said anything remotely like this.

What's annoying about these griefers is that they were harming the brands of both Second Life and Steam and their makers with their fake fanboyz sim which was knee-deep in permabanned griefers, and they will then try to get another whack at the brands by making it seem like -- gasp! -- the horror! -- Linden Lab has stifled their "creativity" and made it seem like Steam people won't have fun or innovation in Second Life.

That's a load of crap, of course. You don't have to go on a sim and nearly crash it and put penises on all the statues in Mature in order to be creative. If you reaaaalallly need to do that, you can go in Adult and label the sim "adult". Ah, but then it would have less visitors, eh?

If you want to have a creative sim, you don't have to copy a company's artwork, either. You can make a tribute and a fan base without having to do that, it's done all the time.

You don't HAVE to assemble all the worst permabanned griefers of SL who are actually the least creative, as they get ALL their story ideas from *me*, and then repeat their Soviet meme infinitely to the point of banality, as I said.

So it will run it's course, and then the real Steam people will be free to come and fill up the spaces as they see fit, and hopefully there will be a number of Steam communities that will find some value of SL that won't consist of just the worst griefing ganking gamerz.

 P.S.

A post-script from the kind of enabler that makes these griefscapades possible every damn time -- one of those big-shot developers who thinks he knows it all and thinks I'm the problem, and not griefers.

Reed Steamroller (what a name!) was put in charge of mesh development and hawking by the Lindens -- I think they must have hired the company where he works, Sand Castle Studios

I've crossed swords with him before because he's an arrogant ass -- the way devs get in these worlds and games. Remember that obnoxious machinima they made to get us all to "transition" to mesh by making it all seem like we were backward dweebs and feebs for not letting them find a new way to flush more money out of SL?

I also challenged him when he let notorious griefers join his mesh dev group -- and he'd finally, begrudgingly -- remove them.

Now he's getting indignant and acting in the usual superior geek way about this decision by LL to pull Sandvich -- he thinks it's "dumb" because it only brings them more attention or gives them a bad name.

But it doesn't. Reed is wrong.

Oh, and so much for these SL devs forcing everybody on to mesh as their "job"?! He isn't even in SL...

[20:44] Reed Steamroller: Making friends on Reddit I see.
[20:44] Prokofy Neva: Yeah your little friends got baninated and rightfully so
[20:44] Prokofy Neva: http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2012/09/griefers-steam-theme-sim-taken-offline-by-lindens-accounts-banned.html'
[20:44] Reed Steamroller: I'd never heard of it before I saw it there.  But that was retarded, dumping the SIM I mean.
[20:45] Prokofy Neva: No it wasn't at all
[20:45] Reed Steamroller: Nobody else had heard of it either.
[20:45] Prokofy Neva: It's the FOURTH TIME a Tizzers sim has been removed, der
[20:45] Reed Steamroller: But now reddit knows LL's name.
[20:45] Prokofy Neva: where have you been?
[20:45] Reed Steamroller: So dumb.
[20:45] Prokofy Neva: no
[20:45] Prokofy Neva: it's the right thing to do when permabanned griefers keep coming back
[20:45] Reed Steamroller: I've not been in SL is where I've been.
[20:45] Prokofy Neva: you get rid of their nest, their mains, and you  send 30 of them packing
[20:45] Prokofy Neva: lasts for awhile anyway, and each removal gets faster
[20:45] Prokofy Neva: it's all good
[20:45] Prokofy Neva: if somebody wants a steam sim they can make one without Tizzers
[20:46] Prokofy Neva: it was all fake and you know if you are honest
[20:46] Prokofy Neva: but you aren't evidently
[20:46] Reed Steamroller: Perhaps you aren't aware of SL's reputation outside of SL.
[20:46] Reed Steamroller: It isn't the best.
[20:46] Reed Steamroller: And reddit is a horde of people.
[20:47] Reed Steamroller: A definite opportunity for LL to brush some of the shit off of SL's reputation.
[20:47] Reed Steamroller: Well, not anymore.
[20:47] Prokofy Neva: Um, it's a reputation among your little cesspools like some back water group on Reddit or some silly IRC channel.
[20:47] Prokofy Neva: Reddit isn't a horde of people
[20:47] Prokofy Neva: it's the same core of assholes you find everywhere pretending they are a horde
[20:47] Prokofy Neva: and the "horde" around SL is like a few insects lol
[20:47] Prokofy Neva: please
[20:48] Reed Steamroller: I forgot this is like playing chess with a house cat or something.
[20:48] Reed Steamroller: later on.
[20:48] Prokofy Neva: The shit being put on LL's reputation was being put on by those assholes who deliberately hijacked this theme
[20:48] Prokofy Neva: are you daft? where have you been the first three times this was done
[20:48] Prokofy Neva: with Woodbury, Patriotic Nigras, Bronies, etc. etc. 4chan
[20:48] Prokofy Neva: same shit different day, truly
[20:48] Prokofy Neva: you're just not admitting it
[20:49] Prokofy Neva: And they count on people like you biting the bate
[20:49] Prokofy Neva: *bait

Comments

[Prokofy Neva]

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/SLisagame

Wonder how long that will last. Same old Wrong Hands Woodbury goons as ever was.

[Laetizia Coronet]

Well now, if SL is a toilet, Tiz dear, then why do you keep coming back? Was it something you ate?

[Mantari Damacy]

I, for one, would have worshiped at the gigantic white jello statue of Gabe Newell with an approximated genital representation.

I'm not a fan of griefers, but by your description and the pictures I've seen, this place looked like it was pretty awesome.

Actually, come to think of it... it sounds like the perfect kind of draw a griefer WOULD want to make. Hmmmm.

[qie.niangao.myopenid.com]

Not really germane, but perhaps of tangential interest, a current high-profile case of TOS violation as grounds for felony charges: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/09/aaron-swartz-felony/

[Prokofy Neva]

I will be glad to see him go down because it will mean that the rule of law is triumphing over Internet lawlessness and arrogant coders like Swartz. He's the quintessential redditor of course, having invented it.

And um, it's not that "TOS violations are grounds for felony charges," it's that he committed felonies *anyway* under *criminal law* which is also reflected in the TOS. You're trying to imply that he griefed somebody's e-lawn. He is also charged with real-life bricks and mortar breaking and entry.

[asot]

y u h8ing on valve what is you problem just because u cant make gd game?

lern to hav fun piece out loser

[YUMADTHO]

"[20:47] Prokofy Neva: Reddit isn't a horde of people"

LOLWUT? Prokofy, you are sheltered. The Reddit community is 5,000 times bigger than SecondLife. Reddit is a phenomenon. World leaders do Q&As on Reddit.

[Prokofy Neva]

It isn't a horde of people. Everyone knows that Reddit runs on the same principle as any other game or world or online community -- 10 percent of the people run the other 90 percent.

And as it relates to Second Life, in Reddit terms or any terms, it's miniscule. The thread had only 299 comments when I looked. If a picture has 20,000 views, that shows you the coefficient nicely, doesn't it? And I probably hit it 50 times myself trying to get the thread link and reading the updates.

So there's no "horde" on Reddit that cares about SL and Steam in SL.

[Just wow]

Guys seriously, stop trying to talk sense into this nutcase. It's pointless. She's so far gone that they took her off the milk carton years ago.

If she wants to stalk tizzers, let her. She'll get herself into trouble with the law if she continues her bullshit libel crap. Even if tizzers WAS such a 'bad dude,' you're still jumping at shadows, you deranged old bat. Take off your tinfoil hat for once in your life and breathe the air of the real world.

[Dronehead]

In order for it to be libel, "Just Wow", it must first be false.

This is the fifth time Tizzers has been kicked off the grid and some patsy has lost their sim (or sims) because they consorted with Tizzers. There's no getting around the facts.

[Maria Scripps]

Some figures, Prokofy:

The Imgur page linked from the Reddit thread now has 400,000 views (and counting), so I don't know why you keep going on about 20,000. Last time Linden Lab did something to W.U. it was covered by influential publications such as The Chronicle of Higher Education and the US News and World Report. Media coverage of the Steam ban includes http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/9543/article/steam-reddit-theme-park-banned-from-second-life-sparking-user-protest and http://alphavilleherald.com/2012/09/linden-lab-nukes-sandvich-sim.html -- and it's very possible it could soon be more. This is indeed a major PR disaster for Linden Lab.

Your Enyclopedia Dramatica biography which is merely linked in one of the ca. 900 comments in the Reddit thread had almost 5,000 views only yesterday. Your Wikipedia bio had thousands of views as well. It's safe to assume that a few hundred thousand people in the gaming/Reddit/Steam/virtual worlds communities read about this incident, so it's a major issue in Linden Lab's world. And it's now permanently inscribed in Second Life's history that universities and gaming communities have their sims closed without explanation. It does really not look good! Those outside SL don't care about the bickering by insiders, they only see Linden Lab closing down the sims of a university and a Steam community without explanation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life#Ban_of_educational_and_gaming_communities

[Prokofy Neva]

"Maria Scripps" is not a name in the People List so you cannot post here and are blocked -- you have to have a valid SL, RL or bloggers' name to post here.

It doesn't matter if there are a million views on that picture. One way it gets so many views is that each time you go looking for the link to that article, unfortunately, you get ONLY that picture and have to keep struggling to then find the thread. Reddit is filled with those annoying collapsed threads and downvoting so it's hard to see things. Unless you've found the "permalink," you keep getting the damn picture.

Each time someone wants to go back and see what is going on in that thread, they have to click on the damn picture first. I've probably clicked it 50 times myself in the last few days.

The real number of views should be put *on the thread itself* but Reddit doesn't post that information. Instead, it puts the comments, which are 822 -- hardly any sort of dramatic number, especially in the world of reddit.

The Chronicle of Higher Education article was written by a sympathizer geek and it never got the scrutiny in deserved. But then, the PC quotient at CHE is high and it's hard to break through with the truth there. We did our best in the comments. What's operative is that CHE never returned to that topic again, so at some point, they must have had their doubts. I don't recall anything in US News, but that may have been merely a digest of CHE.

Basically, it was a fake, non-story so no reputable investigative news organization addressed it.

The gaming website covering it in fact at least linked to my blog and the counter narrative, which is more than CHE did back in the day. And of course Alphaville is notorious as a griefer organ so that doesn't count.

There is hardly any PR disaster for LL here whatsoever. For one, there's no such thing as a bad review. But a gaggle of griefers on new alts whipping up reddit -- where even reddit regs start to suspect they are being played -- is hardly going to harm SL because this demographic -- the male gaming nerds in r/gaming -- doesn't like SL anyway and likely never will even if it is packaged as Garry's Mod.

As for Wikipedia, ho hum. That doesn't count. The press for Patterns and Creatorverse all over the tech media this week with really mass views utterly dwarfs whatever the robble rabble can get up.

And it does look planned -- Woodbury/Alphaville are always trying to undermine Linden lab out of spite above all because of Pixeleen's competing virtual world platform that failed.

Woodbury University leadership itself now would set any journalist straight that what happened wasn't that "their university sim" was closed down, but what happened is that they were played by a bunch of griefers.

Any real journalist will also ask LL about the story if it comes to that and realize what it's really about.

This is all a fake PR disaster like the contrived leak of the tape of Romney's fund-raising luncheon was a fake PR disaster.

[Cheesey Linden]

I just love all the imaginary conspiracies this resident makes up.
In reality we had to make space for the Steam administrators to come in and build their community.
Part of their buying into Second Life means exclusivity.
If you all would wait for the press release, everything will be made clear. If you can't wait, then go ahead and listen a land owner who still cannot grasp how to work the land controls.

LIC!

[Rex Cronon]

WOW. A linden speaking about such a 'controversial' subject, and before ll makes an official public announcement?
Who is next? Philip Rosedale? Gabe Newell too? rofl.
IMO this looks so much like trolling.
A few days ago, there was a fake danger linden, now this.
Seems like impostors, and impersonators are becoming very brazen.

[Rex Cronon]

On second thought, Danger Linden didn't say anything controversial but "I cannot comment upon this", he merely quoted from the LL customer service handbook. So it might as well have been a real Linden for all we know. Maybe they figured the quotes from the handbook are really stupid and fired him?

[Rex Cronon]

now i got an impersonator:) lolz

[GreenLantern Excelsior]

Oh Maria...

http://goo.gl/uaXbe

[Prokofy Neva]

Rex, Linden Lab's Twitter account made an announcement that Danger Linden was not their employee. I suspect "Cheesey Linden" comes from that same opera.

[Cathiee Mcmillan]

Maria Scripps

LOL Love your view of "influential publications" it falls to fringe hacker loving publications.
Alphaville Hearld LOL...Lets see any reporter worth their salt, can easily see how Pixel and Tizzer are close. And that the alphaville is only hurt because Tizzer has no life other than to keep trying to comeback to a system that booted his butt many times. I Think its time for the boy to grow up and move on. Yet he seems to be all upset about it and keeps coming back to provoke reactions then he can go cry to others....boohooo SL banned me....Why did they do that. So he makes crap up to make it sound like SL is evil. Best for him and others like him to go away.
Instead he wants to try to destroy something many of us enjoy doing.
This is his stupid and silly childish behavior.
Same with all the people always attacking Prok in his sims.
If your that bored go play WOW or some other game and be with the gaziilion other kids who are all into trashing each other.

[Rex Cronon]

I knew about danger being fake.
Cheesey is a real linden though.
IMO the comment you have here from Cheesey, might actually be from an impersonator.

[Resident vonResident]

""The statue of Valve CEO Gabe Newell as a white jello-like sculpty now sported a dick""
>Oh shit, people having fun/vandalizing statues in a REZ ZONE!! Call the cops, there are lawbreakers afoot!

""I abuse reported the maker of the obscene statue.""
>Apparently now it's against the rules to make mesh statues of people. Because as everyone knows, the maker of the statue is really the prick that vandalized it! BAN THEM! BAN THEM NOW GRIFFER SCUM!

""rarely AR them for things they are not doing directly on my sim""
>Yet you've decided to AR anyone you THINK is remotely involved with TWH, even those who simply share similar interests or a friendly word. EVERYONE IS A GRIFFER!! WATCH OUT! THEYRE EVERYWHERE!

""The whole sim was filled with objects flying on physics and crashing, particles,""
>Oh fuck man. Don't you know? No combat or weapon testing in a sandbox that permits it! You have to do it somewhere else.

""they made a Valve theme park -- to spoof the company and get in their face""
>Because all fan-made stuff is intended to be insulting.

""Because it's not good parody that's even funny.""
>It was a parody? Hot damn I just thought it was a sim paying homage to the Valve games you don't even know about or understand. Thank you for opening my eyes.

""You don't have to go on a sim and nearly crash it and put penises on all the statues in Mature in order to be creative.""
>Running a land rental business on SL must just be incredibly nail biting. No reason to have juvenile fun in a virtual world when you have such an exciting business! I forgive you for being such a stiff prude as far as having fun in SL goes.

""all the worst permabanned griefers of SL who are actually the least creative""
>So baaaaaaaasically… YOU'RE saying that these guys are criminal masterminds (as you see them), yet are not creative in the least. Fascinating.

""Soviet meme""
>Even if they did constantly use a "soviet meme", you (as a person) see communism/soviet themes EVERYWHERE. This much is obvious from reading back through your paranoid delusions and ramblings.