A notorious multiple "permabanned" griefer in Second Life and his RL business partner have created the Steam community group island in Second Life to welcome new Steam players coming into the virtual world with the new partnership between Linden Lab and Valve.
Jordan Bellino, known as Tizzers Foxchase and numerous variants on the name "Tiz", banned on this account and numerous others, has teamed up with Chris Toumanian, a California illustrator with whom he works in a start-up called Intelligentsia (not the coffee company) in order to make the Steam fan community.
Neither of them are known as being leaders in the Steam community, and Tizzers seems to be doing a lot of the recruiting not on Steam, but Redditt, where there are Steam players as well as those who love Something Awful, 4chan, and similar sort of memes. It's not clear if other more authentic leaders of Steam might create their own communities -- surely there's room for multiple types of group, as there are for Star Wars and Doctor Who and every other sort of fan base? -- but Steam is diffuse enough that this might happen.
Just as Woodbury University, where Tizzers studied and created havoc in Second Life, for at least four years from the digital arts department, in collusion with the professor and dean there; just as with the Bronies, that Tizzers invaded and took over as a fan group that eventually led to yet another banning; so now with Steam.
And the purpose is to so associate the Lindens' new pet project to raise memberships and concurrency with griefers, that it will be discredited. As always, the destructive invasion will be couched with faux wide-eyed innocence and denials that these vandals are merely creatively building and experimenting with the considerable opportunities of the open-ended virtual world platform.
Paging Eddie Haskell, lovers of Fisk, and word-salad sous-chefs! Maybe even the defunct Alphaville Herald will awaken to write encomiums to this well-worn form of griefing in new cyber clothing.Already I can see all the fake-outrage claims that people who just want to enjoy Second Life are being "slandered" and "lies" are being spread about them.
And make no mistake about it -- it won't take me to validate any of this and the Steam experiment will end in tears like multiple versions of Woodbury University and Bronies. That's because these people aren't just well-meaning kids who let in "a few bad apples," they are organized, resourced, backed adults with a cunning plan to perpetrate yet another griefing hoax on Second Life and sow confusion and ultimately force the Lindens' hand.
It won't take me to validate all this, because the reasons for the Lindens banning all those involved in Woodbury and later other groups like The Wrong Hands and then the Bronies is because they grief other people, and commit all kinds of TOS violations unrelated to me and my little rentals company. They crash sims, copybot content, harass people, destroy privacy, exploit the software in multiple ways and make havoc, all the way pretending they aren't doing that, and confusing especially new Lindens who don't understand this methodology or the history.
When Chris Toumanian, who is Sarilia Tryce in Second Life now, contacted me with his fake good cheer, he pretended he knew nothing about Tizzers. He acted as if he had only had heard he was a good builder and had never heard anything bad about him. But of course, he knows exactly who Tizzers, his close business partner in a little start-up, and his history of bans in Second Life. Tizzers would hardly be silent about that; he boasts about it in fact as a badge of honour. It's utterly disingenuous for Sarilia Tryce to be making these claims -- he's been in SL for a while if he has a last name, and he knows the score.
When the latest griefer alt FirstThingIShallDo appeared again last night to put out the ugly and disguisting effigies of me naked and eating a chicken with a giant bird hovering over me, with a copybotted version of Jessica Ornitz' picnic table which is *not* on copy, he IM'd me to go to Refugio to see his handiwork. I didn't, because I don't run screaming each time these griefers appear. I go about waiting on customers. Later, I went to Refugio and blogged about it and left, but then returned to see if I could get some of the crap off the sim. Who should I find looking at the scene but Sarilia Tryce! Now, he could have been refreshing my blog and seen it there, but he could also have been IMing with Tizzers, who has made a new account called Hissyfits with the display name "Tiz".
No matter, because he saw them, and has now written this in offline IMs:
[0:44] Sarilia Tryce: Could you please stop harassing us on your blog? This is bordering on slander and neither me or Hissyfits are doing anything against you. I can understand why you might not like the Reddit community - it's definitely going to attract 4chan types and gamers who would rather blow things up in SL than place nice - it's unfortunate and occasionally annoying to me because I'm more interested in building and chatting.
[0:48] Sarilia Tryce: The effigies some folks are setting up of you are extremely distasteful, and I can assure you neither me or Hissyfits has the time to indulge in something so idiotic. I'm extremely sorry about that but it isn't us. Please check your facts better. The only people I can imagine would do that to you are possibly in the PN group or other self-proclaimed "griefing" groups I could care less about.
[0:50] Sarilia Tryce: Like I said - I'm not lying about anything. If you
have any questions or would like me to do anything to help you, just
ask. All I care about is that we get along with everybody because SL is
going on Steam soon and a lot of gamers are going to be flocking to our
sim. A ton! If we give them a cool place to hang out and be involved in
more gamerish activities it will be far easier for them to get into SL
than them showing up in a starting area and going, "now what?"
[0:51]
Sarilia Tryce: There's going to be a massive amount of new users coming
and we would like to appeal to their demographic because we're part of
it. We don't make any money from SL, and can't with our sim, but as you
do I would look forward to this opportunity to expand your business. The
best of luck!
[0:57] Sarilia Tryce: I would just rather not deal with this and people
bashing me online. What I love about SL is that it's the only game where
you can make your own amusement parks and recreational areas other
people can freely enjoy, and listen to music and fireworks shows and
build anything you want to in the world. It's amazing and I wish more
things were like it. What turns me off more than anything in this game
is all the assholes around, and it greatly disturbs me having to deal
with them - I just want them off my back.
[0:59] Sarilia Tryce: But
it's just how people are - sorry for the long spiel, lol. If I see
somebody crashing or causing too many problems here we ban them, just as
I did on my Minecraft servers.
[0:59] Sarilia Tryce: Have a good night Prokofy
[1:27] Sarilia Tryce: Here's a tip btw. Create an alt and ask around as
to who is making the effigies of you. I just asked a few people and they
told me who in a minute. I'm not going to say it here because you'll
probably just post my IM on your blog without my consent, but think
about doing some better research.
[1:28] Sarilia Tryce: I guess it's been the same person over a year and you've blamed it on Tiz every single time..... ciao.
Now, of course he's lying, something we can obviously see from his chat yesterday in which he pretended not to know Tizzers intimately or his pre-history and acted like some chucklehead just being cheerful and "helpful". It's their usual pose.
And with this telling exchange, he first pretends he doesn't have any idea who this griefer is, and thinks I need to "check my facts" because it can't possibly be Tizzers, then tells me with just "asking around" he could find out who it was...but couldn't tell me.
What a bunch of bullshit!
For one, as these acts are committed by alts -- and sometimes multiple alts operating at the same time online, and sometimes with different patterns of speech -- it could be Tizzers as much as anyone. How does he know what Tizzers does in every minute of his spare time, or in the other window tabbed down, even if he is in the same apartment or room with Tizzers?
Second, Tizzers little friends could protect him and distract Sarilia from the fact that he's doing it. We all saw the strenuous efforts to keep everyone from knowing that Joanna Falmer wasn't Tizzers, but Whut MoorLord accidently said "Hi Tiz," once when Falmer came on the sim and blew the cover.
Third, even if it isn't Tizzers, or not Tizzers most of the time, if Chris Toumanian/Sarilia Tryce has learned who it is, his coyness about not telling us is awful criminal. If he is really in good faith -- and we know that he isn't -- he should have abuse reported the main account of the person he knew who was doing it or told the Lindens the past banned accounts. This griefer has cost me real money and upset many of my tenants, and done so not just with effigies but with fake messages that I am going out of business, which has forced tenants to refund and leave. The damage is real and extensive, and it's wrong and it's criminal, in SL as well as RL. Chris Toumanian is aiding and abetting criminality by not turning in this person and revealing their name.
And the reason is probably because it's Tizzer's partner Hazim Gazov or Sean Altman, another friend, or someone in that WU griefing circle of b/tards, and they are still there and Sarilia is reluctant to queer his role as Steam host by cracking down on the kind of person evidently attracted to steam.
And he says as much in his defiant comment: "I can understand why you might not like the Reddit community - it's definitely going to attract 4chan types and gamers who would rather blow things up in SL than place nice - it's unfortunate and occasionally annoying to me because I'm more interested in building and chatting."
Interesting confession that it's really the Reddit community not the Steam community -- although they overlap. But if SL is to grow beyond its small pond status, than some more robust and less griefy Steam group will have to appear.
In the mean time, Tizzers and Sarilia occupy the space that another Steam community leadership could be occupying -- and it may stay that way out of inertia, lack of interest, or disbelief that they are aiding and abetting the Patriotic Nigras and other malicious 4chan spinoffs of Anonymous, Lulzsec etc.
All along the way to sorting this out, until finally even Rodvik gets it, we will hear all kinds of word salading about how they just like to build and don't make money out of SL and stuffy landlords who make money in business are the problem and aren't creative.
Of course, the lion's share of creativity in SL actuall comes from the hundreds of people running huge rentals and buying the content created by the creators who serve that industry. The entire pet phenomenon is unrelated to furry sandbox griefing and is a completely different phenomenon of creativity -- although of course, to the Anonymous types, it's bourgeois and mass taste (even when it isn't).
Rodvik nodded and winked at the invasion of Woodbury into the Bronies, and even made a Brony as his Linden bear which he gave out only to select customers. Anyone calling attention to the problems of The Wrong Hands or Bronies on his profile eventually got removed.
I got the same treatment from Tommy Linden, a guy in payments who shouldn't be involved in sim issues, but who likes to explore and who posted a picture of Sandvich, the sim Sarilia Tryce and Hissyfits (Chris Toumanian and Jordan Bellino) have opened as a "Valve theme park" enthusiastically on his profile.
I questioned this, and I got very calibrated and rapid Linden Fisk & Haskell treatment -- he said in response to my query as to why he was celebrating permabanned griefers with a claim not to know what I was talking about and urging me to go file an AR if I had a problem with another resident, and when I persisted in explaining, he erased both of our comments off his profile, and sent me a DM saying he didn't know about this issue as he recently joined the company but that in the standard LL boilerplate, "Unfortuantely posting about this on my feed is not the appropriate place to issue a complaint about other residents, or to discuss tos violations of other residents." As Laetizia Coronet -- no angel she -- put it on Twitter, Tommy is almost believable as a newbie Linden.
The fact is, with Jack, Jeska, Keira, and hosts of other Lindens gone who had historical and institutional membory of the three times that Woodbury University was banned and their servers seized, new Lindens are not going to know or will become indignant if anyone persists in trying to educate them. But surely there must be files somewhere, and some old Lindens do know the score.
The reality is, Chris Toumanian is aiding and abetting the people who are harming me and my tenants, by harbouring Tizzers and keeping secret his knowledge (if true) of who is perpetrating these gross acts. So I am definitely going to keep holding him responsible and keep documenting this and keep raising the problem with the Lindens.
Because -- again -- even without me as part of this story, and the chronic harassment of my tenants -- the larger issue is that Chris has helped Tizzers, a multi-banned serial hardcore griefer, come into Second Life again under the guise of a new initiative the Lindens are taking. I hold Rod Humble personally responsible for the griefing that ensues because he has been duly warned.
As this comment got buried on the previous threads I'll repost it here because it contains information from the Reddit group:
Cynical said:
This was posted in Skype to me a while back.. "Hey Redditors, As you may have noticed, the Reddit sim is no longer on the map. Over the past 6 months, our sim has served as a home for fans of Reddit and a small handful of other SL communities. We've had some crazy fun times in the sandbox, and we can proudly say that we have been most active and vibrant Reddit group on the grid. In keeping with the flexible nature of our group, we will be taking advantage of a new opportunity to help our community grow. On August 16th, Linden Lab announced that Second Life will be joining Valve's Steam community. In the spirit of gaming, we will be re-designing the sim to provide a home to the inevitable wave of new Steam gamers. As of this morning, our sim "Reddit" is now known as "Sandvich." The Reddit group will remain active, and of course everybody is still welcome at the sim. We may even set up a Reddit embassy! Please excuse our dust as we scramble to finish the build, and by all means feel free to continue using the sim as a sandbox. If you have any questions or would like to contribute Team Fortress / Portal / Half Life props please send me an IM! ~Tiz" I think it was a group notice somewhere or something. We all laughed at it and simply assumed that the "rename" was just them getting another sim after yet again being squished when the wrong employee noticed their existence and bothered to click his mouse. I don't really understand what drives them to keep spending money on sims and then not even bothering with basic survival instinct; they'd probably be left alone forever if they didn't insist on playing charades. I guess they need to shake their fist at LL (and be seen doing so of course) more than they need for LL to not flick them off the table. At this point it is almost good business strategy for LL to ban the sim, they are almost guaranteed to buy another, eh?
***
So did the Lindens ban the Reddit sim and they've re-spawned as Sandvich?
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | September 15, 2012 at 01:11 AM
An update with more brainiac concepts on how to deal with griefers -- the old "keep quiet and maybe you won't rile these college students" crap:
[08:18] Sarilia Tryce: (Saved Sat Sep 15 03:32:28 2012)I have never in my life personally encountered somebody act so childish towards me. I never denied that I was friends with Tiz - I told you we were friends - you're omitting things I'm saying just to hype up your blog and I'm done discussing this. Your conspiracy theories are funny, but this is getting ridiculous. I was told the person setting up the effigies was Joanna, but you already seem to know that. The people telling me that could be wrong. Unlike you, I don't just blame people for things without evidence and go blogging and reporting them. Sheesh.
[08:18] Sarilia Tryce: (Saved Sat Sep 15 03:34:01 2012)There's a ton of people out there who read your blog and enjoy your responses. They then try to troll you back because of it. If you want attention with these college students, you've found an excellent way to get it. Congrats.
The chat record shows that he never said he was friends with Tizzers but acted as if he was just talking about a remote third party. Here it is again, illustrating that nowhere did he say anything about being friends, and in fact asked if there was anything he should know about Tiz, as if he were a stranger!
[2012/09/13 17:46] Sarilia Tryce: (Saved Thu Sep 13 19:54:01 2012)Prokofy! Hey thanks for writing about my Sim, Sandvich, I appreciate the visit and am a huge fan! Hilarious post btw!
[2012/09/13 17:46] Sarilia Tryce: (Saved Thu Sep 13 20:02:06 2012)Gabe is an awesome guy and we all really think he's great in the Steam community, btw. I wish he was involved =)
[2012/09/13 17:46] Sarilia Tryce: (Saved Thu Sep 13 20:31:22 2012)Oh, you're probably really busy and all but if you don't mind me asking, is there anything I should know about Tiz or any of the people who hang out on my Reddit/Valve themed sim?
[2012/09/13 17:46] Sarilia Tryce: (Saved Thu Sep 13 20:33:06 2012)I read the article and it sounded like you were saying some mean things about him, Tizzers right? He's a great builder and always welcome here. Has never caused any problems for me yet. There's a history of banned accounts? Are you sure?
[2012/09/13 17:46] Sarilia Tryce: (Saved Thu Sep 13 20:34:30 2012)Ttyl, and thanks! I really enjoy the fun random scripts and everything but so far I haven't seen anyone being mean or anything to each other here. If you see anything bad please report it to me and I'll have a chat with them. Have a good day - I'll try to visit Raven soon
[2012/09/13 17:46] Sarilia Tryce: (Saved Thu Sep 13 20:36:24 2012)That makes sense about our fellow Redditors here being involved with 4chan though - a lot of the fun memes on the website come from there.
Wow, he's now outed the name of Joanna Falmer! Whoop de do! That account is banned. So what's the new main account supporting all the alts?
Joanna Falmer was long ago revealed to be Tiz:
http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2009/11/joannatizzy.html
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | September 15, 2012 at 11:28 AM
Sharia Sluniverse really went to town on working over the Joanna Falmer alt claims, and the consensus seemed to be that it was Tizzers (even Lum said "50/50 chance"):
http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/general-sl-discussion/43467-farewell-woodbury-50.html
It it wasn't, it was either Hazim or Tux or somebody actively cooperating and possibly even sharing the account with Tizzers.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | September 15, 2012 at 11:33 AM
I note Sariliya's claim of borderline slander (libel, actually, but what is a little definition of defamation between friends like that.) If it is, then the correct response of ST would be to demand a retraction, and when one is not forthcoming, to sue.
Leaving aside the infinitesimal amount for damages involved, this won't happen for the simple reason that the defense would get to take discovery and finally get to the bottom of who the hell is behind the avatars.
Posted by: Ahab Qvetcher | September 15, 2012 at 11:55 PM
It's not libel, Ahab, it just doesn't meet the test. Remember, to even be accepted as a court case, it would have to be shown to be:
o malicious, i.e. deliberately falsified. But it's not, it's the truth
o not meet the truth defense -- which is to state that it isn't libel because it's true
o harm livelihood -- which is preposterous -- he does a lot more harm to his business by having the notorious Tizzers as a partner than anything my little blog might add
I can counter that I've suffered real loss and damages throughout the years from Tizzers.
Yeah, discovery would be golden. That's why I say -- bring it! Linden Lab would have to come up with an explanation as to why they allow this and can't cope with it and why they keep letting these people back.
Today, my tenant lost about US $50 worth of content just bought that disappeared when the server was deliberately crashed. The Lindens didn't have a recent set point, set it back two days, and all the stuff is irretrievably lost. Ouch. This is just unacceptable, of course, but the real problem is the griefer.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | September 16, 2012 at 12:00 AM
The reddit sim only underwent a name change, as all items remained in their place as the change transitioned. There was no "linden seizure or ban" The owners of the sim have done nothing wrong other than take the libel that is being emitted from prokofy's itchy little fingers.
Posted by: PonPonPon | September 16, 2012 at 02:23 AM
Another thing, if you bothered to actually do ANY research on the sim itself, you'll notice it has not shifted or moved at all from its location on the grid. It was there when it was labled "Reddit" and it was there when it changed to "Sandvich."
Posted by: PonPonPon | September 16, 2012 at 02:34 AM
Um, I ask questions. There is no libel here. I ask legitimate questions based on this chat info that suggests that Redditt sure had to close up in a hurry and become Valve!
You have to pay to have your name changed on an island, and payment isn't the strong suit of these goons.
You can't tell easily if a sim has changed position on the map if there is nothing next to it. However, my sharp eye already noticed before I wrote this that DUH it's next to the Bronies. So that spells T-I-Z-Z-E-R-S.
BTW, they must have decided finally it was time to sell Dr. Yootz's grieflands on the flank of Ravenglass where they had huge glowing towers and the Refrigerator set to sale to me for millions of Lindens if I wanted to "save the view". I didn't. Now that land is all abandoned. Funny.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | September 16, 2012 at 03:16 AM
I'm glad you've noticed I am no angel. I would be offended as an atheist to be called one.
For less informed readers I would like to point out that I have never been a griefer, and that I have always stood by the victims of griefing in whatever tiny way I could.
In other words, I would not appreciate if people, on the basis of me being mentioned here among the likes of Bellino, would conclude that I am somehow part of that group of sorry little grief-obsessed idiots. I lead a fairly normal Second Life, in as far as this is at all possible.
Posted by: Laetizia Coronet | September 16, 2012 at 07:18 AM
well prokofy, I know you're pretty set in your hatred of these people, but the sim hasnt changed position, it was never repossessed, the name was changed, and we've actually had a few lindens swing by and dance before. One day there was about 4 or 5 lindens at the sim simply dancing.
If you want to be obsessed for the rest of your life about someone who likely doesnt even care about you or your 'business' anymore, then you go ahead and do that. The rest of us will just watch while you spout your word salad insanity and erroneous claims.
Posted by: PonPonPon | September 16, 2012 at 06:18 PM
So, this post was let through as it contains a statement of alleged fact that Lindens are dancing on this sim with Tizzers in the officers' group.
Danger Linden is ducking any comment about this and just reciting the boilerplate about ARs. He made an account on Twitter just to answer me, and I was the only person he was following all day. Apparently he is real, as there is a Danger Linden in the Linden list. Freaky!
There is no PonPonPon in the list. Search on that name turns up Himeko Yoshikawa for some odd reason who may have nothing to do with this term or person.
Yanthis Highwater is the same person as PonPonPon so both are blocked here because you have to post with your valid SL account here, not alts. Yanthis looks like a new post-ban avatar created in 2011, and only this in the picks:
People don't seem to like my avatar lol
Steam Sandbox and Valve Theme Park - Under Construction, Sandvich (119.15,118.842,25.4521)
“Oh my god I cant stare at it, it’s going to give me a migraine!”
“Fuck I’m way too high for this shit right now.”
“Oh my god what the fuck is that? Is that a pokemon?”
"Why would you even want to MAKE something like that?? Why is something like that even invented?”
“What a strange individual…”
[17:24] B.Ulrik: yanthiss giving me a seizure
So what we get out of this little interchange is the following:
1. One of these formerly banned Woodburies is lording it over everyone in the sandbox for being allowed back undetected. Brave man!
2. He is implying Sandvich has Linden endorsement due to the dancing Lindens.
3. In the usual griefing deflection, he's implying I'm the problem *chuckle* because I've pointed out these obvious things.
I have no reason to follow the antics of these people if they stay on their sim and don't harass me. But I continue to be harassed and griefed and continue to lose real money as my tenants are harmed by these assholes. None of them claiming that they have no relationship to this can be believed.
Through five years, there's always been an interesting correlation between the removal of these home bases and mains, whether on Satyr or Soviet Woodbury, and the cessation of the griefing of me on series of alts.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | September 16, 2012 at 08:41 PM