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Re: Linden Lab Splits Mentor Group

lum — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:23:20 -0000

The FAQ on the Wiki ( http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Offi... ) gives a hint at what the motivator was for the decision. "As the world has grown and our total Resident base has increased, the one-on-one style of help we previously relied upon is simply not scaling." A good metric for LL and VTeam has been the Mentor HUD which was developed as a tool to see which islands were occupied by newbies and which didn't have a mentor with them already. It was also a wake up call for VTeam and LL who realized that despite the 1700 ( or 3500) members, there were hardly any mentors on any of the Help Islands or Welcome Areas at all. Where, if they were not helping newbies with the New User Experience, were they?

Borne of out this metric, the VTeam effected measures to treat the KOREA 1 sim as a special orientation island, complete with Mentor Greeters who gave tours. After that experiment, they announced that the mentor roles would be changing and a few "select" group of mentors would be accepted into the new program where there would be stringent testing and training guidelines. As I recall from that meeting there was nothing short of mutiny and revolt by all the mentors present. It has been a long time we heard anything from the VTeam -- in the meanwhile, the 5 VTeam members were trimmed down to 1 (the rest reassigned).

It should not have been a surprise to ANYONE that the final attempt at this stagnating group was the axe. There were attempts to train and test, only to be met with whining and retorts. Everyone wanted to be a mentor, yet very few were willing to mentor in the fashion that the VTeam envisioned. In the meanwhile, I noticed that the Mentor Tag met with more and more disrespect from the general masses -- LL's image was not good.

Additionally, I began to see more and more people around SL look upon SL Mentors with disdain. Some were downright anti-SL Mentors. Obviously, they had been rubbed wrong by the same in the past. In my opinion, there were too many of us who wore the SL Mentor tag as a crown, and not as a nice friendly hat.

With a new CEO, the dispatch of the current SL Mentor group was one of the more sensible actions to restore LL's image on their part. In my friend's wise words, "I'm SAD to see the mentor group go, but I'm happy they did." I have always, and will continue to support LL in their decisions.

I can still extend a hand to a newbie with wearing a house and running around bumping into people, without a SL Mentor Tag... To properly MENTOR them instead of just standing around answering questions...

Re: Linden Lab Splits Mentor Group

GwynethLlewelyn — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:52:53 -0000

That's true, there are plenty of those groups around (I'm still in Mental Mentors!)

Right now, Nalates, they can choose between either starting on a "default" Orientation Island/Help Island (which after Dec. 11 will have nobody to help them out) or choose from a long list of possible Community Gateways. The list is always presented in full but the order is random for each new registration.

Re: Second Life: 4% of World-Wide Market Share in Telephony and Digital Content Economy

best_business_phone — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:25:37 -0000

I love this blog! Will come again next time for sure,

Re: Linden Lab Splits Mentor Group

twitter-27883688 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:00:02 -0000

A large number of people like to help and they join various service projects. There are private help groups now. The Myst-Uru fans coming into SL formed groups to help with the transition from Myst Online to SL. The D'ni Refugees is, I believe, the largest group of fans still providing that service.

The question in my mind is that if new players (that sounds sort of sexist now that I've been in SL for a time) are rez'd in special places how will it be decided where they are rez'd?

Giving a new person a list to choose from seems problematic...

Re: Linden Lab Splits Mentor Group

DoubledownTandino — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:42:13 -0000

I'm replying to myself here....
...Ok, so Linden Lab disbands the mentors group....
but why does that mean mentors have to stop being mentors? It's so incredibly easy for a newbie to find help, perhaps LL just knows this, and doesn't feel like spending effort on it? Every single newb (the ones that give SL a week or more) always end up saying "everyone is so helpful and nice in SL" ...so I say, why does LL need a formal mentor's group if every mentor is still willing to help and be a mentor?

Re: Linden Lab Splits Mentor Group

DoubledownTandino — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:52:36 -0000

I am a mentor.... or was....
I'll take a bit of time to digest this....
but my first thoughts are this: I'm glad. The mentors of SL are the reason people won't pay for consultation in SL.
I understand how people want to help out newbies. That part makes sense. But many non-newbs took advantage of mentors. If anyone has a question, it makes sense to ask a mentor.... but from my own experience, I have had people say things like "please come look at my club and tell me what to do to make it better, hire performers, and promote. You're a mentor, why won't you help" ... and I would explain that that takes hours, and effort, and it's either something you need to learn over time, or it's a job that you need to hire someone for.
That's just my initial take on things. I'm sure I'll have multiple viewpoints on this when I think more about it...
but as for right now, I'm glad it is going to be tougher to find free help. Perhaps this move will boost the value of consultants, educators, and creative thinkers.

Re: Linden Lab Splits Mentor Group

fineman — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:00:01 -0000

That seems like a pretty reasonable assessment Gwyn. The aim is good, but the implementation so far has been badly handled. I wasn't aware of the RHNs until yesterday, but it seems to me that one of the aims there is also to allow different RHN groups to specialise in an area of SL, kind of mentor-equivalent of the Community gateways. However, I wasn't a mentor and only really got into this yesterday so I may be way off.

Re: Linden Lab Splits Mentor Group

GwynethLlewelyn — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:45:23 -0000

Oh, well spotted, Zai! Thanks for the correction! I've rephrased that sentence to reflect better what is stated on LL's official FAQ on this.

Re: Linden Lab Splits Mentor Group

twitter-21700598 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:30:16 -0000

Hm... You're assuming that the RHN groups are going to get access to the closed Help Islands, while that is not the case according to the FAQ...
It states:
"Will volunteers still be able to help at all the Help Islands (HI)?"
"Resident-run volunteer groups will have access to the public Help Islands and Orientation Island. Residents will not have access to non-public Help Islands."
I'm crossing the fingers that either the HIs will get a major overhaul (as in *improvement*) and/or that Viewer2.0 is THAT intuitive to new Residents, that they don't need any help anymore... At least no software related help...

Re: Step UP! day is today

twitter-27883688 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:22:14 -0000

A few days have passed. Have we heard any results on how many participated?

Re: Step UP! day is today

GwynethLlewelyn — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:32:08 -0000

While I respect both Tateru's and your opinion, I cannot fully agree with you. Tateru argues that copying content is not technical "theft", since that expression has a precise meaning in the legal context and should be avoided. But she disregards one minor detail. When copying content requires a deliberately modified software mechanism to intrude into a computer system or network in order to make the copy, this is cybercrime — computer intrusion — and definitely forbidden by law (and flagged as a crime) under many jurisdictions. So the content copy, by itself, might not be "a crime"; the computer intrusion to perpetuate the content copy definitely is (as said, at least in many jurisdictions).

Tateru's examples of copying DVDs, photocopying books etc. don't rely on a criminal method to obtain a duplicate. To a degree, using a tool like GLinterceptor on your computer to duplicate textures and meshes is also not a "crime" (only your own computer is being hacked). Creating a software application that logs in to Linden Lab's grid and subverts their (few) protection mechanisms, deliberately violating ToS, and making a copy of content that way, is cybercrime.

But I agree that all this is arguable in court, and a good lawyer might be able to wriggle their client out of the "criminal" notion, possibly by arguing that Linden Lab does not enforce their ToS strongly enough and that they accept people who log in to their grid in violation of ToS and makes little to prevent that. A judge might be persuaded to believe that if the owner of a third party grid doesn't feel "intruded", there cannot be an "intrusion", and in that case, it would mean there is no crime.

Nevertheless, assuming that Linden Lab acts in good faith protecting their ToS, we'll have to assume that they are not happy about people using special applications to break into their permission systems and copy content. If that's a valid assumption, everyone publicly distributing a ToS-breaking version of the SL client (or a libopenmv-based tool) and everyone using that tool to copy content illegitimately, could be accused of computer intrusion (cybercrime), and the terms "content theft" (implying there is a criminal element on that action) would certainly make sense.

Re: Step UP! day is today

openid-13280 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:05:42 -0000

In my opinion, both this article and the Step Up initiative were flawed by the fact that "content theft" and "stolen content" are misleading expressions that convey false ideas.

Re: Second Life Jewelry Fair 2009 opens today!

lapelpins — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:49:26 -0000

Oooooh! I would have gone to this too.

Re: Step UP! for Content Creation Theft Awareness

twitter-27883688 — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:46:46 -0000

I've been reading the new 3rd Party Viewer Policy discussion today and posting about the problem that nothing can keep content from being copied. That viewer-writers will need to be validated seems like a good idea. That can stop a bogus viewer from capturing my ID and sending it off. But it does nothing to stop the pirates from changing a viewer for theft.

The solution you propose does the best job of controlling content 'resell' in SL. But, it does nothing to prevent pirates from moving things from SL to OpenLife or the OSGrid.

The hidden watermarks placed in images by various Photoshop plugins might help if the SL upload process did not squish them out (not sure if it completely obliterates it or not).

There is just no good digital solution.

Re: Step UP! for Content Creation Theft Awareness

Tessa — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 09:41:05 -0000

Exactly Gwyn. Lots of folks think its unfair, the whole restrictions on the FREE FOREVER accounts, but we feel we need to pay more attention to to folks that finance this than those who would just mooch off the paying members. That never seemed right to be and I think is one of the reasons so many users go through experience now in Sl as if they were game levels, without any heart or soul to the whole thing. I just think its time we get more real and set things up to promote the values we old timers started out with and did ... well just because we cared about each other .... really. Color me warm an fuzzy - I never claimed to be like regular company owner! LOL

OHHH and thanks for the plug Gwyn! I'm still looking for a dependable honest .. err cheap! Mac coder to work with us on our client!!! Shameless advertisement for help. Then maybe I can get you to come visit us!

((hugs))) Tessa *-)

Re: Step UP! for Content Creation Theft Awareness

GwynethLlewelyn — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 08:07:00 -0000

Wow Tessa, thanks so much for that information! I see a lot of thought has been put on SpotOn3D's safeguards — really, what you're doing is pretty much what Linden Lab is supposed to have been doing all the time. It's actually ironic: you're pretty much implementing something that eBay has done (or even going a bit beyond it, since the mediation and arbitration panels are done by real people and not automated systems, and the arbitration is done by a real judge, and every proceeding is open to the public to listen and watch), and eBay's founder was one of the major investors in Linden Lab — one wonders why he never insisted that Second Life ran a similar system!

Oh yes, allowing unvalidated avatars to have all the fun but limit them in the ability to sell stolen content is the way to go! I'm sure that the harder it is for them to sell the content, the less stolen content is available: after all, opportunity makes the thief, as the old saying goes.

Awesome work. Thanks for posting this!

Re: Step UP! for Content Creation Theft Awareness

Tessa — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 06:10:39 -0000

*sigh* And once again I misspell your name Gwyn. Just blame it on my stoopid dyslexic fingers, ok? *bangs head on desk a few times and looks up apologetically*

Re: Step UP! for Content Creation Theft Awareness

Tessa — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 05:25:46 -0000

Well Gwen, as you know this is a subject my team and I have worked very hard on for our OpenSim grid. I'll not give out the name of it because I don't wish to be accused of marketing through this blog, but suffice it to say its resonating with content creators. While we can't promise 100% protection - NO ONE CAN - out system does take a holistic approach to grid security that so far has been very successful. Let me explain, but first a little disclaimer to maybe cut off a lot of unnecessary flaming and teeth nashing. Our grid systems don't appeal to everyone and that's fine. Its not our intent to be the grid for everyone. We are a very business minded grid and we feel trying to please everyone in a single grid is just not a realistic goal. So, for those who would feel this is too restrictive and would like to argue that point, its fine. You have every right to express you opinions. Just know its not going to change our direction and remember you have many many other OpenSim choices besides our grid to choose from besides ours.

Having said that little disclaimer, here is how we've addressed content theft on our grid:

1.) Registrations of FREE FOREVER accounts with the use of our client get you access to the General Population sections of the grid, and you can chat, travel and even shop to customize your avatar, but you'll not be able to own land, rez prims. build or script.
Why? We know this is the number one preferred means of hacking, spamming, scamming and
lagging on any grid and we feel our paying customers deserve to be our main focus on them
rather than handling griefers and such.

****For you shop-a-holics thinking how can you unpack your purchases if you can't rez or own land
we simply instruct them to attach the box to their avatar and unpack it directly from there.
If you're doing the V-8 head slap, TRUST ME! I was there too, thinking of all the years I went
running back home to try on stuff. :P And go figure that a very STRAIGHT male avatar GUY
thought this up!!! OK ... I digress!!!

2.a) All paid memberships are verified via PayPal accounts, providing reasonable verification on age and identity in one step without being invasive or demanding your national ID or driver's license.
Why? While some kids might brave sneaking mom's CC out of her purse to get an account,
we're betting they'll be much less likely to go rummaging through their parents
banking statements to verify a bogus PayPal account.

2.b) All membership are created under one PayPal verified Passport Account that services and controls up to 5 avatars. This means their Passport account is linked to all aspects of their grid experience, such as land ownership, selling privileges, mature area access, and the ability to see and purchase mature content. If one of those avatars messes up it has the potential to affect all the other avatars if they are suspended or even banned. Yes, a new PayPal account can be created, but that's not an unlimited option and would put anyone using fraudulent information to establishing those accounts in real jeopardy of being prosecuted on a criminal level.

3.) We sort all other clients than our own to an isolated region, blocking potentially malicious clients from accessing the rest of our grid.
Why? If they can't see it they can't copy it. Some jump to the conclusion that we are a closed
network, but that could not be further from the truth. If you'd like to hear more on that score
you'll have to be clever and figure out who we are. Simply would take too long here and digress
from this conversation, but suffice it to say we've made cross grip TPing and selling a reality.

4.) We support a community driven Mediation Panel of 3 to 5 randomly selected registered paying users to hear DMCA cases and even other grid disputes. They are responsible for making any recommendations to what should happen. They also have the option of turning to a real world legal agent to advise if necessary.

5.) If one or both parties are not happy with the recommendations they have the option to take it to court, or go through Arbitration with our real world judge residing, whose opinions are recognized by most courts world wide - all for a very affordable fee of $100-$300 per person. If one of the parties refuses to pay the fee than the other party can foot the bill, but per our TOS they are required to participate or settle on the Mediation Panel's resolution, or relinquish their membership account and be suspended or even banned from the grid.

6.) We educate through the mediation system by allowing the residents of our grid to witness the proceedings. Everything is out in the open as a means to keep it honest and to educate the community on the difference between mediated agreements and how the letter of the law applies to a given situation. Sometimes what is right isn't always legally possible to make right.

To all the nay sayers who will cry out that any hole can be punched into our security, yeah you might be right, but we kinda figure its like any software development, in that its an on going committment. Rarely is software made and then touched or upgraded again. Why should the security of a grid be any different?

To all those who would argue that there are other non-client ways to rip content, we'd have to agree, But seeing our content creators will get meticulous records of purchases made by verified avatars- not only of those on our grids, but those they sold to other grids - it will be very easy to point out items that have been ripped and found on grids not authorized to have their content there. Are our systems perfect? No, but we feel they create enough road blocks for those who would fain ignorance of what they are doing to think twice.

Why are we being so diligent? Because its the right thing to do. Both owners of this company are experts in their field, one being a 14+ year vetran of the 3D Web, and the other being an IP attorney out of Washington, DC. So yeah, we take this stuff seriously.

Can we promise copybot or interface copy tools will never gain access to our grid? No. NO ONE can promise that. But we feel that is not reason to give up or not even try. If we only match real world security success of 70-90% that's a huge improvement. And we still believe that if you give people enough reasons to pause and think of what they are doing, the majority will make the right choice.

Ultimately though, its time people realize that the theft of content creation ISN'T PART OF SOME 'GAME' OR A 'GAME CHEAT'. Its a real and legally prosecutable offense, both civilly and criminally. But I'd much rather they look at the many artist who make these great assets as real people who pay their bills, keep a roof over their heads, and take great pride and joy in providing us with some of the best content the world has seen to date. Isn't it time we respected their hard work and stopped pretending its JUST a game?

Re: Step UP! for Content Creation Theft Awareness

GwynethLlewelyn — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 02:55:36 -0000

Well, we did have a rating system in the early days of Second Life; it was so heavily gamed that Linden Lab got rid of it. But sure, an eBay-style thing, with a dispute resolution system, would be great to have! Also remember that eBay + PayPal do a much more thorough validation than Linden Lab does: for instance, if you're completely unvalidated, you're restricted in the amount of money you receive. That would also be a possible solution: make unvalidated avatars unable to receive more than X L$ per month or so. But of course the solution then would be to have different alts and run several shops, rotating owners... which wouldn't work.

The "technical" idea you suggest is what Tateru Nino says that will make someone utterly rich if they can manage to develop it, because, really, no copy-prevention system will work. It's like trying to invent a perpetuum mobile. Clicking on content and flagging it as possible copies would be an idea, but then again, you can do that using Abuse Reports today: the problem, as you said, is that Linden Lab is too slow to act on it, and their bans rarely "stick".

And finally, if you're able to afford it, you can always pay lawyers to file a lawsuit on someone who copied your content. That option is always there, and it will be up to Linden Lab in court to reveal the resident's data. But, of course, most people cannot afford it... specially if we're talking about international lawsuits.

Re: Step UP! for Content Creation Theft Awareness

AdricAntfarm — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:28:50 -0000

I have yet to talk to anyone who feels stealing the work of others is moral. The problem is finding out the actual scale of the problem and putting in place a system that is commensurate to that. Locking out unverified users and ID checks to me is for a problem about six times the scale of swine flu and I am not sure we are there.

I know this is water compared to the more solid ideas, but maybe as a first step something like E Bay does. If I don't see a good history, feedback, and people saying they were pleased, I don't buy.

Second, maybe a higher tech option like product activation. No doubt they would copy that as well but there has to be a way to lock items to an owner using a certain authorization system Linden would maintain. This part is going to annoy, but I would like to see it go both ways. If you see your product in the hands of someone illegitimately, you should be able to disable it (or pop a big box over their head making it less useful) at least until it's clear it's legit.

One thing I would like to see is a way to ban someone and mean it. Maybe there should be more needed to open an account.

Lastly, if I steal a can of soup from the store, they will call the police and they will arrest me. Why is a ban the only extreme solution here?

Re: The Road Forks

Parminder chahal — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 04:21:04 -0000

Really it is very good to see that road forks is very strange to read on!HA HA HA!

Re: Spammers are disseminating a new illegal SL client under my name

GwynethLlewelyn — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 03:13:17 -0000

You know, Meg, since I've been born and living in Portugal, I cannot be called a xenophobe if I say anything against the Portuguese-speaking communities — I'm part of them myself... :)

But I would definitely be a xenophobe if I called *Americans* "arrogant and presumptuous"... which I never did.

In any case, that's hardly the point, isn't it? I was talking about the communities of my fellow native speakers who did have organised groups and whole sims crammed full of pirated content. I've been there; I've seen their shops and malls; I've reported on them. I'm sure there are more like that in other communities, but I haven't been in those to see; I did only report about my own language group.

Re: Spammers are disseminating a new illegal SL client under my name

Meg — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 22:45:06 -0000

*** There is a very large group of Brazilians and Portuguese copybotters, some of them quite organised, with whole sims with pirated content — well documented, pictured, and abuse reported, but they act as organised rings, popping up one day, gone the next, setting up shop again, and disappearing after a few thousand sales. Gwen Carillon managed to break down one ring, but there are more. ***

The NERVE of some stupid xenophobes.

I'll have you know that the biggest organization behind the creation of copy-bot machines, as well as the biggest organization for SALES of stolen content, are from the oh-so-mighty, holier-than-thou, arrogant and presumptions AMERICANS.

Don't take my word for it, go and investigate yourselves, if you claim to be oh-so-good in breaking chains and uncovering frauds, before posting xenophobic comments about other people and other people's countries.

Re: Spot the differences!

GwynethLlewelyn — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 05:33:58 -0000

That's a very interesting observation, qarl! It would be very nice to have some tests and comparisons to show, side-by-side, how SL's renderer fares compared to others, using the same content.

And by "same content" I would definitely like to see how well Cryengine (or any other engine) deals with 100 avatars with 7,500 polygons each (base) and perhaps 20-50,000 additional polygons for all attachments they have :) Dealing with "millions of polygons" per scene, 50+ FPS, is not a simple task. I remember the first time I played Spore with the default settings. Oh sure, it got 70 or so FPS easily — but it was clear that each scene had just a handful of polygons to render :)

So, yes, this would be a much fairer comparison: how well does CryEngine2 or Unity or whatever is felt to be the "best" engine out there do when they have scenes with 20-50 million polygons to render? :)

Re: Spot the differences!

qarl — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:39:27 -0000

i'd like to add - to help dispel this myth that the SL renderer is poor - that any time we try to render our content in a commercial engine (like cryengine) the framerate drops to single digits.

we don't use our renderer because we're infatuated with it. we use it because it's better.