Avatars representing the Dalai Lama and TV Radio personality Cathy Wurzer in Second Life during the Dalai Lama’s address to Mayo Clinic staff, Monday, February 29th
Monday, February 29th saw a special event take place at the chapel of Saint Marys Hospital in down town Rochester, Minnesota, when the Dalai Lama addressed Mayo Clinic staff in a special event which was livestreamed on the Internet and into Second Life, using the Mayo clinic’s in-world facilities.
The address, entitled Compassion in Healthcare, followed on from the 80-year old spiritual leader, who has been undergoing period treatment for prostate cancer at the clinic, speaking for 3 hours – twice what had been planned – before a crowd of 3,000 people in Minneapolis on Sunday, February 21st. That event was to mark the Tibetan New Year, and his Holiness’ address, delivered in English and Tibetan, focused on valuing education and compassion.
The Dalai Lama at the chapel of Saint Marys Hospital, Rochester, Minnesota, where he addressed Mayo Clinic staff, with his words streamed to an audience in Second Life (image credit: event livestream)
The February 29th address was introduced by Mayo Clinic President and CEO John Noseworthy, and moderated by Minnesota TV and radio host Cathy Wurzer. As the address began, both Ms. Wurzer and the Dalai Lama were represented in-world by avatars at the Mayo clinic’s Second Life conference centre. In both cases, care had been taken to ensure the avatars resembled their flesh-and-blood counterparts.
While I missed the first part of the session, when I did arrive, some 80 people from across Second Life were in attendance, and the Dalai Lama himself sounded energised and related stories with good humour and aplomb through his address, and responded to questions from the audience at the venue, it was not clear to me if any questions were taken from the in-world audience.
The Dalai Lama “addresses” the audience in Second Life
While some be tempted to critique the event on the basis that the avatar in-world was not actually operated by the Dalai Lama, they would actually be missing the point. While his holiness may not have been operating the avatar, being seated in the chapel of Saint Marys Hospital, the thoughts and words steaming into Second Life were his, and as such, the event offered a means for people who might never otherwise get to hear him speak, listen to and appreciate his wisdom in an almost first-hand way.
The address, with a question and answer session, lasted a little over 90 minutes. The livestream is currently being archived by the Mayo Clinic, and the event was also filmed in-world. I’ll update this article when either video is publicly available.
Note: Linden Lab has provided the Better Business Bureau with a breakdown of the permanent ban process, which is available for public viewing.
On Sunday, February 21st, I posted an article concerning SL content creator Teager (Breeder’s Choice and Teegle brands). In it I covered the news that Teager was asking people not to buy from her Marketplace store, on account of her accounts having been banned from Second Life.
Some 24 hours after posting that article – and approaching a week after she first started encountering problems, Teager had her accounted released. As I noted in my update to my original post on the situation, the news first came in a * Breeder’s Choice * group announcement, via Teager’s husband, AgentEightySix in SL:
There is news regarding Teager. She has been unbanned. She’s not home right now, she got the email on her phone, but I’m sure she’ll be on a little later. For everyone who donated at the donation box, thank you. No need to do any more. We’ll take it down tonight, and everything can get back to normal around here.
The following day, Tuesday February 23rd, it was confirmed another creator initially banned under similar circumstances, WarmAnimations Lisa, had also had her ban rescinded. In both cases, warnings were given about the risk of further banishment in the event of a re-offence.
The notifications that their bans had been lifted was also the first time both Teager and WarmAnimations Lisa were actually told why they had been banned: they had used images within one or more Marketplace listings which were deemed to be “not acceptable” – the actual items specified in the listings did not appear to be in question.
While objecting to an image in a listing, even one rated as Adult, may sound odd, it is worth remembering that there are subjects which can still be deemed as offensive or disturbing even among those who have consciously opted to enable the Adult content rating when browsing the Marketplace. This is something content creators should keep in mind when preparing their listings; the Adult rating isn’t necessarily a carte blanche allowance to post absolutely anything.
But that said, for the Lab to immediately respond with an outright ban, as was the case with Teager and WarmAnimations Lisa (and possibly others) without warning nor explanation, is, in five words: excessive and completely heavy-handed.
Even with the best will in the world people make mistakes. They’re not wilfully breaking the policy; they’re not attempting any kind of subversion, they have simply erred. This can happen even when they’ve read all the standards, requirements and policies related to something. As such, there are cases where people should be given – for want of a better term – the benefit of the doubt before a hand starts reaching for the ban hammer.
As it is, Linden Lab can remove any content at any time from both the Marketplace and / or in-world at any time, might it not have been better to go that route first with these situations? That is, remove the content causing the problem; communicate with the affected content creators and explain what has been done, why it has been done, and issue any appropriate warning (if necessary) on the possible consequences of future transgressions.
Such an approach achieves a number of beneficial goals for the Lab:
It allows the offending images to be removed without fuss
It offers a clear explanation of what has been done and why
It allows said content creators to consider any other items they have listed with images which might be considered “not acceptable”, and thus replace said images
It may allow word to spread through the content creation community without undue rancour or drama, so that others with possibly questionable images in their listings might also replace them, removing the need for future actions on the Lab’s part
It demonstrates that Linden Lab recognises that people can, and do, make mistakes, and that most are prepared to accept their error if it is properly explained to them
It demonstrates consideration without removing the explicit understanding that there are policies which must be adhered to, and that repeated violations won’t be tolerated.
Obviously, there are times when it is appropriate / necessary for the ban hammer to be wielded within Second Life. no-one is denying that. But equally, there are times when it should not be seen as the immediate and preferred tool of action when there are other means to initially handle a situation. This is a balance those at the Lab with access to the ban tool seem to have problems in understanding.
Over the past couple of years, the Lab has been investing time and effort in rebuilding users’ confidence in itself on several fronts. If nothing else, an over-reliance on bans as first response to policy transgressions when there are potentially other ways to deal with matters, risks unravelling at least some of that restored confidence.
As it is, when looking specifically at both Teager’s and WarmAnimations Lisa’s situation, it’s very hard not to reach the conclusion they were handled in a manner akin to the image at the top of this article.
Update, Tuesday February 23rd, 01:15 GMT / 17:15 SLT, Monday February 22nd: Agent86, Teager’s husband, has been able to confirm that her account(s) have been unbanned by the the Lab. “There is news regarding Teager,” AgentEightyEix announced via the * Breeders Choice * in-world group. “She has been unbanned. She’s not home right now, she got the email on her phone, but I’m sure she’ll be on a little later. For everyone who donated at the donation box, thank you. No need to do any more. We’ll take it down tonight, and everything can get back to normal around here.”
I’ve been asked to help spread the word on the following. If you are a Breeder’s Choice or Teegle customer, please take a moment to read.
Teager
Second Life content creator Teager has issued a request via Facebook that people wishing to buy her products – sold through her Breeder’s Choice and Teegle brands – should, until further notice, do so via her in-world store and notfrom her Marketplace presence.
The request comes as a result of Teager having her accounts banned from Second Life. This first became apparent on Tuesday, February 16th, Subsequent to this, on February 19th, she was able to ascertain the reason for the ban, which in turn prompted her request for people not to use her Marketplace store.
In making the request, Teager explains why:
So, here is the situation as it stands right now. I have been banned. As of right now, I, including all of my accounts present or future, are permanently banned from Second Life. I AM still fighting this ban and I DO have a legal leg to stand on. Don’t lose faith just yet.
The purpose for the ban was an old alt account of mine, which sold animations on marketplace, including some animations of an adult nature. I am told that I am in violation of the TOS section 6.1 subsection vi, which states that you shall not “(vi) Post, display or transmit any Content or conduct or host any activity that is sexually explicit, or intensely violent.”
Teager, who has been one of the content creators involved in the Lab’s Project Bento work, believes that the listings in question were actually rated as Adult, and therefore in compliance with section 6.3.iv of the Terms of Service and the associated Maturity Ratings. She is therefore pursuing matters through the Lab’s appeal process. However, the situation might take time to resolve, leaving her with a problem in meeting her tier, as she goes on to explain:
My marketplace store, which is still online, funnels all profit into the Teager account, to which I have no access. That means I CANNOT withdraw any money from purchases made on marketplace right now and I CANNOT place those funds towards the preservation of the sims.
While I argue my case, profits from my rent boxes and from all major items in my store will be forwarded to my husband’s account, agenteightysix. For now, this includes all items costing 900L or more, but I will notify you of additional items as time goes on. Please do your best to assure that any first time buyers purchase through my in world shop, not my marketplace store, so that I can funnel that money into keeping the sims running while I am without access to my account. I have also transferred all of the mall’s rental boxes to pay towards my husband’s account as well, so all payments towards mall rent boxes from this moment forward will also go towards keeping the sims running.
For further information on the situation, plus any updates from Teager, please refer to either her explanatory Facebook post or her Facebook page timeline. I’ll also update this post and / or follow-up on it as I receive further news from Teager or agenteightysix.
Note: subsequent to this article, I received news that two other SL content creators have also received recent bans: ~ Ladies Pleasure ~, and Warm Animations. See here and here for more.
As noted in my recent SL project update, there was an unscheduled deployment to the three Agni (main) grid release candidate (RC) channels of Bluesteel, LeTigre and Magnum on Thursday, February 18th, which saw regions on these channels undergo a rolling restart. This was followed on Friday, February 19th by rolling restarts across the Main (SLS) channel.
During the Server Beta User Group (SBUG) meeting on Thursday, April 18th, Steven Linden provided some information on why a deployment was made to the RC channels, and indicated that a similar deployment would be forthcoming on the Main (SLS) channel, and promising further information would be provided once that deployment had been made:
We had an unscheduled RC deploy earlier today. It’s for a security vulnerability that was released, and we discovered that Second Life regions were vulnerable. A full public post-mortem will be coming after we deploy to the rest of the main grid. I can’t say until it goes out to the rest of Agni; I can say that it was related to region availability only…. I honestly can’t say a great deal, other than we have a fix, and that it’s coming very soon to the rest of Agni.
True to this promise, following the Main channel roll on Friday, February 19th, April Linden blogged Why the Friday Grid Roll?
The reason essentially boiled down to a vulnerability in the GNU version of Linux used to run the grid servers. The vulnerability lay within the GNU C library, commonly referred to as glibc, which if exploited could allow remote access to a devices – be it a computer, internet router, or other connected piece of equipment. It was initially discovered by Google on Tuesday, 16th February, and was labelled CVE-2015-7547.
April’s blog post provides a concise explanation of just what went into the Lab’s security and operations teams’ efforts in ascertaining SL’s exposure to the vulnerability and developing an update to secure their servers against the vulnerability.
All of this took time – but all things considered, it was still a remarkably fast effort. The Lab went from hearing about the risk on Tuesday 16th February through to understanding the full extent of the possible exposure SL faced, to having an update coded, tested and ready for release by Thursday, which as April explained, then left them with another decision:
Do we want to roll the code to the full grid at once? We decided that since the updates were to one of the most core libraries, we should be extra careful, and decided to roll the updates to the Release Candidate (RC) channels first. That happened on Thursday morning.
Given the Lab wanted to monitor how things progressed on the RC channels (which between them represent roughly 30% of the total grid), and ensure the update itself didn’t introduce anything unexpected. So it was that the deployment to the rest of the grid couldn’t be made until Friday, February 19th.
April emphasises that at no point during the known period of exposure or before, was there any attempt to use the vulnerability against the SL servers. At the time of the Thursday roll, there was some criticism directed at the Lab for the lack of warning. April also explains why this was the case:
The reason there was little notice for the roll on Thursday is two-fold. First, we were moving very quickly, and second because the roll was to mitigate a security issue, we didn’t want to tip our hand and show what was going on until after the issue had been fully resolved.
When things like unscheduled rolls are disruptive, leaving us prone to grumbling and pointing the finger, it’s perhaps worthwhile taking this incident as an example that sometimes, there are reasons why the Lab does announced things first.
April’s post is actually one of three published recently by the operations / engineering teams which provide interesting insight into what goes on behind the scenes in keeping Second Life running.
In Recent Issues with the Nightly Biller, Steven Linden provides and explanation on why some Premium members recently experienced billing issues, up to and including inadvertently receiving delinquent balance notices. Once again, the explanation of what happened and what has been done to try to ensure a similar problem doesn’t occur in the future makes for a worthwhile read.
In Tale of the Missing ACK, Chris Linden describes another unusual and challenging incident the Lab’s engineering team had to deal with when testing a new API endpoint hosted in Amazon. This again illustrates the overall complexity of the Second Life services and infrastructure, which extends far beyond the simulator servers we some often take for granted as being “the” SL service, and the complexities involved in tracking issues down when things don’t go as expected / planned.
Thanks again to April, Steven and Chris for providing the explanations and the insight into SL’s services.
Don’t forget that recording for the second instalment of Lab Chat takes place on Thursday, January 21st, at 10:30 (am) SLT , at the LEA Threatre in Second Life.
The guest will once again be Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg,through his alter ego, Ebbe Linden. He’ll be answering questions selected from the 80+ submitted to the Lab Chat forum. The selected questions include the following topics:
Project Bento
Notifying users in-world about technical issues occurring with Second Life
SL credit processing
How is “Sansar” to be regarded – a place to live, or a place to visit?
Sansar avatars
Sansar in-world and out-world building tools.
In addition, and time allowing, there may be questions on things as diverse as land, art, sailing and aviation in Sansar, permissions systems and (inevitably!) Oculus Rift.
Ebbe Linden takes questions from jo Yardley and Saffia Widdershins during the first Lab Chat discussion in November 2015
So, make sure you get a seat during the live recording. You can access the LEA Theatre via any of the following SLurls:
If you can’t make the recording, videos of the show will be available in due course, and I’ll have a transcript of the Q&A both here and on the Lab Chat website iASAP after the show.
With Valentine’s Day roughly a month away, the Lab is inviting residents to share what that special day means to them by means of a photograph – and gain the opportunity to be a part of the Lab’s advertising campaigns for Second Life.
Valentine’s Day is just on the horizon and will be here before you can get through a handful of heart candies! We’re looking for some great Second Life pictures from the community to feature in upcoming email and banner campaigns – with credit to the photographer – of course!
In a snapshot, let us know what Valentine’s Day means to you in Second Life.
Share your story in a picture and on our Official Flickr Page with the tag “SLVday2016” so that we can see all of your amazing works. You may submit as many as you like between now and January 29, 2016.
We’ll showcase the chosen image(s) in an email to Residents, as well as in some banner campaigns. We’ll let the chosen image creators know via Flickr and ask for an avatar name for the credits.
The submission guidelines are fairly straightforward:
Images must be at least 2048×1207 in size
Avatars must be shown in-world,and suitably lit so they can be seen
All images must be free of additional text or logos, and must be appropriate for all audiences.
Images that tell a story are going to make an impression.
As noted in the Lab’s blog post text, the closing date for submissions is Friday, January 29th, 2016.
Don’t forget that recording for the second instalment of Lab Chat takes place on Thursday, January 21st, at 10:30 (am) SLT , at the LEA Threatre in Second Life.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 