MUV601 - Robin Le Couteur - Assignment 2, blog 2 -2018

Second Life Community Standards

In this blog I’ll be talking about the Second Life community standards. These standards are clearly explained in this post: https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/403539-community-standards/

The official document containing the SL community standards can be found at this link: https://www.lindenlab.com/legal/community-standards

The purpose of these standards is to make sure that everyone treats each-other with respect and ensure that everyone has a safe and fun experience. The post linked above sums it up nicely: 

"The goals of the Community Standards are simple: treat each other with respect and without harassment, adhere to local standards as indicated by simulator ratings, and refrain from any hate activity which slurs a real-world individual or real-world community." 

If you violate these standards, you can be suspended, and even permanently banned from Second Life if you repeatedly offend.

The six community standards are as follows:

1. Intolerance

This standard covers intolerance in SL. Intolerance covers the following: “The use of derogatory or demeaning language or images in reference to another Resident's race, ethnicity, gender, religion, or sexual orientation is never allowed in Second Life.”

Basically, if you belittle or treat anyone poorly through derogatory language or visuals in reference to their gender, religion, ethnicity etc. then you are breaching this standard

2. Harassment

This standard covers harassment in many forms. “Communicating or behaving in a manner which is offensively coarse, intimidating or threatening, constitutes unwelcome sexual advances or requests for sexual favors, or is otherwise likely to cause annoyance or alarm is Harassment”. Basically, you are expected act and talk in a respectful and appropriate manner

3. Assault

In Second Life, areas can be marked as safe or unsafe. This standard applies to safe areas. “Assault in Second Life means: shooting, pushing, or shoving another Resident in a Safe Area (see Global Standards below); creating or using scripted objects which singularly or persistently target another Resident in a manner which prevents their enjoyment of Second Life.”

To adhere to this standard, you shouldn’t be a nuisance to others by bumping into them or attacking them in some way.

4. Disclosure

This standard covers user privacy. Basically you should not disclose any personal information of fellow residents unless they have given you permission, or if the information is made public through their profile. It is also a breach of this standard if you remotely monitor or share conversation logs without the permission if the people involved.

5. Adult Regions, Groups, and Listings

In Second Life, adult content is restricted to particular areas that are designated as “Adult”. As the standard specifies, “any Adult content, activity, or communication, that falls under our Adult Maturity Definition must be on regions designated as "Adult," and will be filtered from non-verified accounts.” If adult content, activity, or communication is seen outside of these “Adult” designated area, it is a violation of this standard.

6. Disturbing the Peace

This standard covers disruptive behavior in Second life. If you disrupt events, spam advertising content, spam repetitive sounds, use objects that follow people around or self-spawn, or use any other objects that can inhibit server performance, you are disturbing the peace and therefore violating this standard

How to avoid violating the standards

To avoid violating these standards it is always important to check the rules of the area you are in to avoid breaching area specific standards. You can basically avoid breaching most of the standards by generally treating people with the same respect as you would in real life, because a lot of the standards are just common sense in the real world. SL is not a game, so you have to remind yourself to act as you would in a real situation. Otherwise you can just make sure that you thoroughly read through the standards and understand them before going out into the world of Second Life.

What to do if you think someone is violating the standards

If you think someone is violating the community standards, there is tool in SL called the Abuse Reporter tool that you can use to report violations with. It can be found listed in the Help menu as shown in the screenshot below:

 

As shown, when you open the tool it contains options to select an object if the abuse is caused by an object, then there are fields for selecting the name of the abuser, the location that the abuse occurred, a summary of the abuse, and a large field for recording specific details about the abuse. You can then click the ‘Report Abuse’ button to submit the report.

It must also be noted that the report should be complete otherwise it won’t be investigated.