redzone

It has been a bit since I wrote the last post and a few things have happened. Mainly, continuing the ongoing story from the past weeks, the banning of RedZone and it's creator who turned out to have been a convicted criminal and someone with a more then questionable record. The last week has also seen the release of the 'Basic Viewer' by LL that, while I don't see it as a bad idea, has not been received that well by those people who tried it. Now of course those people have all been long time users of other viewers and have different expectations then new time residents, but LL would be ill advised to ignore what is being said on various forum posts. The criticism is mainly aimed at who much the viewer is stripped down in abilities that also involve not being able to use voice chat as well as not being able to 'buy' both L$ and items. The inventory is also unavailable and I am not sure, that the distinction between the 'basic' and 'advanced' mode is really that clearly made and visible to new users. Maybe it would be good to make the 'advanced' mode into 'normal' mode and make a big arrow pointing at the button that would enable the extra functions. Preferably without the need to relog, but maybe it is too early for all this in the development circle of this new viewer.

Or maybe I am expecting too much of LL, what brings me right into the big debate that sprung up on New World Notes a while ago and continued, as the writer of this blog continues to write blog entries in the same kind of topic:

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2011/03/second-life-users-hate-and-fear-change.html#comments

I first wanted to just point out to this one blog posting that I have found while reading up on the ongoing 'RedZone' problem. Mostly, because it not only illustrates the total uselessness of the 'security' provided by such a system, but also, because it shows what kind of problems people face, when they try to ensure free and uncensored flow of information and knowledge when being behind such tightly controlled bottlenecks:

http://treminarisecondlife.blogspot.com/2010/12/zf-redzone-can-disrupt-secondlife.html?zx=905e3941c674ba1c

But then, once I sat down to write, the news hit. Soft Linden posted a comment on the JIRA entry regarding RedZone (https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-24746) and while doing so, made many people very happy:

“Hey, all. I got the go-ahead to give an update on zF Red Zone specifically. Again, thank you for the ARs with specific info about violations. These have been very helpful for letting Lindens know what's going on.

Everyone who looked up anything Second Life related in the past weeks will have had a hard time not to notice the big uproar over the use of the alleged security tool called 'redzone'. I didn't really wanted to write anything about this as I figured, that the storm will be over soon either by it being replaced by something else or by LL to make a ruling one way or another.

On the other hand, this is not a topic to be ignored in the face of the 'Facebook-talk' going on in various blogs and forums. I mean, it does touches the sense of security the residents enjoyed in their daily use of Second Life. Now it does not matter much if this was true or not. The facts rarely matter in such situations as it is the emotions that took over the discussion.

But is this wrong?