The Foxworth sim, owned by Foxyfurman Kumaki, gets some residents passing through, notably at the Mayan Casino. But compared to the big gaming areas in Second Life, it hardly ranks in visitor numbers as a high-traffic place.
So why have there been some bannings by Linden Labs for “gaming” traffic numbers in the sim?
“Feels like I am (being) attacked,” Foxyfurman told SL Newspaper, “Look at Search, then the places tab. ... Type in games or Zyngo. Look at the top listings. Those are the places with the highest traffic, like 50K, 60K. Our sim the day after the fishing (tournament), was 15K. To get 50K, you stack ‘bots on each other until your number gets up. We don’t do that. Our numbers are normal. Can you imagine, you can hardly move (around) with the fishing event. To get that traffic all the time will close the sim with lag.”
“That us why twenty to sixty thousand is fake, and every one knows it. That is why when they say I am doing this, why the hell attack me?”
“Now you look at a list of discipline from Linden Labs. No one ever gets banned forever, just a warning or suspension. John (Diddy) got no warning, and is perma-banned for life. ... I just wish they removed the ‘places’ from Search. That way, no one would worry about bots, or sitting in your own sim. (laughs) I’ll get banned for listening to my own stream. If I was idle with Diddy, I would have been. Thankfully, I was not.”
Foxyfurman had a notecard, which contained his responses to the Lindens, plus a comment at the end.
Details: Friends and a few alts banned from SL for gaming traffic.First I want to say I am disappointed and concerned, why a resident that has 2 mainland sims and 1 private region would be singled out for gaming traffic, when the traffic numbers are not high we are normally between 2+K to 12K all legitimate from Halloween hunts, 7 seas fishing events, and Midnight mania boards, this traffic is not high and the #s totally support my claim. We do not in any way rely on traffic to build our sim, for that we would need an army of bots and I don’t want to bother with that kind of silliness.My real life business partner was working on a platform above our sim, (Diddy Darkmatter), He has a few of my alts out so he can test a listener device he has been working on with another resident, (Aiko Swashbuckler), then poof!! Everyone is banned from SL!1. I want everyone who was banned on my sim reinstated (this may include customers I don’t know about who were banned as well).2. I want and explanation of WHY my sim was a target of this attack, yes I call it an attack because our traffic is obviously not generated by bots; it is too low for that. 3. This is a fun place for me, I have the music playing on speakers in my warehouse all day while I work, and can I expect to be banned for sitting in my own sim listening to my music? I am really worried about this, and to be honest taking the time to write this letter is costing me time and stress that is totally unwarranted and unneeded.In the end I want to say I am not mad in anyway, I am confused and a bit disappointed that you would treat a customer like this, it feels like a vendetta and while not a paranoid individual I still ask for a detailed account of the decision process as well as to speak to the individual(s) who were involved in this decision process, I hope the individuals involved do not have access to my billing information as well, as a business owner RL taking someone’s billing information and a customer/business relationship is to be taken very seriously and I hope this will be handled in the best manner.I wish to talk to a real person for this as well my cell is listed below.Thank you for your consideration***-***-****Foxyfurman KumakiPerry Linden Hi FoxyFurman, Thank you for contacting us. Your ticket has been escalated to the correct department. They will contact you as soon as possible. Kind RegardsPerry Linden 3/11/2009 4:05 AM PDT Closed Matthew Linden Hello, Linden Lab just completed its review, at your request, of a disciplinary action taken against your account. Our investigation shows that the suspension of your account was correctly applied in alignment with the Second Life Terms of Service and/or Second Life Community Standards.If any further information is required, Linden Lab will contact you regarding this incident. Otherwise, please consider the matter resolved as no further communications will be sent. Sincerely,Customer SupportLinden Lab 3/11/2009 4:56 AM PDT Reopened Foxyfurman Kumaki Dear Support,You have given me answers to none of my queries.You discipline a long time customer and sim owner and they maintain and still maintain innocence. I ask you for not a generic answer but details of WHY this was done; the canned response I get is not acceptable. You have also banned a paid account (Diddy Darkmatter) this is my business partner and he needs his account restored. He will contact you from his air card if he can as he is out of town ATM. Also you may have banned some customers as well, when you handed down your discipline a few other customers dropped off of radar as well. Again I pay US 330ish a month to LL, I just want a detailed account of the discipline not a canned response.I want a call from a real person again I ask:Thank you for your considerationFoxyfurman Kumaki Ticket closed and locked by support with no response Actions You are not authorized to perform any actions at this time.*********In the end, my partners account was permanently suspended and as well my 2 alts I use for testing perms and games. I am not sure how many customers got the boot but I know some dropped off radar at the time of the LL raid.Later, another notecard was sent from Aiko Swashbuckler, with some links to the Linen blog concerning rules about bots.
https://blogs.secondlife.com/message/9040#9040 - Further Clarification on Bots and Camping, “So the policy statement is that where we see a Resident unfairly increasing their Search ranking, regardless of how that is achieved, it will be considered as 'gaming'. We will give a first warning to begin with and direct people to the policy. However continued gaming can result in suspension or removal from Search listings altogether.”
https://blogs.secondlife.com/message/28188#28188 - Re: Camping Crackdown, “I have heard that all residents on the sim were suspended for the hour, many may not have known and will be surprised when they see the email explaining why they were suspended. Did a Linden go rogue on us? Did the rules change while we weren't looking? I believe that suspending the campers is NOT disciplinary action.”
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Inworld_policy_on_bots - Official Policy on Bots
Following this were several examples of disclipinary action taken by Linden Labs on related matters:
Date: Sunday, November 8, 2009Violation: Community Standards : Gaming Traffic ViolationRegion: RuwartDescription: Gaming Traffic.Action taken: Suspended 1 days. Date: Thursday, November 5, 2009Violation: Community Standards : Gaming Traffic ViolationRegion: Wexler EducationDescription: Gaming Traffic.Action taken: Warning issued. Date: Tuesday, November 3, 2009Violation: Terms of Service: GamblingRegion: AcrisDescription: Terms of Service.Action taken: Warning issued.Date: Tuesday, November 3, 2009Violation: Community Standards : Gaming Traffic ViolationRegion: DozerDescription: Gaming Traffic.Action taken: Warning issued. Foxyfurman has heard no further word from the Lindens about his friend’s account, but unfortunately the next message by the lindens concerning the bannings was not a good one, “fact is this same thing happened to my SLX account.”
“This is one of those things that it’s best that everyone knows what happened and exactly how Linden Labs handled it.”
Bixyl Shuftan
Earlier, the Foxworthy sim was the scene of trouble when a number of accounts were permanently banned for reasons that made no sense to anyone familiar with the area. More recently, the region was the target of a griefer, whom went as far as to threaten someone. How the Lindens reacted was a surprise.
The Foxworth sim, owned by Foxyfurman Kumaki, gets some residents passing through, notably at the Mayan Casino. But compared to the big gaming areas in Second Life, it hardly ranks in visitor numbers as a high-traffic place.
Poppy Zabelin, Chair of the International Relations Committee of Relay for Life of Second Life, writes:
You're looking around, having just found a place to explore or maybe somewhere to shop when all of a sudden you're rudely told to leave. Not because of how you're acting, your clothes, nor is this a roleplaying sim, they just don't like your shape.
KREMER, SL - The recent LL blog announcement by Jack Linden that LL is holding off any new mainland land sales indefinitely, due to flat land prices, indicates that there is little new interest in land buying by the general public. This means literally zero economic growth in SL for the past two months. The game gods have succeeded in killing an economy that previously had grown at rates of over 400% annually.