My Redzone story and why I am glad to see Storm-1037

By Cummere Mayo
(xposted)

For over a month now Redzone has been coming under attack. I myself entered the mix when a woman hating griefer named Willilicious Georgette told me to fuck myself and worse. The full conversation was posted without my consent into the “neighborhood watch” that Redzone watches. At the time that was posted it wasn’t a violation to post it elsewhere, however it became such since then so I cannot post it here…

That conversation happened because I dared to point out that Soft Linden told the Redzone members to stop “monkeying around” with jira number vwr-24746. I decided at that time to educate myself about Redzone, CDS, Quickware, etc. The product advertisements and my subsequent treatment by Skills, Zfire, and their ilk let me when I told them in no uncertain terms I wanted opted out galvanized me. The stories and accounts of countless victims including many I knew personally drew out a vicious streak that know me well know I reserve for those that dare fuck with my friends.

Since then I have been maliciously accused of harassment for posting on the jira and closing out jiras that were either thinly veiled attempts to circumvent the TOS, or ideas that simply are ludicrous and ignorant, like the idea of making everyone use a credit card and linking alts via credit card. I have had my sim, my store, even my linden home (yes I actually have one and LIKE it), griefed. I have had numerous false abuse reports filed against me and those who stood up for me. I have had someone attempt to spoof my name in a horrible attempt to frame me for greifing a Redzone sim. I have been accused of trolling the Redzone forums where I do not and will never have an account. Ive had threats in world and sent to my email with promises that I will be banned from Second Life or bodily harm.

Through it all I have put up with it only losing my temper a few times. You know why?
Here it is: I am one of a number of people taking this fight to everyone. I’ve sent emails to Rodvik, Alexa, Soft, Sue, Amanda, Blondin, and several other lindens on this. Not all of them answered but the ones that did so sometimes in rather spectacular ways…

I’ve been ported to linden only areas to discuss what Redzone does, how Zfire planned to get around the adjusted community standards, some of the pitfalls of how LL could handle things. I was one of a few residents that knew that the media urls are going to no longer be masked specifically because of Redzone, CDS, etc. (If you don’t believe me check out https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/STORM-1037 where oz put the process into the Snowstorm backlog and assigned it to this sprint which means it should be implemented soon.) I was asked then to supply screens of everything I could and send them to Amanda, Soft, and Blondin, and to direct others to do the same.

I was one of the few that was aware that LL is actively wanting to take on the Media Filter that Cool Viewer and the Phoenix viewers have. Snowstorm told me if I could find a dev to implement a viewer cookie filtration system they would be interested. I approached Tonya from Phoenix and literally begged her on the SLU forum to look into it and I am hoping she will have the time to do it soon. Allot of this I couldn’t talk about till today because I was specifically told not to, but Amanda gave me the okay today.

Constantly I was told by Redzone users that I was trash, a copybotter, a stalker, a griefer, a whore, even a terrorist. Yes that’s right I’m a terrorist because I fought to destroy Redzone! Constantly I’ve been told I would be banned from Second Life.

Through it all, I’ve watched principled Redzone user after principled Redzone user start to realize what Redzone really was and what the core of the Redzone user group was like walk away and scrap Redzone. I’ve even suggested combinations of land settings, scripts, and orbs that did a far better job at copybot detection and protection (as much as can be done) to some of them.

I watched someone that I was convinced was attacking my roleplay half-sim walk away from Redzone. For the record, much as I don’t want to say it I no longer think Srilania really was the griefer. So Sri if you read this I apologize for that (and you should thank your partner and Jessica who both convinced me to keep an open mind. If they hadn’t I wouldn’t have seen past my dislike for you and, I admit, my sincere desire that it was you.)

I watched Zfire’s promises and predictions turn to ash, as LL pulled his product down off the marketplace twice, and blacklisted it in world, rewrote the CS, and pretty much publicly repudiated Zfire’s claims. I watched the Redzoners attack the TVPS that installed the Media Filter and watched Zfire add a ban by viewer feature. I watched LL respond with Storm-1037 as well as adopt the Media Filter as well.

I suspect I will be the target of allot more abuse from Redzoners. Some of them seem to think I am one of the causes of them falling down. Some FIC conspiracy taken right from a page in Prok’s book… I welcome it and all the AR’s they intend to throw at me. If LL actually listens to their garbage and bans me, so be it. After all, I intend to fully take Zfire down if he follows through on making his database public. However, it won’t be in world, it will be in the criminal justice system. I’ve already been asked to serve, and have agreed to do so, as a prosecution witness in a criminal case if he does make the database public.

Further changes are coming and it will interesting to see how Redzone, CDS, and Quickware users respond. Already they are whining about how implementing https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/STORM-1037 will destroy their privacy. Rather ironic don’t you think?
The only ones Storm-1037 might hurt are DJs but allot of DJs really don’t mind if people listen to their streams from afar. However, the two actual Djs responding to the forum, and the partner of a third DJ are all for it. In fact I have two DJ streams that are entered into my radios that I have been told I can listen to whenever I want (assuming they are broadcasting) from my home or sim. They feel it to be free advertising and a way to share with friends. And if privacy is really an issue you can always feed the stream through a proxy and then something like dyndns. There will be a half second delay or so but eh…
What the Redzone users fear—and rightly so—is that this is simply the next step in driving tracking systems and alt detection systems off the grid. And it is…