After I published the news of another round of b/tard griefing and countered an article even in the New York Times, it wasn't long before I had to wait for a fresh attack -- this one by Shaun Altman, a former land baron and sometime SL stock exchange artist, now a member of the Woodbury griefing group with whom he has long cooperated, and chad Statosky, a long-time griefer who caused me serious damages at Ravenglass with repeatedly griefing-staged "officer recalls" in my group under the old tools. These two provocatively rented at Ravenglass in order to stage an incident and write with feigned "outrage" at being subjected to a "scam" at Ravenglass. Naturally Timeless Prototype, another long-time neuralgic grudge-holder, has chimed in with this and is sending me emails threatening to "tell all" about my "scams" on his blog lol. Shaun has published a faux-outraged blog about my nefarious business practices lol. Sigh. It follows an attempt to smear me in the past merely for combatting the Woodbury b/tards, and I guess is an indication that college couldn't start soon enough, eh?
Of course, as my thousands of customers know, I don't scam people. They are always eligible for refunds. If they break the rules, the get a notice, and they get kicked. Woodbury goons on griefing expeditions are not entitled to rent at Ravenglass, after the years of hideous attacks and financial losses they have caused me. Hazim Gazov/Tizzers Foxchase and company on their various alts would occasionally provocatively rent the very same house over and over again on Ravenglass, then go through a feigned ritual of being "outraged customers" when I refused to refund them for their griefing expedition. In the same way, neither chad Statosky, who was warned to stay away from me repeatedly when he began harassing me again this week, and yet provocatively came to rent in Ravenglass, nor Shaun Altman, who did the same thing, are going to be getting any refunds. Ever. Let it be tiny compensation for the losses both have caused me in the past, and let it again be a lesson: no, you don't get a refund from a fake provocative "rental" disguising a griefing expedition in Ravenglass. Piss off.
Although I occasionally had cause to have some serious questions about Shaun's financial dealings in SL from some very up-close-and-personal sort of experiences, I remained a friend of Shaun's and generally appreciative of his wit in SL for a number of years. I even commissioned this blue-haired fox for the job of scripting a Ravenglass rentals rentomatic box, for which I paid him an excellent price at the time, and then proceeded to struggle with him for a year after trying to get him to fix various unfortunate annoyances in it, which he did in part finally. At some point, after SLCC last year, receiving increasingly alarming reports from people I trust about the loss of their funds in his various schemes, I simply decided to stop talking to him -- I really found it awkward to deal with someone who had demonstratively taken on the task of "saving" Ginko and buying a lot of its devalued stock, only to dwindle away in mystery and never make good on his plans of salvation.
I then acquired another serious reason to defriend Shaun Altman -- increasingly, a young griefer-oriented furry himself -- he began to hang out with Woodbury University and its posse and take part in active griefing escapades against me, which were "just for kicks". I found this really infantile behaviour, but I guess Shaun has run out of positive things to do in SL, has become frustrated with the platform, and now just decided to grief. He joined in with the hugely discredited MC Fizgig operation to buy land right next door to me in Ravenglass in order to have a base to directly taunt me from and constantly have a "safe area" to flee to. Shaun proceeded to make a hugely and knowingly false post about me, claiming I engineered the seizure of this land from Fizgig due to my ostensible FIC connections (*snort*), when all I did was assiduously abuse-report these goons in order to establish the record and get the Lindens to see what this entire provocative exercise was all about, and they took appropriate action. I also reached the supervisors of the real Woodbury University in real life effectively, and for a time they really exercised oversight over these chronic griefers as there was quite a turnaround for a time. But naturally they bore a grudge.
Shaun disappeared for awhile, but then resurfaced with none other than chad Statosky as his partner. chad is only 18 (although he seems to have been "only 18" for several years now -- he was basically unauthorized on the adult grid for quite some time). chad Statosky, those of whom may have been around for awhile, was the Nexcom king; he developed a cell phone for use in SL which basically merely consisted of a way of typing a "phone number" in chat and then "hands free" so to speak, without having to go into an IM interface, you could type in regular chat and the other party would hear you on their "cell phone" -- a gimmick, to say the least, but one that sold numerous phones, since, as I pointed out, if you thought that having a "cell phone" in SL was totally redundant (given the IM system), you had failed to understand how sexy you'd look with the Nexcom cell phone on your belt.
chad decided to get involved in a dispute I had with another avatar, Traxx Hathor, who had launched a surprisingly venomous campaign among newbies and others to try to discredit me as someone who "ripped off newbies," which of course was all lies. He did this to settle personal scores which you can go read up about on the old forums or wherever you wish. There simply was no way to stop him. He would fly around and reach my tenants and tell these lies about me in the most primitive fashion, trying to smear my business and convince people not to rent from me. Nothing is worse in SL, because you have absolutely no recourse against it with a fully anonymous avatar; no one has yet been able to launch a successful lawsuit for harassment, much less libel in SL. I responded by buying land next to chad and putting up a pink glowing store that shed pink light on Traxx's aesthetic limestone lol. In any event, chad, who hired Traxx to build his vanity towers, began to perform some really nasty griefing missings, in person and on his various alts.
Before group tools were reformed in 2005, basically anyone could join your land group, with land you had solely paid for, pose as a tenant if you invited them, or join for free, and then trigger something called "officer recall". That meant that you, owner of your land, because someone had engineered this collectivist vote of no-confidence against you, could basically "vote" you off your land.
I remember struggling to get Blue Linden and other Lindens to understand how devious this was (Blue told me at the time to "campaign to hold my seat" during this "election" to remove me from land I was the sole tier supporter of -- sigh). Any griefer or person with a score to settle could invade a group with a plurality of "voters" posing as tenants or customers, and trigger the vote that would freeze your functioning in the group AND freeze the group to new members, i.e. to protect the vote's seeming integrity. The only way to stop the freezing was to leave the group -- but with all the tier on your one account, you would basically become vulnerable to seizure of your group land. It was a horribly hideous flaw in the tools that had been designed with typical hippie abandon and idiot utopianism, and it led, like all such socialism, to theft and crime.
chad pulled this stunt again and again, freezing the group and preventing me from having new customers and being able to have them set their prims, causing confusing and causing people to refund. it was a tremendously malicious and destructive act, for which he was abuse-reported numerous times, and I think the Lindens finally "got it" about this problem, which plagued Anshe's groups too. Of course, I took various measures of protection, but the reality was, that when chad and his alts did this, they cause me REAL MATERIAL DAMAGES.
Sorry, but people who do that get banned from the land, they do not get to rent or do business with me ever again. That's just basic common sense. chad also engaged in forgery of a signature on an SL notecard contract.
A week of griefing from Woodbury began as usual with Alyx Stoklitsky staging a provocation -- trying again and again to persuade a Japanese store owner who makes avatars and furnitures to undo the ban that is set up against all the Woodbury griefers near their land. Somehow, he managed to do this once, but then when I caught it and reinstated it. Alyx kept harassing me, pretending there was absolutely no other store in SL where he could get a new avatar except this one from which he was rightfully banned.
Meanwhile, a tenant in Furness next to the griefing staging ground that the Woodbury's bought near me was finally forced to move out this week, after a year of living next to my office and this griefers' HQ. She told me she was simply fed up. She had repeatedly suffered attacks merely by being in proximity, despite my constant efforts to battle them and pre-ban any incipient detected new alts, etc. At one point, in classic goon fashion, an anonymous griefer got a hold of objects she has mistakenly left in "share with group" and broke them up into numerous pieces or replicated them and scattered them as giganticized prims all over the neighbouring sims. Some of her furniture was permanently destroyed once delinked like this from the "share" invasion. This is why I keep trying to get these goofy extremist Lindens to remove this bug, which they claim now is a feature.
In fact, I caught Francis Marsis, a long-time infohub infester and Woodbury joiner in the act, with avatar arm outstretched in "edit mode" on one of these copyable, mistakenly left-out prims -- what she was doing around my office far from her business and infohub "home" of course is left to the imagination. I took down all the griefing "communist" prims, cleaned up the huge mess, and tried to console my tenant, but then again she was subjected to the same idiots flying around and harassing me -- regularly, Tizzers' new alts and buddies respawned after their bannings would fly around my office and harass me and anyone nearby.
Next, comes chad trying repeatedly to get a rise out of me, contacting me again and again by IM, to show off that he is now partners with Shaun, and to try to grief me. I told him to fuck off, as he was not going to be forgotten for his serious damage to the Ravenglass group and repeated disruption and loss of business and confusing of tenants. That's just not on. Nevertheless, he persisted.
First, Shaun came and demonstrably rented a house that was empty in the middle of Ravenglass -- something the Woodburys have done dozens of times. As the group is open, he joined it and then his alt began putting up a giant communist red flag with a hammer and sickle. Naturally, if you had any doubts that chad and Shaun were merely looking for a cuddle nook in Ravenglass with a nice view, they would now be removed.
Sigh. I was busy at an event, but I immediately left the event, expelled Shaun and took the rental cube so that he could not refund it. Griefing doesn't get a refund, no. I thought that might be the end of it, but within a few minutes, chad Statosky was now coming on and renting. Then Flash Bergman, Shaun's alt appeared. I came and removed all of them, banned them from all the surrounding plots, and went back to the event.
Whereupon Shaun began his laborious and false portrayal of me as a mainland rental scammer, with a predictable amen-corner from Intlibber , Scout Detritus, now a Woodbury administrator -- he of the infamous "refrigerator of Ravenglass" and of course the long-time grudge-holder Timeless Prototype, still smarting from my public examination of his poor customer service record of some years ago. Sigh.
I've often wondered whether in fact Scout, who sells weapons to the Goreans and maintains a Gorean store in Ravenglass selling medicines out of the giant refrigerator (!), was originally part of the griefing posse, or joined it out of solidarity after acquiring hatred of me for urging him not to build ugly on the waterfront more than a year ago. An interesting question, as now he is high up in the Woodbury organization, and if he was part of the conspiracy originally, that would help explain why
Shaun did not start out part of the Woodbury conspiracy, but Woodbury assiduously recruited him. They did so in their own inimitable way, first by griefing the hell out of him, especially with the communications system invasion of ugly spam and textures and the usual self-replicating prim attacks. They kept griefing him merely because he was a public figure, and associated with the very high profile and very dubious sector of stock exchanges in SL. They mercilessly griefed this furry (they have a known animosity to furries), but then began their "good cop" method of trying to friend him, chat him up and goof around with him and get him to take an interest in how he could cooperate with some "good" or "reforming" elements of Woodbury, to get rid of those "bad PNs" and "unrepenting" members of Woodbury who kept griefing him. Very classic operation, for which Woodbury is repeatedly known, as are all goons, b/tards, PNs, etc. Same tactic.
Shaun fell for it, and soon was gaining his street cred with his new little griefer buddies, script kiddies like himself, by making a funny anti-Prok t-shirt, "Prok Star" and distributing it. Har har. A veritable renaissance of productivity all around my brand lol!
He got in deeper then, going around with the title "Woodbury FIC" which is what I caught him wearing as he was "renting" from Ravenglass.
If any of you are somehow still left doubting about all this, ask yourself why Shaun, former land baron and still some-time rentals barons with vast holdings in SL numbering in the five figures at least in real US cash, would need to come to Ravenglass, on the mainland, of all places, and rent a humble Ingrid Ingersoll prefab abode for $750/468 prims a week, a price he claimed was too high hahahaha.
Why would chad Statosky, Nexcom king, also at one time anyway possessor of Linden millions, be in need of setting up a honeymoon cottage with his new love on Ravenglass, of all places? These are wealthy furries who can afford to live large on private islands or newly-bought humper bunkers with all the latest accoutrements. Nope, doesn't add up lol. And as a rental baron himself, of course, Shaun Altman knows that $750/468 prims isn't "excessive," but quite modest.
So goes another failed attempt to discredit me and my business and attempt to lose me business and destroy my reputation with newbies who might Google me -- but I'm used to it, and have been used to it for years. My reputation stands for itself and I merely set the record straight here. I am being griefed because I repeatedly expose the tactics of these people (as I just did on the blog a view days ago about the latest round of Ralewyn's and company's alts in Violet).
Timeless Prototype's faux-concerned e-mails:
[12:09] Timeless Prototype: I've seen this page: http://www.shaunaltman.com/articles/2008/08/01/beware-of-ravenglass-rentals would you mind answering a few questions so I can at least reflect your point of view in an article I'll be writing for my blog? ("no comment" is a valid answer and nothing you say will be disclosed, in addition, I will respect parts of this conversation that you clearly state should not be disclosed)
[12:11] Timeless Prototype: I see you're offline, so I'll paste the questions here: 1. Is this article true and were you aware at the time that the person you banned was a tenant of yours? 2. Is there a reason for the delay in providing the refund? 3. Is what happened here the normal way of business for you and others in SL? 4. Any other comments?
[12:11] Timeless Prototype: thanks for your time
1. No, the article isn't true.
2. No, I don't provide refunds to Woodbury goons and other griefers on griefing posses to make provocactive, fake "rentals".
3. Woodbury goons are instantly banned, and no, do not receive refunds to discourage them from griefing in Ravenglass. Normal tenants who keep to the simple rules are never ejected nor are their prims returned until they have received due notice under the lease and can refund at any time for a small cancellation fee.
4. Sure, Timesless, he's a comment: you're an asshole.
Glad I could supply today's installment of SL drama for everyone!
Well said. Frankly this faux drahma goes to show just how "wild wild west" Second Life really is (none of the parties concerned are actually *that* concerned, lol).
By comparison, if you bought something off Amazon web site and the transaction was allowed, by real world law they either have to fulfil the order or issue a refund. Anything like this non-delivery, non-refund and taking the law into your own hands would be at least fraud and possibly damaging to a company's reputation.
The main problem here in Second Life is we're dealing with micropayments. It's generally never worth going to court over losing a few USD$.
As far as recourse goes, well, IMHO there's just too much involved here for Lindens to care about becoming judge, jury and executioner when they've got bigger issues to worry about. In RL this is at least two complex court cases. One seeking a refund and the other seeking damages for disruption of business.
The bottom line is that, until things change, this kind of behaviour tarnishes Second Life's ability to gain serious credibility for serious business owners.
It's very likely that OpenSim will be the thing that is a step in the right direction, but it only distributes conflict resolution authorities amongst server owners. Ultimately, it's all micropayments and until that changes, nobody will ever care about fraud in Second Life until the numbers get big.
It really is "your world, your imagination" and in this time in the unfolding history of SL you can get away with it.
Right, who do I pay for this source of entertainment? :)
Posted by: Timeless Prototype | 08/02/2008 at 03:54 AM
It goes back to what I was saying in earlier comments about a species self-testing as a means of improvement: http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2008/02/griefing-is-lik.html#comment-103113986
If you look, you can see this everywhere, in real and virtual, just in varying scales.
So, what should people do in this case to best serve the long term survival of their own species? These are the questions that get lost on many.
Posted by: Timeless Prototype | 08/02/2008 at 04:37 AM
I'm glad Timeless Prototype has helped to tarnish his own reputation here by publishing such ridiculous nonsense.
Notice that Timeless is absolutely immoral and has absolutely no comment about the destructive and criminal acts of officer recall so as to discredit and paralyze a business, nothing to say about griefing, prim littering, disturbing tenants, harassing, stalking, etc.
He refuses to validate and condemn the obvious point here: the renting not in good faith, but so as to harass and annoy with fake indignation and fake literalist bullshit all wrapped together.
Immorality is a big problem on the Internet, and it's important to keep exposing and condemning it, so that people understood with whom they should do business, and whom they should avoid.
A scripter who is immoral is not someone you should hire. Someone who fails to grasp this incident for what it is is not someone you should be buying products from.
You don't get to rent properties in real life and use them to harass the landowner in a long-standing griefing posse.
Neither of these "tenants" are paying for their rental in good faith, they are renting so as to grief, and immediately set about putting up a giant Communist flag, etc. etc.
The Lindens don't have to act as judge and jury because landowners can set their own rules on their land up to a point.
Were the Lindens to sit judge and jury on this one, having all the records, I have no doubt that they'd see the problem: two griefers -- long-time assholes who have caused trouble for quite a number of people, one of whom has lost real money people entrusted to them -- coming to deliberately rent a house they really have no good faith in renting, have no intention of living normally and abiding by the rules, but which they are only taking in order to harass.
The Lindens may be hobbled by their own literalism, but they know full well what's going on with this story, and if asked if I have a good business reputation, I'm confident they would reply "yes, indeed". And that's a fact.
I have never scammed anybody or griefed anybody; these two have, and I think most people reading this "get it".
This isn't a book or a blender on amazon.com; it's a community of *people* for whom *social norms* matter, like refraining from harassing, stalking, annoying, putting up ugly signs, etc.
I'm not required to make refunds to chronic griefers that anyone can see are renting not in good faith, but merely to annoy and harass. I especially don't do that when these particular individuals, and this particular group with its constantly changing alts but readily identifiable personas, harass and annoy not only me, but my tenants, forcing them to leave, and causing me lost business.
I definitely don't need to rent to people who publish libelous lies about me in an attempt to tarnish my businses reputation. That's not required lol.
Just because these assholes made e-payments for their "e-homes" doesn't mean they are entitled to an automatic refund when they are griefing and harassing. There is only one way to induce them to stop trying to rent in Ravenglass, since they make alts to go around bans: refuse to refund their griefing rental payments. They're not likely to keep doing it after that. It's certainly a just business practice given the limited capacity to pursue anonymous people online who harass you.
I don't need to "take the law into my own hands" in my rentals: it already is in my own hands. I have no means of collecting a deposit against damages as a RL landlord would do -- in fact, I offer refunds. I have no means of pursuing griefers who rent merely to annoy, prim linter, put up stupid signs and harass me and other tenants. So I'm perfectly within my rights to refuse to issue a refund to these miscreants as a deterrent to them continuing this bad behaviour.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | 08/02/2008 at 01:17 PM
As for all the other tripe about the "species self-testing" (stifles laughter), this is so much transhumanist tripe. There is nothing to say that complex social phenomena created by humans works in some Darwinistic manner the way a leg bone or apposable thumb does. It's hilarious when the Geek Religionists begin to apply their own narrow and cramped field to other fields of human life.
Far from stifling ideas and innovation, law and patents and even religion have helped sustain and protect them. It's not a 0/1 process. People adapt these institutions to their needs over time; they don't respond well by having them disrupted by assholes. That's not evolution, but revolution. Of course, masterminds like Timeless always imagine themselves in charge of these processes, wielding them against other people.
Second Life is indeed a microcosm of the future, or at least some processes for some of the future. But by no means does it 'prove' that somehow these geek mechanisms are "right". If anything, it illustrates to the sane and thoughtful among us just how horrible they are!
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | 08/02/2008 at 01:39 PM
Prok,
There is a fine between fraud and terrible customer service. While I have never been on the receiving end of fraud by Prok- her customer service is rather dismal.
No comments needed Prok I will show myself the door. Mute, Kick, Ban :)
I love it when you get angry...wait...you are always angry...
best,
-wayne
Posted by: Wayne Porter | 08/02/2008 at 11:02 PM
"A veritable renaissance of productivity all around my brand lol!"
Do you know where I can get the tee-shirt Proky? I haven't had time to launch my Proktology line yet. :)
-wayne
Posted by: Wayne Porter | 08/02/2008 at 11:06 PM
Read Shaun's blog comments. Other than your post, I've heard all the other commenters names on various forums, always linked to scams or outright griefing.
I especially liked Tizzer's comment about trying to rent 'several times'... After the first time he/she didn't clue in on not being wanted? After the second time? etc? Either we're talking someone so fucking stupid they have to be reminded to breathe OR intentional harassment. I don't see a third reason for repeated rental attempts.
All these so-called 'adults' remind me of little kids ar recess. One sits by another, the first moves and the second one follows and when reprimanded by adults feigns indignation 'I wasn't doing nuffin!'. Expected behavior in kindergarten, but hardly intelligent behavior in adults.
Posted by: Maklin Deckard | 08/05/2008 at 10:51 AM
Yeah, Chad Statosky is a straight up weaselly little bastard. Doesn't seem to exist under that name anymore(For obvious reasons). But having meet the man(boy,... pest,... insect)in person I can honestly say you'd be hard pressed to meet a more unpleasant individual(rude, pretentious and petty). I feel for your situation,. That's what waste of space sacks of useless garbage like Chad do.
Britton 'greatbritt' Mclevis sucks eggs too! If you see him call him 'pumpkin' he hates it.
Posted by: greatbritt | 08/04/2009 at 02:36 PM