By Prokofy Neva
So, I logged on to the forums to find Tommy Linden had given me a 2.5 day ban for "multiple posts" which were totally removed, but only one thread was mentioned in his notice, which I started, called "The Moles Talk".
Tommy Linden has never inspired confidence in me, ever since I saw him cavorting with the notorious Woodbury University griefers on their then-latest iteration of their grief-lair called Sandvich, now long gone and replaced by several since, banned, and replaced again.
Although he soon deleted it, his posting of his lovely time on Sandvich handling a chain saw was recorded for the Internet's memory on the notorious Herald
(Oh, my, and look who is commenting on his now-deleted screenshot. Sylvia Tamlyn. Well, what do you know! "Are you griefing yuk yuk" she writes. For those of you watching at home, this is not a screenshot of Lindens arriving to ban miscreant residents. It's a screenshot of Lindens coming to hang with griefers.)
I don't know why those bans don't stay permanent. But this was in 2012, and people change and grow and develop, and today, Tommy may regret his past associations with nihilists and sim crashers and feel the work of moderating the forums in his, er, judicious and thoughtful way is a contribution of world-historic proportions, I don't know. I haven't talked to him since 2012, I believe, when I complained about a picture on his feed of him in Sandvich. And he told me to remove my comments, or removed them himself. BTW, this old post prodded my memory about "Danger Linden," who joined Twitter, and followed only one person -- me -- and heckled me. He doesn't seem to have posted since 2016, so he may have been thrown into the Sea of Omidyar like so many other Lost Lindens, I just don't know.
Until I can log back in, I can't really try to piece together what happened, but I guess that Sylvia Tamalyn, a CDS and Bellisseria regular, pushed the AR button again to her Linden friends. Now, with a few minutes of research of long-forgotten incidents, I see that the same person -- Sylvia Tamalyn -- was "in first" with a post on Tommy Linden's feed -- which may explain why she enjoys impunity on the forums. Perhaps she's a Linden herself? I really have no clue. But I would add, "No accident, comrades!"
I never really studied her before until I noticed she was making a concerted effort to heckle me on the forums, and bring in her little fellow fangirlz. This could just be about the usual hatred British socialists harbour towards any American, liberal or not, judging from her profile inworld, not just those exemplified by the Trump-voting contingent, which certainly doesn't include me, I'm a straight-ticket Democrat and Biden voter. She faux-friendly offered to give me a notecard of interesting sights in Campbell Cost and informed me she was "right near me there". Ugh. I cammed over and saw that "Sylvia," this American-hater and obsessive about Trumpists had...a Texas fireplace set made by YD in her living room lol. Does she know Texas is a red state? Oh, well. So while it may run counter to that communal spirit we are urged to have in CC, I banned her from my property there.
So now I realized there may be more to all this than I realized.
I contacted one of her friends inworld who I also noticed was giving me static in the forums and who I happened to see was in a number of my groups and even rentals. I don't pay attention to things like this -- until I am forced to. That is, there has been a cluster of weird and sometimes very pointed and bizarre griefing incidents, threats, and harassments inworld and on the forums lately. No need to post on them now -- unless they repeat.
So I like to try to see if these things are related at all, and who is behind them. The explanations can be as mundane as "pandemic fever" or "Hitler's Birthday is Coming" or some Lindens and their fan contingents who think I need to be discouraged from saying sim seams don't matter, or broken groups don't matter, or that Bellissaria is generally a good thing, both for the economy and happiness of residents, but that it's culture is stifling and smarmy. I have several houses there. Just last night I took a new camper which I kept because it was a perfect scene for a story I'm writing tied to my entry into the Home & Garden Expo Design Contest. Go here to vote for me! It's a Dinkie home called Biosphere in the future.
I rode around on my Dire Wolf on some nice dirt roads. I didn't see a soul, and didn't see anything I'd be that interested in pursuing in terms of clubs or whatever there, but it's generally nice and sustained -- I think large parts of the Mainland are nice, too, but it's also unlikely that you can ride your horse or car or giant Polar Bear through say, more than 4-6 of my sims (that's about as many as I'd have in a row), and maybe some nice neighbours, before you face blight, ban lines, horror. Understood. You can have more sustained rides in Belli. The strange brew of American suburban tract and egalitarian socialist commune is somewhat off-putting, but then, that's our Lindens, what can you do.
It's possible that Patch Linden was sent into some rage fit by some of these posts of mine lately that weren't as enthusiastic as he prefers among his adulatory crowd, and which were maybe a little too pointed, I don't know. It's hard, when the Lindens tell you that multiple posts have violated their rules, and they've removed them, really to understand what's going on. I remember my posts in broad terms, but I don't keep copies so it's hard to analyze what point of doctrine I've erred upon here, but I guess it's related to something a little wry about the California Ideology, from which the Lindens descended, to their current state today, which as I said, is something that combines Gentils Organisateur, Keebler Elves and (I could add now as I think of it) maybe that really enthusiastic choir director who also promotes the Catholic youth group at your church. My daughter goes to those for the dinners, they're good. It's like I go to Bellisseria for the general good design and ambience and nice houses. She doesn't think much of the music, which is sort of the "God is Love, chinka chinka" wimpy guitar stuff from the 1960s, and the watered-down gospel. Oh, well.
So I dared to suggest this to a newbie who was sternly reprimanded on the forums for calling that sacral communicant device with which we see our world not a "viewer" but a "browser": "Don't be railroaded into calling things by some special jargon as done in this world. It's a browser, which is what every other company calls it, not "viewer". So, yeah, I'm intellectually capable of distinguishing between the technical terms of "browser" and "viewer" and post in the "viewer" section of the forums and use the term "viewer" about things wrong with SL, which are numerous these days. I just think that religious cant like this should get a pushback, and I give it. Still, even I, used to Lindens on all kinds of zealous jags, was surprised that Patch, who must have 100 things to do every day, and big things, like managing staff and giant builds and events etc. etc. would find time to fire up his Photoshop, take a snap of his website, and draw 13 little red arrows on it to prove that what LL calls their seeing-thingy is Viewer and not Browser.
Ok. So is this like that geek brackets thing? Or what? If I were his supervisor in a normal world -- and I don't think he has one any more now -- I'd say, "Patch, get the map tiles fixed, or if that is not technically your job, go and hold the users' hands who are upset about the months that the maps have been broken, use your communication skills, because wasting your time drawing little red arrows on screenshots of our web site is not very persuasive even for the technically true point you feel you need to ram home now."
PS is that newbie who dared to post in the forums still in our game, or what?
So...I'll be sure to go on calling it Browser then, although I generally never did before, I called it "Viewer" or "Client" like the FIC for accuracy's sake. I have a higher point to make which is if a new user says "browser" he shouldn't be hammered on, and frankly, this is all absurd. Closing a thread on it?? Having the Chief Linden come in and rant about it with little red arrows??? Say, even Mozilla, founded by Mitch Kapor, one-time board member of Linden Lab, has a virtual world thingy now called Mozilla Hubs which is run out of a....browser. Yes, browser. Because that's what is easiest for users, you know?
I also will continue to say "sim" and not "region". I wonder why "sim" bothers them so much. Is it because it harks back to a notion of "simulation" and they want you to think you are in "the real"? Not sure.
Surely nobody would be banned even for this doctrinal offense, so I imagine the closing of the thread about this, the removal of whatever I said in this and other threads, that's not REALLY the reason.
And I don't think at all that the cause for this rather harsh ban was pushing back against ChinRey, who I view if not a friend, at least a more or less like-minded comrade, if you will, in the game of SL, who has helped me with projects and with whom I agree on many things, when she started ranting about how Americans get socialism all wrong blah blah,. No, that wasn't really it, either, although it appears her post and my post are removed, although not her post where she responds to my now-removed post, which is thereby replicated in part, like a ghost lol.
Again, I don't have time to research this and will wait a few days anyway until I can get back and investigate it all, and maybe it is impossible to figure out, but I will tell you this: the post I made predicting the theme was removed. And that is mysterious, as I don't think anything in that post was "violatory" -- but then I am not attuned to forums fine points. I abuse report only the most egregious persecutors maybe once a year or less, and it's for that reason that many violators who harass me and call me names remain, but who are then able to AR me on a whim, and pull out a "calling of names" out of my post which doesn't do that. Oh, well.
So first, I made a joke that the Lindens are building Novye Cheryomushki. That might feel like an insult to them, but actually Novye Cheryomushki, where some of my good friends live, is a very good thing in Moscow, despite its mass Soviet qualities. I joked that since the moles have a Soviet stadium in inventory, this shouldn't be hard. Well, that's the truth, they do have Soviet stadiums, as I recently saw some in a build they did for a high-powered business sim run by a former Linden.
OK, all jokes aside, looking over the themes they had done in the past, listening to what Patch hinted in this talk ("this will blow your socks off"), noticing that they just did Swiss Chalets and were not likely to do Future as that didn't go over well on Horizons, people just returned the build, I concluded that the next theme is:
That is, the style of the past with bungalows or larger one-story open-style homes with kidney-shaped pools that is making a comeback. Imagine if everyone had their own little bungalow with a kidney-shaped pool!
Then, since they did "mid-century" a few years ago, and this year, the 18th birthday, can't repeat that, really, I think if they do the 1940s or 1950s California style home of famous movie stars, it will be with that "movie star" or "rock star" or "Hollywood" focus. Somehow, a Tom Petty video came to mind.
The Lindens do like to replay 1950s sort of stuff, ringing all the chimes. Saffia joked that the theme would be "Adult" because "18," but of course they can't have stripper poles, etc. These events have to be G-rated. Still, movie stars, they could have.
Absolutely no one has told me this idea, I have no reason really why I pictured it in my head, it just came to me, like a vision. And it could be ENTIRELY wrong. They may have yurts on the Central Asian steppe (not likely).
They might after all have the Jetsons and space pods.
But since Patch said the theme of the 18th Birthday is the same theme as the new houses, I think it has to be California Ranch.
Yes, they have had sort of modern houses that you might think are "California Ranch" quite some time ago in the old Linden homes, but no, that's not the look.
Won't it be fun to see what theme they actually DO have, which should be announced...tomorrow? Monday? Soon.
Whenever the Lindens go on jags like this, my first instinct is: put some land to sale. That is always a prudent thing. It makes absolutely no difference to them, as there is "always another guy to buy the island," but it means you pull in and re-examine your commitment.
I also wonder whether I really want to apply to have an installation in the birthday this year. I have had them on about 3 past occasions -- generally I don't take part in Linden things, they don't move me, I'm not in their core fan base, their themes aren't mine, etc. I mean, they say "1950s" and get a whole bunch of hot rods and Flamingo Court type hotels and Belinda Carlisle beehive looks, and I make a display on...the Korean War. Which was in the 1950s.
Is it an accident, comrades, that the parcel that was empty next to mine two years ago at the Linden Birthday, when I did "Korean War,", which had stayed empty after I started my build, which was empty even as the deadline passed and we were a week or more into our builds, that suddenly, out of nowhere, a big build comes along by a pro-Soviet sort with giant propaganda billboards discounting the American view of the Korean War strenuously, and posting all sorts of threadbare Soviet propaganda about this war, which they started, helping the North Koreans with their tanks and spy flights. This installation has notecard givers and talk scripts etc. and is quite the barrage. Which Linden thought that was necessary to do? Which Linden fan got a Linden to do this? Or which fan got nodding and winking connivance from a Linden in the IRC channel to do this? Or perhaps none were involved, although it came a) after being empty b) after the deadline. I just record things like this, and move on. I wait to see if they make up a pattern.
Most -- but not all -- of the Lindens who have secretly harassed me over the years, not just on their mains but on their alts, or with the cut-aways of the fanboyz, are not with the Lab anymore. Because it's wrong.
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