Blog & Forum Snapshot (July 8, 2011)

The bloggers on Forum Confidential went on holiday, but the drama didn't.  See more, oh so much more, at FORUM CONFIDENTIAL GOES ON HOLIDAY!! 

Coco is back on SC MKII (after an absence of about twelve days during which she was much missed by SC MKII regulars.)

Coco, in the "Threnody for Cocoanut" thread on SC MKII on Thursday July 7 at 8:06pm SLT, said:

"All right, darlin."

And she was back.

Wasted has declared himself a serial killer on gotVirtual...no really, I'm not making that up... and Lias has declared him "curious," as in curious about people's responses to his claims, not curious as an odd entity himself, although he clearly is that as well.

Wasted, in the "Am I strengthening or fucking the community?" thread on gV, said:

"I am a serial killer seriously"

Wasted in the "What the Hell is the Gambling Comission doing in California?" thread said:

"So, what do you think about this topic? I´m curious to know your opinion on this and the other topics"

That's more than a little hard to believe for anyone who has been reading Wasted's posts on the official SL forums, gV, SC MKII and SLU and his own websites over the, what, close to four, five or more years now (?), wherein he posts his proselytizing, cut-and-paste, griefer screeds born out of his Second Life failures and subsequent bannings and revels in the attention and completely forgoes any meaningful discussion when people post legitimate counter arguments.  Hell hath no fury like an unbalanced netizen scorned.  I wish the dragon had eaten him after all.

A quick summary of the arguments Wasted has been attempting to make is as follows:

1. The dictatorship of the television is over.
2. Linden Lab is a private company making an economic profit from the volunteer workers in Second Life and this is tantamount to slavery.
3.  Second Life is an addictive online gambling game and that's immoral and illegal.
4.  Addicts and unpaid volunteers working for for-profit companies are essentially slaves and they need to be rescued and the slave master stopped.
5.  Linden Lab discriminates against the Spanish-language speaker-users and shows favoritism towards the speakers of other languages by not adequately representing Spanish-speakers with translations, signs, notecards and flags at Linden Lab Welcome Centers in Second Life.
6.  Spanish-speakers have been relegated to Spanish ghettos in Second Life and there is further indirect discrimination through such things as Spanish translations with lots of errors demonstrating that the employees at Linden Lab do not care about their Spanish-speaking residents.
7.  Wasted has been personally discriminated against and the fact that he speaks Spanish may be a major factor in why he was not hired by Linden Lab.
8.  Help Island is a shameful sham and Arch Linden knows the truth.
9.  Jack, Michael and Terrence Linden should resign.
10.  Jack Linden should be fired.
11.  Children should not play Second Life.
12.  Terrence Linden is trying to get teens addicted to Second Life.
13.  The Linden Prize is a fraud.
14.  Public money is being used to support the addictive sham that is Second Life.
15.  Second Life is making residents pay money for an unlawful file sharing platform.
16.  Second Life is being invaded by aliens and those aliens are abducting people.
17.  Linden Lab employees have been unresponsive to inquiries on these subjects.


Wasted said on his website:

"I´ve been triying to get a decent job with Linden Lab, but it is clear that you only want to hire slaves and shameless..."

"I´ve been an assiduous member of SL since 2006. I already made my own translator for free and I helped a lot of people and I got tired. I am only triying to contact any Linden Lab employee, nobody else. I bet for a better SL."

"I think that the next CEO should be an addict to Games and Second Life, a person whom could understand the deep problems in Second Life, and not a business-man."

"The Wasted! team has millions of good reasons to be smiling about the Wasted-Mania In its current incarnation, it's had millions of posts, taking him to an unprecedented level of popularity. The new web site is almost an entire re-factor of the old wasted´s material.

The user experience is still extremely slick but for parasites the Wasted! Web Site is a dream. A proper framework for second life residents seeking the best of the best."

http://www.wastedlife.com.ar

The real issue being debated across the forums is...Wasted:  Calculating griefer, virtual political activist, hilarious performance artist, typical internet asshole, forum poster just like the rest of us or unbalanced and mentally ill person loose on the web?  Keep the alien abductions in mind as you think about your response.  And the next question is, is there any harm in engaging him if you do think he is unbalanced and mentally ill?  If he just wants attention or a debate, is there any harm in giving it to him?  And the next question is, amid all that ranting and raving, are there any legitimate points about Linden Labs worth actually discussing?

1.  What is Wasted?
2.  Is there any harm?
3.  Is there any merit?