Letters to the Editor

In recent days, there has been some drama. You may say, "Yes, and the week before that, and the one before that.” Only occasionally drama overlaps onto its succeeding week. True as that may be, this week’s drama was SUPER-DUPER SPECIAL. Now is that time where you realize I'm talking about land.

A certain unnamed resident certainly isn't a small charecter in the Second Life community. He gives away 512 meter plots to newbies for FREE! What a philanthropist.

Wait up, rewind that back a bit. He lives in the same world as we do (one of very little land, and almost no public land), and, without applying for the Land for the Landless program, he can give 512 meter plots to newbies? How does he manage that? Oh, I see. He has an advantage.

It was revealed a few weeks ago on the forums that this particular resident had mysterious scripts placed all over the world, high in the sky, called "Acidic Flight." It burns just thinking about all the things that it might be... Oh, I see it maps out the sim it's in for public land, then snatches it up for our resident-in-spotlight. No one else can get the land, of course, but this isn't a TOS violation, right? And besides, it's his land he has his scripts on. Oh, wait, hold up... no, it's not. Sometimes, perchance our resident can't put his script on his own land, he'll put it on someone else’s, notching one prim off their allocation meter. Oops, tee hee.

And wait a second, these people that he's using for their land (without their knowledge, mind you) are also entitled to the land that our resident is snooping with his scripts. No, actually, they're not. Not anymore. So changes have been made, as changes usually are, and now all public land will go straight to auction. Hurray, problem solved! Win one for the gipper! Well, THIS problem's solved...

They say there's only two types of theft in Second Life:
1) Linking an item to a prim of your creation to change the "creator" name and claim you made it.
2) To sell an item without the original creator's permission.

Let's add a third one really quickly:
3) Using the prim allocation on someone else's land for your own benefit.

"But you're not actually STEALING anything from them, are you?" Yes, yes you are. If you have 4000m of land, it's pretty useless if you have no prims at all to build on that land. That's right, worthless. No one would buy it. Stealing prims is stealing the worth of the land. Trusting souls leave their land at build-enabled. Just to be kind, and friendly. But people take advantage of that. And it isn't pretty when it happens. The sneaky often take advantage of the trusting.

So now we have a 3rd way of stealing stuff in place. (Note to script kiddies: OMG I R TEH FOUND TEH N3w W4y TO TEH ST33L I R l337 LOLOLOLOLOL!!!1111!1!eleventyone). What does this mean for our community? It means an age of people tallying their prim count every day out of paranoia... scanning way up high in the air for scripts and objects... everyone having their land set to no build... and is this really good for the community? I'll let you decide that one.

(To Chance Small and supporters: Flames to Darwin Appleby, please.)

-- Darwin Appleby