Lionel and Dave and the Butcher made three

(Continued from part II.)

First, the non-JLU news: the Lindens have increased benefits for their premium members, including exclusive gifts (most people seemed blah on that) and private sandboxes (for most people, me included, that's enough to have us jump for joy. Hells, that's nearly enough to end my long-standing ban on supporting the Lindens financially until they stop being stupid, and buy in again).

And Firestorm has today been updated for mesh.

Also, while I'm here: Archangel Mortenwold, the maker of the 'accidentally' stolen Daleks? Turns out he lied about that. And he's now being welcomed on board as a loving supporter of the JLU.

So...the members of the JLU care about griefing, but could care less about copyright infringement...Oh, what am I saying, they walk around as trademarked superheroes, of COURSE they don't care about copyright infringement!

Oh, and Mortenwold apparently is also Raife Resident, which wouldn't be relevant, save that apparently in the drama-filled world of Whovian fandom (since when? Seriously, since when? I've always found the fandom to be almost Xanaxian in its laid-back lack of attitude), he's holding Raife up as the example of a 'good' person to be involved in his company, because he's never infringed on copyright.

But...Archangel is Raife. So...incredibly dense end-run achieved, that ultimately convinced no one and placed him farther behind on embattled trust issues than he was before? Way to go, Archangel?

Back to the summary thread on SLU.

Again, I may be wrong here, but going by my initial impressions: Tux, a member of the hacking group Wrong Hands, was following the RedZone thread closely, and missed something that in retrospect becomes glaringly obvious: the RZ-like collation program, as yet unnamed, was being hosted by a JLU server. That's very daunting, if true.

And of course there's this entry on Potosi's blog. And see, personally, I have a severe problem just there, because I don't trust Zen now, flat out. Him telling me--telling anyone--that we can trust the JLU just because he does? That's a big neon sign for me, and it reads "YOU CANNOT EVER TRUST THESE PEOPLE; RUN, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES".

But that has to do with personal history, more than anything, as depressing as it is. Back to the thread--oh, wait, one note from the original I just ran across. This from Desmond Shang:

"Here we've got... group A, that has been fixated on harassing certain people for years.

"And on the other hand, we've got group B, fixated on harassing certain people for years.

"Prok's certainly not a sympathetic figure, but only a fool at this point wouldn't think that 'real life' wasn't dragged in. Seriously, hand puppets made to look like Prok, pictures, you name it... and the fixation continues to this day.

"Now, what has happened, there's the JLU also getting into it on a similar scale (see above posts &c &c). On that measure, the 'bad guys' won their day, big time. The JLU is down in the mud also. They did one tiiiny step in the right direction (presuming they actually deleted the RL data) but... meh, that ain't much. Just like the 'griefer' crowd, it's the same game as before.

"And, why? Because I think both groups *like* doing this. Why not play around on a platform where you *can* pound your opponent all day if you like? I'd recommend lineage2, it's ancient but at least it's hardcore and you can really torment an opposing group there and make them regret playing for years. You can be a total tard on either side, put alts in the enemy camp, betray, lie, steal and do pretty much whatever else you want within the game. Would that satisfy the need to be a tard for all sides?"

In total agreement, here. JLU wouldn't be in this mess if they hadn't wanted to, to co-opt superhero parlance, use their powers for evil. They're pretty much all playing Parallax and claiming they're still playing Captain America. It just doesn't work.

In Search Engine Watch news, Axi's been busy with the JLU thing as well: it starts here, and will likely spawn other articles; and, intriguingly enough (considering the Second Names campaign, especially), an article on what a colossal failure Display Names have been. My favorite part of the latter:

"Then there's the unicode abuse.

"The reason unicode was allowed for display names was reasonable – it allowed people whose names were not written in western English characters to set a display name in their native language. That's a nice, inclusive reason to include them, and in fact they have been used for that purpose.

"Sadly what they've also been used for is to use a bunch of funky looking characters to make your name look 'cool.' It doesn't look cool. It just makes it harder to read.

"Turning your name upside down does the same thing. In a busy location, or even on your own friends list, the use of unicode to simply 'coolify' your name makes communication more difficult, not easier, and caused even more people to turn display names off entirely. Unintended consequences strike again."

For the love of all gods, YES. This is my single largest complaint on display names choices. I've pulled out unicode names on the blog in the past, because I look at that as a name choice, and it just irks me. Why would you ever, for any reason, make your name less readable, and less memorable, for onlookers? They may want to hire you for whatever skills you might have--maker, scripter, sculptor, model, photographer--and if they can't remember whether your name is "SallyAnnNickels (Resident)", or "¿$ª£Ļ¥ Ąŋʼn ŊīĉĸêĻ§?"...well, they're just not going to find you, cupcake, are they?

More when I next have energy for more. This is labyrinthine and mentally stunning. (Not Axi's column, no, just the whole JLU thing. How does the phrase go...Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. And in setting out to answer the question of whether the JLU is corrupt, I think I'm starting to swing towards 'absolutely'.