the finger of blame has turned upon itself

I thought about this, and yes, I am going to bring it up, because...there are larger issues here.

Now, I crashed porting from one place to another, so lost exactly what I said, but perhaps that's for the best. I was going to need to paraphrase heavily anyway. So let's start, there, with the bare bones of what happened.

A friend was manning a boot at the 13th annual Sci Fi Convention, a charity event to support Relay for Life. I was building, and I had had a very strange night previous, and thought it might be fun to take a break. I'd been wanting to go, after all; why not go when she had booth duty?

I ported in, and I saw her, and the friend we'd invited along, and someone we both knew from Mont Nuit, and...ban lines.

At the charity event. That is raising funds for cancer research.

Now, let me make this clear. I support the right of any sim owner to ban any individual from their lands. I have challenged bans in the past, when I felt there was not valid reason, but ultimately, it is their decision, and their right, and I only challenge once. It's an important safety feature on the grid.

For their lands.

Not...on the grounds of a charity event trying to raise funds.

Let me also make this clear: I was not enraged. I was not deeply hurt. I did not make a scene. I did laugh and mention that I was trapped behind ban lines, which resulted in this bit of conversation with the friend we'd both invited:

[16:13] Sxxxxxx Wxxxxx: did you poof?
[16:13] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): Nope, banned!
[16:13] Sxxxxxx Wxxxxx: how on earth???
[16:14] Sxxxxxx Wxxxxx: why?
[16:14] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): She doesn't like me
[16:16] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): Ah, well. I hope you enjoy! [Kxxxx]'s nice, she runs [a certain house] on Mont Nuit.
[16:17] Sxxxxxx Wxxxxx: why doest she like you am cunfused your a great person whats not to like???
[16:17] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr) smiles.
[16:17] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): You'd have to ask her.
[16:17] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): But she owns the build, it's her right to ban whomever she wants.

And I do believe that, but...again. Charity event. Raising funds. It rather interferes with that goal if people can't access the event, yes?

[16:20] Sxxxxxx Wxxxxx: she siad she did not
[16:20] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): [The individual in question]? She's there?

Now, I did flare a bit here...

[16:20] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): The [f*ck] she didn't, I am very banned from that parcel. But whatever.

But surely that's understandable? And again, this was in IM, not main chat. I would not have said it in main chat.

[16:22] Sxxxxxx Wxxxxx: wait wait
[16:22] Sxxxxxx Wxxxxx: huge miss understanding
[16:22] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): Pardon?
[16:22] Sxxxxxx Wxxxxx: i though you meant [kxxxx] was the owner

Oh, good gods, no. Said elsewhere, when I was quoting a bit of this to the Duke:

[4:31 PM] Emilly: And now [Jxxxxxx]'s freaking out, because [Lxxx] baldfaced in main chat accused [Kxxxx] of being mean to me, and argh

Never a good situation, and I returned to the IM, trying to calm the friend down.

[16:22] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): No
[16:22] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): [The individual in question] built that parcel
[16:22] Sxxxxxx Wxxxxx: sorry
[16:22] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): [The individual in question] has banned me from every single land she owned, but I didn't think she was petty enough to ban me from part of a charity event.

Because...that is an extremely petty move. The optics are terrible. This states plainly that the person who banned me from every land she owned--perfectly her right, which outside of one challenge, as I said, I have not gainsayed in any way--cares so little for the fight against cancer that she'll ban me from the parcel she sponsors at the convention. And that is...deeply tragic. Because it's an important fight.

The Relay for Life charity is intensely focused on the concept of the physical, arduous walk, person passing to person, passing to person, allowing those who accept pledges sponsoring each mile they do, a brief window into the physical, arduous fight someone with cancer goes through. Trying to stay calm, trying to stay positive, trying to endure the rounds of chemotherapy, surgery, biopsies; the bouts of stress, the sheer physical exhaustion of being in pain and being sick...Out of all the charities that surround cancer research, Relay for Life is the one on the ground trying to prove to people, body by body, why it's so important to donate, to stay involved, to support however we can.

SLRLF--Second Life's Relay for Life tie-in charity--allows many people who perhaps cannot actually physically walk the track, the ability to understand the same experience. And these people take donations during the run of SLRFL events, but they also set up camps, and physical tracks to walk, so that even virtually, they can approximate the same experience. And if you think it's easy even sitting at a computer and walking forward, hour after hour...trust me. It's not as grueling, of course not, but it is affecting. Which is sort of the point.

And...she just...doesn't care, apparently.

[16:23] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): [Kxxxx] co-owns Mont Nuit, she has nothing to do with the [organization the individual in question runs].
[16:26] Sxxxxxx Wxxxxx: thats [f*cked] up
[16:26] Sxxxxxx Wxxxxx: and a spit in all our faces and [the Duke]'s
[16:27] Sxxxxxx Wxxxxx: wow

I disagree, I doubt any of the other members of Gearhaven are banned, just me. And I'm not even taking it as a spit in the face--if she feels unsafe, for whatever reason, as I said--it's her right to keep me away. Fine.

But why at the convention? What on earth does she think I'll do? Grief her booth? Scream and shout and throw things? Why would I ever do that? I gain nothing by that, no one gains anything by that, and moreover, I have fought griefers throughout my years on the grid, both as a person affected by their chaos and as an estate manager, trying to clean up after them. I have no great fondness for people who have nothing better to do than toss shouting objects into the atmosphere just because they can. So why would I engage in such tactics? It makes zero sense.

[16:27] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr) shrugs
[16:27] Sxxxxxx Wxxxxx: i got diss by some one i have not meet weird
[16:27] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): Her opt.
[16:28] Sxxxxxx Wxxxxx: so she just does not like you or she after somthing
[16:28] Sxxxxxx Wxxxxx: to ban you from an event did [the Duke] go?
[16:28] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): Unless I feel I have a definite, valid reason to be unbanned from a place, I don't fight bans--that is an absolute right of any sim owner, and it should not be curtailed. And it's fairly clear, especially with this, that she's not interested in playing nice, so....fine. Her choice. It's disappointing, but she's not really part of my daily life anymore.
[16:29] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): I don't know. I suppose I could suggest it, but I doubt he'd be interested in trying--when he's in world, he generally has better things to do.
[16:29] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): Let's just say we had a difference of opinion on what constitutes friendship and support.

And that is likely all I'll say directly on the topic. I have moved on, largely. I still wish them all the best, but she's made it clear she wants nothing more to do with me, so where it is possible, I avoid her and her organization.

This was just so wholly unexpected, because as I said, it's one thing to ban a person from that person's sim or sims; it is quite another to ban someone from a charity event.

Imagine if Fantasy Faire had ban lines for people. How much chaos would that have caused? How profoundly shocking would it have been to suddenly discover, out of the blue, one could not walk through the entire event?

A bit of a capture from another chat service:

[4:15 PM] Emilly: WELL THAT WAS FUN
[4:15 PM] Emilly: Honestly, it hadn't occurred to me she'd ban me from public events.
[4:15 PM] Emilly: That are, like, public not to just her lands.
[4:15 PM] Emilly: And yeah, halfway tempted to say to the organizers, aww, wanted to come to the Sci Fi fair and support cancer research, but banned, guess I can't--but...that would be extraordinarily petty.

And I still believe it would be, but the more I think on it, the more the larger issue here bothers me.

I'm still not going to IM the organizers in world. As far as I understand, there has been a great deal of shake-up behind the scenes, with members of the organizational team quitting, and other losses suffered. And they have enough problems with that, with struggling to lay out the sims, and properly advertise, and properly execute a large-scale charity event in the first place. I don't feel it's right to bother them directly.

But I did want to address it. It's...not right. And it's deeply disheartening. It did make me want to leave the event and not return, and that is exactly the reaction a large-scale charity event should avoid, because--past all the fun products to buy, the concerts, the dances at the large events--the bottom line is, tossing funds into the SLRFL kiosks, buying things out of the SLRFL vendors, sends money to the actual RL charity. And that is the point of SLRFL, and RFL in general. That is the point of any charity effort--time, volunteering, advertising, these are all valid, valued and necessary, but a lot of it does come down to "if you can spare funds, please, send us funds, we'll use them to help people".

And how can I help if I can't get in? Truly, a depressing turn of events.