Second Life Jobs: Response to SLENTRE.COM’s Editorial, The Case Against Camping
April 23rd, 2008 | Published in Second Life Jobs | 32 Comments
By Avarie Parker
There has been a recent complaint regarding the camping editorial published in SLentrepreneur Magazine. I would very much like to give opponents of the views expressed by the writers of this publication a forum in which to express their own opinions and views. It is in the spirit of open and uncensored communication that I am publishing the complaint here, inviting a dialog on the subject. Here’s an excerpt from the inworld chat sent to me by both SLENTRE.COM editor Cheyenne Palisades and the disgruntled owner of Platinum World sim, Rebecca Volcano :
[15:37] Rebecca Vacano: Is this how you run your paper? Unbalanced views and when someone complains have someone say to you – go fuck yourself. Please see notecard of conversation with Cheyenne and I would like to launch a formal complaint against SL Entrepeneur .
[15:39] Rebecca Vacano: Please sort this out – or I will have to go to all your sponsors and explain what has happened.
Conversation with Cheyenne Palisades on the 23rd April 2008
[15:25] Rebecca Vacano: Please see my view on camping and bots on my website: http://platinuminsecondlife.blogspot.com/
[15:27] Rebecca Vacano: Unless you retract your article or take down pics of my camping in your article, I will have to consider taking RL legal action against you for defamation of character and my business. You article implies I use bots and give nothing to the community. You have 24 hours to respond or make changes.
[15:27] Cheyenne Palisades: Which article is that?
[15:27] Rebecca Vacano: http://www.slentre.com/second-life-jobs-the-case-against-camping/
[15:28] Cheyenne Palisades: You are Wellfare Island?
[15:28] Cheyenne Palisades: Just looked at article
[15:28] Rebecca Vacano: No I own Platinum.
[15:29] Cheyenne Palisades: Just read down to the Platinum part.
[15:29] Rebecca Vacano: No one bothered to contact me prior to the article being written to allow me to comment or contribute – its just a provocative article that is one sided and implies I do not contribute to SL and use bots.
[15:30] Cheyenne Palisades: I wrote the artlcle and I stand by it.
[15:30] Cheyenne Palisades: I mentioned no one in particular.
[15:30] Cheyenne Palisades: I did not choose the images with which to illustrate it.
[15:30] Cheyenne Palisades: If you have an issue with them, you need to speak with the publisher.
[15:30] Rebecca Vacano: You have my word on it and I will be taking legal action if its not amended.
[15:31] Cheyenne Palisades: Earth to Rebecca. I did not mention you in my text and I did not choose the images for the illustration.
[15:31] Cheyenne Palisades: I do not publish the magazine.
[15:31] Rebecca Vacano: Feel free to copy my text here to the publisher.
[15:31] Cheyenne Palisades: I merely wrote an editorial.
[15:31] Rebecca Vacano: Your name is on the article.
[15:31] Rebecca Vacano: You are who will be involved.
[15:31] Cheyenne Palisades: No, no, no, if you have an issue with the photos, it’s not my job to take it to the publisher.
[15:31] Rebecca Vacano: And – its an unbalanced article
[15:31] Cheyenne Palisades: There is nothing libelous in my text and I stand by it.
[15:32] Cheyenne Palisades: It’s a frigging editorial.
[15:32] Rebecca Vacano: Completely unprofessional.
[15:32] Rebecca Vacano: No research – just a rant and a rave.
[15:32] Rebecca Vacano: No balanced opinion.
[15:32] Cheyenne Palisades suggests you look up the words editorial and libel.
[15:32] Cheyenne Palisades: And you and your lawyers can go fuck yourselves.
[15:32] Cheyenne Palisades: Now you are muted.
[15:32] Rebecca Vacano: Hey – if you want a fight – you just got one. I will consult my legal team tomorrow.
[15:33] Cheyenne Palisades: Muting accomplished.
[15:34] Rebecca Vacano: The art of a good writer – someone that does research and gets a balanced view so people can make up their own opinions.
Let the conversation begin!
April 23rd, 2008at 4:51 pm(#)
Interesting, however I do not believe this person has a legal case here. Should be interesting to see if it is pursued.
April 24th, 2008at 1:50 am(#)
As I understand the meaning of ‘Editorial’, it is an opinion piece, and designed to provoke a debate. As with many editorials this piece is disappointing in its lack of research (and logical argument) but comments can compensate. It seems that the problem here lies in the choice of illustrations, which would seem to be the editor’s responsibility.
Both Rebecca and Cheyenne seem to have over-reacted here and to me it would be ludicrous if RL legal action were taken. I’m sure the editor has learned several lessons – not least to hire writers with nicer manners. Well done editor for opening this conflict up for comments.
April 24th, 2008at 8:08 am(#)
I have to say that in general, I disagree with the original editorial. Camping is not inherently a bad thing. When I was running my shop, I had a few camping spots there. To me, it is a mutually beneficial relationship. Since SL search is based on traffic, one has to play the traffic game to be successful. My aim was never to be at the top of the traffic list, but just to ensure that my shop never fell ‘below the fold’ in the search list for the keywords that I wanted to target. Generally, that doesn’t require a lot of campers to accomplish.
I think the author of the original article is fooling herself if she thinks that campers are sitting there wasting time. Generally, I have found that most are either not present at their keyboards at all, presumably because they are off doing something else, or this is just a secondary camping account that doesn’t do anything but camp, OR they are sitting and chatting in IM’s with friends in world and/or out and figure they might as well earn a few pennies while they do so.
Everyone wins in that scenario. A few pennies earned for the owner of the avatar in question… and better search position for the store/shop providing the camping.
The question of whether traffic is the best means of determining whether a place is a GOOD place to visit is another question entirely, however. Personally, I don’t think it is the best way. I’d much prefer some kind of voting system that allows one vote “yay or nay” for each avatar for each location. SOme combination of number of votes and percentage of yays would be excellent.
At any rate, I wouldn’t worry much about the legal action. However, you might, just to avoid the appearance of impropriety and avoid potential negative perceptions of other business owners, consider smudging out the name of the island on the picture used. It seems like a fair compromise.
April 24th, 2008at 9:59 am(#)
Another passionate day at SL – where is the fun here? Anyways camping is such a poor business strategy ill conceived and carried out trough bots. Another good idea that is just… dull. I received a notice from a group offering a class on how to camp with bots and be able to stay connected all day, not being disconnected.
When we understand the potentials of the platform and prepare to leave behind the Barbie Economy we are in now, we might start the right convesations.
Legal charges? I wonder what the damage would be… Judge “Since 2 dollars and 50 cents were lost, Cheyenne will pay triple that amount! Take her to the wall!!”
Haha come on guys.
And now I will hear Rebecca Vacano explaining to me how she has made hundreds of dollars and Cheyenne has well destroyed her totally…
April 24th, 2008at 11:05 am(#)
Quite frankly I am shocked.
I am shocked that the writer has published an article using someone’s business pictures without their knowledge and right to reply.
I am shocked that when that business decided to confront the writer, they got the attitude they did and told to go f**k themselves
I am shocked that even that withstanding this publication has decided to violate that person’s privacy by copying their conversation and making it public
I am a serious business owner in SL, I used to read this publication, but after seeing the actions of this writer and now the editor, I will be conveying to everyone the business ethics and practices they use.
It seems to me that this publication is a method to bash people or business approaches, not giving the right to reply and then after people complain, publically trying to have a debate on something that should have been handled professionally and privately.
I know if the writer worked for me and represented my business I would fire them for the way they treated this person.
Shame on you SL Entrepeneur
April 24th, 2008at 11:52 am(#)
There are a few things I would like to add here.
Firstly. As long as Traffic is used by Linden Labs as a way of ranking places, people will pay others (and some will use bots) to increase their traffic rating. It is simple as that. If you want to stop camping, dont hassle the people that use it to promote their business and definately dont hassle the noobs that camp, hassle Linden Labs to stop using it as any kind of measure.
Secondly and much more importantly, although the copy may not mention any specific places the image blatantly does and the title below it reinforces this. The name of the camping place is not relevant to the story or the writers opinion.
If I decided to write a scathing article about stupid profile pictures with people wearing masks (I mean honestly. What is the point of having a photo of yourself wearing a mask. DUH!!) and used Cheyenne Palisades’ photo to illustrate my point, along with a title reading Cheyenne Palisades in a mask, I think she would probably feel used and abused. Just remove the title and black out the name of the place in the photo. If it isnt meant as a personal attack on a specific place, dont make it personal.
April 24th, 2008at 1:48 pm(#)
I have to agree with Brooklyn, this is a complete violation of privacy. It would have been much more professional to just say “a few business owners responded angrily” or something of that nature rather than posting the conversation. It definitely makes me question the morals and ethics of people working for SL Entrepreneur. Shame on you for allowing this type of post.
I almost think this is actually worse than the original article and if not worse it sure comes in a close second. It was unresearched and incredibly imbalanced. Did anyone think to ask what the campers thought about camping? I know for a fact that not everyone can afford to spend real life money on linden, they come here for an escape and if they choose to camp or do any other activity of their choosing to earn money then it’s nice for someone to provide them an opportunity for that. Do business owners forget that a lot of their income is from people spending money they’ve earned by camping?
April 24th, 2008at 4:42 pm(#)
“Remotely monitoring conversations, posting conversation logs, or sharing conversation logs without consent are all prohibited in Second Life and on the Second Life Forums.”
I would like to point out that my suggestion that Ms. Vacano and her attorneys go perform a feat that is generally considered anatomically impossible was a privileged communication, meant for the ears of Ms. Vacano only. By publicly reproducing the log of our IM conversation, she is almost certainly in violation of the Second Life Community Standards.
And she richly deserved the remark. I stand by it as well as the language in my editorial. The pictures were not of my choosing. I had never heard of Rebecca Vacano or of Platinum before she rang up out of the blue and proceeded to threaten, insult, and abuse me.
Editorials are meant to provoke opinion and emotion. They are _by definition_ one-sided. As opinion, they are just that; no fact-checking required.
And finally, no, no, no, business owners are NOT privileged to consultation before their stores are mentioned or pictured in the press. I rather suspect Ms. Vacano has enlisted the aid of like-minded citizens to fill up this space.
April 24th, 2008at 7:39 pm(#)
Its amazing to see the very distinct and clear divide that exists in SL. Glad this has sparked this type of outlet. I suspect both side will gain value from the exchanges, although change is something humans often fear and fight tooth and nail against.
April 25th, 2008at 4:04 am(#)
After reading the original article and this conversation again, I really think the magazine is doing itself a disservice by attempting to make an example of Platinum and Rebecca Vacano. It’s fine to stick by the article, but presumably, the article is not about Rebecca, per se, but about camping in general. There’s really no reason to push it to a forum about one person or one business. I think the respectful thing to do is remove this topic and fuzz out the name on the picture.
April 25th, 2008at 4:36 am(#)
Cheyenne,
From reading through all of this – I fail to see how Rebecca Vacano is implicated for breaking TOS? It is not her that has published this, its Avarie Parker. It seems also that Avarie Parker confirmed this conversation log was sent by both you and Rebecca following your conversation. Read Avarie’s comments prior to posting the chat log.
If you are upset with your employer and newspaper publishing what should be a private complaint and conversation, you need to go back to them, rather than making wild accusations against someone you have already disrespected and deliberately attacked.
Your post here – just confirms what kind of charactor you are and why you originally wrote a biased article that can only be seen as a front for you to personally attack certain individuals. If it wasn’t a personal attack then:
1. you wouldn’t have included certain people’s land pictures
2. upon people complaining you and your paper would respect you were giving out a personal message and would take the pics down and amend the article
Instead your paper has decided to disrespect and cause upset to people and have now decided to make that upset worse by disregarding privacy and Second Life TOS by publishing private logs.
I would think that after this episode no one will take you or your paper seriously, and also that Avarie Parker will have some explaining to do when the Linden’s knock at her door asking why she violated TOS of her in-world account.
April 25th, 2008at 8:05 am(#)
Please find my official response to the complete and utter violation of my privacy and position I find myself in having to defend.
Before I write my response to what SL entrepeneur have done, I wish to let everyone know that I at no point gave permission for my complaint or feelings to be made public in this way. In fact I asked Avarie Parker to deal with this in a professional and private way, which to my expectation would have been to evaluate my complaint, which was namely that Platinum’s name and sim picture were represented in an article that wasn’t about Platinum and that the assumptions made by the writer about camping (i.e. ugly places consumed with bots) had nothing to do with Platinum either.
It may have been an innocent mistake on behalf of Avarie Parker to use example pictures of Platinum World in a camping article, but I would have expected when I outlined the upset and explanation that the content was inappropriate for her to take action and amend accordingly.
Instead Avarie Parker decided to publish a private chat log without consent, which not only violates my privacy, it violates that of her employee Cheyenne Palisades. Avarie Parker asked me to publish my comment on here three days ago, which I refused as I don’t feel it appropriate to do so. It was a private matter that needed to be dealt with privately and professionally. Unfortunately with all the interest this has caused (which I should imagine was Avarie’s reason for violating my privacy), I feel the need to explain what has happened.
In my whole Second Life over the past year, I have never seen such blatent unprofessional behaviour from a group of people that are trying to set up a credible and useful publication. It is really a shame that people would “headline” grab by knocking or abusing other people’s rights.
My own views on Camping? Well you can log in to my website for those: http://platinuminsecondlife.blogspot.com/
These articles and comments posted above are not directed at meanful debate about something which has been around for years in Second Life. They are directed at me and my business. Something which I cannot understand.
Platinum will continue going from strength to strength as thousands of people love the sim and business. With over 1000 unique visitors a day to Platinum and countless messages of support and great feedback, it gives me the strength to continue to provide what is a sim for great socialising and camping as well as a shop with some of the best designs in Second Life.
Platinum remains one of the most popular sims in Second Life – through its own merits and not by placing bots.
Thats all I have to say on this matter
Rebecca Vacano
April 28th, 2008at 12:30 pm(#)
I think this is a laugh, maybe because I am still new to SL, but to want to bring a RL lawsuit about an editoral is funny to me.
As Cheyenne has said it was not her choice of pictures and not once was Platinum’s name used in the actual artical. An editorial is more of an opinion than a full story write up. Rebecca should be asking SLentrepreneur Magazine if it is true that the pictures were chose by them and not Cheyenne.
As it appears, there are different opinions on camping, but this story can be “used” both ways. Those of us that think camping is a wasite of time for the amount of money you earn and those of us that see this a advertsing for Platinum that we will now go there since we might not of heard of it before.
I definately think that there is no need for a RL Lawsuit. Would Platinum not need to be a registered company in RL for them to be able to bring up a Lawsuit?
December 11th, 2008at 8:35 am(#)
Rebecca Vacano is about as dishonest a Business owner you can get in SL. Aside from falsifying traffic figures through the use of campers, she also practices other deceptions. If you visit her sim Indulgence you’ll see invisible prims
at the bottom of the sea by using “Highlight Transparent”. On viewing these prims, you’ll see that their sole purpose is to contain keywords to assist her in All search. This is even more unethical than the camping. You can also add paying people to add her locations into their Profile Picks. These are all unethical ways of how she manipulates Searches.
My advise to readers is to support and shop at honest hard working creators who stand by the quality of their products. You don’t see Celestial Skins or Nominee Skins or Laqroki Skins behave in such a underhanded way. Quality speaks.Rebecca is just a professional gamer, nothing more and nothing less!
January 12th, 2009at 2:38 pm(#)
@ Judge Dread alias Tracey Sassoon from Alady. Invisable boxes that boost search? Next you will be saying she uses magic to be at the top of the search. Prims in SL can now be set to search (actually its been like this for about 6 months, where have you been???!?). I am sure the ones you are referring to are ones that are named as the things she sells which is why LL changed the search to allow people to add boxes to search. How is that gaming the system? This blog and comments are nothing but an attack on a hard working and kind business owner that provides hundreds of SL people money from camping and quality products. Jealousy does seem to bring out the worst in people.
Tracey Sassoon is a cheat and defrauds the SL people by using 30 bots at her sim Alady Island – under the premise that they are models….. Alessandra uses 80 bots……. B&B Skins and More uses 80 bots…….. Pigments Designs uses 60 bots……. Awori Cassini uses 70 bots…….
So who is gaming who? Someone that promotes camping and pays newbies and people that need it thousands of lindens a day, or people like Tracey Sassoon that get traffic by cheating with bots. Any one can visit Alady, Alessandra, Skin Oasis to see for themselves.
January 13th, 2009at 2:34 am(#)
Rebecca’s sims have some of the best products in Second Life – this is why it’s top of the searches and popular and people come to buy things. Usually when sims are popular people add it to their picks, which causes them to be higher in the search. How is that gamed?
Sims that have simple / childish builds, laughable vendor pictures and rubbish products are bound to be lower in the search. Perhaps the person targetting and stalking Rebecca would be better off spending their time making their stuff better and then they would succeed in SL.
Judge Dread’s post just sounds like jealousy and uses the same word terminology as Tracey Sassoon from Alady on other blog posts. Rebecca tells me she has had a problem with Tracey Sassoon stalking her, ever since Rebecca complained to Tracey about putting her SL brands keywords in her parcel description 18 months ago.
August 6th, 2009at 2:50 pm(#)
Judge Dread alias Tracey Sassoon from Alady. Invisable boxes that boost search? Next you will be saying she uses magic to be at the top of the search. Prims in SL can now be set to search (actually its been like this for about 6 months, where have you been???!?). I am sure the ones you are referring to are ones that are named as the things she sells which is why LL changed the search to allow people to add boxes to search. How is that gaming the system? This blog and comments are nothing but an attack on a hard working and kind business owner that provides hundreds of SL people money from camping and quality products. Jealousy does seem to bring out the worst in people.
Tracey Sassoon is a cheat and defrauds the SL people by using 30 bots at her sim Alady Island – under the premise that they are models….. Alessandra uses 80 bots……. B&B Skins and More uses 80 bots…….. Pigments Designs uses 60 bots……. Awori Cassini uses 70 bots…….
So who is gaming who? Someone that promotes camping and pays newbies and people that need it thousands of lindens a day, or people like Tracey Sassoon that get traffic by cheating with bots. Any one can visit Alady, Alessandra, Skin Oasis to see for themselves.
ebecca’s sims have some of the best products in Second Life – this is why it’s top of the searches and popular and people come to buy things. Usually when sims are popular people add it to their picks, which causes them to be higher in the search. How is that gamed?
Sims that have simple / childish builds, laughable vendor pictures and rubbish products are bound to be lower in the search. Perhaps the person targetting and stalking Rebecca would be better off spending their time making their stuff better and then they would succeed in SL.
Judge Dread’s post just sounds like jealousy and uses the same word terminology as Tracey Sassoon from Alady on other blog posts. Rebecca tells me she has had a problem with Tracey Sassoon stalking her, ever since Rebecca complained to Tracey about putting her SL brands keywords in her parcel description 18 months ago.
August 6th, 2009at 5:16 pm(#)
I have some of the best products in Second Life – this is why it’s top of the searches and popular and people come to buy things. Usually when sims are popular people add it to their picks, which causes them to be higher in the search. How is that gamed?
Sims that have simple / childish builds, laughable vendor pictures and rubbish products are bound to be lower in the search. Perhaps the person targetting and stalking Rebecca would be better off spending their time making their stuff better and then they would succeed in SL.
Judge Dread’s post just sounds like jealousy and uses the same word terminology as Tracey Sassoon from Alady on other blog posts. People say I am stalking her – I AM NOT
August 6th, 2009at 5:32 pm(#)
Flawless Shapes, B & B skins and Skin Oasis had more bots than I did! You should have went after them before you went after me.
August 6th, 2009at 6:36 pm(#)
You are all just jealous of my success – this is because I am more popular and higher in search. I make the best products in second life period!
Judge Dread’s post shows just how jealousy can get.
August 6th, 2009at 6:55 pm(#)
I am angry – because because of your article they made me take my bots away and causing my business to shrink to rubbish! My product is superior and I needed bots to generate traffic. How am I to pay my tiers?
Jealous fools!
August 6th, 2009at 9:42 pm(#)
If I change my mind about a post I created here – how do I delete it? I do not want to be stalked by all of you!
August 16th, 2009at 9:43 am(#)
Wow, SecondLife just went from fun to immature… you are are rediculus. Isn’t second life full of “adults”? Act lke it.
September 8th, 2009at 3:07 pm(#)
I am not immature… I create the best products in SL bar NONE
you are just jealous of my success of being better than you all.
September 14th, 2009at 9:54 pm(#)
hahahaha Linden Lab are so thick! they haven’t even noticed all the bots that I have. Whats the point of having a policy that they don’t police!
More fool them, that I am still able to rip off other hard working designers by cheating the system with all of my bots!
actually I don’t make any money because my products are complete rubbish! More fool the people that buy them as my shapes are nothing more than freebie templates!
May 19th, 2010at 7:13 am(#)
Aww, this was a really quality post. In theory I’d like to write like this too – taking time and real effort to make a good article… but what can I say… I procrastinate alot and never seem to get something done.
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