Questions in black bold - answers in blue.

1. I have attached an html file with links to images currently in Cybertown and which were accessible at the time of this writing (April 24, 2003). These are either 2D images in residents’ houses or thumbnails of objects previously sold in the mall. Do you agree that some of them are too risqué for Cybertown if it is to be looked at as a "family" site? If not, why?

When I read this question I thought, "Uh-oh, do we have pornographic or obscene images in CT that have been missed?". I had a few weeks ago received an e-mail from a "concerned citizen" who informed me that there were a bunch of pornographic images in Cybertown but then refused to tell me where they were so that they couldn't get handled!

OK, to answer this question fully, let's take a look at a few things:

From the CT Constitution:

"9) In building your dwellings in Cybertown, the above rules also apply. In other words you cannot furnish your spaces with textures, texts, objects or images that would generally or usually be considered offensive, illegal, pornographic, racist or that violate copyrights."

From the Legal Notices:

"In consideration of being allowed to use the Chat Room facilities provided by Cybertown, you agree that you will not:

f. Post sexually-explicit images"

And from advice given to Security and the Mall staff to help them when deciding if a certain object can be approved for use in CT:

"What we're against is out and out pornography - hard-core or soft-core. Compare anything you're not sure about to whether it's generally considered acceptable for kids in movies, cartoons, comics, Anime, TV, games etc."

Now, let's look at some dictionary definitions:

por·nog·rag·phic: n. 1. Pictures, writing, or other material that is sexually explicit. 2. Writings, pictures, films, etc., designed to stimulate sexual excitement.

ex·pli·cit: adj. 1.a. Fully and clearly expressed; leaving nothing implied. b. Describing or portraying sexual activity in graphic detail.

sex·u·al: adj. 1. Of, relating to, involving, or characteristic of sex, sexuality, the sexes, or the sex organs and their functions. 2. Implying or symbolizing erotic desires or activity.

And let's look at the legal definition of pornography:

""Pornography" is a lay person's term, with no particular legal significance. Jones may believe that Penthouse is non-pornographic, while Smith believes that it is. Neither is incorrect.

The term of legal significance is "obscenity", which, after struggling for many years and through many cases, the U.S. Supreme Court defined in Miller v. California in 1973. It is a three-part test, as follows:

"The basic guidelines for the trier of fact (one who examines and settles a case) must be:

(a) whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, Kois v. Wisconsin, supra, at 230, quoting Roth v. United States, supra, at 489;

(b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and

(c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."

Note that part (a) does employ community standards. However, all three parts must be met for a work to be deemed obscene, and part (c), as the Court has held elsewhere, is a national threshold, not a community test.

It must be remembered that offensive material alone does not constitute pornography. All three criterion have to be fulfilled for a work to be considered pornographic."

For the above, some further dictionary definitions:

Pru·ri·ent: adj. 1. Inordinately interested in matters of sex; lascivious. 2.a. Characterized by an inordinate interest in sex. b. Arousing or appealing to an inordinate interest in sex.

Las·civ·i·ous: adj. 1. Given to or expressing lust; lecherous.

lech·er·y: n. 1. Excessive indulgence in sexual activity; lewdness..

lewd: adj. 1.a. Preoccupied with sex and sexual desire; lustful. b. Obscene.

ris·qué: adj. Suggestive of or bordering on indelicacy or impropriety..

pro·pri·e·ty: n.. 1. The quality of being proper; appropriateness. 2. Conformity to prevailing customs and usages.

So, looking at the images supplied and the definitions above, clearly the majority of them are neither pornographic, obscene nor risqué and many are no different than those you'll see in kid's comics such as Anime etc. A few of the images could perhaps be considered borderline, more on the aspect of violence than obscenity, but in these instances it really often comes down to opinion (o·pin·ion: n. 1. A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof) since these kinds of images often show up in Gothic and vampire comics and games for kids.

Plus most of those which could be so considered, as you pointed out are no longer available for sale in CT. Many of these images are on about the same scale as the models posing for the cover of a magazine like Redbook, Cosmo, etc. and whose access is not restricted for children. You can see more than what is shown in most of these images at many public beaches which also are not restricted for children. There is one image that is borderline in a possibly risqué way and the home owner concerned will be contacted. Some of these images I'm amazed that anyone could possibly object to as it would really would take a major stretch of the imagination and a couple of the images are really beautiful and aesthetic, in my opinion, of course.

What's interesting is that some people, while complaining about lack of free speech and 1st amendment rights yet want to censor object creators. That seems rather hypocritical to me. The fact that so much of this comes down to opinion is shown in the fact that we also get complaints that CT is too much geared towards the protection of kids and requesting that we open an adults section.

The bottom line is that children under teenage age have to get their parent's permission to join CT and parents are free to look around and make their own choice. It's a personal choice and different families clearly have different viewpoints as to what's OK for their kids to see.

2. What steps are being taken to get rid of undesirable images both in homes and in objects?

Well, the many already in-place mechanisms include, but are not limited to, these:

1) There is a CT Constitution, Legal Notices and a Unified Ban Policy that outline the rules concerning these and also when a person joins Cybertown they sign a Subscription Agreement that states that they are not allowed to post material that is obscene nor post sexually-explicit images.

2) The Mall has checkers, assisted by Security, who check images and objects against these guidelines and reject those that are not appropriate.

3) Blocks have Block Leaders part of whose function is to also check for and get removed images that violate the guidelines.

4) Security, upon being informed of violations of the above, are empowered to get the person to remove them.

Obviously since CT has a lot of residents and since the people mentioned above are part time volunteers, they have to rely on the residents themselves and on being informed of such violations - other than what they find as part of their virtual job functions. If a resident observes an inappropriate image per the above definitions they can also contact the BL of the block where it was observed and request that it be removed and if this doesn't happen they can contact Security to look into the matter.

Once again it so often comes down to differing opinions as to what is obscene and it is very easy to go too far in trying to censor artistic creations. With regard to how far differing opinions in this area can be, I am reminded of SINA - the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals - which attracted so many followers in the 70's before it was revealed to be a hoax.

3. I recently wrote that the word string "mocarski.net" could not be entered into the information for my home or inbox. Other residents noticed the same inability to type in the web address for my site. Was this a deliberate filtering of this by Cybertown staff or was it somehow a hacking job?

It was deliberately added to the list of items that are filtered. To quote you:

"Ironically, the elimination of my ability to link is not that big of a deal. It IS after all their site and they can do whatever they damn please there. It should be clear to readers, however, that it is a deliberate act to silence this dissonant voice, a definitive statement that they do not like the idea of this page or others that are similar and far more dissonant. It should be clear that any statement from the mucky mucks that they allow free speech is a hollow, specious claim."

Yes, a membership organization can indeed do what it wants, within the law of course. If we had indeed wanted to silence your voice, there are many legal things we could have done to do this and we have not done so - as you yourself said, "I mean three different sites get these threatening emails and *I don't get a thing. Nada, Zilch. Not squat*". Note, I'm not implying that we sent any threatening e-mails to anyone else either, because we didn't.

I'm not exactly sure why we would be supposed to like people telling lies about us. Doesn't make a lot of sense - I doubt if you'd like it if someone put up pages telling lies about you :) It was done because it was observed by others who read them that your pages had been becoming increasingly nasty and biased in recent weeks and there's no logical reason why we should want to enable people in CT to point them out to others. Hey, you were complaining that no-one was paying you any attention, so you got some attention :)

As it happens, during the last week since we've been in communication, a distinct shift to a more balanced and fair viewpoint has been observed and so we removed the filter a few days ago.

I keep hearing about these alleged statements about free speech - where are they? I've never made any such statement as far as I remember. However this seems an appropriate time to say something on this.

There are some common misconceptions regarding so-called "free speech". First of all, membership organizations - such as CT demonstrably is - are not actually subject to free speech laws in the usual way. Membership organizations can make their own rules regarding behavior, including speech and can terminate those who violate those rules. A typical example in another arena would be the Terms of Service of hosting companies which usually prohibit hateful and harassing or threatening speech. The fact is that "Free speech" as contained in the First Amendment to the US Constitution does not afford blanket rights to express opinions in all situations.

It certainly does not establish a mandate that requires a website to put up with behavior that has been described clearly in the code of conduct as unacceptable. Cybertown has the absolute legally upheld right to exclude people for violating its Constitution and published codes of conduct. There is "free speech" and the "abuse of free speech". One of those abuses is legally termed "Libel" or "Defamation" and is also not protected by the First Amendment. Libel is the publication in writing of untrue degrading information about another living person. Publication does not mean printing in the newspaper, it means putting it out for consumption by at least one third person. When the untrue information is in writing (libel), there is usually no need to prove monetary damages. Punitive damages may be awarded where there is evidence of malice, fraud, or oppression on the part of the maker of the statements.

There are actually 3 categories of libel:

1) A statement that is defamatory on its face.

A statement that is obviously defamatory. A statement that is written to harm another person and the malice can be seen by anyone who reads that statement.

2) False Innuendo.

Persons with necessary contextual knowledge appreciate the statement as defamatory. An alternative meaning which the ordinary, reasonable person who can read between the lines would infer from the words is known as the false innuendo meaning.

3) Legal or True Innuendo.

While not defamatory on the face, the statement is defamatory when viewed together with extrinsic circumstances. True innuendo arises when words that appear to be innocent to some people appear as defamatory to others because they possess special knowledge or extra information.

Courts have held that merely prefacing an otherwise defamatory statement with the words "I believe..." or "I think..." or "I heard..." or other similar attempted disclaimers is not enough to eliminate the implication that the statement was intended to communicate facts. Similarly, changing names when there is a reasonable expectation that those reading know who or what is being referred to, is also not protected per the above definitions. How courts handle Internet defamation suits has been changing during the last couple of years and a number of recent suits have resulted in actual and punitive damages ranging from $400,000 to more than $750,000. In one case, some false statements regarding pedophilia cost the poster 2 and 1/2 years in jail.

Anyway, that's some basic information on what does and what doesn't constitute free speech. So no, we have not tried to silence your voice as in trying to remove it from the net. We have in the past tried to limit its appearance in our site, as is our right. And we don't currently do so. And I'm not accusing you personally of libel, far from it - the statements above are of a general nature and intended only to give people a greater understanding regarding that often bandied-about but generally misunderstood term "free speech". While we do not make any claims that we allow what is termed the “abuse of free speech”, even though we are under no obligation to be so we feel that we actually tend to be fairly liberal when it comes to true free speech, although some may disagree. We have let people say all sorts of things on the feedback boards that many other communities would not allow due to their crossing the line between free speech and the abuse of free speech.

4. As a follow up to the previous question, does Cybertown now have the capability to filter out unwanted language such as four letter words? Is it currently being used in all areas in which residents may post something, whether their own homes, message boards and chat? Please be specific about where the filtering system is being applied.

CT has had and has used the capability to filter out generally considered obscene words in chat for years. It was more recently added to other scripts throughout CT.

5. Still related to the above topic, if it is not being applied in other areas, when will it be?

See above.

6. One of the things touted before Cybertown went to a pay site was the new Silhouette technology. In your recent town meeting you mentioned that it is in the Alpha stage, and that Beta testing would be available to CT residents soon. By what approximate date can you or IVN promise that is will be available?

I requested this information and this was the reply I received from IVN:

"We will make no promises or projections as to when it will be available. The core technology is working and we have designed and are currently testing our stream router and server.

No one is more interested than we are in getting the technology to market and we will do so when we are confident that it is ready."

7. As I understand it, based on the details provide at the IVN site, this new technology will allow users to employ web cams to project themselves into the 3D environment. That may be an oversimplification, but that is the way I understand it. While this is indeed fascinating, what problems do you forsee in the way people utilize it? I mean this question in areas other than technical difficulties that may arise.

We see it having the most use in CT for family members in different parts of the country or world being able to chat while seeing their loved ones or even show home movies. I imagine your question has to do with how people might abuse it. In that context, the answers to question 1 and 2 would apply.

8. Please give a breakdown of the following:
a. number of paying customers
b. number of those with multiple nicknames
c. number of sponsored residents
d. number of family accounts

Well, this comes under the heading of internal company information (trade secrets) most of which I am not privy to and even if I were I doubt that I would reveal it as it's no-one's business other than IVN/Cybertown's. This is the kind of information that might be released to shareholders but being a member of CT doesn't make one a shareholder :)

However, that said, I see no problem in letting you know some recent stats since they were released to potential sponsors:

Current Monthly Stats (rounded):

Hits - 43 million
Pageviews - 16 million
Visits - 250,000
Unique visits - 140,000
Average length of visit - 45 minutes

9. Who has the final say on whether something changes in Cybertown? You or IVN?

IVN owns CT so they have the final say but everything is discussed in detail and decisions are jointly made based on the information to hand.

From the RAQ:

"38) How much input will IVN have into the running of Cybertown?

Answer: IVN owns Cybertown so of course it will have a say. At the same time, IVN is very sensitive to the needs of the community. IVN has a lot of respect for the way Cybertown is managed and does not see a need to interfere in the way it is managed."

10. Other than your relationship through Cybertown, what financial or personal involvement do you have with IVN?

The CEO is a very good friend and yes, I have a financial involvement which is of course my business :) Do I own IVN? No. Is IVN something I set up? No, IVN had been in existence for years before I ever heard of them. It was actually SFX who made first contact with them.

11. You mentioned in a previous email to me that you know that there are some problems in Cybertown. What problems other than technological glitches do you feel exist? What are you doing to solve those problems which you yourself recognize?

Well, this is by no means a comprehensive list but some of the things are:

1) The jobs and pay system needs an overhaul - and the Council has been working on this and it is almost complete.

2) The Mall guidelines and object class systems and pay systems need an overhaul and the Mayor and a Committee and many residents have been working on this and it also is almost complete. The class system has already been removed and there are more changes coming including a much higher percentage to object creators.

3) In order to build back up to where it was before CT became a subscription site, there are a number of issues being addressed:

a) A much easier intro to CT for newbies is being developed - a kind of expanded Quick Start Guide plus there is now a "Call a Guide" button.

b) Many more events, games, contests and activities are being introduced so that there's more to do. Some new ones are already running.

c) Many new features are being introduced to make it easier for NLs and BLs to do their jobs. Quite a number of these were introduced in the last 2 weeks.

d) As mentioned at my last town briefing, there are a number of resident-requested improvements coming such as custom homes and new 3D places.

I imagine that you wanted me to comment here on perceived problems with the political system or open communication issues but I will actually have a great deal to say about this in Part 2 of this interview next week. In the meantime I can tell you that the Council has been working on a new ongoing major project to involve a great many more residents in the CT government process.

12. In recent feedback messages much has been made of the need for a change in mall policies, and that seems to be happening at a rapid pace. One of the constant problems that mall managers seem to have is with the issue of copyrighted images. Yet, countless such images can readily be found in residents’ houses and even on the Council message board. The legal notices clearly state that residents should not be using them. Shouldn’t that apply across the board and not just in the mall rules?

Yes, this is indeed covered in the Legal Notices and the CT Constitution and other guidelines and when someone points out such a violation we get it removed, which is the same way that most other sites approach this issue. Copyright laws are not as clear cut as some might believe and as with obscenity laws there are a specific number of factors that have to considered together in order for something to be considered a copyright violation, but in keeping with our studies of the Copyright Act, a while back I gave this basic guideline: "If you don’t have the original artist or their representative’s permission in writing, don’t use their work in whole or in part.".

13. I have written in the past about how the current mayor came to office. The story as I understand it is this. Ladyliz was elected in June. There was some disgruntlement on the Council at the time and her appointment to the office was delayed until you gave the final approval and effectively overrode the Council on the matter. Then last year, LadyLiz, because of health problems and other issues, resigned. JJFridge then took the office and by his own accounts met with much hindrance from some of the Council who made no secret that they did not want JJ as the mayor and planned on instilling Jolinth in his place. As I said, that is my understanding of the gist of what happened. What is yours?

Well this is one of those fairly typical situations where there is indeed some truth to this but it's what's left out that is the most telling. As is often the case, the truth ends up being somewhere in between the extremes of the claims.

Based on the documents to hand, it appears to be true that there was indeed some considerable trepidation on the part of the then Council based on a number of things - including the Council's dealings with the new Mayor prior to this (there were severe trust issues), and the documents that seemed to show that both the new Mayor and D/Mayor had prior involvement with the Shadow Guild (a group whose intentions were demonstrably not the well-being of CT).

During the next 9 months the new Mayor was repeatedly absent for extended periods - often for weeks at a time - and finally in June the D/Mayor wrote an e-mail to the Council stating that Cybertown needed an active Mayor and that the Mayor had not fulfilled that duty and had alienated herself not only to the rest of Council but also to the residents and stating that something needed to be done. A discussion ensued where the subject of the Mayor resigning was brought up and the D/Mayor stated that there was no doubt in his mind that this was what had to happen. The Council agreed since there really wasn't any choice as having an absentee Mayor was not workable. The Mayor had previously offered her resignation a couple of months previously which at that time had not been accepted. However, since there had been no significant improvement and the Mayor had upset the Council considerably at one meeting by what were felt to be some very uncalled for remarks after another long absence, it was decided that her resignation should be accepted.

A partial log of a meeting that occurred about a month after this was floating around, in which some Council members did indeed state that they felt that things would run a lot better under the current Mayor, Jolinth - as they indeed are. That meeting got very heated and a couple of members of the Council and the D/Mayor behaved so badly that when I saw the full log I severely reprimanded them and stated that due to the personal attacks, accusations, insults and sheer nastiness etc. seen in this meeting that if I ever saw or heard of behavior like this among Council Members or the D/Mayor again, I would not hesitate to take action as outlined in the Senior Participation Guidelines - in other words, I would remove them. Shortly after this, those involved apologized to each other. That log excerpt showed the worst of the things said by a couple of Council members but of course omitted some equally controversial things said earlier by the D/Mayor and much of what led up to what was said and were thus published out of context in order to inflame others. Note that I'm not defending what either the Council members or the D/Mayor said. I'm just pointing out that what was published was not the whole story. Neither is what I say here the whole story - that would take a book! It's interesting that out of all the hundreds of good Council meetings, all that gets published is part of the one bad one.

The D/Mayor took over on a 30 day trial but he had been involved in continual conflicts with one or more Council members. He admitted that he had failed to gain the respect of the Council during his tenure and he had disagreements with the way the Council did things, and he felt that he too should step down. Due to a number of factors his resignation was also accepted.

The bottom line was that both "sides" came into the relationship with a strong degree of distrust for the other and, despite being given several opportunities to work through their issues, the distrust and disagreements ran too deep and they were never able to get past it and so things disintegrated. Even the Mayor and D/Mayor didn't always agree between themselves according to the D/Mayor.

Am I saying that all of the behavior of all the Council members at that time was entirely good and that all of the behavior of the Mayor and D/Mayor was all bad? Of course not. I'm not going to pretend that people didn't make mistakes - what real-life town can say that there are never mistakes made? Or what family or even what individual? It's part of human nature to be imperfect. What distinguishes the good from the bad is a matter of intention.

What amazes me is that so often some people seem to expect CT to be so vastly more perfect than the real world is. That's not realistic - especially in a virtual environment where it is so much easier for upsets to occur due to the lack of seeing a person's face or hearing a person’s voice intonations when he or she says something and then misunderstanding what he or she said. Also, continually dwelling on things that happened a year or even two years ago and haven't happened since makes absolutely no sense. People - and towns - make mistakes, they try to learn from them and they move on. For every mistake they make, members do hundreds of wonderful things in CT daily. It's much healthier to live in the present and the future. Also, we now have a completely different Council, Mayor and D/Mayor. And on the good side, the past Mayor did have some good goals for Cybertown, many of which have been achieved under the present Mayor and Council.

14. After almost two years of my haranguing you as the "absentee landlord" why have you agreed to answer these questions and why now?

I'd only read a few of your pages in those 2 years and those who know me and deal with me every day know how far from absentee I really am so the "absentee landlord" claim didn't bother me.

Then as you know, on Easter Sunday I received an e-mail that had you as one of the c.c.'s. Somewhat enjoying my Easter and feeling very much in the spirit of the day I wished you and the others on the e-mail a Happy Easter. You responded and we started a dialog where you offered to interview me. After some back and forth in which I expressed my concerns about possible hatchet jobs, bias, walking into traps etc., I agreed and here we are. Also, I thought it might be fun.

15. If you could change anything about the way Cybertown is being run, what changes would you make?

Cybertown is an evolving dynamic organism that is continually learning from its experiences and changing to adapt to them. That's why it's stayed around so long (8 years) while so many other communities have come and gone. I have long been a proponent of the Council having town meetings with the residents and am glad to see that this has been happening more often recently. One of the initiatives that I am most excited about is the new Citizen's Input Team that is being set up. It is going to enable there to be much more communication between the Council and the residents concerning the residents' needs. From its beginnings Cybertown has always believed in - and acted upon - doing extensive resident surveys to find out what's important to the residents and then striving to provide those things. In the recent surveys, the residents asked for a lot of changes and we are working hard and steadily to fulfill those exact requests.

Right now the system whereby each Colony and all the Places have a representative on the Council and the Council receives, reviews, discusses and votes upon proposals from the residents seems to be a fairly workable and logical system. To answer your question, I believe that the changes currently being made - as outlined in my recent town speech - are those appropriate to CT at this time. No doubt there will be many changes coming up that are more appropriate to the future times that they will emerge in.

Whether the few detractors like it or not, the vast majority say they are happy with the existing political system, so it makes little sense to change it for the very few. There have been claims that the Council is somehow secretive or not willing to communicate - later in this interview I'll share with you just how much the Council does to openly communicate.

16. If the banned person does not object, and other than those for real life criminal activity, why can’t specific bans be discussed publicly?

We don’t do this for a number of reasons, legal advice that we received being one, and also that we've observed that when people do try and discuss these issues, since they are usually completely unaware of the full gamut of issues that lead to the banning and all they've seen is the tiny tip of the iceberg that's stated as the reason for the ban, they get involved in the most outrageous and bizarre speculations and rumors regarding the ban. And often, accomplices of the banned person have used the feedback boards to inflame others about the ban to create unrest in the town. And those banned tend to focus all their attention on the final reason they were banned, completely ignoring all that has led up to it. You mentioned criminal activity, many people don't realize that UBP section 5 bans often do involve criminal or illegal activity.

Partly out of courtesy to the banned person, the full reasons (sometimes CDs full of evidence spanning many months or even years) for the bans are not published. In addition, it would take a great deal of time to do so. Usually the banned person hasn't the slightest idea of how much has been discovered about them or the evidence that we have amassed during our investigation of the situation. If they did, I doubt that they would ask that we make it public! As an example, there are a few people right now that we could have banned months ago. But we took our time, did a thorough investigation to make sure we knew everything that was going on and to be sure of our facts in order to prevent an injustice and fairly soon their memberships will be terminated. Those reading the reasons listed for their terminations will once again only see the tip of the iceberg of what we found out.

Since the residents requested to know why people had been perm banned, as one of the many open government initiatives, we created the Ban Info page.

17. Wolf. I have verified with four credible sources, two of whom were former council members, that while he was a member of security (as wolfon 22) he passed on confidential logs to another resident. And for this he was asked to resign from security or told that he would be removed for this breach. Either by his resignation or his removal he was off security. Now he is back on security. Are these events accurate? Please clarify.

Well, I'm not always privy to information about the personnel that Security hires and fires and I do trust the Security Commissioner's judgement, but let's get to the nitty-gritty behind what's been going on here. As I'm sure you've noticed, in the past several months there have been a number of attacks on Wolf's character stirred up on the feedback boards. There has been a phenomenon in CT where people who post quarter truths and innuendo have created problems every now and again on the feedback boards. This particular one has been part of an orchestrated campaign by ex-members that has its origins in a person who, when Wolf decided to marry someone else, vowed that she would ruin him in CT and get him kicked out of Security. It is a sad fact of life that not all relationships end happily.

I am in possession of a legally sworn affidavit about this that also reveals the true source of those confidential logs to which you refer. The Security Commissioner tells me that what you state above is in fact not what happened. There was a brief suspension during the investigation of allegations of a different nature that proved to be inconclusive. As the Security Commissioner told me, "This is standard Security policy. Whenever we have questions, we pull tools/title until they can be answered. Of course since we pull titles everyone in public can see this and some ASSUME things that they really do not know." Wolf requested a release from duty for a year, partly because he ended up having to move in RL and set up a new business and a new ranch which took a considerable amount of time.

I find it interesting that the people behind the accusations against Wolf are the same people who have no compunction in regards to passing on and publishing private and confidential corporate property (logs and e-mails) illegally themselves. So often when we investigate allegations we find the accusers doing the exact things that they are accusing others of.

What about people who actually messed up and who are then seen back on the same or similar jobs? Hypothetically speaking, someone might be re-hired after having messed up. If someone had any job in CT and made mistakes and then did actions to make up for those mistakes I can see situations where that scenario might indeed happen. Let me explain some key principles that CT tries to use in any situation where a person messes up. These come from an article on justice that I have periodically issued and re-issued over the years to the Council and Security.

"3) a person's good contributions to Cybertown should always be weighed in any punishment decision. So long as they are true well-intentioned good contributions and not just designed to make people confused about whether the person is good or bad (what we call "PR").

4) we always leave the door open. A person can request re-admittance after 6 months or more and if they can prove that they have changed and are now trustworthy and have shown as much by doing a sufficiently substantial amends project, they may be granted re-admittance. Of course, any major transgression after that and the door would become permanently closed."

When you see someone back on a job and who previously messed up, it means that they have proven themselves and have been forgiven because we have room for forgiveness in our hearts. Even some of the most destructive people involved in the hate & harassment cyberstalking sites were offered forgiveness and a chance to come back in the past on a probationary basis.

18. Several other sites have reported that they have received threatening emails from someone using the address LMFBO2003 or something like that. I have not received any such emails. Do you have any information about who might have sent such emails? Do you have any comment on such emails?

Since this is the first and only time that I've heard of this I'm not actually able to comment. Nor do I have any idea who might have sent these - or even if they actually were sent. Do you have a copy of any of these e-mails that I could see?

19. Do you have any concerns about something that other sites might report in the way of logs or screen shots? If so, what are those concerns?

This is a very interesting question and there is indeed much that could be said about it. There is always corporate concern about the possibility that altered or truncated logs and altered screen shots or screen shots taken out of context may be used unfairly or illegally to affect the business operations or business image of IVN, the corporation. It is also a concern that members of CT might be unfairly portrayed and hurt. There are also legal concerns, since IVN is a corporation, and logs are the private property of the corporation, as is clearly stated in the Legal Notices. When a person steals and then publishes confidential private documents owned by a corporation and uses them out of context to try and harm that corporation or to try and persuade people not to use that corporation's services, even apart from the privacy and confidentiality issues, they enter a whole new arena of broken laws and the potential punitive damages that ensue. A few of these are listed in section 5 of the UBP.

Regarding logs, even when citizens made mistakes, I know in my heart that they were usually trying to do the right thing based on the information or evidence that they had at hand. Obviously in a city of tens of thousands of people it's inevitable that you'll get a few who don't treat people the way that we would like them treated. Whenever we've found out about it we have acted to prevent it happening again. And in some more severe cases, people have been removed from their posts or even banned from the community. An interesting thing about logs is that the same logs can be read in so many ways - I've looked at some logs and even e-mails where a person was convinced that these showed her in good light and the others involved in a bad light yet a number of people reading them saw the exact opposite! And she never even saw it. It's often a matter of viewpoint.

Regarding those sites, I stopped reading them some weeks ago when I saw how far off base they were with their "facts", how much they left out concerning their own involvement and how much sheer malice was being used and they simply lost any credibility with me. But then, I don't believe what I read in supermarket tabloids either :). Just as an exercise I took 2 paragraphs of the claims they were making and in only 2 paragraphs I found eight completely false statements! It became a matter of "Consider the source." Fortunately most people are not as gullible as some might like to believe. I also found over and over that people attacking CT had at the bottom of their upset a personal conflict or feud with one or two other residents, very often due to messed up interpersonal relationships, and that their attacks rarely have anything to do with any real concern for Cybertown or its people.

The really sad thing that some people don't realize is that when you are willing to just forgive and let go, you feel so much better. Otherwise you just let it gnaw away at you and life does indeed become miserable. It's so true that we create our own feelings. And when we do harm to others - especially others who are trying to do the right things - we always seem to make sure it rebounds on ourselves. No matter how much we might like to believe otherwise, everything that happens to us, we have a hand in. I learnt a long time ago that fooling oneself by blaming others is the first step down a very sad path. Bearing people no ill-will no matter what they say or do is remarkably freeing :) Holding grudges is a personal prison that is very unpleasant indeed for those so doing.

I'm reminded of something I wrote a couple of years ago which still holds true today:

"Reading the many posts on the feedback board recently and during the last six months makes it clear that, while the majority of Cybertown citizens are wonderful and well-meaning people, there is in Cybertown a small minority who are determined that the purpose as outlined above should not occur. While pretending that they have your best interests and the best interests of Cybertown at heart, they post inflammatory messages that contain half-truths, innuendo, false accusations, libelous statements and more. They pontificate loudly and pretend that they know all the facts, but their very statements show that they are way off the mark. Examining the records shows that it is basically the same dozen or so people who keep fanning the flames and trying to create and sustain a lynch-mob mentality in others. These same people also work actively behind the scenes doing their best to disrupt the normal day-to-day running of Cybertown and in the process costing the corporation a great deal of money (which is itself a prosecutable offense). Sometimes it can look as if it is "everybody" but it isn't. It is just a core few and those that they temporarily infect with their malicious rabble-rousing but it acts as a pervasive cancer. Per many thousands of e-mails we have received, Cybertown is a good thing. People who try to destroy a good thing for others have something else going on...

...There are basically two kinds of criticism - constructive and destructive - and they are easy to differentiate. And a major difference is the intention behind them. Constructive criticism is usually presented politely and respectfully and always includes a workable suggested better way to do things. And it is an honest attempt to help. Destructive criticism is merely fault-finding with no purpose usually other than to invalidate and make less of others, often coupled with a hidden and masked agenda. When you seek to degrade another all you really succeed in doing is degrading yourself...

...Nobody is perfect and people do make mistakes, but these people (The Council and Security) - whose only crime is wishing to help you and Cybertown stay safe - are put under a brutal microscope and constantly falsely accused of things they did not do. They have actually saved real lives - before you attack them, ask yourselves how many lives you have saved recently and how you'd like to be in their shoes where your every word or act is questioned, analyzed, assigned false motives and attacked. Not to mention parts of your private e-mails being published out of context to make things look other than they are."

20. In your recent town briefing you mentioned that you would be holding another town briefing that would be of special interest to those people concerned about the political structure of CT. When will this take place and what did you have in mind?

Well since then there's been a development whereby a representative of those concerned approached me and suggested that we do meetings mainly for those people and that we do them once a month where they could ask me questions about their concerns and other things and I would answer them. The first one is slated for this coming Sunday. Those meetings plus this interview hopefully will go a long way towards answering many people's questions.

21. Do you foresee a time when you would step back from control of Cybertown and let someone else take the reins? Or have you effectively done that through IVN?

At present, IVN handles everything to do with subscriptions, accounts, billing, legal, external marketing, finances, servers etc. I am responsible for dealing with what I would call the "social issues" of the community. As Cybertown Founder, I provide goals and suggest certain strategies. In the role of Caretaker, I also provide advice when asked or when needed. But the day to day running of the town is in the very capable hands of the Mayor and Council. Very occasionally I issue orders where I feel this constitutes a necessary involvement. This is infrequent because most of the time they do an amazing job.

22. Numerous people have been in the forefront of making some changes in Cybertown’s look and feel. Recent changes in message boards are an example. Besides the people that most readers would be aware of, like Coolkama and other tech coms or others out and about and readily known, are there other people you would like to single out for special praise for behind the scenes work?

Yes indeed, as you mentioned, the Com.Techs Simioni and Coolkama who have been and still are responsible for introducing so many useful new features to CT. The Caretakers, with particular honorable mention to Vialle, Flyby and crashdummy who have done so very much to ensure that CT stays online that I doubt it will ever be possible to fully repay them and of course, the long-suffering, extremely hard working Mayor and Council. I'd also like to mention the at least equally long suffering Security as well as the Security Advisor. Not forgetting the efforts of NLs and Deputies, BLs and Deputies, City Guides, and the various Places Chiefs and Deputies and other volunteer staff that labor to make their respective areas so very much more enjoyable.

23. What other specific tech type changes can residents look forward to in the near future?

As you've probably noticed, the Com.Techs have been very busy recently installing such things as the Town Bank, new Colony maps and control panels, the ban info board, the new text editor in the message boards, the spellchecker, the message to all inboxes, the quick multi message delete tool, the Citycash Game of Chance and other competitions, the mall object class removal and re-routing 80% object income to mall creators and various other things. And this week they've launched the general fundbox system for Colonies and Places.

Right now the Com.techs are doing a lot of research into Community Server Platform 6 and beyond and looking into which functions they can build into Cybertown. A major project being worked on is the new custom uploadable homes as well as custom features for existing worlds including the possibility to block people from your home or club. Another thing to be installed when it's ready is the updated pay system. Other things coming are more 3D worlds that the Citizen's Input Team will be asking the residents to choose as well as upgrades to existing worlds. Then there are new 3D clubs coming. Plus the Com.Techs will be implementing the rewards for those who sponsored other residents. Just yesterday they added the Show MB Tools in Myinfo that define whether you want the MB post editor and spellcheck turned on or off for you. They also added the MB Signature where you can now specify a signature (HTML or not) that will be displayed on all messages you post to inboxes and message boards.

24. When will the next election for mayor take place?

To be honest we haven't had a chance to look at this yet. With so many changes occuring in the city post-subscription we have not as of yet had time to make all the necessary changes required for the elections, such as creating a new more secure voting system.

25. What is your feeling about having other elected officials in the city, particularly council members?

The present system is built upon people rising through the ranks learning as they go and eventually becoming deputies trained specifically to do the tasks of the person they are deputy to and becoming sufficiently trained and familiar to do the job. Elections for Council positions would have the distinct drawback of then having to spend weeks or months training the person before he or she could effectively take office. We saw what happened when the "popular" choice became Mayor; it was not a success. Which is more important - to have the best person for the job or someone popular?

Also, just about every CL except 2 have been changed in the past 7 months, all but 5 chief positions have new people in them and new positions have been added to the Council so many more people are getting a chance to serve at a government level.

26. What would you suggest as a method to make the decision making process more open and accessible to the residents?

Despite what a few people claim, it would be pretty hard to make it more open and accessible than it already is. Let's look at the current scene:

* The council holds open town meetings. The current Council has already held four, not including those where I have briefed the residents.

* The Council publishes the minutes of its internal meetings.

* The Council has a web site where it keeps residents updated.

* The Council has a form where residents can enter their proposals. The Council has already studied, discussed and voted on 218 of these.

* The Colony Leaders manage and represent their Colony's concerns to the Council and many keep in regular communication with their CDs and NLs via e-mail groups and Colony meetings.

* The Council has created the Citizen's Input Team to help expand open relations with the residents.

* The Council has added a city Place representative to the council per citizens' request.

* The Council has also added a considerable number of people to the governing process, CT Techs - 1 tech from each colony, various Secretaries and Liaisons, the CTPartyline Group for citywide and Colony events coordination and also added Security and Com.Tech seats to the Council.

* The Council has a message board where it answers resident questions.

* The individual Council Members respond to numerous e-mails, inboxes and messages from residents. They also hang out in various Plazas and chat with residents.

* The Council is working directly with the residents to create new Mall Guidelines in response to citizen requests.

A few weeks back I asked the CLs to tell me how they stayed in communication with the residents and this was one's reply:

"As a CL, I communicate frequently with the CDs and NLs in email groups. I always leave myself open to IM messages from all residents. I invite people to join me where I am if they are not busy or requesting that I come help them. I follow up on complaints in an attempt to get both sides of the issues, I provide positive feedback for hood and block projects, offering advice where I feel it is appropriate. I hang out mornings in my plaza hailing all newcomers and recognizing staff and residents of my Colony. I always read my inbox and answer every post there. I arrange to meet with residents and staff for help sessions and teaching. I teach HTML myself in quick, easy lessons. I create avatars for residents and staff alike. I finance and run a continuous trivia game for all my colonists. I advise staff and residents about how to organize block/hood/colony events. I faithfully attend our weekly open discussion sessions. I post on the message boards several times a day. I read the Council message board, and Feedback boards daily, responding when I think I can answer questions or help a situation. I read all hood boards daily, responding when I think appropriate, usually offering positive feedback. I keep the residents informed of colony and town meetings. I organize activities and events for those staff and residents who need assistance. I invite all residents to contribute to our monthly magazine and try to suggest ways where they can express themselves and gain satisfaction and recognition for their contributions. I frequently call for suggestions from the residents for activities and invite their criticism of my administration. I am online and available many hours a session, several sessions a day. I love my Colony, and I try to communicate my pride in all who contribute to its growth. It's never enough, but I try."

How much more communication and openness do you want??

27. Is there anything that you wish to add for my readers at this time?

I'd like to thank you for this opportunity to address several issues. As you know, I'm preparing a number of questions for you too. And I'll probably have more after your commentary. In the meantime, I am glad for this opportunity to set the record straight on a number of matters that may have been considered controversial by some people because they didn't have all of the information.