I wanted to post this in the "21St RA and Chancellor Elections ->Questions from Citizens" discussion but that option wasn't available so I will post it here.
Community Standards
Harassment
Given the myriad capabilities of Second Life, harassment can take many forms. Communicating or behaving in a manner which is offensively coarse, intimidating or threatening, constitutes unwelcome sexual advances or requests for sexual favors, or is otherwise likely to cause annoyance or alarm is Harassment.
http://secondlife.com/corporate/cs.php1. As an elected representative how will you uphold Linden Lab's Community Standards regarding Harassment?
2. If you knew of an incident that could be construed as harassment using the above definition what would you do?
I agree that we should have zero tolerance for harassment. The problem is proving it! Let me give you a few examples:
* A citizen is assaulted by someone using a rape animation griefer tool. That's clearly harassment and a citizen would be within their rights to defend themselves, to ban the offender (if they have that power) or to request that the Chancellor or someone else with that power do so until the SC can hear the case. This assumes that the offender wants to revisit CDS. Most don't and don't bother to exercise their right to a hearing. See how nice we are? We even give non-citizens the right to a fair hearing when they misbehave!
* A citizen is bothered by a fellow citizen who continually makes unwelcome sexual advances, offering massages, calling them by unwelcome pet names in IM. This is one for the Lindens. We can't access IM messages without everyone's permission so the only route would be to Abuse Report the sex pest and mute them in world. The problem comes when one of these pests gets elected to the RA and you have to unblock them during meetings but I understand that some viewers allow you to hear someone's public chat while muting them in IM. This could be very helpful.
* A citizen continually spreads lies about their fellow citizens. Old grievances are distorted and misrepresented and continually repeated as fact even though the account being given is inaccurate and misleading. The stuff that happens away from the public gaze is difficult to tackle. If people choose to spread lies, and other people choose to believe them, there is a limit to what we can do. I think that the public statements need to be challenged so everyone knows the facts are contested. Ultimately, the answer is for people to sanction this kind of behaviour by not voting for people who engage in it and by refusing to listen when they start their litany of carefully nursed and nurtured grievances against 'the elite', 'the oldbies', 'the illuminati' or whatever group is believed to be at fault.
If I was aware of harassment I would recommend some course of action along the lines set out above. If I saw someone using a griefer tool in front of me I would take immediate action and ban them. The other situations require a different response and I would give advice along those lines. But our main tools for dealing with this are: Abuse Report ToS violations and serious incidents; ban people for extreme behaviour (i.e. using a rape animation on someone to grief them); mute people who abuse you in IM (and report them to LL); social sanctions for those who enjoy 'under the radar' griefing e.g. spreading lies, tattle-tales, winding people up; disrupting meetings.