On April 20, 2010, SCIFI.radio’s breaking story was the complete destruction of Woodbury University’s sims and groups in Second Life.
By April 22, the four regions formerly comprising the Woodbury estate had been removed from the grid, and all related groups deleted. Linden Lab is still actively deleting the accounts of the more notorious former members of Woodbury University. Twenty-eight people have now been banned. This police action now surpasses even the one against the W-Hat spin-off group “Voted 5” in September of 2006, making it easily the biggest mass deletion of griefer accounts in Second Life since its founding in 2003, and the largest mass banning of any single group in the history of the grid.
Justice Served
The following is a partial list of accounts and alternate accounts confirmed to have been destroyed by Linden Lab. Some of the names listed may be alts of some others, and as we identify which are which, we will update this list to show that. Those restored afterward do not appear here.
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Accounts continue to vanish from the Second Life service as Linden Lab pours over the complex maze of information at their disposal. Few accounts belonging to former members of the Woodbury University subgroup “The Wrong Hands” now survive. One of the few remaining is Tux Winkler, identified by the League as having had a history of griefing prior to his involvement with Woodbury. Tux Winkler recently negotiated a membership on the Modular Systems development team. Haruhi Thespian, the primary operative in what Robble Rubble once described to Carl Linden as “the JLU Wiki Heist” has been deleted and banned from the grid.
That Linden Lab took punitive action against “The Wrong Hands” as well as Woodbury is noteworthy, as is the simultaneous disappearance of both Governor Soup, a member of Woodbury who claimed to be a Linden-employed overseer of the ill-fated group, and Carl Linden, who had a tell-all relationship with Robble Rubble, ringleader of “The Wrong Hands”.
Former Woodbury admins continue to access the Second Life grid using alternate accounts, risking legal sanctions and endangering Bellino’s on-going negotiations with unnamed representatives of Linden Lab. Residents are urged to help Linden Lab by reporting these alts whenever they’re found.
The Search For Answers
Some of the surviving former members of the Woodbury University group are engaged in various speculations over the proximal cause of the destruction of Woodbury. Theories include:
- The continuous stream of refugees from the now dead Patriotic Nigras raiding group in their membership roster
- The presence of copybotted items and information on Second Life exploits in the Woodbury University group notices
- Intervention or other action by the Justice League Unlimited (JLU)/League of Heroes
- A Woodbury-promoted conspiracy theory involving an unlikely pact between Prokofy Neva, Modular Systems and the Gay Yiffy Club
Though none are confirmed as having causing the police action against Woodbury, some theories appear better supported by available facts than others. That Woodbury University put so much energy into a deceptive public relations smear campaign against the League to identify the League as the source of its woes may be strongly indicative.
Much information needed to validate one theory over another is accessible only to Linden Lab itself. In accordance with their policy not to share information on corrective actions toward specific individuals, however, Linden Lab has declined specific comment.
Stay tuned to SCIFI.radio for more information as it becomes available.
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Smear campaign? Ha! All they did was release your wrongdoings to the public and the rest was left to the readers. Everything that happened to you guys was all your fault, man up and quit blaming it on the messengers.
At this point I think it’s clear to everyone that Woodbury University weren’t the messengers – we were.
Linden Lab had been working quietly for months to solidify their legal case against Woodbury University, aided in part by the League and the information we had gathered. If the promise by Bellino to Linden Lab to change and sanitize the Woodbury University presence in Second Life and stop the active support of known criminal elements within their midst had been upheld, none of what happened to Woodbury would have transpired.
In knowledge that action by Linden Lab was a likelihood, Bellino and friends orchestrated a “hit” against the Justice League, hoping to ruin their reputation with Linden Lab and the public and relieve the pressure by silencing the League. This backfired, resulting in the loss of everything – their estate, their right to represent the real world Woodbury University, their SLChan board, and the right of those in charge to even access the grid.
It is true that consequences cannot be evaded. But in this case, it was obviously the Woodbury gangleaders who had to be made to answer for their actions, not the League. The community at large seems to be experiencing a new renaissance now that its people are not expending noteworthy portions of their available resources in the daily management of Woodbury troublemakers, and hearts are light everywhere we go.
The public reaction toward the League has been surprisingly good in the aftermath. The Woodbury sockpuppets have been very successful in the public portrayal of the League as being the primary source of their woes. When Woodbury fell, rightly or not, the public attributed its utter destruction to the efforts of the League. We’re being hailed as the heroes of the grid, thanks in large part to this.
In this case, right makes might.
UPDATE: The Woodbury forums have now been taken private, to keep their discussions of their losses and noteworthy in-group apathy private. Prior to this, there were fewer than one post per week appearing over the board as a whole; their plans to invade OpenGrid are being discussed in the private forums, but not very actively. The fight seems to have gone out of them as the Woodbury refugees, stripped of their identity on the Second Life grid, begin to go their separate ways.
UPDATE: Linden Lab has apparently applied a “scorched earth” policy with respect to Bellino and his alts. As of this writing, no user account for Second Life currently exists having the first name “Tizzers”. Chances of Bellino reestablishing himself in Second Life as a legitimate user are probably very low at this point.
UPDATE: Six months after the original break-in, the last member of The Wrong Hands lost his account today at 9:30PM SLT. Robble Rubble, ringleader of the subgroup of Woodbury University, vanished from search.
*Tripple Facepalm*
[Unable to verify actual identify of poster, as they seem to have used a fake email address – ed.]
I have to agree with that one. The whole thing ended up blowing up in your faces. I think *Triple Facepalm* sums it nicely.
We’ve just added Delmore Oh to the list.
To say that Tizzers and the woodbury crowds return in some form or another was unexpected would be a lie. These are creatures of habit (I personally suspect due to lead based paint ingestion) and those same habits will bring them crashing down a third time. Thanks for the link Tarheel, its a good explanation for those who don’t know as to why Stupid seems to survive as much as it does online. Especially in supposedly anonymous forums (which incidentally, there is no such thing)
Thanks, Robble, for being so predictable. You were very cooperative.
Delmore Oh isn’t from Woodbury, in fact they’ve attempted to get him suspended several times. I just reported him since he noticed my ageplaying groups and didn’t want to get suspended myself.
Thank you, Rai, for filling in that information. The Delmore comment was designed to draw out Woodbury refugees, and that worked.