Fractured credibility

I am Fractured Crystal. I have a long history of doing stupid things… so begins the latest in a round of Emerald-related blog posts. This is nothing new, Emerald has been the subject of heated blogging since its inception – with just about all of the allegations relating to its malicious intent remaining a matter of – well, malicious intent on the part of many of those making the various claims against it.

All this changed, however, when none other than LordGregGreg Back (LGG) went on record citing concerns about what was happening within the Emerald “team” – with people’s actions not exactly measuring up to their words.

The response from Emerald was the usual dismissive rebuttal – albeit thinly coating a tawdry attempt to suggest it was LGG himself who was at fault. And so the house of cards began to fall, with evidence coming to light that Emerald – and by extension, each and every one of us who has used Emerald has, utterly unwittingly – been the cause of at least one Denial of Service attack on another user.

While efforts were made to deflect / play down the situation – particularly through various postings within the SL forums, investigations quickly showed that the allegations relating to the DoSS to appear to accurate – so much so that Linden Lab issued a statement on Emerald, both in the official blog, and via e-mail to users.

Modular Systems have responded to the situation, both through Fractured Crystal’s comments and another self-serving blog posting.

I use the term “self-serving” deliberately – because while both posts have the veneer of apology, both are couched in terms of self-justification (particularly the latter of the two links above), in which the underlying tone seems to be, “Me bad but it’s really OK, as he bad to.”

Well sorry, this just isn’t good enough; it’s akin to saying, “Yes, I mugged him, but it’s really OK as he’s mugged others.” In short, it is vigilantism.

Fractured Crystal’s “apology” is side-barred with the old truism power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. And while the tag may have been offered as a means of excusing his actions, the fact now remains that whatever the outcome of discussions between Modular Systems and Linden Lab, the former’s reputation is now not so much tarnished as it is fractured. What’s more, it will remain so for as long as this individual and those who share his world view remain involved in the “team” in any capacity whatsoever. For those of us what have had our trust so casually thrown aside, the time has come to move elsewhere in order to access Secondlife – be it Viewer 2, Viewer1.23.5 or any of the Viewers still credible part of LL’s Third Party Viewer Policy.