About BanLink:
BanLink is a free distributed ban management system developed by Travis Lambert and Mera Pixel. Most of the components are provided open-source to allow customization by subscribers. Subscription is completely free‚ but limited in most cases to gathering venues & estate owners.
BanLink is
not a global‚ centralized ban list. Rather‚ BanLink is a collection of individual banlists that can be shared on an ala carte basis. Each location that subscribes to BanLink receives a custom-generated banlist based upon their selections‚ which can be changed at any time with a few mouseclicks.
BanLink provides a revolutionary way for similar communities to establish one-way trust relationships with other community's ban lists. Under the BanLink model you only trust other communities that issue bans for similar reasons as you. If a subscriber appears to be unreasonable about their bans‚ other subscribers can choose to individually revoke their trust‚ and ultimately those unreasonable bans wont be trusted by anyone. This gives maximum oversight to most-trusted bans‚ and minimum oversight to least-trusted bans.
BanLink is also useful for owners of large estates who don't wish to honor outside bans at all. BanLink allows you to manage bans across all of your land parcels simultaneously‚ regardless of whether they are estate‚ mainland‚ or both.
BanLink promotes accountability both for those banned‚ and the landowners issuing bans. Those who submit reasonable bans get rewarded by having their bans honored widely. Those who abuse the system find few willing to trust them. A built in dispute system allows banned users to share their side of what happened in cases where things cannot be resolved via reasonable discussion‚ and any Second Life user can lookup details about bans issued on themselves.
For more information about BanLink‚ check out
Mera's Blog.
What to do if you've been banned:
1. Click
here to search for your name in the database.
2. IM the owner of the location that banned you‚ and attempt to work out a resolution directly with them. If you are mature and reasonable about your request‚ a reasonable person should respond in kind.
3. If the above fails‚ you may file a dispute which gets permanently attached to your entry‚ where you may leave your side of what happened. To log your dispute‚ search for your name‚ and follow the link to file a dispute. Disputes may not be edited by anyone once they have been submitted‚ and cannot be removed by the landowner unless your ban is reversed. Disputes are visible to everyone who honors bans from the disputed location.
4. Remember that being 'banlinked' does not mean being banned everywhere. Each participating venue picks which other venues they wish to honor bans from; each beginning with a list of none. Venues that ban for frivolous reasons typically find few willing to honor their bans - keeping the impact of nuisance bans low. While it should be used as a last resort - your dispute details may serve as a warning to others currently honoring bans from the location that issued yours‚ so its an important step if you feel your situation has gone unresolved.
How to get BanLink for your Second Life venue:
1. Note that application approvals are restricted to mainland gathering areas and/or private island owners. Individual residences or small shops can not be approved.
2. Complete the
Group Application Form. Be sure to describe your location as well as its ban criteria in the space provided.
How to request a user account for an existing Venue :
1. If you belong to a group already using the BanLink system and wish to have access to the web view‚ use our user
account registration form. and enter the group to which you currently belong. If you don't know the name of your group‚ the owner of your venue can provide you with this information.
2. Once you have completed the registration form‚ contact the owner of your venue so that they may grant you the necessary access permissions. You will not be able to view anything until your group owner completes this step.
