This one is rather bizarre. A bug has recently been introduced to Second Life that has caused a failure for scripts that use llSetPrimitiveParams and llSetLinkPrimitiveParamsFast when those commands are used in conjunction with PRIM_PHYSICS.
This has led to a lot of angry content creators and users complaining, such as here on SL Universe where I first saw reports of this bug by Innula Zenovka and here on the Jira, where something extremely odd seems to have happened to Annmarie OToole.
Annmarie OToole has these automated vehicles running around mainland, particularly the Linden highways, these vehicles sometimes go off course and annoy people, they are controversial, some people think they shouldn’t be allowed, some people think they’re a nice addition. However the introduction of this bug has led to them losing a lot of control, Annmarie OToole says this has made the brakes fail and that this is causing fatal accidents!
“My vehicles rely on llSetPrimitiveParams([PRIM_PHYSICS,FALSE]); to stop suddenly to avoid collisions. This is not working in Blue Steel resulting in hundreds of fatal accidents.”
So Annmarie should get inworld and fix the bloody problem right, I mean it’s not her fault a bug has been introduced but there are workarounds, however the problem with that is that Annmarie has received a three day suspension, allegedly due to the vehicles misbehaving due to this bug!
This appears to be a ridiculous situation, although maybe there’s another reason for Annmarie’s suspension, however she states on the Jira:
“THIS IS TOTAL STUPIDITY.
Due to the borked instruction I have vehicles running off the road all over SL as fast as the system can rez new ones. Not being able to set PHYSICS off creates vehicles with no brakes.
I’ve been suspended for 3 days for vehicles running off the road. DUH.
So it will be at least 3 days before I can go in and reprogram the vehicles and get replacements out to 70 rez sites.
What possible good does a suspension do if
1. It was not my fault?
2. It prevents me correcting the problem?
3. I can’t go in and remove all the dead vehicles?
4. It increases the number of encroachments and in particular to the person that filed the AR?”
If Annmarie has been suspended because of this bug, it seems completely ridiculous, however it does point out the flaw with allowing her vehicles to automatically populate mainland in such circumstances and maybe when it can be fixed, it’s time to end this little experiment and remove these vehicles, let people man vehicles if they want but these things rez in larger numbers than the average vehicle and bugs will happen in the future, no matter how much testing one does, things slip through the net. The sheer number of these vehicles is part of the problem.
However I’m completely gobsmacked that someone can apparently get suspended not because they themselves have been reckless or malicious, but because a bug was introduced and whereas I can see why the governance team (or whomever hands out suspensions) may not have understood why these vehicles were causing chaos, somewhere at the lab something should have clicked that this wasn’t a deliberate action.
A fix should be rolled out next week, by which time Annmarie may have been permabanned! I’m joking there … well I hope I’m joking, love or loathe her vehicles, she doesn’t deserve a ban for this.
I am of the particular belief that certain residents who’s contributions to the grid are largely recognized deserve some degree of tenure. This is a classic case where the Linden’s on the governance team don’t seem to have a clue about who’s who and what’s what. I understand the “everyone treated equal” way of doing business, but I don’t agree with it one bit. In this particular case, if they felt a suspension was neccessary, then at the very least they should have had someone go in and set the scripts to not running in her rezzors. This whole thing is preposterous and yet so typical at the same time.
I do think this points to flaws in the system, no matter how you look at it. Annmarie’s vehicles going awol was the result of a bug, not malice, how did it ever get to the stage that she was worthy of suspension for something unintended, it almost seems like they’ve automated what warrants a suspension rather than having a human look at it.
Some people are suggesting that x amount of ar’s will earn a suspension, in this case there seems to be some substance to that. although it may well be that it looked like deliberate malice to the person looking at the reports.
However, once Annmarie commented on the Jira, surely someone should have revoked any suspension.