Being sent to the virtual doghouse

David Pogue posted excerpts from his interview with Phillip Rosedale, the CEO of Linden Lab, the company that runs the virtual environment called Second Life. In response to a question about punishing those who violate high-level rules of tolerance and non-harassment, Rosedale told this great story:

We're always doing experiments. And there was a period of time where we would give people suspensions rather than kicking them out of Second Life altogether. And one of the funny things that somebody here at the office came up with was the idea that you'd be incarcerated. You could log in, so you could use Second Life, but you'd always be placed in this strange cornfield that had this old tractor. There was nothing in it -- it was a corn field, and then this old tractor. And then a television that sat there incessantly and played these 1950s "Be a Good Citizen" kind of movies. Great stuff.

Ah, justice served.