I engaged in the latest outcry focused on Linden Lab’s latest act of indifference toward residents of the community it owns.
Being engaged can be sickening and a waste of time. It’s like with every four-year election cycle. I’ve come to believe that divisiveness and rabble-rousing are the stock-in-trade of political parties. And I don’t want any part of it. So, during the last cycle I decided to ignore all the rantings and ravings until politicians behave like statesmen. I still have to engage on issues that really matter, like intolerance, but I actively ignore the daily distortions and misinformation.
I believe Linden Lab has demonstrated they wish to be the owners of the software and server platform that supports a virtual community. They’ve demonstrated that they do not have an interest in governing that community. Nor have they demonstrated any inclanation to empower any form of community governance.
There’s three obvious paths any of us can choose when dealing with conflicts: you can accept things as they are, or actively protest the policies, or you can can walk away. I’ve had my say about Lab policies and, well, enough is enough. For me, it’s a question of staying or leaving. Leaving while SL is still a functional entertainment would be a costly protest. So by elimination, I choose to stay and accept the things I cannot change.
That’s me dancin’ and prancin’ over at Key West Resort.
I never wanted to be engaged or involved in the first place.
I know, I know everybody has this dress but this one is pink. 🙂
I enjoyed being the “Cheerleader” but all I ever wanted was a place for my imagination to roam free. I think that will be fine for now.
Being Yordie Sands 
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Be sure to understand 1 thing, as son as you got engaged on one of those grids, your time will be really short, i remenber when i joined OSG and the 4 stright months that i was there all time, 1st to lwearn how to host my regions for free, then to get content to make myslef and my love avatar as good as any on Sl (Claudia Sainz skins are a must but not the only ones, in ZZTT we have a pack with quite a few pre made female and shemale avatars that i made and i dare any to say they are less then any espensive pre made ones being sold in SL)
Also we lost (i did, lol) so many hours just adjusting the sex engines, making new poses for them, all can alos be found on ZZTT.
And we did really lost to many hours just exploring the amazing sims around or just spending time on LBSa plaza chatting:)
And remember, those are the times where Hypergrid was in its childhood, where Adult communities where sparse and where it would show only 75 users at a time on OSG!
Now with much more there, for sure the time (Be sure, when you find you can be GOD, hosting your own regions, without spending a single USD, you really will love OSG)
But Sl is getting better, all days i found less reasons to go back to OSG or any other grid, the option to buy land on auctions or abandoned 1 is a llowing me and my love to do what we love more, to build and share!
Yesterday we took one more step towards the end of our Corsica villa!
I still can get more 906 m2 and for sure have a last home on nautilius or gaeta (We want to be able to travel to all our homes without using tlp and so far all them are reachable by sea or air:))
So i stand on SL, even if my heart is all in favor of the OSG spirit!
And more, i still spend and feed their greed while i could be not spending a single USD besides the one i donate every month to OSG volunteers (Yes you can donate via paypal, as they are all doing it for free and they deserve some incentive for their amazing work, that SL Lovers are always trying to trash, but if ONE thing im pretty sure is if any can be called liars, thieves are LL Board and their constant trash of their user base, that still keeps resisting to move on!
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I’m a rather deliberative kinda gal when it comes to most new things, so I doubt I’ll engage in any one grid right away. I will probably do a quick check of each, try to understand the philosophy of the grid owner. Then go back to the one that seems the most evolved or the one I just like to explore.
I doubt I’ll ever be adjusting sex engines (/me blushes). And the last thing I’d be looking for is another virtual romance in my life. It would take quite an extraordinary guy to get my interest again.
Fleep’s blog really got my attention. So I’m looking for a place where the owner says things like “I’m not building a game. I’m building a new country.” This says it all.
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Just a followup, Foneco. I registered on OS Grid, Opensim and 3rd Rock this morning. I’m already registered on SpotON3d, InWorldz and Kitely. My plan is to explore each of these in the coming months. However, i’m doing a long distance relocation in less than 2 weeks, so I won’t have much time til that’s all done.
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We had choose your path as well, even if we made sure that we are on OSG and we love it as well!
And for sure Open sim myths are all but one, it works way better then SL nowadays!
And on any of open sims grids that i know, the board cares and is part of the community!
Still, SL is Our place and no matter how LL is trying to screw it We will stay!
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I wrestled with myself for nearly two days (whilst on vacation no less!) on the merits of jumping into the current JIRA fray. I read as many related posts as I could and even made a list of them so I could re-read the thread of posts and comments, and review them on either my blog or I Rez.
But after reading and re-reading all of that debate, I found myself just oscillating between angry, frustrated and depressed. I still have the half written review post on my desktop… just sitting there waiting to be finished. But now I kind of see it as an utter waste of time.
But, I think what happens (with me anyway), is that one begins to adopt a learned helplessness mentality. I was talking about this with Harvey last night – all about Seligman’s experiments in the late 60s where he’d systematically (at first) shock mice in their various areas of their cages. At first, they just jumped around to avoid the shocks that they saw as random. Typical flight. Then, it came to the point where they’d begin anticipating when and where the shocks would come. They coped and ended up avoiding the shocks with their little mice brains. Eventually though, Seligman began to randomise the shocks. Over time, the mice jumped and jumped in an effort to fight or flight but there was no escape. I’m sure they too became angry, frustrated and depressed, in their mousey ways. Eventually, they just lied down on their bellies and took it. They had learned, like most animals do in such circumstances, that they were helpless to fight it.
Now, I know, LL isn’t quite as bad as that. But we ain’t mice either. We can open the gates and move on.
Voltaire wrote an seminal novella called Candide: or, The Optimist, in which the eponymous protagonist begins the book as a devoted follower of Pangloss, a perpetual and self-proclaimed optomist who teaches his pupils that they live in the “best of all possible worlds” and that “all is for the best”. The plot ensues with Candide and Pangloss barely surviving what can only be described as one disaster after another. In the end of their misadventures, Pangloss dogmatically clutches to that idealism, that despite all their hapless misfortune “all is for the for the best” in the “best of all possible” words. Candide by then has had enough, and he replies in one of the last lines of the book: “”we must cultivate our garden”.
And I think that’s just it. We must cultivate our garden – wherever that garden may be. More and more I’m reading and sharing posts that say just that, in one way or the other. All of this hand wringing over what the powers that be should or shouldn’t do, it’s all academic. In the end, it’s up to us, as it’s always been. We must cultivate our garden.
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I like your thinking, Becky. I’ve gotten past a big hurdle by looking at SL as something beyond my control. And you’ve inspired me to look beyond. More on that in my reply to your latest post.
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It’s not that costly to leave, there are opensim communities cost much less and the technology and ways and means to create and develop aren’t all that different. Some places, like InWorldz, are more commercial. Others like Craft are free and have a thriving art community. Others, like 3rd Rock Grid are a hybrid between the art and commercial. All are community oriented, with people that run grid invested in all aspects of their respective communities.
Not only that, you can get the software for OpenSim to have your own personal Standalone sandbox to play in, or develop it into your own grid to bring your friends/fans into.
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/me applauds you.
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“They’ve demonstrated that they do not have an interest in governing that community. Nor have they demonstrated any inclanation to empower any form of community governance.”
That has been the case since Second Life’s inception. It’s *supposed* to be that way. Linden Lab isn’t meant to be a governance agent, or supply any power to one. It has always wanted to be an enforcer of rules for the service, and not an enforcer of rules for the community.
The problem is that Linden Lab and it’s investors, who were once a part of the community, aren’t any longer. They don’t use the platform and don’t care a whit about it, or us. LL’s board of directors see the grid as a corporate cash cow. They’ve made their money, and they only wish to milk it for the last of what they can get.
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my thoughts exactly! 🙂
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