One can never have enough fun from Lindens. As you probably know, fifth birthday of our wonderful world is coming up. As the tradition is, there will be a celebration, organized by volunteers showing what this world is about. And this year the theme is 'Celebrating the cultural diversity of Second Life‘. I couldn't think of better thing to celebrate. Creativity and diversity are the most valuable things this world has to offer. But hey, nobody said this world is perfect.
In that celebrating of diversity some are not welcome. Namely, child avatars, Gorreans and BDSM community. I don't know, maybe they are not diverse enough. At first, kids were not to be allowed to attend the event at all. Then Daniel Regenbogen sent an email to M Linden and
[that] mail was forwarded to and answered by Robin Linden, who wrote me that kid avatars would be welcome as guests but not allowed to contribute to the showcase – because that wouldn’t be in the best interest of the event and Linden Lab.
Now that is even more crazy. They are tolerated to be there but not allowed to show what they create? I would really like to know what is that interest of Linden Lab that is preserved by discrimination based on avatar's shape. Creativity or diversity?
Or we are facing that "business people won't like it" paranoia again? Well, I was hanging around lately with people that are interested in biz use of Second Life®. And guess what? Nobody mentions Gor (they hardly ever heard of that), nor BDSM (that is something on the sim far, far away). Children are out of the scope as well. But they are very interested in grid's stability and interruptions in the service. It's simple. One can do a biz meeting while some people are having their wild kinks on the other end of the world. But hardly if grid is down, images are not loading or teleports are failing.
Since email to M and Robin did nothing for the problem, Vint filled a JIRA. Go there, vote and read the comments. Creativity is on the scene again. Hardly that one JIRA will help some people to realize what Dusan Writer put so well:
you’d better realize that this IS the Wild West, and it’s that way for a reason – because THIS is the frontier, this is where the great ideas are arising, this is where the creative classes, the prosumers and the hackers, the griefers and the savants are mashing up the future, and if you want some sort of hint of how the future’s going to unfold you’d better at least suck it up and have a look around.
Until then, we'll celebrate the birthday of the world of our imagination, creativity and diversity on our own. After all, it was the residents that shaped this world in all its diversity, sure we don't need Linden Lab to celebrate its birthday. Though, Lindens are welcome to any unofficial party. W're not discriminative.
Actually if I were to have a resident-organized unofficial birthday party, I’m not sure that I *would* allow any Lindens to attend qua Lindens. If they want to come, they can use an alt. Get a little taste of how it feels… :)
Thanks for a thoughtful post. I hope I followed up with something that attempts to put to rest the commercial/business reasoning behind it as well…for which there is none, or none that I can understand anyways.
http://dusanwriter.com/?p=540
Thanks for the link Dusan.
Dale, you are raising a big question here, should we “show them how it feels” or should we show that we’re different and better than they are?
I’d say go for the different and better option, show generosity and what true diversity can be like.
Me, I am going to have my own party on my own parcel, where I will only allow people that think like me.
We’re going to have fun, all two of us. ;op
[...] Dandellion Kimbal – Tie up those Kids and send them to Gor [...]
Dandellion and Dusan both make good points. Indeed, if it’s just about businesses who have a few sims, the weird kinks going on a few sims further is of no importance. Of course, if they (LL) want to become the next way of social networking etc – in the virtual world – then of course, there do is a problem.
But regardless which use they have in mind for LL’s future, why can’t they just choose option (3), proudly stand together with the child avatars on SL5B. Show the world that they indeed are not ‘weird kinks’ but are about sand castles (building them, not selling them, as LL sometimes does), swing sets, bouncy castles and lollipops.
Gwyneth mentioned in IM – actually she mentioned a lot of interesting stuff & opinion, hopes she shares them on her blog – that you’ll probably find more child predators in Disneyland online than in Second Life. Yet, ‘we’ are targeted. LL should stand behind it’s residents and it’s world and not just duck, hide into cover and hopes this passes. Or indeed, we’ll end up living in a ’sanitized, media-friendly world’ … and for christ’s sake, if we want that, we can just go to Outside. What’s the difference then, if tolerance is just the same in the virtual as in the real world? Dressing often goes quicker in the real world!
I agree with Vint…we should support our fellow residents’ communities. We made this world and the excluded communities have too. We go stir-crazy over the problems we’ve been having inworld tech-wise, but guess what? We STAYED. That means there is something there that makes us want to despite it all. But with the deeper holes they keep digging, we all have to wonder “What stunt’s next?”
Hmm, I have a party of my own too, but it’s “don’t bring an account, we’ll give you one and OH, bring some texture clothes and shape vectors” as I plan to use my now-open-to-the-public-via-IP computer with OpenSim for that. :-D (Though, I DO recommend using RealXtend as I may use that as it has meshes, reflections, shadows, etc. that work on Geforce 6 and 7 UNLIKE the new Linden “shadow draft” which directly DEMANDS Geforce 8 or it crashes the GPU. *sob*)
P.S.: VERY nice new theme Dandellion. The old one was too bulky, no offense. :-S Say, are you using that shiny logo randomiser too? :-D (Tip: Add “Ajaxified-Post-NOW” and “AJAX comment submission”, they KICK-ASS.)
Sin, that is not called a party ;)
Vint, you are stating questions none of us can answer. But the problem is that Lindens cannot answer them as well. Why are they doing what they do instead of showing a bit of courage and common sense?
Ela, we stayed in all the technical difficulties, we stayed all the social problems, we’ll survive this one too. But it’s not just sirviving, we should do something about it.
Smiley, I need to somehow incorporate what you said in crazy ideas that runs through my head tonight. And thanks for the plugin tips.
About what you said of doing an “off-SL5B” celebration, i can’t agree more with you. Me and some friends decided some weeks ago to do our own celebration, totally off the main one for some desagreements with the plans they had about the art shows. That was not related with the “child issue”, was before that, but, well, the question is… do we need Lindens to do our celebrations? or…why are Linden Lab inside a celebration that was traditionally “resident-organized”?
So, we can expect you to join the big alternative one?
*Points at his self-hosted OpenSim-powered party* PARTAAAAA–*CRASH*…*REBOOT*–AAAYYYYYY!!!! What? What happened?
Sim crashed, so what. Like Linden’s sims never crash?
Nah, OpenSim crashes more now. I can’t even open the texture selection window without it crashing. I hope it’s more stable on Linux.
hiya dandellion :-) Gud 2 c some posts tnx. I get 2 hi when I par-tay n I won’t have time 4 any of teh parties n I don’t feel invited n b/c it takes 2 much time 4 me to get ready 2 par-tay n b/c I don’t celeb bdays anyhooo :-)
I wish u a great par-tay ! :-)
(Disclaimer: This message is not directed at “pet2luv” as an offensive reply, but as a funny message relating to the message’s comment style.)
AHH!! LOLSPEAK OVERLOAD!!! *Runs around in circles* *BOOM*
Heh Dis-yada-yada lik abv frm :-)y.
yah i b likin da lolspk b/c sdiverse eh?
luv ya nywy np
[...] It seems that people started to protest. Not only the Second Life Kids, but also other groups. Then Linden labs came with the [...]
You know… I probably should have known better than to stop fighting against this type of thing since Robin Linden is still employed at LL.
It seems funny that they’re willing to show the Goreans and the furries and all manner of other things… but not children. To me that seems ridiculous. There is no reason not to. Robin’s statement is basically an admission by LL that they are embarassed that there are even child avatars in SL. Wow.
It’s very upsetting to hear this, but then this is the kind of thing I have come to expect from the shill which Robin Linden is.
Anony
[...] all that mess about who is welcome to exhibit and visit at fifth birthday celebration of the Second Life&trad… and all the turnovers that came after I was sure I will keep myself out of those sims. But post [...]