A View from Beyond the Zindrasphere

The folks who moved to Zindra are Not Happy. From their perspective, those who obeyed the rules and moved to Zindra are now invisible to the common man’s searches, while those who didn’t obey the rules are getting extra business because they are more visible to the rest of SL.

Couldbe Yue suggested in the official forums that an Adult Search check box be added to search even for non-verified accounts. I took a deep breath and shared my perspective as someone who doesn’t really have any interest in hanging out in Zindra, since I suspect that the folks advocating this really don’t see what I do.

I posted:

I don’t normally say much on the forums, and I certainly don’t say much that is controversial, so I might be sorry for this post, but here goes nothing…

There’s something that the folks in Zindra probably don’t realize… what those non-prudes who are happily not in Zindra have perceived through this whole sordid mess. I never considered myself a person who wanted adult content gone, but I have to say that the entire process has been an interesting eye-opener.

First came the ill-conceived announcement that adult content would be shoved off to one corner of the grid and filtered from search. Personally, I liked the idea of filtered search (if I search for roses, I don’t want to have to wade through half the search results being BDSM locations to find sculpty roses; it’s inefficient). I liked the idea that I might be able to reliably buy a parcel of mainland without having a slave trader buy the parcel next door. But I thought that opening new non-adult areas would have been more logical. Obviously, that wasn’t on the table.

Next came the protests. Not only on the blogs, but all over inworld. I saw more gratuitous nudity than I had seen in my previous two years in SL. Those of you who were sowing your wild oats while you still could by flaunting around the whole of the mainland nude, blaring about your adult content-ness, got hard to ignore. I personally feel that when I have an obligation to a group, I should not mute its members inworld, so I had to just put up with it. Your world, your sexuality, in my face gets pretty old after the umpteenth time.

Finally, the rules, as poorly devised as they may have been, came into effect. And you know what? When I search for “rose” now, I find pages upon pages of search results of either flowers or avatar names. Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t defend LL, but my search results really are more “predictable” than they used to be. And as a bonus, I’m not seeing anywhere near the level of “acting out” and seeing as much public nudity in inappropriate places as I was before. The system obviously isn’t perfect, since those of you who have followed the rules are seeing people ignoring them. But maybe it’s the searches I’m doing (or not doing)… but I’m not running across the non-compliance you are complaining about.

All that was not to get you riled up. Rather, it’s to share a perspective that to the average user like me that this process actually worked…. and I suspect that going to cause some serious inertia on the part of LL to making additional changes, even small ones like adding a check box in search.

I’ve been following this thread with interest, and I’m curious, Couldbe, could you clarify this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Couldbe Yue I can only think that by allowing everyone a glimpse of what is there it will: a. make it easier to convince those not complying to comply

Do you think they’re more likely to comply if they think that the non-verifieds will see their content in search? Why would they be any more less likely to attempt to game the system if there was still a non-adult search to be gamed? I guess I’m dense, but I’m not getting it. And if I don’t, the rest of us who live outside the Zindrasphere might not, either.

I was silent on this blog a long time, including through the whole Zindra implementation, so I never spoke up about my opinions on the subject at the time. But what I saw was a poorly-conceived policy on the part of the Lindens, poorly-executed “protests” on the part of the people who felt they were going to be marginalized, followed by intense relief that the most public part of the chaos was over by those of us who didn’t have a direct stake in things. The intense relief part is the part that I think that those within the Zindrasphere may not be aware of… and could be their biggest enemy in trying to enact additional changes.