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.

Before this post title gets anyone worked up: No, I’m not announcing that I’m leaving. So no, you can’t have my stuff, sorry.

I was wandering through Burning Life a bit today, realizing that Burning Life 2007 was the first LL-sponsored inworld event I really found intriguing. SL4B was a little over a month after I rezzed, and I remember attending a party there where I was required to wear pajamas. I bought some hideous, overpriced pajamas that I probably still have somewhere in inventory but have never worn again, and the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. Yes, SL Birthday celebrations are now linked in my mind with bad pajamas. But I digress.

That first Burning Life I attended, I remember thinking that one of the most magical things was the temple. Now, I don’t often enter houses of worship in real life, so what I was doing wandering into anything called a “temple” without fearing it would drop onto my head is beyond me. But inside, I found a place that you could leave a message. The message would then be displayed as hovertext above one of the votive lights in the temple, and at the end of Burning Life, all of the messages that are left during the event are read off as the temple is burned to the ground.

I suppose the reality of attending the burning of the temple — something I have never managed due to timing conflicts — is probably not nearly as mystical as the idea itself. I’ve seen videos of avatars dancing around with fire extinguishers in place of codpieces, so I am sure there are some issues with dignity involved. But the idea stays with me.

What we leave behind in a virtual world is different than what we can in a physical world. Here, we can procreate and “pass on our line.” But in a virtual world, whether it’s in the walled garden of Second Life or the wider one of the internet, what we leave behind is less tangible. Is it less meaningful? What mark are we leaving? What will they say about us when we have moved on to new frontiers?

These are the things I pondered this morning in this year’s build of the temple at Burning Life as I whispered a few words to be consigned to the particle flames when the event draws to a close.

Despite my recent cynicism about LL and Lab-sponsored events, there are some real gems among the builds this year. Crank up the fan on your video card and wander down to take a look if you get a chance.

My grandfather used to say “locks are to keep honest people honest.” I’m starting to think that maybe the current SL content permissions system is, too.

There’s a lot of discussion right now about the new up-and-coming copy-enabling viewer soon to be released onto the grid. A firsthand review of it sounds like it’s going to make content theft much easier than ever before. According to a SLUniverse forum post by Stroker Serpentine, “The interesting aspect is that you can change anything to full perms inside your inventory, but once rezzed the “slam bit” from the server reverts to original owner perms.”

Sounds like a nasty critter to me. On the heels of everything else the gridwide economy has dealt with recently, this kinda sucks. But I guess it would suck any time. And it sucks for everyone. I’m a hobbyist, not what I consider a “real” content creator, but if the content creators whose stores I purchase from shut down, it impacts me even if it isn’t my content that is being stolen.

One really encouraging thing is seeing people pulling together ideas about how to raise intellectual property rights awareness. There’s a proposal on the table for  November 5th as Step Up! Day. A day for no uploading of textures and wearing ribbons show support for content creators. And of course for parties, because you can’t have a designated day in SL without a party to go with it.

I think that this is a wonderful, community-driven way to raise awareness among the people inworld. Those “honest people” who the locks would keep honest, so to speak. But I remain a bit skeptical about whether the Linden Lab is going to take much notice. To be blunt, the Lab does things that further their ends. There’s a cost to beef up content protection tools and/or enforcement. Is the cost higher than the perceived benefit to the Lab right now?

Right now, the need for additional intellectual property protection is a tempest in a teapot. As long as the tempest stays in the teapot — in online forums, in virtual world focused blogs like this one — the Lab has no incentive to act. They’re carrying on like everything is great, putting out rosy press releases and sending executives to talk about virtual goods. M seems to have been on a campaign to rehabilitate the public image of Second Life, and a lot of actions have been taken that benefit corporate image rather than current customers.

So until the tempest escapes the teapot, the Lab doesn’t have any real incentive to do anything in a hurry. Once it becomes a public relations issue, the notoriously slow-moving decisionmakers will suddenly do something to address the threat at hand. A little public prodding seems to be in order. So, when it comes down to it, I think that Stroker Serpentine’s lawsuit against Linden Lab may be the kind of action that is needed right now.

Stroker said something in a SLUniverse post today that really impressed me as distilling the whole issue facing content creators:

I think the critical element is to continue to discuss ways to identify pirated content from the original, provide more streamlined notification, effective takedown practices and a tightening of the capablities that allow for viral distribution.

I don’t believe anyone expects LL to become the “Grid Police”. But we sure as hell could use more granular tools to aggregate, disseminate and distinguish content. We can take it from there.

I am acutely aware of the fine line between security and fascism.

Linden Lab may not want to participate in the “Arms Race”, but don’t surrender on my behalf. At least give me some bullets, not a butter knife.

I am wholeheartedly behind that. I hope that his prodding the Lab publicly and the folks planning ways to get attention inworld turns out to be an effective way of wielding butter knives to  get the Lab’s attention. Content creators are what makes Second Life vibrant and unique, and they deserve to have the lab make some effort to protect their hard work.

Reading about Delinda Dryssen’s problems with her permium membership billing reminded me how fragile Second Life premium memberships are. And how hazardous. Any premium member is just one billing problem away from lockout from the grid.

Even scarier, though, is that if something happens and you’re unable to pay your premium membership for a length of time (possibly as little as 30 days), the negative balance on your account will actually cause your avatar and all of its inventory to be deleted. Oh, and your L$ balance is gone, too. Want to hear what’s really crazy, though? Free accounts aren’t subject to deletion upon inactivity.

So let’s think about this: free accounts are actually safer than paid premium accounts. This is not what I consider a key marketing point for premium membership. There is a ten month old  JIRA issue about this which appears to have stalled. A shame, since at least allowing people to opt in to having their accounts revert to basic rather than losing their inventories and L$ balances as well as their land in case of extended nonpayment sounds like a sensible solution.

I’m still a premium member, even though I rent in the Five Islands. I maintain a 512 for my shop in Varsity on the Mainland. It appears that the only thing to do to ensure that my account will be safe from this sort of thing is to make sure I have enough USD in your account to cover the next membership payment. Talk about bothersome.  I do maintain a no payment information on file alt with modify rights on all of my objects, but that would still not allow me access to my inventory while I tried to untangle an issue like Delinda’s.

Wasn’t there a request a year ago by one of the Lindens for ideas of various perks that could be used to make premium membership more attractive? When the lab is ready to dust those suggestions off, I hope this one is near the top of the stack for consideration, since all of the perks in the world won’t stack up well against a disincentive like this one.

M Linden’s now-infamous labeling of music as a “killer app” for Second Life has led to a lot of discussion and blowing of hot air. Even when some very specific and relatively easily-implementable suggestions were made during the Looking to the Future of Live Performance in Second Life session at SLCC (Really, how hard would it be to repurpose an unused subcategory in Events?), they were automatically put in the “Not in 2009″ pile. In the end, the live music community has been left to its own devices to feel its way along.

I’m pretty much a nobody on the Second Life live music scene. I don’t own a venue. I am not a musician, since I can’t tolerably play an instrument as well as sing. So why is the current music venue “to cover charge or not to cover charge” drama bothering me? Maybe it’s because I’m the supposedly deep pockets that it feels like some music venue owners and musicians seem to want to reach into for cover charges.

So in the interest of market research, let’s take a look at a few facts about Feline, a representative individual among SL Live Music Target Market:

I attend live music events inworld. Recently, it has only been 4 days a week , attending at least one event, often two. I tip both the performer and the venue. I usually tip a host/hostess, but only if they don’t annoy the crap out of me with chatspam.

I enjoy interesting chat during events, and will participate in it if I am not listening while cooking dinner or chasing naughty cats. I also will not try to participate in chat if it’s just a bunch of chatspam, because, well, that’s not chat. If your venue is full of nothing but gesturespam, it doesn’t offer me anything that listening to a musician via WinAmp does, and it will impact how (and occasionally if) I tip the venue’s tip jar.

I have also purchased music from several SL musicians via Amazon, CDBaby, and iTunes.

So, to summarize your market research so far: Feline pays for her live music entertainment in Second Life.

By now, I seem like a prime candidate for the not-new-but-new-again push for cover charges in Second Life. Venue owners and musicians who read this (as if anyone actually reads this blog!) will think, “Feline won’t have a problem paying a cover charge.”

I have one more fact about me for your market research: I’m about to be laid off in real life. My entertainment budget is going to be taking a hit. My ability to tip be impaired. Tips will likely become modest, and they could possibly dwindle to nothing at all. So having cover charges being championed now feels a bit like a slap in the face to this representative individual in the SL Live Music Target Market who has dutifully paid my way in the past.

Perhaps the musicians and venue owners who are championing cover charges will feel that it doesn’t matter what I have been a Good Live Music Citizen in the past. If I have no ability to pay my way, I have no place enjoying the product they produce. Maybe goodwill counts for nothing and the almighty dollar everything.

In a time when, at least in the US, half a million more people were unemployed last month, when the job market isn’t expected to get better any time soon, is it a good idea to move from a “pay what you can” to a “pay or go away” model for live music in Second Life?

If you’ve read my rambling so far, you have already figured out that I think it isn’t a good idea. Lest you think this is all about me, I think we should widen the view a little. By its nature, Second Life population has attrition and turnover. To continue to maintain attendance at performances, new people constantly need to discover and get interested in the “killer app” of live music. Or, as Zorch Boomhauer put it, “The most prudent course of action is to take steps to build the numbers of residents interested in Live music in Second Life.” Cover charges — paying before someone even knows if they like live music — is a barrier to cultivating new faces in the audience. And the tighter everybody’s entertainment budgets are (remember that 9.7% unemployment?), the higher that barrier looms. The live music community needs to break down the walls and welcome new people to discover live music, not lock them out.

Then again, what do I know. I’m just a nobody on the Second Life live music scene. A face in the crowd. What’s the value of that random face in the crowd? We’ll find out if it turns out I’m unable to peek in the window after cover charges close the door that leads the way to live music in Second Life.

On yesterday’s Metanomics show, Philip Linden mentioned the possibility of a merge between the main and teen grids. He said:

Generally, I think that the future of Second Life needs to be one where people of all ages can use Second Life together, and that’s the direction that we’re taking in our planning and our work. I think that the educational opportunities for Second Life are so great for all ages that we need to make it as available as we possibly can to people. If you look at what we’ve done with the Teen Grid, I think we’ve done a good job, as a small company, of being inclusive and creating an environment in which teenagers were able to use Second Life, I think, perhaps earlier than, I don’t know, we might have been able to. We pushed hard to get that working.

I have only been participating in the weekly  PhotoHunt since December, so I didn’t realize at first that last night was the biggest turnout ever. Not until we overran the PhotoHunt contest board and it ended up broken for voting, anyhow. It’s great to see an event like the PhotoHunt growing. It’s rapidly becoming a highlight of my week in Second Life.

This week, we visited Opera Joven. This region is run by a nonprofit association founded in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1999, and it promotes  the cultural heritage of Jalisco, Mexico.

As always, we had an hour to bring back our best unretouched snapshot from the area.

I tried to capture a “watching the sunset” snapshot, but wasn’t happy with the results, so I kept looking for something a little different. Finally, I settled on my entry for the week… a sultry sunset shot through the supports of a pier.

One of the most amazing things to me about the PhotoHunt is returning to find out what the other hunters have captured. They were all looking at the same region, the same prims, yet there are remarkably different images captured by each of the photographers.

(This snapshot of the contest board contains images that are the copyright of other photo hunters. It was taken shortly before the volume of entries into the weekly PhotoHunt broke the contest board.)

Join in the fun! The Photo Hunt is held weekly at 6:00 SLT on Wednesdays, at the Virtual Artist Alliance Gallery in Chiaksan. A new beta web site provides additional information about the Virtual Artist Alliance.

Rich Desoto played at the Blarney Stone Irish Pub last night in Dublin. It had been a long time since I managed to hear him play inworld, and judging by the turnout, I’m not the only one who has missed having him around.

I remember hearing Rich for the first time only a few weeks after I had come to Second Life, in May or June of 2007. Like last night, he played at the Blarney Stone, though the bar looked a lot different than it does today. That was both my introduction to Rich’s music and also my introduction to live music in Second Life. I’ve been a fan of both ever since.

After Rich’s set, I posted a few snapshots from the event to Flickr, then went to add them to the appropriate Flickr groups… only to realize that there was no Flickr group for snapshots of Rich. Well, I can fix that! Behold the Second Life – Rich Desoto Fan Club Flickr group. Got snapshots of the man? Add them!

The Wednesday evening photo hunts are back on now that the holidays are over, and I participate in my second one. This week’s was at The Shire, a Lord of the Rings themed region. I hadn’t been there before, and I enjoyed exploring the area, especially since I ran into Gandalf himself!

I had a hard time getting a picture I liked this week, but I settled for a shot of the sky, seen through some ornate chair backs.

We returned to the gallery and everyone put in their votes… and I was voted third place for the week! I was pretty flattered. I’m not doing it for winning or losing, but because I really enjoy the challenge of  bringing back the best snapshot I can in the allotted hour. Still, the enthusiasm and support of the other Photo Hunters made me feel good, which meant a lot after a rough few weeks here.

So I plan to be there again next week. If you’d like to join in the fun, the Photo Hunt is held weekly at 6:00 SLT on Wednesdays, at the Virtual Artist Alliance Gallery in Chiaksan.