Comments on: The SL5B Drama: Crowdsourcing Fiasco Or Devious Plan?

By: Burning Life 2008 « Koks Koolhoven on the Grid

Burning Life 2008 « Koks Koolhoven on the Grid — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 03:59:05 +0000

[...] Erstens gibt es inzwischen viele andere Festivals in Second Life (die nicht von LL ausgehen), zweitens gibt es immer wieder Kritik an der schlechten Organisation / Kommunikation und an der Ausnutzung der SL-Nutzer durch LL (siehe dazu z.B. Gwyneth Llewelyn, “The SL5B Drama: Crowdsourcing Fiasco Or Devious Plan?”). [...]

By: Dell Wilberg

Dell Wilberg — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 19:21:40 +0000

Wow Gwyn, interesting article and comments. I heard about some of the drama involved in this event, but fortunately I have never volunteered to “help” with this event. If I had done so it sounds like I might have been very upset at the outcome.

It seems to me that at this date there is no real alternative to SL. I remember pre-internet that many competing online communities arose, AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy, The Well…

At this point AOL is the biggest of that group having been acquired by Time Warner. All the rest were absorbed or have very small numbers. They were all surpassed by the Internet which is open and free to all to publish content as the user deems fit.

Is it not safe to assume that this same scenario will play out in the near future for Second Life as a platform? Whether it is OpenSim or some other tech we have not seen yet, as soon as there are real options the better for all the virtual communities.

By: Prokofy Neva

Prokofy Neva — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 10:21:15 +0000

I hardly think it’s “obsessive” to state the obvious, normal response normal people have: child avatars *are* creepy, and their genesis in SL is what makes them particularly creepy.

So, Gwyn, these football teams, these universities, they all show their nipples during their office meetings and protypes? They all go around in child avatars? You make it sound like they are the cutting edge cultural avante-garde and Linden Lab is “Disney,” but they all sound like pretty bland stuff. I mean, really, get a grip!

I have a better understand, BTW, about what you mean by “breaking your will now” because the Lindens are exasperating, still, in all this tidal wave of words, you should have explained the concrete facts.

By: Engolida

Engolida — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:43:12 +0000

I agree in all ur words gwyn, even with just 1 year of SL i were searchin all over the internet, blogs, news, etc etc. and I assume that LL only care with big companies and course (behind, the money would explain better their no-sense actions). I did not enter or even care to visit the SLB5 and will not be on the 6.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:58:17 +0000

The following is from my experience in life in general and I have no special connection to LL or FIC or whatever else. I just am speculating:

So what is the big announcement? That the venture capitalist CEO has stepped down and the new CEO stepped in, the disneyfication of SL is really to help in the sale of SL or movement towards a private ownership? Anyone can see that with Philip stepping down we are moving towards either IPO or private sale.

Big woop- fix the grid and stop alienating your residents. Happy 5th Birthday SL.

–
Gwen I always admire your opinion on matters and this is a good read. Sad to see such long time icons getting burned out.

By: Second Life’s sad birthday desaster — mrtopf.de

Second Life’s sad birthday desaster — mrtopf.de — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:10:27 +0000

[...] birthday celebration itself are flawed thanks to Linden Lab’s bad community management. As Gwyneth and Tateru report Linden Lab took over the celebrations in the last minute although a team of hard [...]

By: Sandor Balczo

Sandor Balczo — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 23:55:43 +0000

Gwynneth, the article is really well written and helped me peruse a history of SLBs that only provides some consolation after completing my first, and probably only, experience as a volunteer in SL5B.

I have never seen such a major example of lack of organization, conflicting information and even absence thereof, and my own contribution to the event (international signage) is very likely to be unused. Too bad I had created a team of linguists to provide this and more services, and my only satisfaction that at least the wiki was kept updated in five major languages in real time (although it is always suggested the English language wiki is the most updated — so much for the internationalization of SL, huh?)

I have taken part in this year’s event as a volunteer because when I attended SL4B (I was only one month old in SL), I was mesmerized by its beauty and great history lessons provided by the builds, it was like travelling back in time. I had no idea of all the blood, sweat and tears that had been poured on it and I am wondering how we are even opening June 23, when the greeters organizer, an otherwise capable person, was appointed June 22!

I am glad to remain an exhibitor in SL and I am afraid I will file the whole experience under AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

What a disappointment.

By: Osprey

Osprey — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:52:03 +0000

It isn’t easy living in The Handmaid’s Tale.

By: Ashcroft Burnham

Ashcroft Burnham — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:09:15 +0000

More evidence of the persistent and sometimes oppressive unprofessionalism of the Lab.

By: Tao Takashi

Tao Takashi — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:27:45 +0000

Having LL as gatekeeper is not going to work, the whole thing needs to be decentralized (like the web is) to work.

What is envisioned in the Architecture Working Group (actually founded by LL) is that it’s more a bilateral contract between those grids which want to cooperate.

There might of course be directories of grids somewhere and there also might evolve some sort of DNS like service but I think for now we should concentrate on make the first step in getting the grid itself to be decentralized.

As for identity you can then choose your home server for your identity like you do with OpenID. Of course there are many issues to be worked out but nobody said it’s easy

As for the reasons for all of this miscommunications I also don’t think there is necessarily some evil plot but simply some investors or old school marketing people or lawyers at work. They have their own view of how a company needs to be run but this view might not be compatible anymore with the internet.

I remember Guy Kawasaki (former apple evangelist) saying that Apple once was very scared that all those designers were using their computers and not those using spreadsheets etc. He said “Don’t fight it, take the money”. And indeed, it’s the user who define what a product is in the end, not the company. Even more so when the product is title “your world” (which of course is not true anymore due to the TM policy change).