Interview with Ex-Linden Cubey Terra
by Pixeleen Mistral on 10/02/07 at 7:03 pm
Cubey drops his Stephen and Coffee Linden alts – happy to be a regular resident again
by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk
Persistent rumors have been circulating about Coffee and Stephen Linden’s disappearance from the Lab staff – and after a bit of detective work the Herald has turned up a very rare breed – an ex-Linden who is willing to talk about working at the lab and returning to civilian non-game-god life.
It is no secret that Linden lab hires from the metaverse resident community. However, resident Lindens are generally reluctant to acknowledge a connection between their resident Second Life accounts and Linden accounts – possibly due to the potential appearance of a conflict of interest. However, Cubey Terra – a well known vehicle maker – broke with tradition and acknowledged his Linden tour of duty here, saying “For a little over a year, I worked part-time as a “Linden liaison” — a kind of helper/cop/troubleshooter in Second Life.”
I contacted Mr. Terra earlier today to talk about his former life, the troubles with vehicles in the metaverse, and what – if anything – he misses about his former lab staffer life.
Pixeleen Mistral: I was looking at your web site and it says you used to be a Linden Liaison for a while
Cubey Terra: that’s right
Cubey Terra: for about 13 months
Pixeleen Mistral: I’m curious about why you quit
Cubey Terra: Nothing I’d go into in detail, but I left on good terms to do other things.
Pixeleen Mistral: so you have some other RL job now?
Cubey Terra: I do occasional writing jobs. But for the most part my SL business is my focus.
Problems with SL vehicles
Cubey Terra’s web site include several pages discussing the problem with vehicles in Second Life that those interested in planes or boats can certainly sympathize with – including degraded performance over the last year – due in part to design decisions made by Linden Lab. The “Buggier than a VW factory” post is a classic. One can sense a certain level of frustration as Mr. Terra writes about grounding his blimps in another post saying, “I just want us to fly across SL the way we used to. I want to log into SL without an avalanche of error messages that caps my IMs. I want aircraft in SL to be fun and reliable everywhere again — not just in private sims. Things have to improve soon, or there won’t be much left to do in SL but stand around and chat about how laggy things are”.
Will things get better?
Pixeleen Mistral: what do you think the chances of the vehicle problems getting fixed are?
Pixeleen Mistral: I’m a sailor so the things your web site talks about are issues for me
Cubey Terra: I think the chances are good, but bug-fixes take time.
Cubey Terra: Also… it’s important for us to provide as much info about the bugs. The reason for that is that we, as aircraft users, know the problems in intimate detail. We’re the experts on how it should behave, so we’re best suited to direct their efforts.
Cubey Terra: I think the only reason the issues haven’t been solved is a shortage of developer time.
Pixeleen Mistral: I’m sure of that
Pixeleen Mistral: the Linden developers I know complain all the time
Pixeleen Mistral: too much to do
Cubey Terra: Yup… SL is a vastly complex environment.
Linden liaison third life vs. regular resident second life
Pixeleen Mistral: what is the best part of being a regular resident again?
Cubey Terra: Hm.
Cubey Terra: I have more time as Cubey. While I was a liaison, I had to split my time. For that entire year, I made very little.
Cubey Terra: I mean few new products.
Cubey Terra: So I’m enjoying some concentrated creative time now.
Pixeleen Mistral: what was the best part of being a Linden? what was it like?
Cubey Terra: It’s a difficult and demanding job, but the best part was being in a position to really help residents with problems that live help or other volunteers can’t.
Pixeleen Mistral: that sounds cool
Cubey Terra: There’s a real sense of teamwork among the liaisons that I’ll miss.
Pixeleen Mistral: I can imagine – it must be like being the embattled police force or something
Pixeleen Mistral: so many residents – so few liaisons
Cubey Terra: We were never supposed to be “police” exactly for the very reason that there are too many residents to police.
Cubey Terra: With 30,000 concurrent users, it’s simply not possible to have enough liaisons to patrol the entire grid.
Cubey Terra: That’s why I support the trend towards giving more powers to landowners.
Pixeleen Mistral: makes sense
Pixeleen Mistral: do you know of any other ex-Lindens that might talk to me?
Cubey Terra: Most Lindens keep their private account secret, so that they can keep a clear separation between work and recreation. I don’t know any others who are open about having been a Linden.
Pixeleen Mistral: there are persistent rumors about which Linden accounts you were running
Pixeleen Mistral: the goons in Baku talk about it for instance
Cubey Terra: I was Coffee Linden at first, then Stephen Linden.
Pixeleen Mistral: yeah, that is what they say
Cubey Terra: 
Pixeleen Mistral: anything else you want to add? I’m probably going to do a story in the Herald about this stuff
Pixeleen Mistral: part of my missing lindens series
Cubey Terra: hm
Cubey Terra: Missing Lindens… meaning Linden accounts that no longer appear to be in use?
Pixeleen Mistral: or are no longer there at all
Cubey Terra: Ah I see.
Pixeleen Mistral: like Thrax Linden
Cubey Terra: As far as I know, some Linden staff operate more than one account, or have a name change for whatever reasons. That may explain any “missing” Lindens.
Cubey Terra: Most anyway.
Cubey Terra: I can’t think of anything else to add, except that I’m happy to be just a regular resident again. I don’t have to worry about grid attacks, for example.
Tenshi Vielle
Feb 10th, 2007
Thumbs up for Cubey. I admire him.
Prokofy Neva
Feb 10th, 2007
My theory of the FIC, validated.
Myrrh Massiel
Feb 11th, 2007
…i hear rumors that ben linden used to be a linden, too…
Kerian Bunin
Feb 11th, 2007
Interesting article, I look forward to the missing linden article.
Prokofy Neva
Feb 11th, 2007
Yes, Ben Linden used to be a Linden, that’s been confirmed. He is now buried in Grant’s Tomb.
Tenshi Vielle
Feb 11th, 2007
lmao @ Prokofy
Nacon
Feb 11th, 2007
COFFEE LINDEN!? ohh you bitch! (cause he was a female Linden that look like Torley Linden)
..oh btw, Prok… this just proves that you DO come up with stupid theories. Come on, knock it off.
Macphisto Angelus
Feb 11th, 2007
Dang! Coffee was the Linden Bear I was really hoping to get. C’mon Cubey.. surely you have a Coffee bear you can slip me?
Seola Sassoon
Feb 11th, 2007
Awww Nacon….
If Prok didn’t have a label to put on it, he’d have nothing to say…. trying to crush his dreams of being the longest winded person that never says anything?
Poor Prok…
Uh oh, now I’m a sympathicist…
www.sl-post.com
Feb 11th, 2007
Interview with Ex-Linden Cubey Terra
Second Life Herald interviews ex-Linden employee Cubey Terra; the main point was the current bugginess in vehicle handling in SL – which Cubey has blogged on.
JasonKazan
Feb 11th, 2007
Trackback not showing
Trackback
Pixeleen Mistral
Feb 11th, 2007
Jason,
the trackbacks have to be approved by the person who posted the article before they appear here – so some delay is likely.
otakup0pe Neumann
Feb 11th, 2007
Prokofy how does this “validate” your theory of the FIC ?
Prokofy Neva
Feb 11th, 2007
If you have to ask, otakupOpe, it’s likely that no amount of explanation will suffice to explain it to you. The FIC were those
When I was permabanned from Second Life, among my very last posts were criticisms of Cubey Terra and Aimee Weber for the priviliges they got — lots of exposure on the websites, steering of the news media to them, looking the other way when they did things like Cubey having his aerodrome advertising around the Welcome Area on a blimp, though no other mortals got to advertise in the WA. Cubey was selected for things like having a direct teleportation of newbies from the Orientation Island right to his sim.
Ranting about how cool his vehicles are is besides the point. Lots of people have cool vehicles and cool things for newbies and oldbies. They aren’t feted by the Lindens, and are steered, helped, guided to make money and enhance their reputations through Linden patronage.
What timespan did this 13 months cover? You wonder if Cubey was a Linden at the time I was banned from the forums, or criticizing him inworld. I think he was probably a Linden during this time that he said he was suddenly retiring from the game, and then he had another alt who did some building of prefabs for awhile. It would be interesting to know.
If all that happened is that his feting then ultimately led to the ultimate feting of becoming a Linden, that proves my point more than anything — an inner circle is allowed to influence the features and then even directly become part of the process to decide which features are made. That’s obvious — and you’re one of them otakupOpe — the libsel writ large is a perfect example of neo-FIC.
Whether he began to get favours for his business and reputation *as* a Linden on the other account or whether *that* feting led to him *becoming* a Linden, it’s all part of the same racket. And the racket *gives the lie* to the entire concept of “Your World, Your Imagination”.
Because basically, our world, our imagination wasn’t enough for the Lindens, and they began to have to pick, prime, pump, fluff, fete, directly aid, even turn into Lindens certain select residents to make the world go Their Way, with Their Imagination.
That is the center to my entire critique of the FIC; not only is it an unjustly, unfairly privileged class whose merits are not always demonstrable; it gives the lie to the entire project called “Your World, Your Imagination” when you select and fete only some people because you apparently can’t get it any other way.
I think I’ve stated my critique most eloquently.
Prokofy Neva
Feb 11th, 2007
*the FIC were those who became either Lindens, or who became the sheraps to big business. Just look at all the names of the metaversal consulting companies today, look at the Lindens out there, look at those in the media, and I rest my case. Never have I received more validation for a theory than I have with my theory of the FIC. Nobody disputes this any more; not even Lindens. Lindens merely insititutionalized it with a) having more people become Lindens and b) the SL Views system.
Kerian Bunin
Feb 11th, 2007
Honestly, whats surprising about people who are talented in world becoming lindens? As a company wouldn’t it make sense to hire the best and brightest of the people in world for a liaison type job? Although there is potential for a conflict of interest, the nature of a liaison is someone who you would want to be very familiar with the inworld climate, the client, and other aspects. While hireling someone from the outside would hopefully eliminate the conflict of interest, it would sort of defeat the purpose of a liaison as someone who can help your average resident. Coffee/Stephen helped me out multiple times.
Panda
Feb 11th, 2007
What Prok is ranting about is really translated into one sentence: “WHY has LL not yet seen how glorious *I* am and offered *ME* a Linden name? How DARE they not?!”
The answer is, Prok is neither talented enough nor mentally stable enough for such a job.
urizenussklar
Feb 11th, 2007
It isn’t so clear that mental stability is a criterion for being a Linden.
Prokofy Neva
Feb 11th, 2007
1. I have absolutely no desire to become a Linden and work for a cult-like company that believes the collective is more important than the individual, no fucking way. No fear there. I’m happy in the RL and SL jobs I have now, thank you very much.
2. Um, the talent is not always demonstrable.
3. The Lindens need to stop drinking their own Kool-Aid like the warm piss people drank in Dune. They need to refresh their ranks with people OUTSIDE. One of the reasons that four years into this Largest, Established, Permanent Floating Crap Game, the user face still sucks so badly, is that all the people playing it inside the company are lifers who don’t mind it and got used to it. No company can grow and innovate if it only hires *its own customers*. Such a practice would be considered ABSURD in any other sector. It’s a hangover of the MMORPG culture. The idea that players become Grand Wizards and then those people become Game Masters and run the game.
4. Liaisons can learn the game in four hours like the rest of us have, and that might make them be better liaisons. At this point, with the huge ranks of people who have at least tried SL, you could even make more hires from outside the feted and fetid ranks of the FIC, and still do better.
5. It doesn’t matter if Coffee/Stephen “helped” you. He “helped” me too. In fact, I’m particularly offended by this news since Cubey, who is a total asshole to me on his own account, writing screeching and hysterically tendentious comments on my blog, feigned to be a helpful little furry dealing with grief attacks, and even feigned to take an interest in vigilante groups when he dealt with me inworld, all the while showing me the finger behind his back. Ugh.
6. I have to say, that I’m way more talented and way more mentally stable than some of these liaisons or even office staff. And I have to say that’s why I would demean myself by becoming a Linden.
Artemis Fate
Feb 11th, 2007
No Prok, your theory on the FIC is that the Lindens are giving people you hate lots of power and allowing them to abuse it against you. It’s no secret that Lindens have been hiring talented, charismatic, and dedicated players from in world for a long time, that doesn’t make an FIC as you describe it, it just makes standard business hiring practices.
If a guy hangs around a RL store a lot, knows the manager and employees, there’s a good chance he’ll get a job offer eventually. What you’re talking about is some secret conspiracy theory, as always, circling around yourself, where Linden Labs is hiring people without experience who are just simply “feted” and giving them power for the apparent explicit purpose to ban and discredit you. However, in reality this doesn’t need to be done, no one discredits and gets you banned better than yourself.
Cocoanut Koala
Feb 11th, 2007
Aw, there’s not even any question about this anymore.
I think it would be great to see who exactly all the Lindens actually are.
It would also be informative to see how many of those have beat people off the forums over the years, and blathered on endlessly on forums, trying to shape resident opinion under their resident names, including about other residents.
(I don’t mean Cubey – I never noticed him doing any of that.)
Not to mention seeing how many of them have enjoyed privileges and publicity for their businesses, and/or are now in the development groups.
coco
Ian Betteridge
Feb 11th, 2007
Prokofy screeches: “They need to refresh their ranks with people OUTSIDE.”
They do. Do you think that Linden Labs somehow has a duty to keep you informed about everyone they’re hiring? Do you want approval or something?
If you’re saying that LL ONLY recruits from within the game, you’re simply lying, based on precisely zero knowledge.
Kerian Bunin
Feb 11th, 2007
Prok your comments about Cubey boggle my mind, are you criticizing him for putting aside any personal grudge and helping you like he should? Would you rather him not be a helpful liaison? Also I would challenge just about anyone to have something like Cubeys understanding of client and the game. I am still hard pressed to find anyone who knows about physics and lsl. It’s not something that is learned in 4 hours.
nimrod yaffle
Feb 11th, 2007
“5. It doesn’t matter if Coffee/Stephen “helped” you. He “helped” me too. In fact, I’m particularly offended by this news since Cubey, who is a total asshole to me on his own account, writing screeching and hysterically tendentious comments on my blog, feigned to be a helpful little furry dealing with grief attacks, and even feigned to take an interest in vigilante groups when he dealt with me inworld, all the while showing me the finger behind his back. Ugh.”
You just made a catch 22. If he had treated you badly as a Linden, we would have heard your crying. Since he decided not to, we still hear your crying.
Prokofy Neva
Feb 11th, 2007
Ian, you didn’t get the memo or do the required reading. Last year or so, Cory Linden said that LL drew *one third* of their staff *from the resident base* and drew *many others* from *the recommendations of that resident base* (so that mean we got the FIC from inworld; then the FIC’s recommendations of their RL FIC friends lol). So far from having “zero” knowledge, we have quite a bit of knowledge, when we knew that as many as 16 out of 50 back when they had 50 were “Lindesidents” and that out of those 16, another were “pwned”. We have no idea what the percentage is now, they aren’t talking, but we do see that out of the Lindesidents they had, two have left that we know about (Ben and Stephen).
That’s a hell of a lot of fanboyz still to be keeping around the candy store just because they came and bought a nickel’s worth of Neccos every day. Seriously, the idea that you hire the customers is just plain fucking retarded.
The idea that only long-time loyal fanboyz can understand the product is sure-shit-Sherlock way of making sure nobody else EVER understands it and it never grows beyond its wanky cult-like core.
So, sorry to disappoint, asshole, but I am not “lying” I am telling the truth based on the Lindens’ own statements. I never said they didn’t appoint from outside their ranks. YOU are the lying for claiming such bullshit about me. Instead, I pointed out that FAR TO GREAT A PERCENTAGE comes from inhouse. When things like the UN do this, everybody realizes it leads to Oil-For-Food scandals. Jesus H. Christ. I don’t get why a software company gets to be excluded from basic norms of good business practices.
Cubey is a suck-up fanboy who feigned to treat me well just to impress his overlords, all the while giving me the finger behind his back, *writing aggressive, tendentious tripe on my blog* all the while being a Linden. He once wrote something completely retarded about me, easily refuted (I have to go find it so we can examine it again). So hell no, I’m not impressed with Cubey’s “professionalism”. What it shows me is that people are good lyers and cunning actors, and that NO LINDEN IS TO BE TRUSTED because of this pernicious system. NOT A ONE.
I’d expect this little cunning Lindesident to treat me under the rules while in Linden employ, especially given that what I summed help for was basic stuff under the rules, like masses of fire prims all over that couldn’t be removed, becaue they were on Linden land not set to 0, or groups of vigilantes claiming to be Linden-sanctioned in the WA, which were lying about their status. This is just basic stuff, and I’d expect Cubey to answer these Help calls professionally.
But he did several things inworld that I don’t have the time to go into that made it seem like he was feigning to be a really good Linden and really follow up on serious problems, and treat me nicely, when in fact he had NO intention of really doing this and was faking his treating of me nicely. It was all lies.
I have Lindens who have been nasty to me, and arbitrary, and even total assholes. Some of them have been fired, because of course they were like that to other people. I’ve had them be courteous but vague, unhelpful, and simply not answer IMs. So if one of them goes out of the way to follow up something, I expect him to be acting in good faith. When I find out that it is Cubey, who has behaved badly to me, and printed tripe about me, and printed the most hysterical idiocy, I have to figure it’s all manpulative, cunning lies.
What I’d expect is for him to do the minimum to do his job, but not appear to be trying extra hard for me, as that is just the sort of syncophantism that got him his Linden job in the first place, which I find repulsive.
Coco is absolutely, totally right. If the lid were pulled off this stuff, it would only confirm 500 percent what I’ve been saying.
Artemis Fate
Feb 11th, 2007
“Coco is absolutely, totally right. If the lid were pulled off this stuff, it would only confirm 500 percent what I’ve been saying.”
Considering most of what you say is easily refutable by the knowledge that IS known, or is completely contradictory, I highly doubt this (though I do not doubt that whatever you found there, would somehow in your mind prove everything you’ve said).
“Cory Linden said that LL drew *one third* of their staff *from the resident base* and drew *many others* from *the recommendations of that resident base*”
Only 1/3? I’m surprised. I thought it’d be a lot more than that, considering SL ettiquite and the primative technology takes a while to learn and is best suited for residents in terms of the employments. I mean, just look at how long it takes for a newbie to get anywhere in SL, much less someone who is supposed to be answering tech support questions and helping said newbies.
Course I can see why you’re mad. People you hate are getting hired as Lindens, and because you’re delusional and paranoid, you see this as a large conspiracy rising against you. Perhaps if some of your friends were hired as Lindens it’d help. Except of course there’s a problem there, you have no friends, and you hate everyone. So no matter what Linden Labs does, except maybe hiring you (and which I could only imagine you would proceed to do exactly what you bitch and complain about every day: that is ban everyone you hate from second life for no reason other than you dislike them, and give favors based on how much people suck up to you), but of course I don’t think it’s in LL’s best interest to hire someone who is a.) mentally disturbed and b.) posts regularly about how much he hates everyone of them.
This is another step in the ironic jumble of contradictions you call your life and philosophy, where you claim to be so highly capitalist (and hate communism), but suddenly hate good capitalist business practices and support the “spread the wealth” communist philosophy. It’s much better business practice to hire someone who likes what they do or what they sell because they’ll feel more inclined to do good, want to stay, know more about how everything works, and probably reinvest their paychecks back into the store’s product. Now if you want to run a movie store, and through some self-righteous mentally instable stint decide that you couldn’t possibly hire anyone who likes movies, you’d find yourself with a store of unknowledgable disinterested employees.
nimrod yaffle
Feb 11th, 2007
“Course I can see why you’re mad. People you hate are getting hired as Lindens, and because you’re delusional and paranoid, you see this as a large conspiracy rising against you. Perhaps if some of your friends were hired as Lindens it’d help. Except of course there’s a problem there, you have no friends, and you hate everyone. So no matter what Linden Labs does, except maybe hiring you (and which I could only imagine you would proceed to do exactly what you bitch and complain about every day: that is ban everyone you hate from second life for no reason other than you dislike them, and give favors based on how much people suck up to you), but of course I don’t think it’s in LL’s best interest to hire someone who is a.) mentally disturbed and b.) posts regularly about how much he hates everyone of them.”
QFT!!
Cubey Terra
Feb 11th, 2007
“Cubey is a suck-up fanboy who feigned to treat me well just to impress his overlords, all the while giving me the finger behind his back, *writing aggressive, tendentious tripe on my blog* all the while being a Linden.”
I was a liaison between November 2005 and December 2006. Despite what you have alleged, during my time with LL, you were not banned from the forums, nor did I post any “aggressive, tendentious tripe” on your blog (although I’ll have to look up “tendentious” just to be sure). I endeavoured to behave in a professional manner with all residents and to maintain a clear separation between my private account and my liaison duties.
And for helping you several times to deal with various attacks, technical issues, and prim cleanups, even though you have been unusually hostile towards me personally and publicly in the past… you’re welcome.
Spankubux
Feb 11th, 2007
“It isn’t so clear that mental stability is a criterion for being a Linden.”
Ditto for Philosophy professors.
Myrrh Massiel
Feb 11th, 2007
…from the few interactions i had with him, coffee/stephen linden always exhibited exemplary professional courtesy and first-class service under continuously strenuous circumstances…i was personally dumbfounded to learn of his alternate identity as cubey terra, even though in retrospect it’s patently obvious how thoroughly he went out of his way to avoid all conflicts of interest…
…prokofy, you’re way out of line…
Kerian Bunin
Feb 11th, 2007
“And for helping you several times to deal with various attacks, technical issues, and prim cleanups, even though you have been unusually hostile towards me personally and publicly in the past… you’re welcome.”
No good deed goes unpunished I guess. Curse you for being helpful (not really).
Urizenus
Feb 11th, 2007
Spankubux, mental stablity is *definitely* not a feature of philosophy professors. Mental stability would be more of a handicap, I should think.
Harlequin Salome
Feb 11th, 2007
Prok: Posting innane, self cetnered, damned near insane assumptions and attacks without any basis in reality.
I love this. Cubey actually helps you and you’re upset because he was talking behind your back? Jesus, if this is how yo act when helped, no wonder you’re bug-nutty insane, Prok. The whole world did not start off being out to get you.
Your sunny demeanor is more to blame than anything for peoples’ attitudes. Just once… *once*… I’d love for you to say something like “Cubey doesn’t like me, and has made that fact clear, but he did take time to help me as a Linden, and therefore should be thanked for being unbiased and not letting personal opinions cloud his functioning as a Linden.”
Instead we’re supposed to sit and watch you go off on another half-cocked rant, which further proves my theory that you find the clicking of your keys an aphrodisiac.
And Prok, you are more out of line than I’ve ever seen you. Not that you care about what others think. After all, we’re all out to get you, right?
And being in a Methaphysics and Philosophy course now, one must be somewhat mad to be a PHIL prof, though functionally so. Its the fine line between “I can consider a world where nothing at all exists” and “The Lindens are out to get me.”
MJ Hathor
Feb 11th, 2007
Wow! I’ve been away from SL for about 8 months now and its so funny to see Prok still crying over the “FIC” she made up. Some things never change I guess.
**DECISION 2008….PANDA LINDEN**
MJ
Nacon
Feb 12th, 2007
“Awww Nacon…. If Prok didn’t have a label to put on it, he’d have nothing to say…. trying to crush his dreams of being the longest winded person that never says anything?
Poor Prok… Uh oh, now I’m a sympathicist…” – Seola Sassoon
Aww damn… that can’t be good. Now that I think about it, I do feel your pa…. (aw crap)
Tsukasa Keiko
Feb 12th, 2007
You know Prokofy, I’ve tried to avoid SL drama as much as possible-
especially including you… But you remind me of a law attorney by
the name of “Jack Thompson”. Now, you may be familiar with him, as
are many gamers reading this, but let me explain for those who aren’t.
Jack Thompson, like you, advocates many logical and sensible laws;
In his case he’s fighting to restrict the sales of mature video games
to smaller children by making it against the law. (As it is now, most
stores have a policy of this, but not all clerks follow the policy.)
However, he goes about it in a completely innane manner- anywhere a
child does something wrong, he jumps at the chance to link it to video
games. Parents, of course, don’t want to accept responsibility for
their bad parenting and jump at the chance to pass the blame
elsewhere.
Now doesn’t that sound just a bit familiar?
I agree with many things you write about, but that doesn’t mean I
don’t also disagree with many things you say. You know what though? I
respect your right to say it. What angers me is that issues you may
be entirely (or in my opinion for this case, slightly) correct, you go
about it in an overly aggressive manner, and as a result you push away
people who may have been receptive to your ideas.
Yes, things happen, sometimes for the better, but mostly for the
) If you truely believe that your ideals are right, and
worst- and we just have to deal with it. The Lindens might not be the
easiest (maybe even the worst) people do deal with, but you should put
all the energy into writing aggressive and flamebait posts into trying
to work with the Lindens, establish real relationships, and become one
of the FIC you always speak of. (FIC: It’s not just for oldbies
anymore
that the FIC has so much influence over SL, wouldn’t you benefit from
actually befriending the Lindens and being purely, I don’t know,
insightful?
Artemis Fate
Feb 12th, 2007
“and become one
”
of the FIC you always speak of. (FIC: It’s not just for oldbies
anymore
Considering Prokofy got a full page mention in the Second Life book, is possibly the only player besides Anshe to have a wikipedia article, and is more known and talked about than just about everyone, i’d say he’s more FIC than most.
Seola Sassoon
Feb 13th, 2007
Nacon – “”"Aww damn… that can’t be good. Now that I think about it, I do feel your pa…. (aw crap)”"”
Well, dammit, now it’s a group… we need a catchy name now…but we gotta be elitest against no one but Prok so we can be FIC too. Kill two birds with one stones. Let’s be the synthesizers, we’ll be sympathetic piano playing FICists— ists.
Tsukasa Keiko – You make a good point about JT. Excellent comparision!
Panda
Feb 13th, 2007
“But he did several things inworld that I don’t have the time to go into that made it seem like he was feigning to be a really good Linden”
Prok, for someone who seems to live in their browser ranting on blogs, it seems strange to suddenly be too short on time to back up such a statement.
Parsifal
Feb 14th, 2007
Yes, yes. By all means, let’s get LL to only hire people that have never spent more than a few minutes in SL, if even that, to run the damned thing… Yeah, I would only hire a mechanic that is familiar only with cars other than Ford’s models to work in my Ford garage. This mindset of someone who supposedly hates the practise of LL hiring customers is so illogical that the only explaination can be that Prok is being a deceitful ass just to try and make a point about her stupid theory.
The real communist is Prokofy.
–Wants to toss normal, capitalistic business practises to the curb – as long as that would bring about a situation in which no players (especially those Prok thinks are out to get her) were ever hired by LL.
–Wants to try to force some sort of bland homogeny on us. Everyone except landowners that is…
Prok’s way of thinking is much, MUCH more in line with communism than anyone else I see posting here. Except, again, for large land owners. She wants a special lobby for them with special access to the Lindens.
Prokofy, why do you embrace the ideals you supposedly loathe?
Listen shit for brains, you’re fooling no one (well except for Coco – but that’s no surpise), because this sort of hiring goes on ALL THE TIME. Customers get hired. I myself have been hired (in RL) after becoming a regular customer. YOU know this happens all the time, especially in capitalist democracies, you disingenous troll, so I won’t get too deeply into it. Suffice it to say, that those of us with a few functioning brain cells know, that it’s just another handy avenue of attack in your arsenal, to use against people you hate.
After all, your precious US of A this is a common practise. So I suppose the predominant mindset of American employers is communist?
Are you saying that no customers should ever be hired by the businesses they patronise?
Then I can never work at…
Sears, Macy’s, Nordstroms, Marshall Fields, McDonald’s, PF Chang’s, BP, the corner bar, the bowling alley, the market,… shall I continue to demonstrate how infeasible such an arrangement would be?
Nah.
Cocoanut Koala
Feb 14th, 2007
Who ^ are you?
coco
Urizenus
Feb 14th, 2007
Well, in academia for example, it is considered bad practice to hire your own customers (i.e. students), because you become an incestuous little circle jerk of a feedback loop. That is, it is a policy of many if not most academic departments that they simply will not do it unless the student has gone somewhere else first. I understand the case for hiring customers, but it is worth noting that there is also a clear case for *not* doing it. I’m not taking sides, I’m just sayin’.
Cocoanut Koala
Feb 14th, 2007
Why ^ do you ask?
Wayfinder Wishbringer
Feb 14th, 2007
You know, I’m actually starting to enjoy this stuff. That should be a cause for worry, I guess.
OK, in response to Prok’s and Coco’s messages, simply because I enjoyed ‘em (as well as the responses)…
Since I myself was recently accused of being FIC (LOL, Linden Lab would bust a gut if they heard that one)… not sure exactly who is FIC and who isn’t. So no insults to anyone. However, Prok isn’t totally delusional on this y’know. Nor should her theory of FIC be all that surprising. I mean, it stands to reason that those with ties inside the “family” are going to be given special privileges. That’s just about how any organization works. We may not like it, but it’s a fact of life. So I don’t think Prok’s FIC concept is so much a theory as a fact of life. She was merely pointing out that learning of this particular Liason’s Linden ties as well as past business operations might have questionable attributes. But again, that’s how life works. If the guy’s a liason and they want a blimp or a vehicle for some purpose… likely it’s gonna be his blimp or vehicle. Virtual nepotism perhaps, but that’s life.
And Coco, for sure I agree with your statement that if we knew all the Linden identities a lot of light would be shined on a lot of forum battles. I myself have often wondered how often (conspiracy theory here) Linden Lab has enlisted trolls to slam opponents to the ground in forum wars. (Or not. LOL. Who can possibly know?). But then LL might not be alone in that? How many people have ever used alts in backing up their own posts? I’m sure a lot more of that goes on than people will admit. (I honestly never have, but hey, one has to wonder).
Anyway, it’s still fun. Personally, I like the way the guy is unafraid to post that he’s upset with the way SL is operating. No LL suckup there. And he earnestly states that he thinks the stuff will eventually be corrected (as opposed to the system degrading and eventually crashing and burning, which of course is another option). But he also says it will take a lot of time because the programmers are swamped (which if I may, if they spent more time FIXING problems rather than creating NEW ones…). But I digress.
Prok’s FIC statement and Coco’s forum conspiracy aren’t all that unimaginable or far-fetched. Personally, I think it’s the FIC that has been conspiring on the forums.
I enjoyed both posts and don’t find them too off-the-wall at all. Adds more flavor to the soup. I dunno as the ex-liason deserves to be dragged over the coals by anyone, but hey, opinions is opinions.
Ian Betteridge
Feb 15th, 2007
Prokofy blurts…
“Last year or so, Cory Linden said that LL drew *one third* of their staff *from the resident base* and drew *many others* from *the recommendations of that resident base* (so that mean we got the FIC from inworld; then the FIC’s recommendations of their RL FIC friends lol).”
One third plus “many” probably wouldn’t actually even make 50%. So when you said that “They need to refresh their ranks with people OUTSIDE” you already knew that at least 50% of Lindens come from outside the game, and are not recommended by residents?
I apologise, Prokofy: I thought you were just making things up with no knowledge. I didn’t know that you were making things up while knowing that what you were posting was false – i.e. just straight up lying.
“The idea that only long-time loyal fanboyz can understand the product is sure-shit-Sherlock way of making sure nobody else EVER understands it and it never grows beyond its wanky cult-like core.”
Given the figures you’re supplying, no more than 30% are “long-time fanboyz”. Again, you twist facts to suit you want to make, rather than basing your opinions in reality.
“I never said they didn’t appoint from outside their ranks…”
Which is why I said that “If you’re saying that LL ONLY recruits from within the game, you’re simply lying”. I realise that “If… then” is a very difficult concept for you, based as it is in logic and reason rather than screeching and rhetoric, but even I thought you might get it. Alas not.
Kamilion Schnook
Feb 15th, 2007
“Now if you want to run a movie store, and through some self-righteous mentally instable stint decide that you couldn’t possibly hire anyone who likes movies, you’d find yourself with a store of unknowledgable disinterested employees.”
Hm. No wonder the kids who work at blockbuster couldn’t find a copy of Army of Darkness. Also explains why the Hollywood Video kids are always around the XBOX 360 kiosk, playing madden 2007 with their rental copy and the key to the kiosk, in the store instead of at the registers. At least they pause the game when a customer comes in though… Sometimes.
Cocoanut Koala
Feb 15th, 2007
The person who posted “Why ^ do you ask?” is not me, yet used my name.
That is pretty sucky.
I’m going to test this.
coco
Urizenus
Feb 15th, 2007
Testing.
Cocoanut Koala
Feb 15th, 2007
OK, so yes, it is possible.
That is pretty dumb.
As is the cretin who did it in the first place.
coco
Seola Sassoon
Feb 15th, 2007
Yeah, that’s why I made the point I did in the Gor post.