I read the Herald today (I do not very often), and I was pretty alarmed with your statement about the future of Second Life, as a clear downward Tendency Appears in the last two years of the graph.

But instead of make a discussion about this, I would like to make you think about a point: the need for happier and more healthy news, wanna hear my guesses? Second Life won´t last 2 or 4 more years, for multiple reasons, the most important ones: the render engine is obsolete, the second one: is an aimless sex game for hidden desires, and a third one: LL will run out of gas (their income will not grow if people continues to abandone it).

The tragedy starts when we remember SL is just an extension of RL: what will the investors (serious content creators) do when the rathole where their investments were the past 5 years (SL) sinks like the Titanic? I pick one: they will close their briefcases and they will start search for the "next" rathole for their investments, just like RL. is the poor average user who will suffer and drown in the process!.

I´m pretty sure no linden god will even read the post, and if they, they will only ignore it, but at the same time I´m also pretty sure many jaded residents and newbies will leave Second Life just by smelling the ship is sinking from your words.

Get my advice: add happy stories, people will smell hope, add hope to your mind even if you know Second Life won´t last too much, at least it will help to add happiness, even if the lindens want to destroy our happiness with their lame viewer remember this: we, the common users we stay here because we love the system, if we hated it really we were playing PS3 Sony´s Home or BlueMars just for their awsome graphics, incredible server stability and state of the art content creator safety. Everybody knows we have suffered many stupid innecesary changes from LL who bring down our numbers (the users), is true! but Doom and Gloom will only get you less readers as they will think this is a sinking ship, "a downward spiral kills even planes".

Please extend the optimism because pesimism and Doom is not the solution to the Lindens inner stupidity. and why all of this? because I´m pretty sure you won´t like reporting from BlueMars and start complaining for basic things like the camera movement, long waiting periods just to "move" between "sims", something in SL we don´t even think about it because it works like charm. I hope you understand.

Have a nice day and best wishes in what you do.

Saturday, Urizenus Sklar received Kobidobidog’s response to the 2007 Herald story Are Furries Doomed?

On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 8:37 PM, kobidobidog wrote:

I am sending this to you because you are only one of two humans I can send this to. I am having difficulty finding the registration, and I can’t post this important post.

Furries are good humans, and they are being assaulted because they are good humans. Jesus was different when he was on this planet to and that is why he was persecuted too. Yiff is sex, and we are on a planet of sex, and I wish humans could get used to sex on a planet of sex and even genetilia.

Humans are animals that think too much and humans should not judge:
Romans 14:10-13
But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
11 For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.
12 So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.
13 Let us not therefore judge one another any more.

Ephesians 4:29 King James Bible
Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

Those against the furrys, zoosexuals, and bestialists do not edify humans being good to humans, and as a result they are not good to non-human animals either. Whoever cannot give what they do not have in their heart.

Romans 12:14
Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not.
15 Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.
16 Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits.
17 Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.
18 If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.
19 Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
20 Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
21 Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

I do not want to hear or see humans weeping and gnashing their teeth at the Second Coming because they were bad to their neighbor. They are letting a wonderful gift slip through their fingers like sand.

Romans 12:9
Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.
10 Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;
11 Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord;
12 Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;
13 Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality.

This means to give hospitality to the zoosexuals and furries of the furry fandom too, and not what the Sodom and Gomorrah humans outside Lot’s house wanted to give to Lot.

Here’s a bit of a story. IN years past the JLU were a welcomed member of the FurNation community. They didn’t bother anyone and no one really bothered them. That was until we were under a griefer attack and the JLU came over to ‘assist’ and the first thing they did was report ME to the lab for griefing. They approached me and yelled at me for causing the issue. I asked them why they reported me of all people. By this time I had already deleted all the offensive material. They told me that I was the one putting it all out and they had seen me doing it. Basically they had watched me selecting objects to return them. They were extremely rude to me at the time and informed me that they would have reports go up on me. I contacted Kalel and he too said I was being reported and then for harassment as well. I was not rude to these people at all. It was several days later that I was contacted by Kalel informing me that the ‘charges’ had been dropped because they did not realize I was the sim owner. My response of course was to point to the info hub I had in the center of the sandbox that had my name clearly displayed as the sim owner and if his comrades had taken a moment to look they would have seen I was in the admin team.

He called me ungrateful and abuse reported me again. I was informed of this by him as well as he had several of his friends make the same report. All reports were dismissed by the GOV team as illegitimate. Soon I had JLU members ‘patrolling’ the sandboxes and abuse reporting anyone that they felt was disobeying my rules. They started to get several members of my community banned. I was forced to add a new sim rule that the JLU were not allowed in the sim for any reason. When they had seen this, I was reported again for griefing. Again the report was dismissed.

In the end I was approached months later by Green Lantern Corps asking if it was okay for them to be there. They apologized for the treatment the JLU had given me and asked if they would be allowed to just come and build.

Green Lantern Corps are allowed to visit and act if they wish. But they are not allowed to be in tag or act as a part of the Corps while visiting. If they are the subject of a griefing they are to come to me and I would take care of it. They can then file all the reports they like.

In the end the JLU are a bunch of power hungry crazed nutjobs that think being an SL Police force gives them the right to get away with whatever they want. The GLC on the other hand have always been very respectful to me and my residents.

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

Gregory Eugene Turnbow (Kalel Venkman in Second Life) has been identified as the complainant who submitted a DMCA request to Typepad that resulted in removal of content from six Herald stories covering the Second Life Justice League Unlimited.

Mr. Turnbow’s copyright infringement claim was disputed by the Herald on the grounds that the materials were a clear case of fair use for journalism.

After Turnbow failed to file a copyright infringement claim in court within 14 days of the Herald’s counter filing, Typepad staff restored parts of the disputed content. However, in correspondence with the Herald, Typepad revealed that they were unable to restore portions of the content which they had removed – all images were missing from their server, as were sections of the disputed text. The Herald staff has restored this content from our backup copies.

Jen, Feb 26 05:00 pm (PST):

Dear Mr. McCahill-

The complainant who submitted the DMCA request is:

Gregory Eugene Turnbow
[address elided]
Simi Valley, CA 93065
gene@kryptonians.net

We have restored the available textual content to the posts but the full chat transcripts and data table were not available, and we are were not able to restore the unavailable content.

Mark McCahill, Feb 26 04:48 pm (PST):

Jen,

It is very disappointing that the image files have been deleted. Please let me know when you have completed restoring the disputed text content.

I have repeatedly asked you to identify of the person(s) who filed the copyright infringement claim that led you to take down materials from my site. You are obliged to provide my with this information now.

It is illegal under Title 17, United States Code Section 512(f) to knowingly send faulty DMCA notices.

Who sent the notice that led to the take down of materials from my site?

Mark McCahill

Jen, Feb 26 03:55 pm (PST):

Dear Mr. McCahill-

We are restoring the textual content to your blog but that the image files were deleted from our servers and, as a result, we are unable to restore them.

Sincerely,
Jen
TypePad One
Six Apart Ltd

by Avil Creeggan

Dear Linden Lab,

I am a free account. I have been a free account for the past two years. During that time, I’ve dealt with a lot of stuff that, frankly, shouldn’t be happening; flagrant asset loss and dehabilitation, incompetent customer service representatives, seemingly-random suspensions and bans for which there is no notification, having to provide my identification on multiple occasions… But it’s been pretty much okay.

You see this dialog box?

This changes everything. You know why?

Forget the fact that you didn’t tell me this was coming, at all. Forget the fact that, not only can I not login, neither can my friends. Realize that you consider me to “just” be a free account, now, and nothing else. You are completely wrong.

Step back, and ask yourself:

*How many of your over one million residents don’t pay for premium accounts?

*What happens to the economy when the currency these non-premium accounts hold is effectively frozen?

*How many corporations, content creators, and land barons are paying for simulators and asset hosting for the sole purpose of marketing to these residents?

*Where does your profit go when the grid is composed of premium accounts attempting to sell their content to uninterested premium accounts?

I’ll answer the scenario for you:

Public opinion of Second Life falls from “target of mockery” to “a worthless pit”. Corporations drop their (already worthless and ineffective) simulators due to the reduction of visibility, and reduction of effectiveness, caused by free accounts vacating the grid. New user registration drops to record lows. The emphasis on open source simulator development increases, and open source grids become viable. The Linden Lab grid is outmoded. Linden Labs, lacking additional offerings, fails.

My contribution to Second Life is greater than any hundred premium accounts. Not only do I directly create content (as many Herald readers can attest), I am the reason you can rent your simulators. I am the reason you have a public presence. I am the reason that Linden Labs is a publically traded company. If you’re reading this as a member of Linden Labs, I’m the reason you have a job.

I’m not the reason the grid is less stable than Britney Spears. Your incompetence is.
Fix it, or face the consequences. I am not picking up your tab.

Sincerely,

The Free Account.

We have been a group within your medium for 17 months. We are a political forum, essentially using the forum as a way to link with people of our political persuasion across the world. We felt this media would be a great way to do that and have managed to link people across the globe. Members of our group believe in a method of education espoused by Paulo Friere, the South American educationalist, and we feel the virtual world created on your media allows that in a way few other Web 2.0 forums can. Our most recent Charter and Aims and Principles can be found here.

We have a number of concerns we would like to share with you and perhaps you could address those.

We feel the new TOS are pretty stringent, your Trademarking (TM) the term “SL” has surprised us. Our use of the term SL came before your TM was introduced – and we have used the term both inside and outside the media. Our concern, however is not the name or the legalities of using the term “SL” or the term “Second Life”. Our concern is that we are an anti-capitalist group who at times confront some of the corporations Linden Labs now seek to involve in SL. We have in the past supported an Italian IBM workers strike that used SL to highlight their cause, successfully. Would this supporting of a non-corporate, group who had no commercial relationship with Linden Labs against a corporation who have an interest in Linden Labs (and vice versa) breach your new TOS?

We also have in the past year confronted an extreme right wing, racist group made up of the French Front National and various other extremist groups. Would this type of confrontation lead us to be in breach of your TOS and mean the SLLU group and/or its members could be banned or deleted because our actions do not enhance your corporate image? Does our use of an “SL Associated name” mean that you could end our tenure in this world because of our confrontation of hate groups or unjust employers would be seen to be “advocating against any individual, group, or organization?”

We feel that we, the “residents” of your “new world” – OUR world and OUR imagination, as you have been telling us, have been asked in these new TOS to waiver more rights for no increase in service. We are extremely interested to know how Linden Lab as a corporation goes about justifying this action.

We feel that there are groups that have existed for quite some time in SL who will not meet your stringent rules on the use of the term SL. These groups have in turn brought people to SL, revenue for you, brought people together in common cause and enjoyment to many people. Are we to understand they now must comply with strange and whimsical usage rules or disappear? Our full name is Second Life Left Unity and there are many other groups who indicate they are operating in this Second Life environment with the words “Second Life.” In fact, there are hundreds of “Second Life” organizations and clubs (including Assassins of Second Life, Second Life Mafia, Second Life Catholic Church, Second Life Ballet, Second Life Univ. of Technology, Second Life Live, Second Life Amazing People, and many many others). Why would the license not extend also to “Second Life”? And are you really suggesting organizations and businesses situated in the virtual world “Second Life” must change their names? What kind of enforcement and notice procedures do you anticipate for bringing residents into compliance with the new terms?

Of course, Linden Labs are not the only group to claim ownership of content of forums. This is, in our opinion, just the latest trend towards increased emphasis by corporations on ownership, control and product branding – which to many represents excessive intrusion, and a massive imbalance between corporate power and citizen or service user rights and power. Surely this runs contrary to the whole Open Sourcing ethos which LL once apparently endorsed? For years, Linden Research has been touting Second Life as a place, so, for example, Reuters in Second Life made sense, now it is Second Life the product and you seem to be trying to change people’s perceptions based on market whims.

We also seek clarification on whether you have any kind of user data privacy and protection policy in place, where conversations or actions are deleted and will not be given over to marketing companies, corporations, courts or Governments? We have concerns that if not, that the collection and storage of user data could be open to massive and intrusive misuse.
This tool that has been created, ie the virtual world, could be used in such amazing ways in education, making links across the globe and for helping in human relationships etc. The potential is only limited by imagination as you imply in your marketing. But we fear the potential is being undermined by a want to unquestioningly comply with the commercial market pressures for conventional expansion by selling off to the higher bidder rather than considering the longer term interests of this unique service or of those who use/rely/love the experiences that are afforded by the use of Second Life. How does this fit with LL’s previous stated support of the Open Sourcing movement?

We await a response with hope.

In peace

Second Life Left Unity.

I’m writing about the article entitled “Bots Make Mockery of Traffic Statistics” on March 23, 2008 for the Second Life Herald.

My name is Doran McCullough and I, along with Organa Ashley, just purchased the land written about from Harold Malpholisto. I want to say, unequivocally, that under no circumstances will we ever use or condone using bots to artificially inflate traffic. We had no idea this was even going on when we purchased this land, and can’t disagree with the use of bots strongly enough.

We are currently in the process of moving our mall and nightclub over to the land, and have always took the stance that bots are to be booted. I encourage all Second Life citizens to come down to the Oxygen Mall and Nightclub, and verify this for yourselves. Organa and I both agree completely that the process of artificially inflating traffic numbers by the use of bots ruins your reputation as a mall owner, disappoints vendors, and ruins Second Life for all citizens.

I would love the opportunity to talk this over with you, perhaps as an interview, or whatever you think best. Great work on the Second Life Herald, I’ve been an admirer for a while now. Keep up the good work, and please send me a notecard or IM letting me know you got this and if you would want to talk about it anymore.

Doran McCullough
Co-Owner Oxygen Mall and Nightclub