Second Life will celebrate 5 years of “Your World, Your Imagination” by excluding three of the most active communities on the Grid by holding a celebration (SL5B) that excludes kids, Gor, and BDSM in a “fit for prime time” celebration which, I assume, will be dominated by squeaky-clean examples of business collaboration, education, and maybe a bunch of Greenie floats.
The Lab announced the 5 year celebration with that kind of rousing libertarian call to action for which it’s renowned, following up with the kind of community relation fiasco which is the hallmark of its execution on the great dream of a Grid for everyone – connecting all of humanity for its betterment and all that.
This celebration of diversity was all about pride, according to the Lab:
Each year, on the date that Second Life came out of beta (June 23rd 2003), Residents and Lindens have gathered to celebrate the amazing world we’ve been creating. This June 23rd, our community marks its Fifth Birthday, and the volunteer Birthday Team (who has been planning this party since last year) picked a theme that will be hard to resist– “Celebrating the cultural diversity of Second Life”.
Who do you hang around with in Second Life? What are your communities’ traditions and signature characteristics? Are you proud of your sexy blue fur? Your excruciatingly detailed tea ceremony? Your murky environments? Your sculptures? The help you’ve given to others?
But since their call for builds, they’ve shut the gates on the kid’s community, Gor and BDSM, bowing perhaps to pressure from our paternalistic fear-mongering members of Congress, and worried about press coverage on Sky News showing some kid next to a Gor Master. Daniel outlined the communication back-and-forth with the Lindens. And our dear friend Robin Linden, she of the beautifully handled trademark issue, responded with a “nay, your kind are not welcome to build here”.
M Linden’s Second Week
M Linden arrived and applauds the vibrant community, applauds the bunny sitting next to him at the staff meeting, the observant crowds, the hurly burly masses, and must have watched in astonishment as his first blog posting was piled upon within minutes before hitting the 150 cap (why they have a cap is beyond me, as an aside) with both pleas for help in stabilizing SL and well wishes, among them some of the brighter lights of the kids, Gor and BDSM communities.
At least there’s someone at the switch. I still remember Philip’s blog post of NOVEMBER 21st, and I quote: “For my part, I will start writing monthly blog posts like this to let you know about some of things that are on my mind.”
Thanks Philip – just so you know, while time is accelerated in Second Life, it didn’t somehow decelerate in the actual world – November through June is 6 months, and now we have your proxy telling us that he gets the magic:
As I start my second week, I can happily say I have a sense of what makes Linden Lab and indeed Second Life such a magical place. It’s people with passion for the virtual world. And, it all starts with the Resident community. Thank you for a wondrous first week!
Well, first – welcome to week two M. The honeymoon period is over. Time is compressed and there’s no magic 90-day grace period. Step in and show some guts, it’s already running away from you. But while you’re at it, why don’t you tell us what you think of the gonzo coders and PR flacks who can’t match words with actions and don’t know how to handle even the most basic mechanics of outreach.
Hubris and Complicity
In all deference to Grace who took me to task for saying that the sarcasm and arrogance of a Linden on the SLDev list was all about the context of the rough-and-tumble world of innovation and code-jockeys, I stand by my assertion that it was a demonstration of the kind of hubris and gonzo policy-making that’s come to define Second Life’s idea of supporting, building and relating to the community of users.
And if there’s one word that sends shivers down my spine in today’s age it’s hubris. No, wait, the second is complicity. And you can be a journalist, say, and buy whatever line the party’s dishing out these days, and you can be a corporation and cover your well-padded ass and tow whatever cultural meme Congress has in hand, or you can have some backbone and remember what values got you where you are in the first place.
Why Does Gor Matter?
Look….I know business. And it’s a tougher sell when you need to explain that sure, the Grid has Gor, and the Grid has adults who like to play as kids – live in families, be a boy scout or a Goonie, act out the fantasy of being a steampunk kid in a kind of techno Oliver Twist roleplay. But I was trying to explain the Internet back in the 90s, and the Internet had porn, and scams, and geeks in their basements putting up Star Trek fan sites. But the Grid also has schools, and enterprise, and music, and opportunity, and artists, and a culture all its own – and if you want to get a sneak peek at the future, come aboard….there’s enough room for everyone, and by some estimations it would take 8 or 9 years to see every sim on the Grid anyways, it’s not like you need to cross to the other side of the street to avoid whatever it is you’re afraid of.
So, sure, you can come aboard, and you can lock up your private island and keep the weirdos out – OR, you can come aboard and realize that this is the flowering of something different. If you want safe and sanitized go to There.com or sponsor some furniture in the Sims – but you’d better realize that this IS the Wild West, and it’s that way for a reason – because THIS is the frontier, this is where the great ideas are arising, this is where the creative classes, the prosumers and the hackers, the griefers and the savants are mashing up the future, and if you want some sort of hint of how the future’s going to unfold you’d better at least suck it up and have a look around.
The Community Responds
Well…here’s the good news. Because in a community built on “Your World, Your Imagination” the community itself still has a bit of a say – the power of purchase, and the power of the prim, and already two of the key organizers have backed out.
SignpostMarv regret(s) to announce that I am withdrawing from my position as organiser of SL5B, due to irreconcilable differences between myself, Dusty and Everett Linden over ethical issues, and the degree of Linden Lab involvement in what is a Resident-ran event (and has been for at least the last 3 years).
According to Tateru at Massively, “Organizer Ariel Otafuku has also stepped aside”.
And the kid’s community is planning a counter-celebration of its own. And based on the past creative contributions to things like Burning Life and previous year’s celebrations, it will be a far better build, and probably a lot more fun.
What will be interesting is whether any of the other usual suspects pull from the party as well – will Rezzable send over some statues? They should send over a Crimson Shadow tribute if anything at all.
There’s very little difference one green dot can make, but for myself, I’ll be avoiding the celebration other than to see which of the participating groups I should be boycotting, and I’ll continue to toil away, trying to shake this feeling that in sanitizing Second Life they’re shaking off the good stuff and that sooner or later I’m going to have to spend more time on OpenSim than the main Grid if I want to get a feel for the real 3D Web, because it’s going to start to feel a lot less interesting when all you can do is wander around some “corporate collaboration centers” and a bunch of university campuses, most of whom will probably decamp for Wonderland sooner or later anyways.
Happy 5 years. Oh – and for a little trip down memory lane, here’s a quiz:
In their effort to keep their gated gardens pure and clean, and with a sole focus on revenue as compared to current customers, Compuserve and AOL ended up being, on a scale of 1 to 10, how relevant to the Internet today?
Great post, Dusanwriter. Linden’s new social organizing philosophy is downright comfusing. Looking at things like SL5B with its crackdown on non-traditional cultures and the development of Bay City (What is that, by the way? A Linden WPA to help inworld builders through the Grid’s Great Depression? A Linden corporate reaction to the anarchic design principles of the mainland? Some Love Machiner’s “cool idea”?), it’s clear that they’re looking to change the Second Life grid…but what for? Better press? More corporate investment? Preparation for an IPO/buyout?
To be a fly on the wall at Linden Lab right now…
(And yeah, M Linden has his work cut out for him.)
what a shame… and even though we will have a much better build, it won’t be noticed. once again our community is pushed off to the side. even though we pay the same amount of money in terms of tier, sim fees, and everything else…. and the fact that a good number of us ARE age verified. its really disheartening to hear about things like this. what are they so afraid of? maybe if they had a GOOD PR person, they could be like, well shut up sky news, they’re all verified adults so piss off.
[...] welcome at SL5B. There’s already a lot written about it – fav title is by Dusan Writer ‘Lock Up Your Kids, Tie Up Your Kajira, It’s Time to Celebrate‘ – and I suggest you go and read on those blogs. I mainly want to say that I still stand [...]
[...] the meantime, I’ll join my voice to that of Ordinal Malaprop, Marianne McCann and Loki Eliot, Dusan Writer, Daniel Regenbogen, Erbo Evans and many, many others in saying how utterly disappointed I am in [...]
Dusan, great blog.
I find it regrettable that LL has decided to snub three of its more significant and loyal constituencies by excluding them from SL5B: kid avis, gor and bdsm.
I find it doubly regrettable that LL has lumped the kids community – in my experience, one of the nicest, smartest and *least* sexual communities within SL – together with gor and bdsm. Not that I have any objection to the latter – or for that matter, anything else between consenting adults. To paraphrase Voltaire, “I may not like what you roleplay, but I will defend to the death your right to roleplay it.”
I simply resent the insinuation that the kid community is centered around sex, because that is just false. Furthermore, we are not child molesters. In fact, virtually everyone I know in the kid community really cares deeply about real kids (just look at our fundraising for real kid charities) and has zero tolerance for anyone who would hurt a RL kid. Nor do we abound in real kids hiding behind the kid avis. Our community is probably tougher than most of SL about reporting any real kids who sneak in.
Most of us just want to be young and happy again, to release our inner child, to re-experience our youth with the good stuff – and without the bad stuff, which for some of us was really bad. Particularly for gay people, our school years were usually somewhere between lonely and nightmarish. Is it anything to be ashamed of that we want to re-experience them in the way that we wish they had been? Does LL really feel they have to sweep this under the rug? Aren’t emotional needs (not to mention civil liberties) like these one of the business premises of “Second Life”?
Perhaps LL thinks they can make piles of money turning SL into a corporate virtual networking platform. If so, good luck. I guess you don’t need us. But right now, the kid community represents a fairly large base of loyal users who pay significant real money into SL. It is a shame that LL doesn’t have the backbone or vision to see that publicly advocating “roleplay rights” (i.e. virtual or fictional activities between consenting adults) is in their business interests.
As a note, Everett Linden replied on the Massively post, suggesting that Gor and BDSM exhibitors would not be banned – (Report from Massively)
It’s actually not entirely clear, but he does say:
> Child avatars are welcome at the celebration. However, we do respectfully decline the submissions we received to create exhibits for the event.
>
> Goreans, role-players, and members of the multitude of international communities are all welcome, and I hope you come.
which would suggest, since Goreans et al are mentioned in the same sentence as everyone else apart from child avs, that they are not banned from exhibiting.
[...] policy, volunteer Updated with more links: Rai Fargis – The “SL5B” PR Desaster Dusan Writer – Lock Up Your Kids, Tie Up Your Kajira, It’s Time to Celebrate So, sure, you can come aboard, and you can lock up your private island and keep the weirdos out – [...]
We’ll look for their clarification on Monday, I suppose Ordinal – and by the way, wonderful post on the subject, and I feel it important that you not give up on relatives however stubborn they might be.
@Russy – I’m not even sure anymore that they’re organized enough to be making decisions based on favouring corporate customers. I’m still waiting on an e-mail to billing after all (3.5 weeks and counting).
There is no “the community”.
People think differently about this.
I do, for example:
http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2008/06/slb5-not-censor.html
This isn’t about censorship or discrimination, it’s about the Lindens as a private company promoting what they wish. And I think they probably reflect the majority of people on the grid, who find the slavery and violence of Gor and BDSM distasteful and uncomfortable, and who are creeped out by kids on the adult grid, even though we’re told a million times (and we don’t frankly buy it) that these kids are never, ever sexualized.
Voltaire should have been asked whether he felt the creepiness of adults playing children or the slavery and violence of Gor and BDSM were what he intended by freedom of expression.
But…it’s not *about* freedom of expression, which has not been curtailed. That’s why I find all the protesting about this misguided. It’s about *not promoting what you don’t like*. The Lindens have chosen *not to promote what they don’t like*. Yes, a bitter lesson. They don’t like a lot of stuff. Me, for instance, on the forums. Goreans in the birthday build, for instance. And that’s their right, as a private company on their servers.
What we can only hope to do is to morally shape them, not legally complain about censorship or discrimination, which are not the case here. We can try to get them to be more inclusive or not. In this case, I think the Lindens have made a prudent and civilized policy not to let minority lifestylers fill up the public space with creepy and shocking and violent stuff, and that’s ok. They haven’t banned it; they’ve said they don’t wish to promote it.
Prok, you are wrong on more than one account. If you didn’t see the exhibits by the kids community before, you have been blind – they were there from the first SL birthday celebration. Last year amongst others things with a giant sandcastle. Oh and a picture exhibition about being a kid avatar.
Now, this year the celebrations are all under the banner of diversity, LL themselfs called for the communities und cultures to participate and contribute, to present themselfs. Now, at the very last moment, when stuff already was at least partly build and the talks were about how and where to setup – they got told: “Oh, not you, you are not included.”
This is a cowardly decision – and a shame that LL gives away the opportunity to conter the attacks from wannabe-journalists and instead choses to punish its paying customers.
–
Kids5B – LL doesn’t want us to present ourselfs at the offical party – we will do our own!
Hear, hear! Great post and lots of great comments. I could care less about the specific LL celebration, but the hypocrisy and the precedents for the future of virtual worlds freedom of expression and tolerance toward others is at stake
1) There is nothing inherently wrong with choosing a kid avatar to express one’s inner child, to find a place to escape the adult responsibilities of RL.
2) People that look at kid avatars and automatically assume the worse are likely projecting their own dark and repressed tendencies. They are the ones we need to keep an eye on. o.O
Prok – thanks for the post, and I’ve responded with a longer one of my own. I do feel a little confused – because on the one hand you deride these particular forms of freedom of expression, and on the other say that it’s not about that anyways. You comment on ‘creepiness’ but don’t allow a response back on that point because you instead say that it’s not about the content it’s about the right of the Lab to exclude what they wish.
You imply that this wish to exclude these things might be because these things are creepy, shocking and violent but protect yourself in the mantle of a commercial entity’s right to decide.
I have no quibble with the Linden’s right to do what they want, and promote how they wish. But your implication is that they’ve made this decision to set a tone for what kind of community they want to represent, and that kids and Gor and BDSM is too “creepy, shocking and violent”. But first, these are PG sims we’re talking about, and second, these are multi billion dollar market segments.
This leaves us with the conclusion that they have the right to make BAD decisions as well. Which is true, but their bad decisions aren’t because of a FIC, their bad decisions are because they don’t really know WHO they’re marketing to, don’t understand the competition, and don’t really know what it means to retain customers through community relations.
So in the end, sure, they can do what they want. But don’t imply that they’re doing it because they’re sanitizing us from creepiness as sound business practice. There’s nothing sound about it.
What we can probably agree on is they don’t run their operations very well, market poorly, and have sub-optimal communication skills. We also agree that we as a community shouldn’t rely on the Lindens for anything more than billing, the ability to log in (usually), and an occasional upgrade or two followed by endless patches.
[...] Creativity is on the scene again. Hardly that one JIRA will help some people to realize what Dusan Writer put so well: you’d better realize that this IS the Wild West, and it’s that way for a reason – [...]
[...] this backdrop, the community of child avatars responded to their exclusion from the SL5B events with a parallel birthday celebration. The call for inclusion included a wide [...]