SDF: SLEX Educational Campaign and Boycott

I have no SDF forum, so I thought I'd hijack the Nberg forum for this message.

As many of you know, the owner of SLExchange is allegedly in breach of contract, having locked out his business partner. Additionally, the owner is stonewalling his partner, the Lindens, and the SL community.

One of the fundamental goals of the SDF is to support ethical capitalism. If any of you are selling items at SLEX, I encourage you to remove them and withdraw your money. Further, I strongly encourage you to contact friends who use SLEX or those whose names you've found on the SLEX website and let them know what's going on.

As the first real political group in SL, it is our duty to get the word out and to demand ethical business practices in SL.

~Ulrika~

How's your SL E-Commerce project coming?

I have put it on hold indefinitely at the request of folks who feel that it is a conflict of interest. Just like those who are taking a financial hit by pulling their wares out of SLEX, I'm doing the same by placing my work on hold.

If the SLEX controversy is ever settled, after a delay which we can all negotiate (1 to 6 months), I will resume work on it and then release all of it as open source.

~Ulrika~

I like the idea of the "Educational Campaign" - actually, I'm not really sure who is right and who is wrong, and under which circunstances "things happened". Of course, depending on whom you ask, opinions differ. I talk to Merwan sporadically, and I've tried to understand his side of the argument. Apparently, the issue is simple. Merwan provided contacts and support, Apotheus did all the coding and the technology behind SL Exchange. When Apotheus thought that the project was making a lot of money, he wanted Merwan - the non-techie partner in SL Exchange - out of it.

However this is oversimplifying things, since there WAS an agreement, and certainly you can't "blackmail" partners shutting them off after a non-negotiable ultimatum, "just because" one partner has access to the technology, and the other doesn't - independently who is "right" and who is "wrong" in this issue.

I agree that the SDF (like the RATE group) should stand for "ethical business practice" and ask both the community and the Lindens to "interfere", by demonstrating/voicing publicly its opinion - without supporting either side in this issue. The focus should be on "get an agreement, and let's get back to business".

On the other hand - and now I should post another thread on this! - this made me think that Neualtenburg could provide another service to the community in the future: arbitration and non-binding moderation. Sort of a "dispute resolution facility", like sometimes both Liaisons and Live Helpers do, where each party agrees that a "neutral" moderator tries to get an agreement, and even if neither party accepts a "decision", there will be written transactions taken by a neutral party which could be useful for the Lindens to pronounce an ultimate decision.

This is something like the RATE group wanted to do for business practice, but we could be more ambitious and propose a Neualtenburger Court for all kinds of conflict moderation.

And it would certainly give Neualtenburg yet another reason for continuing its existence

Ulrika, please, just let it die.

Gwyneth has sent me news of a recent development regarding SLEX.

/120/f2/34280/1.html

I've since put the educational campaign and boycott on hold. However, I will wait until the situation is completely resolved before I do business with them.


As for letting something die, I never let something I believe in die. Ever.

~Ulrika~