SECONDTHOUGHTS: removing telehubs thoroughly sickens community leader

Well, as much as I love talking to just you all, I agree here! I love new people and know they are vital to the success of SL. And yes this issue (retention) should have a top priority discussion status right now I think.

I agree Ice! And I think those businesses that can continue to make business plans and even "disaster recovery plans" that will weather them through changes are going to be the businesses that last and succeed in SL. As this is still a young "world" and it is constantly evolving and growing, there is no way a business will succeed that can't adapt with change.

You know, I actually *did* explore a whole lot more before telehubs were put in. I would teleport into a location and then take the time to look around at what else was in that sim. Mainly because I had more time. Time that wasn't wasted flying 1k meters to that original location because I had to get to it from a hub. And the frustration of the lag and getting stuck in buildings around hubs would just totally put me in a bad mood. I end up just going to the original place I was headed and then my mood keeps me from wanting to look at anything else.

Am I missing something? I thought the P2P was brought about because of the voting system which was brought about because residents wanted it. So LL shouldn't change anything, even if we want it?

What concerns me the most about my friends here in SL is their intolerance to viewpoints other than their own. If you only have nasty things to say about Prok, then shut the hell up. He is a fellow resident of SL, and if he has a viewpoint about something he has the right to say it.

Well, outside of the forums he has a right to say what he wants. I agree with you on that Hank. But then we also have a right to disagree with his viewpoints. And all too often people take disagreements to mean someone is being attacked. And that just is not true. And he himself really *does* say mean and nasty things about other people *all* the time. So telling us to shut the hell up but let him speak is sort of hypocritical isn't it?

Well, here are some snippets of off-topic Prok bashing...

















All examples of bashing Prok for who he is or for issues he fought for before, and not talking about the issue brought up by the thread creator.

I only say "shut the hell up" to folks who are only in this thread to say nasty crap about Prok. If you don't have something nice to say or to add to the conversation, then don't participate. If you find yourself just saying something nasty about something so you can appear cute, or part of the in-crowd then delete your post.

Fair enough Hank. But remember too that these responses come about because of a person that literally bashed others day in and day out on the forums and continues to do so on other blogs and mediums. It is hard to find nice things to say about such a person when you have been dogged by them so much. And while it may be childish to treat him the way he treats us, I suppose it is human nature to bite back when bitten.

I wonder if businesses have to adapt when an interstate highway is put in circumventing all the local stores and restaurants?

How about back when rail traffic turned to air traffic in the U.S.? Surely some businesses had a tough time with change. Some adapted.

So, we know these things...
#1. Change happens
#2. Everything is a Risk

I do feel sorry for those who paid lots of money for telehub land, but we all know that land ownership in SL carries a risk with it. But the bigger risk is that Second Life doesn't evolve and change for the better. If Second Life remained stagnant, then the entire SL economy would decline over time. So, thank the telehub land owners for taking the hit for us all this time. Next time it might be you, or me.

Thank you so much, Hank.

And I would like to add, for the benefit of any new players reading this, that not everyone feels the way some of the people so happy to talk down another resident feel. But - woe betide you if you should stand up for him; you'll be talked about the same way, too.

Prokofy is a friend of mine, and has been for three years, since we met in TSO. He's eccentric, but brilliant. Not always on the right track, but so often on it he makes some of these people SQUIRM by being so EXACTLY on the right track. He's changed the whole lexicon of the game (FIC, etc.) and some of these people don't even realize it yet. He's generous to a fault, sweet behind a gruff exterior, and absolutely gifted in using words.

I'm proud to be his friend, and hope always to be.

coco

Bologna! I have very close friends that like Prok, and some that even agree with some of what he says. I'll dispute with them the same way I would anyone else. Doesn't mean I like them less. And I *know* I'm not the only person that behaves this way.

Generally, when someone is not liked in SL, it is their own doing by their own words and action. And is not because they happen to agree or disagree or even like or dislike another person. I know very few if any people in SL that would dislike someone for that reason.

If you're going to include me you might care to read all the other stuff I posted about never having heard of him before.

Popular opinion shouldn't trump all other criteria. If you think so, let's have a vote on whether all objects should be freely copyable.

In fact, I now propose Lumiere's Law: The robustness of a virtual economy is inversely proportional to the capabilities broadly available to avatars within the simulation.

Add a capability, damage the economy. It will now be harder to make a living selling vehicles. Of course, there may (as I am willing to admit in the present circumstance) be overriding criteria; but popularity is not the last word.

And some people (I suspect most) would prefer the weakest possible economy.

I would rather see teleportation strengthen the economy, by making it only a function of scripted objects. Possibly with some connection to land parcels, so that there is an inherent cost. And shouldn't it be possible to attach scripts to parcels as well as objects -- enter a parcel and it behaves like an attachment!

--Allie

PS. I like Prokofy, and he does provide a service as a land-broker: I bought a parcel from him which has a beautiful view, which hasn't changed for eight months. What's that worth?

Hank, I went back and re-read his blog, and what people have said here have been pretty tame compared to his blog. But, I agree with you that it is not fair as he cannot respond. I took blaze's pro-Prok position in the OP seriously and thought, "Who crowned Prok and made him king?" Regardless, my comment is either sarcasm or "damning with faint praise" and I will let it stand. If we cannot take either of those, it is time for all of us to grow slightly thicker skins.

After reading his blog, the thing that puzzles me is when person A criticizes person B for "speaking for the masses" when person B is really speaking for their own self-interests and then person A turns around and does the same exact thing. It's funny.

P.S. Coco, most of those "ideas" (only the ones that make sense) were described much better slightly after the advent of MUDs back in the dark ages of the internet. (It took a while for MUD using college students to actually get around to writing a thesis.) There are a number of sociolgical studies on them. FIC is just a rehash of the MUD users vs. immortals conflict. Re-labeling ideas and calling them your own is many things, but genius is not one of them.

My view is pretty much that the hub land owners have done this to themselves to a large part, and for every finger they're pointing at LL and the "ignorant landless masses" there's a few hundred fingers pointed right back at them.

For instance, many of these player-owned hub point malls and such are constructed in such a way as to hinder a person's progress away from them. Many residents leap, run, fly as fast as they can once they teleport in so as not to get caught in what many percieve as deliberate attempts to hold them captive.

If hub land owners were more concerned with those teleporting into the hubs, and designed them in such a way as not to build skyscraper fly traps then the animosity against them by the overall player base might have been marginalized.

The same with working responsibly to keep the lag down instead of a lag trap to freeze incoming residents from escaping before the walls came up sealing them in.

Bascially I think the hub land owners, through sloppy handling of hub land, provided the greatest fuel and impetus to the vote to remove telehubs and go P2P.

Just my $0.02L

Well stated Charlton! Great observation and view point!

Excellent post I just made a similar observation in Anshe's Will You Cry For Me, Argentina? thread about her being complicit in the very downfall of the telehubs she is complaining about.

Yes, it's an interesting argument.

I hope we come to a balance here, though. I think the Land Barons need to appreciate, as you said, that they are dying the by the sword that they lived. However, I think a little of the reverse should be allowed to. They should be allowed to live by that sword.

Ooops, posted it again instead of deleting it like you told me to, Hank, sorry. Maybe its because I meant it. Could you please detail to me exactly where I personally insulted Prokofy directly as opposed to the laughable position she's put herself in?

Try staying on topic then. The thread topic is "SECONDTHOUGHTS: removing telehubs thoroughly sickens community leader", not "What nasty comment can I make about Prok".

I thought she was commenting about the "community leader" part of the topic.

I agree Aimee. What I and other posters find sickening is having a banned griever declared as a "community leader"

Well not just that but "Community Leader" was put forth as the topic. If Cory started a thead that said "Aimee Weber, Queen of the Metaverse, Agrees wtih P2P policy" I think it would be fair to discuss the Queen assertion even if it wasn't exactly about P2P.

Agreed. The term was clearly used to incite and, as such, would necessarily be part of the discussion.