The Chosen Ones Have Been Announced

This is sound reasoning if that is the way they want to approach it. Who the hell would know? The paucity of info is part of the reason everything always ends up in a similar shirt storm.

Perhaps..... if it was realistic.

Out of 250,000 residents there are what..... maybe a dozen... who can be called 'really successful' as far as making money goes.

The vast majority of the playerbase will always be either consumers or mostly consumers, and not making any money or even covering their costs each month.

Blindly pursuing their 'dream' to the exclusion of everything else will be corporate suicide, as they continue to fail to increase the playerbase proportionally to the signups the costs increase but the income doesn't.

Phil Linden needs a dose of reality, and it's people like me who would be able to give him that, rather than 8 hand picked puppets who are already singing from the same songsheet (with only one song on it). It could be a great opportunity, but it's wasted.

Lewis

Thanks for reinforcing my point so well.

I've never heard ONE of the people picked talk about themselves in such a self-worshipping manner, and that mindset is exactly the type that shouldn't be picked.

And Lewis, you really need to come to grips with the fact that despite what any of us wants SL to be, it's the Lindens who ultimately decide that. That leaves us to support them, vote with our feet, or stay, and gnash and wail, while putting our apparently inexhaustible supply of narcissism on display for all to see.

My advice: Enjoy SL for what it is while it lasts. It ain't gonna be around forever ya know.

Well, Stella's only been inworld a little over a year now - and I think all of us remember the problems we had when we first started building (like, why is Link Prims under the tool menu and not an option on the build menu? Took me forever to find that). Also, having experience in the build tools gives you insight into the quirkier/more arcane aspects that a new resident wouldn't know to think or ask about - more advanced bugs and inconsistancies, if you will.

You should know, being FIC and all that.

Lewis

I'm trying to, despite the capitalists ruining it for everyone else. Thankfully as my gameplay is based on my personal fun value and not the value of a fake currency on a flaky manipulated market, I don't care how much they cause panic.

SL will be around longer with decent advertising, if only they could get away from the 'come and make money' fallacy.

Lewis

Well maybe the "same handful of people" actually care about fairness and justice. Not to mention logic and reason, fair play, and the dismal future of any "platform" that that lacks those and rests instead on a shaky foundation of favoritism.

You can't make me stop caring about fairness and justice through this kind of marginalization.

You just can't do it. I'm too old.

coco

I think it's likely both, and so what?

Should LL not cull any feedback because it makes a few people unhappy? The same people that are always unhappy?

It is not logistically feasible to survey all of us, so they picked a panel. I see that Pham has posted a link soliciting feedback from those of us not chosen. That's an indicator that this isn't going to be some group deciding, in secrecy, whats best for all of us.

I for one, would rather have SOME group of resis interacting with LL than none, just because a few of the usual suspects get their knickers in a twist.

When they want to create an entirely different product than SL, I'm sure they will look you up.

With all due respect, Cocoanut, the thing that irks me is that you seem to think you are the only one who cares about justice and fairness. That your voice of discontent is the only right one, and the rest of us are just under some corrupt group think delusions. You see FIC in everything, and we will never, ever agree on it. When I see genuine unfairness, I stand up against it. Linden Lab choosing an advisory board is their choice to make. What if they had chosen you, or Prokofy, would you have declined? Would you be complaining so loudly about it? They are a private company, and it is their choice to make. Life is not fair, not everyone gets everything, not everyone is the same, not everyone has every opportunity available to them. That is part of life. You talk about marginalization - you marginalize people all the time - you just don't like it when the same thing is applied to you.

It is the "come and make money" fallacy that has driven SL to profitability. How exactly do you expect all the content in SL to be created, the servers to be run, the huge bandwidth costs? You don't have to partake in selling, buying, or anything else, but then why try to push your vision off onto those that do, when your way of enjoying SL is completely unaffected by it. SL doesn't just have to be one thing, or one way, it is what you make it.

Words like Popularity, Infamous, Famous, and Well-known are all different degrees of the same point of contention and that being the FIC, which has been pretty much defined in varying degrees by those four words and of course a bevy of other words like self-serving, elitist, egotistical etc. We are quibbling over irrelevant semantics. Are well-known people popular? Probably yes and no. Are popular people well-known? Again its a yes and no question. Its not one or the other. Your ideas of the FIC may not have to do with popularity being the key, but it is an overall judgement call that pervades the FIC mythos.

Here's the thing...

I don't honestly belive LL is after information from these folk - at least not after anythig they don't already get from the other sundry avenues for feedback already in place.

This is a PR thing - and maybe a little reward/giftie for folks they like or see as representative of what they want in SL.

It's been mentioned several times bu a couple of folk that this seems to go against some of thier marketing hype - and the argument holds some water. Before I got thinking about it, this engendered feeligs in me of excitement and a feeling that there was some chance I'd get to go. Pretty cool feelings, and exactly the sort of thing marketing is looking to make happen.

So... Where no doubt they will be listened to and thier opinions and ideas noted, it is my suspicion that the primary function of this exercise is to engender those feelings of excitement and interest in SL.

Becasue, really - can we honestly expect that they really belive calling on eight people from thier customer base will get them the sort of information they need to succeed as a business?

So what, indeed. I am glad, to a degree, that they are trying. I just don't agree with this method - not because of any perceived slight or bias or FIC-dom, but because it is limited. I agree that all-inclusive feedback is not the way. However, there are, as Ordinal mentioned many times, a number of more inclusive ways to garner feedback.

I don't believe it will be as valuable as they think. I also could be wrong.

I do wish they would have compiled some bios, provided solid information prior to this craptastic thread, and generally done things in a more ordered fashion. I also realize that I will die a slow and horrible death waiting for LL to streamline their communication process.

Last I heard, Second Life was far, far away from being profitable.

Lewis

How is it unfair?

Seriously - how... if people you liked were picked would it be different? Would that be 'fair' or would that be the same deal from a different angle?

And who said it had to be 'fair' anyways? They picked a consulting group... as a business thats their right.

The fact that they decided to share with us who that is says something for the company - because with all the flak they will get no matter what they do - the logical thing is to just go ahead and STFU about it.

But instead they post the info and cop a bunch of flack.

I f'n hope not.

So in your magical world of no money and SL powered by fairy dust, where pray tell does the income and the content come from? The goodness of everyone's heart?

Yah people always ask me "So Jen how do you *really* feel about it". Alas, I am always too subtle.

As a post-script to my previous reply to you Gabe, I'd add that I agree with with your sentiment about the paucity of information supplied by SL, especially as to the exact function of the panel.

My reason is two-fold - it's just right that we should know, and it gives less ammo to the crows, who like to sit on the telephone wire cawwing and dropping turds on everyone and everything that they think is "wrong", with hardly anything more for reasoning than, "It's not fair!"

I agree Cris. I was having a conversation witha friend of mine the other night where we both were postulating that we might as well just do all the things that people accuse us of doing either under the guise of the FIC or other misguided assumptions. If you are going to continually be accused of being for example an elitist snob... you might as well be an elitist snob because no matter how nice you are or what you do people are always going to assume such things about you because of the Fic label.

Actually, I do belive Lewis has said that, near exactly, on several occasions.

Yes, says me.

Who disagrees with you.

You will notice, though, that I can disagree with you on the issues, without calling you an attention whore, or any other name, putting you down personally, or engaging in any emotional and overblown speculation about "keeping you up nights," etc.

To answer Jillian, I know why I have such strong opinions on these matters. It's cause a top-down system of the King and his Chosen Court drives me nuts. (I used to think the "King Philip" thing was cute, but no more.) Creating an official F.I.C. drives me nuts. Different rules for different folks drives me nuts.

This is not just "a private company." The spa my girl is working out in right now is "a private company," sure. It also has customers. Just like LL does. Customers which it either treats fairly, with some semblance of equality, or it goes out of business. If it selects its favorite customers, gives them free trips, and tells them they are going to get to run things at the spa on an advisory committe from now on, well no - the other customers aren't going to like it.

As for those who have strong opinions on the other side of this, like Surreal, I think many of them, too, secretly realize there is something wrong with this picture, even if they don't quite realize they realize it.

It is a wrong thing to pit some customers against others in the way this advisory committee and the trips to S.F. are doing. And I don't mean just pitting me, for instance, against Surreal. I mean pitting everyone against each other. Putting those who might want to be chosen up against the others who are equally desirous and deserving.

I hate the method of dividing the populace in order to maintain control over them, and doling out treats to those who behave as desired, and this whole thing has that aspect to it. Wait a while, and you'll see more of what I mean.

It's hard to feel good about something you think you have gained unfairly. Flattered, yes. Deserving, yes. You know you are talented. You know you deserve the gig.

But if you didn't get it fairly, it is never going to be totally untainted.

It is not those criticizing it that ruins your pleasure in it. It is the fact that the process is a bad one, and the philosophy behind it is bad. That is what taints it for you. Not what I or anyone else says.

And for those who think a bit more deeply than others, in the back of their minds, they know that.

coco

I am of the mind that it was a certain person's plan all along to make this prophecy reality.

Label, accuse, divide - and when the people targeted get fed up and say fuck it, I win!