Advances in Equal Opportunity: Where We Are Now

Over the past few months, we have seen the Lindens taking steps to ensure that all residents have access to the various opportunities available in SL. I figure now is a good time to take stock of these advances.

There have been at least three significant advances in equal opportunity in recent months:

1 The PR Suggestion Box. We (I.e., some of us) complained that the same old names were always popping up in the media, and that there were better, and fairer, ways to publicize SL. The response, at first, was to invite us to submit our own activities and achievements for consideration, but only our own.

Then we said, well, what about when we want to bring to your attention something neat someone else has done?

The result: The "PR Suggestion Box" forum was created. In it, we can bring anything we want to the Lindens' attention. Even more importantly, in it, the Lindens can bring these media requests to OUR attention. Anyone who wants to be involved now has the opportunity to be considered for these sorts of things.

2. Linden "contests." (For lack of a better word.) We complained that the Lindens were in the habit of simply choosing the residents they already knew and knew about when looking to residents for creation of Linden content.

The result: More contests to allow anyone interested to submit content for consideration. Now I'm only nine months old, so I'm not sure how this was handled before my time. But recently, we had the opportunity to submit items for the premium acount promotion. In this promotion, residents converting from basic to premium accounts could choose a free item.

Following that, we had the contest for suburban houses for some other idea the Lindens are thinking about doing. Again - that was not just handed to a single person whose work they happened to like, and who they knew could handle the work. It was open to anybody who wished to submit a house.

That was a win/win situation for everybody. Anyone who wanted to submit a house could, and the Lindens, for their part, got a greater variety of content from which to choose. In other words, what they got was BETTER than what they would have gotten had they chosen just to pick one individual and go with him. It was a win for those wishing to be considered; it was a win for the Lindens; it was a better for SL; and it was an advance in equal opportunity for all.

Before that, the railroad station may have been another example, I'm not sure; and there may have been others before then. In any case, the process of opening the submissions to all residents has been good for SL and good for all of us.

3. The Developer Directory. Some of us complained when they handed the $40k U.S. dollars contract to Bedazzled for Wells Fargo, rather than opening up the process for bids from anyone.

The result: The Lindens announced the Developer's Directory, and I believe said that they were intending to do this, anyway. This means that anyone can submit their work for consideration for future opportunities such as Wells Fargo. It streamlines the process over the "contest" formula, in that you must be accepted into the Directory in the first place, and the Directory sits there as a pre-approved resource for anyone needing services.

Apparently, the Directory is still a work-in-progress, and I don't understand it entirely, or whether it will be just for the Lindens, or for all of us to look through when we need services. But I would assume that someone rejected for it at one time could always reapply should their work improve and/or portfolio increase over time. In any case, it is a better system than the Lindens simply thinking through their mental lists of known quantity players and choosing among them. It allows equal opportunity for all residents to be considered for these kinds of contracts.

Those are three significant advances in equal opportunity that have taken place in the past few months. There may be others; if so, add them to the list. Or I may have some details of the above wrong, or maybe some were there before my time, just not as clearly there; if so, correct me.

In any case, I think we can conclude that the Lindens do hear us on these matters, and that they want to ensure fairness and equal opportunity for all residents. They have listened to us, considered the problems, and come up with viable solutions.

I'm very happy with these developments.

Question: Are there other, similar, areas that need improvement? That could be opened up to greater opportunity for all? And if so, how could they be improved?

coco

Yeah. Currently, one or two established residents have kind of monopolized all the opportunities to start drama-stirring threads. Newbies need a chance too!

And on that note:



/me settles in to watch as the trailers get going

Glad you weighed in early, Enabran. Now that's out of the way.

coco

Good Lord. I was hoping this was a real post about equal opportunity that could be posted in off topic. Worrying about equal opportunity in a 3D world is a slap in the face to all the people who are concerned about equal opportunity in RL. You should be ashamed of yourself Coconut, you are a woman with education and you really should know better.



Why don't you make yourself the Rosa Parks of SL and stage a boycott against the Trolley? Ohh wait that would be pointless because no one rides them anyway. And equal opportunity in SL is not necessary because SL is not a basic human right, civil right, or necessary to continue life. Rich people whining about inequality within a luxury hobby has a hard time garnering sympathy.



Next time you double dip on first land, please think of the inequality in the world. If you don't think of the newbies, who will?

Phrases like "band-aid", "window-dressing", etc., come to mind. The entire system needs to be redefined, beginning (notice that word: "beginning" with a change of attitude - that the "community" side of SL deserves at least an equal priority to the "technical" side, and that not all issues in SL are technical - not even most of them. Another beginning change might be for the Lindens to stop gaming their own game and get serious about player participation - which, added to the GOM thing, is exactly what the Lindens are doing with the "reforms" Coco mentions. And yet another beginning change might be for the residents to stop being a captive audience for a bling-product and the rock stars who run it, and start being a semi-collective, much-fragmented (of course!) force.

But then, I keep forgetting: It's just a game.

In other words, initial assumption, atittudes, and behaviors have to change for this product to move beyond a mere-product and become a meta-product... or something.

As for me, there aren't enough prims to do what I really want to do on a decently-priced parcel of land, there aren't enough community tools to engage other people properly to get enough common prims, and there isn't enough to the product to pay out the amount of USD necessary to get the prims from a private sim or two. Nor is there enough interest in the idea of a real online "community" - which is the really fascinating thing about SL, as compared to the cool vapor toys one can make.

This isn't one of those "*sob... goodbye forever!" posts. Right now, SL just doesn't do it for me. I'll look in from time to time, and if things change, I'll get involved. I hope they do.

Good luck to you all. Seriously.

Banning forum antagonists who average more than 4000 posts a year. If everyone posted 10 times a day, there would be 800,000 posts daily.

If you don't mind, Eboni, this is not about me. I've observed these changes, and I applaud them. If you don't, well, that's ok, too.

coco

P.S. Forseti - sorry about the lapse there, I have now noticed the post-it note in my frontal cortex.

Actually it is entirely about you. You are constantly making these posts which make it appear that SL is not equal oppurtunity and that if it isn't it really matters. Neither of which are true.

Maybe so, Seth. These advances aren't a panacea solution to everything. But they are practical and mean a great deal to people who want to be included in the things that can be done in SL.

I hate it for you to leave.

coco

P.S. Everyone run over to the off-topic right quick and see what I'm posting there.

I thought SL "was just a game?"

Why does any of this matter if SL is "just a game?"

Jesus. Kick it down a notch, will ya?

Great job Coco!

I think the next place we should go would be finding ways to ensure equality of MESSAGE. It's not fair that out of 80,000 users, only two users dominate the direction of public discourse by way of relentlessly posting baseless accusations (clerverly in the form of "I heard a rumor" on every single forum, blog, and comment section they can get their hands on.

For example, a single user shouldn't be able to sully and besmirch the reputation of a widely respected scripter just because they were unable to operate a free script that 90% of of SLers have absolutely no problem using. That user's complaints should account for 1/80,000 th of the discussion at large...not dominate it completely!

I am looking forward to your future work on these matters!

I find your favoritism appauling... clearly this work should be an open bidding process.

Cannot you see? She is already the SL Rosa - these three changes were direct responses to her constant claims of favoritism. LL didn't plan these things already at all. As a matter of fact, if we didn't have Coco, newbies would be roughnecking on the prim rig.

Gee, this sounds like a familiar tactic. There was once an SLer on these forums who also tried to claim LL decisions were based on his whinings. Let's see, if I can convince people that *we* are responsible for these changes, maybe I can get a few more folks to buy into the "there is horrible classism in SL" line of reasoning, and gain some more supporters while I am at it.

P.S. Where can I get some of that messiah juice?

I think that by spending time on these ideas, it is preventing Linden Labs from fixing the Texture problems. Please suspend everyone off of the PR and all the other projects until the Texture problem is fixed.




P.S. I am doing 100 Hail Jeska's and 200 Our Philip's, as penance for posting this.

As I said, Nolan, I stand to be corrected on the chronology of things as I reported them in my above post. I await you to do that.

If not, the facts are this:

1. There was a problem.
2. We complained about the problem.
3. The Lindens instituted changes in response to these problems.

Now you may not LIKE the problems that get my attention, but just as in any other problem, it pays to take a look at the ways the problem has been solved.

If, for instance, they ever DO get this texture problem licked, will there not be threads praising that?

I couldn't help but notice that the Lindens have taken concrete steps to fix the problems regarding equal opportunity brought to their attention.

That has made very real, practical differences in people's second lives, just as getting textures fixed will do.

"We" are complaining about textures. "We" complained about not getting equal opportunities at things. They have fixed that. As far as I can tell, they have pretty much TOTALLY fixed that, but there are a few, smaller areas, no doubt.

Of course you can thank me for squawking about these problems, just as you can thank others for squawking about them, and you can thank everybody for squawking about textures if and when they are ever fixed.

You got a problem with that? Huh? Huh? I'll meet you in the Off Topics forum and we can DISCUSS that problem, Nolan.

Familiar tactic? Tactic for WHAT? What the holy CRAP are you talking about? I've been concerned about this since day one, and we have seen improvements on that front. It's about time somebody collated these advances and applauded the Lindens for them. THE END.

Now maybe you would rather I not point out these improvements, because some of you might have to admit that they were problems in the first place. Well, you know, too bad and tough darts.

coco

P.S. Thank God the Lindens don't have that mindset.

Cocoanut,

While I am sure somewhere in your mind, this thread was a good idea, it really wasn't. You once again managed to bash Bedazzle in a backhanded way, which is unfair. They were not "handed" anything, and your continuing to say that is insulting to them and completely false. What you have done with this thread is just pointed out how much time you spend complaining about fairly arbitrary things in an online world of a private company. Eboni is absolutely correct - complaining about the horrible injustices in SL is ultimately pretty petty. Take some advice from your dear friend who spends hours a day blogging about meaningless bullshit about SL and degrarding people for every imagined infraction, yet has the sage advice to say "you're worrying about this when people are dying in Darfur?". Indeed. Get some perspective, seriously.

Yeah, I was born before men made it to the moon, I thought it was a great idea, and I told people that. Then man landed on the moon. Therefore I should get a medal. Don't tell me I wasn't responsible, the chronology proves I was.

I have never cross-posted on these forums, but I think this thread, and your reply to me warrants it.

So here is the main body of something I posted in your "I demand you get out of my thread if you don't agree that myself and unnamed others ("we" who are saving SLers from classist oppression.", which you posted in Off-Topic:

You are grandstanding and trying to take credit for things you have no way of knowing whether or not you impacted, or whether or not they were already in the pipeline. It's self-aggrandizing gooberism. Spare us the claims of altruistic "good feedback". You know, and so do others and myself, exactly what you are doing. You are attempting to further an agenda that you have been promoting since you came to SL - that there is "injustice" here. If you can claim that you are making progress, then you can claim that the conditions you claim exist do exist. Most of us weren't born yesterday, and you'd do well to remember that. I know you think you're so much wiser and wordly because of your age and professed RL accomplishments, but really Coco, you're like a bay window.

Well said Aimee.

LOL!!!

If you changed the above to read:

1. Some people thought there was a problem
2. Some people complained about the problem
3. The Lindens as always listen to diverse views from their Customers. Those ideas which they think are decent, and/or were already in the works, and/or that make for a good compromise, they will implement if they see fit.


If your statement read like this, less people would have an issue with your viewpoint I think.

But how can someone be a crusader and a messiah when they present things like that?

Thank you, Pendari.

I have not bashed "Bedazzled" in any way. I criticized the system that handed Bedazzled that contract. As many did. And by "handed," I mean it was handed to them in the way Lindex was going to be handed to GOM.

Obviously, the Lindens thought Bedazzled was the best group. Obviously, the Lindens thought GOM was the best group. But in both cases, they handed it to them (or tried to). Both cases are simple matters of something which lacks an open bidding system of any kind.

If I were really complaining about fairly arbitrary things in a private company, allow me to also say that that private company has changed those arbitrary things in an arbitrary manner to make them more accessible and pleasing to all of us. And that is good.

coco

I refer you to my original post, in which I said "We - i.e., some of us - complained."

Yes, those ideas they thought were decent, and/or were already in the works, have been implemented. (I don't think the idea of compromise fits into this particular situation.)

My statement could read like the Declaration of Independence and the usual crew would have a problem with it.

coco

Can I use this as my sig?