RFL Of SL '08 - History Made - A Missed Opportunity For Lindens

This past Weekend an Historical Event occured in Second Life and guess what Linden Labs had NOTHING TO DO WITH IT!

Relay for Life of Second Life held its 4th virtual relay. Over $200,000 USD was raised, nearly 2000 avatars participated and 1000s of KMs were walked to help Fight Cancer....

and Linden Labs had NOTHING TO DO WITH IT!

Where were the Lindens? M Linden, was invited to participate as were several others. They passed. They didnt even RSVP!

I guess they were too busy to notice that Second Life was doing something NO ONE COULD BE ASHAMED OF!

At a prep meeting last week it was said the Message of the Day would inform everyone about RFL of SL. Hmmmm I wonder what happened to that promise?

Admittedly I am a critic of LL policies and perfomance, but for these people to have totally ignored what is undoubtedly the largest virtual activity EVER leads me to wonder what they were thinking!

There are 362 days til the next Relay for Life in Second Life (July 18-19, 2009). Perhaps somehow they can put that one on thier agenda!

Trader Whiplash
Corporate Sponsorship Chair
Relay for Life of Second Life

I am doubtful that this was a personal decision on the part of the Lindens. Many large companies choose to keep charities at a slight distance when they are involved. This was really by and for the people. There were also a few other annual events going on this past week as well. Which got no attention at all. The SL GLBTQ Pride event is up, they are the 4th annual as well, and have a few hundred thousand people over the week they are up. And they got no attention, I am pretty sure that nobody even knows its going on right now.

So really the fact that the Lindens didn't show could simply be that they don't wish to become directly involved as a company. They seem to be on some sort of mision to re-examine their corporate identity.

Either way there are many events that happen that eclipse the Linden related events many times over. I seem to have much more fun, and find many more interesting builds at things like the Not Possable in RL exhibit, RFL, but I do like the Burning Life they do every year, I will say that much.

Trader,

Jack Linden and Harmoney Linden jumped through hoops to get the Heroes sims up for us on time. And Spike Linden was extremely helpful with technical issues related to the sims so we really can't fuss about ALL Lindens.

We also made the Showcase spot and though not the leader line it was more than we have had in years pass.

I did ask several to be judges for us without replies but Jesika Linden did reply. So though I agree with some of what you said we need to remember that there are some good apples in the barrel and to them we say "thank you".

Sincerely,
Fay

When I started this RFL campain, I didn't understand why some people loaded with money didn't want to help us. But I learned that we can't point out anyone for not following what we believe in. And corporate reasons are like individual reasons. Each person can make his choices. We are not here to judge them.

The dancing watermelon pot at Digital Eyes techno party at Heroes 9 was Torley Linden

Without Linden labs you wouldn't have a platform to hold such an event....

I can't help wondering how many Lindens did come, but in their 'regular' avatar forms?
I've always assume that they don't all wear their 'Linden' avatar constantly.

Hi there,

That's a great total and we all enjoyed what contributions we made.

I have always found Linden Lab to be quite *quietly behind the scenes* helpful on these type of events. From the sim support side (and I always second the positive feedback to the Congierge team who really do jump through hoops to help I have found) to sometimes more visible support.

There are so many fantastic causes run daily in Second Life raising money for respective charities worldwide. Some just a few hundred dollars, some huge amounts such as RFL. It must be difficult to help some without making it a rule for *all* and where do you draw the line, on the most high profile?

We do have tools such as SL Events etc but personally these are messy to view and not intituative to the user. Also "Showcase" I'll refrain from commenting on.

I agree on the promotion by Linden Lab of headline grabbing events hosted on it's platform is in the communities interest and their own. It will retain users, and also bring fresh users with interests in those areas to the platform.

SecondFest last year was an amazing event bringing people together for RL Music into SL as well as SL musicians, such as Slim Warrior. But I only found out about it via the UK newspapers through the agency running it. So easily could have missed the opportunity to attend.

Perhaps we as a community can define what is a headline event (e.g. over 200 people involved, RL impact etc) and lobby for Linden Lab to add headline events to the main page and also something that works better than the event lists which can be for the regular ones.

TC,
Charlotte