Defining the FIC (Seriously)

Although many of my friends do talk with the lindens on a friendly basis, non of us is getting any special treatment that I am aware of.

If we get results faster then most people, it is usually only because:
1)We are more familiar with the system due to the longer time we spent on it, and we know where to look or who to ask for answers.

This does not mean that no one else can do the same. If a 3 day old newbie asks these people the same questions, they will get the same answers the veterans do. The only difference here is that the veterans allready know who to ask first for faster results.

2)We are allready familiar with the quirks of the system. So in most cases, we do not even have to ask or check on anything - we allready know what works, what doesnt, and how to use these factors to make something that works.

So, overall, yes. Many of the veterans are in friendly terms with the Lindens - but this is mostly because the veterans and the lindens tends to be geeky and into virtual world creation, so they share a common language. This does not mean that any of them gains any special treatment when it comes to world operations.

In my personal opinion, if you really want to find the mytical FIC who gains special advantage over others, you may want to look at the people who pay LindenLab very large sums of money each month. These people are probebly getting a special treatment - more then anything anyone who happens to have friends somewhere would ever get.

Dont' Dream It ~ Be It

The FIC is imaginary construct in a few residents' minds. Occassionally FIC drama is amusing. More often it's tiresome.

Bollocks. If such a thing did happen it would in no way hinder your SL experience or prevent you from getting exactly what you're paying for. If you believe you have some right to anything beyond those two things, you're wrong.

The only way you can truely get to the bottom of the FIC fallacy is by nabbing a suspected FIC, shoving copper wire under their fingernails and applying electricity or heat. This should get you answers. However if you go the Torquemada approach you can get the answers you want to hear. A subtle but important difference.

p.s. I dont think anyone gets special favors, I think we are all ignored equally

I've been labeled FIC a time or two because my company creates content for clients in SL. It was just plain funny when all it alleged was that I was of such value to LL as a content creator that they would "fete" me. I had this mental image of a sim full of balloons and streamers with Philip and Robin, wearing silly hats, wheeling in a big cake so I could blow out the candles. Wheee!

But now this ridiculous FIC label is apparently taking on the implication that I'm a no-talent bimbo who got important, high-profile, lucrative gigs because of my incredible erotic typing performance on a virtual casting couch. That's not just funny. That's hilarious.

I'd like to state for the record that I haven't cybered any Lindens. Unless . . . Gus, how many alts do you have, babe?

I did not cyber that woman...

It shouldn't do. Again as far as I know, FIC was never meant to state that people were incompetent. I did suggest, though, that there might be other people more competent who LL hadn't given bennies to because they weren't aware of them, because they (LL) didn't shop around.

Oh, I see.

I'm not an incompetent, it's just that my clients would have hired someone else if I hadn't cybered the Lindens to exhaustion so they were too tired to go shopping.



If you want to know the definition of FIC, the originator of the term has posted about that here: http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/

But if you're just looking for some excitement on a dull weekend, keep on postin'.

If there were a way to not only visually, conceptually, and semantically merge Neil's above statement, with AJ's image of the monkey gettin' on with it's surrogate robobabe...

Then and only then would I have an appropriate reply for this thread.

http://secondlife.com/developers/directory.php


There's the shopping list.


There's 14 individuals or companies on there that have taken the time and effort, and shown the professionalism to organize themselves and submit their business to LL for consideration for projects. 14. Considering the amount of talent in SL, I'm really suprised there isn't more.

To expect LL to go beyond the list of people who have said they're interested and shown a modicum of organization and professionalism is expecting a lot more than they should from a private company. I wouldn't expect any other business to essentially go out into the street and hollar on the corner to find someone to work with another business they're trying to establish ties with.

An essential part of any business is making yourself known. Its not LL's responsibility to track you down, any more than it is an inworld client's.

Besides, why do anyone expect LL to do the legwork for them? I know a number of development groups that take an active hand in proposing SL projects to RL businesses. That's what businesses do - they actively seek out new markets and new consumers.

Kim's remarks were right on the nose. Its beyond insulting to insinuate that any developer got a project only because of a hypothetical romantic relationship with a Linden. Not only that, it makes piss-poor business sense. The entire concept smacks of reeking jealousy and an individual who has nothing better to do than try to get involved in the personal lives of others.

1. That monkey is not humping a robot. That's from an old experiment, in which baby monkeys were taken from their mothers and put in one of several situations. The monkeys given surrogate mothers clung to them as if they were real. That's a baby monkey, too young to hump, and sadly without a mother.

2. Chip, you said, "It always boils down to the accuser believing they're entitled to something they're not getting. It's an inherently selfish phenonemon... What other people may or may not get is of no consequence." No, sometimes it boils down to the accuser believing he/she isn't entitled to something they are trying to give him/her. Because whether others get or don't get the same opportunity is of great consequence to us all.

3. Cory, the Developer's Directory is one of the things I mentioned in my thread I made some time ago, called "Advances in Equal Opportunity: Where We Are Now."

So, asking, well, isn't this enough? Well, yes - exactly. It is enough, for its uses. But prior to having it, people were saying we didn't need it. And everything like it is an improvement, a step forward, and an advance in equal opportunity.

That is an example of how all things should go. Things should never just go to the first person who's talented and handy. For smaller projects, the contest paradigm is the way to go.

Equal opportunity for all is a win-win situation for all. New talent gets a chance, the Lindens get much more variety, and the world is a more upbeat and exciting place to be in.

4. That's the equal opportunity aspect of it. It goes without saying that no one should be receiving favors due to having cybered with someone, and no one should be punished or have things taken away from them because another player has undue influence.

coco

If, and only if, what you're getting is less than what you were promised when you signed up. If it's anything else then you are indeed being selfish by believing you're entitled to anything more than that.

Thanks for posting that link, Cory. Anyone who complains he or she isn't getting a fair shot at projects and hasn't sent in info for that directory is . . . well, pretty funny.

A few people asked me, with a nasty insinuating tone, how I got hooked up for my first UC Davis building project in SL. I answered a classified ad right here on the forums. Anyone complaining they aren't getting a chance at projects who's not reading those ads daily needs to stop wasting time on drama and go check there.

Another example . . . my content creation team, The Magicians, did a big project for Global Kids, Inc. that was moved to the Teen Grid. How did I get the contract? The client wandered around SL talking to people about their builds, checking out their work, asking about their experience, and inviting them to join his group and come to a brainstorming meeting to discuss his project. He even offered money to anyone who'd show up. Guess what -- I showed up. The other members of my team showed up. No one else showed up. When it was time to choose a team to do his build, he hired The Magicians.

To succeed in business in SL you need two things: something to sell, and the ability to sell it. You need a strong skill like building or scripting, and . . . YOU NEED TO SHOW UP.

Anyway, you have a choice this afternoon. There's a SL Developers meeting today. You can show up. Or you can hang around posting your theories about which Linden serves my morning coffee.

Every time a 'FIC' gets anything from a Linden, it's labeled as favoritism, even if it is a well earned reward or recognision. This forces the Lindens to step very carefully or risk getting a riot act from SLers furious with said favoritism.

The solution that's taken? Lindens try to avoid everything and anything that could be warped by a jealous mind into favoritism, even stuff that they -should- be doing, and would be doing for any one else doing the same thing.

Because of the ravings of some nuts, those who are labeled 'FIC' might actually be having a harder time getting stuff done than everyone else. Way to go guys.

Ironically, the person who coined this term has been given "special consideration". When she was banned from the forums, LL made it policy that anyone perma-banned from posting, would also be perma-banned from in-world access as well.

Yes, she was given special consideration. Now she takes her personal attacks off-site, continues to complain about everyone being treated with favor, while purporting the only reason she was banned, was by LL caving into false ARs about her. What a crock.

This is actually very frustrating. If you find yourself on the business end of an FIC accusation, the Lindens will begin to dampen any exposure to your work. Ironically, if the work of the accused "FIC" is right on target for the Linden's promotional or marketing needs, they will try to use that work anyways, but without giving credit to the creator.

The SL community has written volumes about the FIC. This is old news. Perhaps it's time to focus on the flip side. How do such a tiny number of highly vocal people manage to cause so much damage to the careers of other? How on earth did they manage to get the Lindens to hear and obey such rubbish?

Exactly Aimee. Call it tabloidism, call it a train wreck. The truth is, it is obsessive ranting.

More than obsessive ranting, it's obsessive ranting that Linden Lab WILL pay attention to. I have no idea how this happened, but it happened. You could make something revolutionary that the Lindens are DYING to show off to the world. But if you manage to get on the FIC list, they won't touch it, or if they DO touch it, they will downplay your involvement.

From my perspective, the Lindens have signed on to aiding efforts against the "enemies" list of a very tiny number of individuals. Of course it's not intentional. Linden Lab is trying to run a business so they have to play a certain amount of politics to keep the accusations to a minimum.

Those of the FIC not snuggled in retirement are eternally rocking on!



Long live SL freebies!

I recall when Neualtenburg was hit with the FIC label for winning a contest to build a city SIM which complimented a snow sim.

We were given a lease in Anzere to work on, provided we paid all the tier and met the Lindens expectations according to our proposal.

After constant whining from the FIC conspiracy crew the Lindens stopped their program (of which we were the first in an experiment) to lease out sims for development by creative parties with real and detailed proposals.

We were forced to abandon our project's originating Sim and move to a privately owned island Sim.

Neualtenburg was a thriving dynamic community on the mainland grid in the snow sims.

To this day nearly one full year later Anzere remains completely empty and the snow sims are a devalued property.

well it's a really hard question, to which I try to devote at least an hour a day. I heard that Bub was doing an afternoon tea service, but morning coffee? That's like completely out of my realm of imagining. You've got skillz to pull that one off, Kim. Kudos, damn you! DAMN YOU!



p.s. gwyneth had a good post recently on partnership programs and how it might apply to LL on her blog for those who are interested

The sad part being, it snubs creativity. This dismays me, because the one's screaming the loudest are the one's most incapable of creation themselves...other than disdain and belittlement.

A beautiful example. Sadly, we don't seem to have a three letter acronym to describe person/people capable of producing a Linden-enforced hit-list like the "FIC" witch-hunt.