GOM Exchange Rate fell ~5% Inter-day

Some reasons:

- Event listing disaster turning mine (and some other mainland investors') malls and clubs from businesses into unprofitable welfare programs
- Dwell wipes
- Connection and login problems
- Uncontrolled supply of land via private island sims
- February land speculation bubble burst
- PayPal fraud

Which lead to:

- Some small land barons liquidate
- Myself shutting down clubs and downsizing some malls, selling off land there
- Slowdown of normal land market

And this lead to slowdown of currency market at GOM and IGE and finally to myself reassessing risk and my own wholesale trading prices. When my selling price dropped below some people's buying price at GOM many L$ changed hands, which was followed by some further drop of L$ after that and stablization at what seems more reasonable level.

Needless to say that expansion of the "Ansheland" grid and my mainland tier of doom are not exactly cheap.

In the end this is all not very surprising but natural consequence of recent events.

So, even if there were some minority of residents that were "holding SL back" then I might not be inclined at the moment to ask them to let go.

Juro, let me try again, since you're proving resistant to me quoting Andrew Linden *in full* (as you didn't).

Here it is again.

By saying "even if" he's first of all letting us know that he doesn't think such a thing exists.

By putting "holding SL back" in scare quotes, he's letting us know that he doesn't think there is such a group doing such a thing.

Yet by saying "but I might not be inclined at the moment to ask them to let go" he's letting us know what he really believes, deep down inside. He's got to go through the motions of corporate-speak to let everyone know there's "no such thing as the tekkie wiki" and there is "no such thing as holding SL back* but with a twinkle in his eye, and tongue firmly in cheek, he is giving us a little insight into the thinkings of the people who made this world.


Might not.

So well captures the arbitrariness with which the lab toys with the lab rats!

Be inclined.

So well captures the sense in which the lab rats in the lab are dependent on the lab technicians' good will and moods from day to day!


At the moment.

So well captures that sense that the lab rats are always given to have that things *might change* *some day*

To ask them.
So well captures that sense of the monster the lab technicians creates in some of the rats, that they now have to "ask them' and not "tell them"

To let go.
So well captures the sense that deep down, he,like others know that there is something hanging on, and they *will* have to "ask them to let go" some day.

If nothing else, if it is none of these things I say, it is at least this: a recognition that a problem might be coming on the horizon, and when it comes, it will be solved by letting the technically savvy keep their hammerlock on the game's growth in whatever they see fit.

Instead of taking "too much growth" and "too many technically unsavvy people invading the space and creating customer service work" as problems the entire community could deal with in good faith, he's answered that he'd be willing to reach for a nasty, quick, and dirty solution -- letting some tiny group of people more privileged than most grab a world and put a chokehold on it just to keep from "swamping the the ship of state".

Let me break it down to you: that already happened. It already happened, and you heard it here first.

I was going to post some of my thoughts on the subject, but see the thread has degenerated into something other than the origional subject.

1. Prok on ignore, for months
   
2. FIC Juro calls attention to mendacious, possibly manipulative posting
   
3. Respondent uses "hon" in entirely condesceding manner
   
4. Respondent continues to hand-wave that his misrepresentation is not
   
5. Respondent well known as overly convinced of one's own superiority and importance
   
6. I possess disdain for lying trolls with commercial agenda
   
7. The DSM-IV seems to have some insight
   

Your point, asswipe?

Juro, I know it's annoying, but you have to read Andrew's quote IN ITS ENTIRETY AS A WHOLE UNDERSTANDING ALL ITS PARTS TOGETHER EVEN THOUGH THEY SEQUENCE.







Juro, this is a literal, sequencing read of his remarks, sure. But is it an accurate rendering of his meaning? NO. He first does corporate-speak about health rates. BUT LATER in his SAME statement, he says that it can't grow too fast, and that he'd be inclined to throttle it.

Let me interpolate some clarification so you can see it -- Juro, honestly, you must not be as used to analyzing corporate-speak as I am:

"It was always the intention to start SL small and let it grow [Translation: it *was* our intention but we're highlighting that it *was* because we're about to tell you something different]. SL 1.0 was not launched ready for 1 million residents, and it is still not ready for that many. [Tranlsation: it is not ready to grow too fast -- if it grows too fast we're going to have to do something about it]. SL is growing at a very healthy rate. In fact, LL's main challenge is to develop the platform fast enough that SL's architecture can handle the next season's population. Translation: we're expecting a slew of new players and we're not sure we can cope and we are facing a "challenge" in this requiring us to work really fast and recognize that we may not work fast enough to keep up with the influx.] At the moment don't see many reasons to speed up the growth rate -- if SL were to "tip" and suddenly become the next big thing such that hoards of people were joining up, [Translation: we do not want SL to become the next big thing and tip because we're not ready for that.] then LL would be forced to throttle new accounts until SL's fundamental system was more ready. Translation: LL is ready and willing to throttle -- what a word! throttle! -- new accounts until it can handle them -- recognizing its limits.



So, I read your response, re-read his post and guess what? Still, he doesn't say that, what he does say is:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Linden
SL is growing at a very healthy rate.

That's corporate speak. It purports to throw out a cloud of particles that say HEALTHY RATE HEALTH RATE HEALTH RATE and make you think happy thoughts, but underneath is it lurky some unhealthy stuff like getting too dependent on anything.

Then, he addresses the upcoming challenges facing LL with new subscribers:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Linden
In fact, LL's main challenge is to develop the platform fast enough that SL's architecture can handle the next season's population.


He goes on to say:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Linden
if SL were to "tip" and suddenly become the next big thing such that hoards of people were joining up, then LL would be forced to throttle new accounts until SL's fundamental system was more ready.

Nowhere does he say he thinks its growing too fast - at least not the post I read from him. I read what was typed. What did you read?
__________________


I READ THAT HE SAID HE'D BE INCLINED TO ALLOW SUCH A GROUP AS THE FIC TO THROTTLE THE NEW PLAYERS BECAUSE THE GAME IS GROWING TOO FAST.

Why do I think that? Because I'm some paranoid idiot? No, because I read what he said. And that's what it says -- out of the blue, for no reason, instead of saying, you know, we're doing fine, we do have to scramble to keep up but it's all good, he conveys the strain they are under by resortin to that corporate speak, and he betrays his real attitude by that last paragraph?

"You know, this FIC thing that Prokofy made up doesn't exist really, but let me just say, if it did exist, it would be a good thing, and I could sure use a throttling thing like that right now."

I just thought I'd remind everyone of the difference between a direct quote, an indirect quote, and an outright lie.

A direct quote is indicated by quotes, and is a literal rerepresentation of something someone said previously. The direct quote must not be severely altered, and if it is altered this alteration must be indicated either by brackets or ellipses.

An indirect quote is a rephrasing of the original statement so that it better fits into the manuscript. The content of the quote should, for the most part, remain unchanged.

An outright lie is claiming that Andrew said something which was never said, then claiming that it's obvious that what Andrew said can be interpreted as meaning the exact opposite of what was actually said.

I hope this eliminates some of the confusion which has temporarily beset this thread.

This can be a small group of people trying to move the market for their favour, speculating that the community will follow their steps:

First they purchased large amounts in a short period of time (wich resulted in a "stable trading price" of about 4.20 for a while). Then sold in small amounts at profits, and now dumped the rest wich created panic and made people panic-sell.

So, now they can wait and doit again when the "right" moment comes again.

This happends at world markets every day, doesn't have to be the case here, but why shouldn't it ?

Perhaps I misinterpreted Anshe's post, but it sounds like she cashed out a considerable volume of L$. I don't think there was any collusion or conspiracy to manipulate the market.

Juro,

Some posters on this board have a long history of misrepresenting themselves, and the facts to the detriment of their careers.

Thanks for setting the record straight, it was needed

Don't be so hard on yourself, dude. The first step in conquering a problem is admitting it to yourself. Congratulations.

Oh, by the way, nice rhetorical trick of translating other people's statements to bolster your stance; may I borrow it sometime?

I'm not saying there was just saying there could be. Anshe on the other hand is talking about a very different scenario, having that said if you do sit on a large amount of L$ and you see the price fall rapidly it's natural to sell while the market is still hot.

I cut and pasted right out of his thread.

I read it as it was intended -- a corporate-speak, feel-good exercise, followed up with a bit of a wallop


"So, even if there were some minority of residents that were "holding SL back" then I might not be inclined at the moment to ask them to let go."

It's an offhand and veiled threat, but a threat nonetheless. It tells you what they really think, underneath the hype.

I asked another Linden about it. He went into "constructive criticism" mode and lectured me about my wrongful attribution of malice, which was "dangerous".

Yadayada. OK, but then he said an interesting thing: that I shouldn't assume malice, when it could be ignorance.

And what he meant wasn't that Andrew was "ignorant" because obviously all Lindens have a high technical superiority and intelligence What he meant, I assume, was that he was ignorant of HOW IT WOULD BE PERCEIVED and ignorant of the circumstances various groups of players find themselves in, when they see other players are pitted against them (like the vituperative -- and successful -- campaign of some players with the Lindens to get the Lindens to take "too many Tringos" out of the list, and to get them to change the way Ansheland is listed in the "land for sale" listing).

I am telling you of my PERCEPTION of what Andrew says, and my gleaning of what he said which for me, is a tip-off to what he thinks. I have no doubt in my mind that he thinks the game is growing a bit too fast because it has too many problems, and that he would be inclined to let a small group of tekkie types "throttle" the growth by keeping it more of a tech sandbox and beta than a WWW of worlds. He said as much.

Now, my perception may not count for anything. But I think that people in Linden Labs know that it does. And it isn't just my perception. There are plenty of people who feel ill-served by this perpetual beta-test love-fest thing.

I'm going to credit Andrew with the best of intentions. I'm going to assume he is "good" because he's a Linden. I'm going to suggest, however, that he said something that lifted the lid up a bit about his bias, and a bias that I and others tend to feel more than the tekkies in his "class" or "club" or "wiki". After all, he himself is in the tekkie wiki, and we're not.

There's no need for me to harp on Andrew and what he said. But he did come all the way into the forums to say something, and then went silent, to the point where somebody even posted on the Hotline to the Lindens a message to the effect of "Where's Andrew? Howya doing dude?"

I understand that Andrew is a seriously important Linden. But he seems to have no clue what Linden decisions and actions have done in recent weeks -- none whatsoever. Forget about me, and my little beefs. Look at the list of things that Anshe explained about the tanking of the economy and the fluctuations on the GOM:


- Event listing disaster turning mine (and some other mainland investors') malls and clubs from businesses into unprofitable welfare programs
- Dwell wipes
- Connection and login problems
- Uncontrolled supply of land via private island sims
- February land speculation bubble burst
- PayPal fraud

Which lead to:

- Some small land barons liquidate
- Myself shutting down clubs and downsizing some malls, selling off land there
- Slowdown of normal land market

Just study that for a moment people, please. THE major investor in the game is taking serious losses not because of her incorrect business decisions or the normal give and take of the market, but because of Linden interventions that occurred at the behest of a minority of players. I am not a major business person like Anshe. But I complain because my much smaller business and other small businesses get harmed when she is harmed because she *is* the economy in our little world. I also happen to literally be next to some of her malls, so if she pulls out her malls or slashes prices or sells off land, then we all suffer on all the sims around her.

Some of the things on here weren't Linden problems of course, and weren't Anshe's problems -- something like a PayPal fraud or a land speculation bubble bursting isn't the Linden's fault obviously.

But she didn't even put Ryan Linden's letter on here -- though she could, because of its effects on depressing the auction prices.

I think we are only just beginning to feel the effects of Anshe's mall closure or downsizing. I look at some of these malls which she used to keep bustling with customers and Tringo and events -- and they are ghost towns now. It will be a huge struggle to get them up to speed again -- and she may not bother. I'm determined to keep mine going despite the losses, and I see someone else expectantly opening on Ross, and maybe like any forest fire, new growth will appear afterwards. But I expect someone like Andrew Linden to have a little more awareness of the risks and losses we take to play his game, and not talk to us about how he'd imagine if there only were a small group of tekkies inclined to shut town malls and land and clubs -- because they's what the tekkies want -- that he'd let them do it in the interests of shutting off the flow of "the masses".

I can hardly think of anyone that can disagree with Prokofy Neva's last post. Linden's been playing abit much lately with the game's functions.
For every 1 bug they fixed, they created 2 new. (and this trend's been exploding since v1.6.x updates)

Random thoughts...

Am I the only one that finds it a tad ironic that Anshe lists one of the reasons for the drop and hardship as "Uncontrolled supply of land via private island sims" when she has been a major contributor to that?

As for the malls.. could it be that we're seeing a simple adjustment/correction in that marketplace? There are a ton of malls out there and probably a lot more than can be sustained by the population of residents, so I wonder if this is just a natural downsizing we're seeing and not some collapse of the market.

Noted paleoanthropologist and science writer Stephen Jay Gould reminds us that in science 'fact' can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent" (Gould 1983, 254). As such, you are right, I couldn't possibly disagree with Neva's last post as I didn't read it.

A good comment on the perversity of some on this "community," when they can't even see the handwriting on the wall and read it, even if someone else who has their glasses on reads it for them.

I can hardly think of anyone that can disagree with Prokofy Neva's or Patryck Under's last post. Then again, I don't have much of an imagination.

How appalingly parsimonious of you, Juro.

The point of view for "some on this community" is relative to their point of interrest.

I do not agree with his conclusions and acusations.

Andrew said, in effect, "even if that were true, it wouldn't matter". Instead of hearing "you are wrong on both counts", Prok finds "insight" into "Andrew's thinking".

Characterizing proof that you are wrong as evedence that you are right-- that's an art form!

There are sentences in the post that I COMPLETELY agree with:






I also agree that there have been missteps recently with the land sales in private sims and event calendar, etc., but I do not agree that these were somehow the result of LL maliciously doing things "at the behest of" some group.

Attacking someone's motives will ALWAYS put them on the defensive, and will ALWAYS cause them to resist change. For one thing, changing something after an allegation might give the accuser credibility. So if anyone here wants to FIX the problems, they'd best find ways to point out the problems without accusations of malice. Attacking the motives of people or groups will not open their eyes, it will galvanize them against you. Ironically, this has the effect of entrenching the the problems, not fixing them.

Buster

As is using an Alt to shill support for your own blatherings.

I don't have any alts here on this thread.

Ms. Petunia has a wonderful name and I"m jealous I didn't get it, but it wasn't in the list when I was looking, guess it must be a new name.

Buster, it's important to analyze motivations. It's OK. I might be "off" and a crazy lathered wild-eyed crank in doing so, but my doing so enables all the "wiser heads to prevail," mmm? I do raise the important issues.

So please, get a grip.

These Lindens are going by their own prejudices, and the prejudices of their intimately-intertwined beta-test-love-fest....buddies. I won't use any more coarser term than that. IT is so interlinked and so intertwined they don't even see it. They don't have to convene at Forseti's insane build in a cabal to do this.

Example: did you know that the 5 permanent members of the Security Council have only had a summit once in their lives with all five heads of state present? An astounding fact, hmmm? These five great powers that rule the world never had their leaders meet. Yet they can run stuff. They don't have to meet.

I'm not suggesting some lurid conspiracy, but if they want to have fun with that lampoon that's fine, because it will get people thinking.

Somebody thinks it's hilarious to have Forseti satirize Philip having Aimee eat newbies in some spoof? But schemes like Schwan's Newbie Island with Aimee reigning supreme in it in fact will eat newbies, even if everyone, including newbies, are happy to be eaten in this fashion.

The game is growing, and everyone know it is growing too fast. They know that because they can't log in or it crashes.

They know that a significant minority with a lot of influence hates clubs, malls, Tringo, etc. and constantly bitch about it loudly -- and have loads of sympathy from the Lindens who are in the same buddy-class as these complainers -- they are mainly technicaly-proficient, smart, bratty, 20-somethings who believe they rule the world. They can go on ruling their world if they want just 25,000 or even 50,000 so in that world. If they'd like it to be a million, they need a better plan.

That reminds me of something my grandmother would say. She's a cranky old geeze.. but I love her so.