Commitment?

I'm posting here, not so much for an answer, but in hopes someone will bring this to Robin's attention. The following, while of a strong emotional nature, is not intended as an attack, but to show a point of view.

This:
"This information is being provided so that other Residents will be able to see what degree of commitment you've made to the Second Life community, at least as it's expressed in your willingness to provide us with payment information."

Is completely incorrect.

The payment method in no way reflects how much commitment a resident has made to the Second Life community. I know many residents who make no payments and contribute a huge amount of resources to SL. They do so through partners, and friends inworld. They may provide real-world currency behind the screnes, or maybe have just built/scripted/textured everything from one end of a sim to the other. Providing us all with a far far richer world.

For the record, most have been here before the open registration, so will have provided CC information (one step "up" the status listing), but is irrelivant as new residents can have the same attitude even if they are no longer require to give such information. With the ability to hav totally free, unverified accounts the status of such is soley a reflection of Linden Labs and thier poliies, not of the actual accout.

This new policy was put in place so we can see another resident's "commitment to Second Life community"?

We are not concerned with the commitment of our fellow residents. What we are concerned with is the Commitment of Linden Labs to the Community.

Not to the buisness of Linden Labs, but the commitment to the world of Second Life. To make the world in which we live our Second Lives a bit better day by day. To listen to the residents who make up that world. To be a PART of that worl, not mearly an unapproachable entity doing things seamingly on a whim.

Residents do not care one iota about how much another resident has, or has not, paid to Linden Labs.

What we care about are join dates past the open enrollment date, due to the possibility of minors now having complete, unregulated access to the Main Grid.

The Open Enrollment shows a lack of commitment of Linden Labs by subjecting the residents of the community to stress, and to the very real possibility of parental lawsuits. The people voiced thier concerned and submitted the propsal on the Feature Voting to bring back account verification. 3000 votes in less than 3 days. Linden Labs ignored that. Ignored a majority of the population, and demostrated a complete lack of commitment to the Feature Voting tool, thus destroying our faith in said system.

The removal of the PvP Reporting is another seamingly, lack of commitment. Perhaps Linden Labs does have reason to remove it. However, Without another system to put in its place, all it looks like is that Linden Labs simply doesn't want to hear about the problems. I hope this is not true, but it is the appearance given. Overworking was the main reason given. Why not do something about all the griefing causing the reports, or to simply hold residents accountable for false reports? There are many ways to handle this by far than the way it was.

Lastly, I would like to send a personal "Thank You", out to Torley Linden. For without her responses and liason efforsts, many of us would have walked out the door already. Her time and effort is greatly appreciated. More so when she is working through constant pain in typing. She needs to have an assistant or three and be put in charge of the Liason Depatment imo. Linden Labs would do well to listen closely to Torley (if they don't already), as she understands the community, and her commitment to it is unmatched.

~Jessy

I'll let Robin know, Jessy.

First of all I couldn't agree more about Torley. She is a tremendous asset to both Linden Lab and to Second Life, and we know she makes a huge difference. We've tried to recognize her contribution with a promotion to Community Manager (in her words Community Team Spirit) and a higher level of involvement in important projects at Linden Lab.

Second, you're right (as are others who also called this out) that whether someone chooses to supply payment information to us is a poor indicator of the level of their involvement in Second Life, and I should have phrased that differently. It is *one* indicator when someone invests significant RL dollars into Second Life every month that they have a commitment to the world, albeit a financial one. And yes, there are many people who spend nothing who have an equally strong commitment and have made important contributions.

The three different account types that we're tracking are a step toward providing residents with information that helps them to decide whether or not to trust someone they don't know. It's absolutely not a perfect way to do that, but given concerns about completely anonymous accounts and griefing it is a beginning. There is no RL information revealed, nothing said about how much someone spends, and nothing said about what type of payment information has been given to LL. Just an indicator that we have some information on record about this individual so he/she is not completely anonymous within Second Life.

The payment information we receive is also not a perfect indicator of age, but it is consistent with the credit card requirement we've made in the past -- that the likelihood is greater that someone with a credit card on record is over 18.

We are looking at other options for age verification. So far we haven't found one that works globally, so we may find we have to use different systems in different parts of the world. This effort will take some time to put in place, so again, for now the three tiers are our best option to provide at least some indication of age verification.