Forum Changes

Dear Second Life Residents.

The Forums are undergoing another transformation.

When we were originally imagining how the Second Life community would grow, we envisioned the Forums facilitating relationship building and serving as a communications focal point for the community. A place where freedom of expression and creativity could coexist with tolerance and intelligent debate. As our community has grown larger and more diverse, these lofty goals for the Forums have become increasingly difficult to maintain.

In the last revision of the Second Life Forums, we hoped to appease our ever-expanding community by adding more Forum options, loosening some of the Forum standards, and adding Mature Forums. While some of these changes were successful -- the Mature Events Forum, for example -- they've done little to stem the tide of negativity and personal attacks that have sadly become a regular part of these Forums. Increasingly, and reluctantly, we've been forced to wield the censor's pen and remove threads.

Thus our latest reworking of the Second Life Forums -- a redesign that focuses the discussion directly on the one thing we know the most about: Second Life. We've enjoyed the wonderful and bizarre off-topic discussions that emerged from the Forums since Second Life began, but we've become more and more aware that there are other, better outlets for this kind of discussion -- including the growing number of Second Life fansites.

The Second Life Forums will now be devoted to Second Life, and to support that goal we're adding several new Forums including a new area to discuss Resident created animations as well as the opportunity for Second Life groups to establish and maintain their own Forum. We've also tried to respond to your requests for more succinct and 'scannable' names and descriptions.

Please help us regain the original intent and spirit of the Forums. Use the Forums to uphold the Second Life values of tolerance, liberty, and free expression. And before you post, please think about your words and how they can positively, or negatively, impact the world you're helping to create.

To request a group forum, please have the person who will be moderating your forum send an email to [email]groups@lindenlab.com[/email]. You need a minimum of 15 in your group.