Goodbyes

I just hope that you will consider putting your weekend updates on your blog so that we can all check in on you wherever we end up.

I'll try doing them there and see if it draws any interest.

http://marianne.secondlifekid.com/

Oh dear! I'm sooooooooooo sad about all this.
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Bloody women!

Pep (Can't you keep all your disproportionally faux-sentimental over-emotionalism in one "over-reacting females" thread, rather than spread your crocodile tears all over my screen?)

What happened to Ordinal?!?

Left SL she wrote about it on her blog http://ordinalmalaprop.com/engine/2010/01/31/explanation?

from one kid to another.... I will miss these foreums... makes me feel like being abandoned but I know we will always be friends and we are in many groups together!!

Dropping by here knowing the curtain is about to fall, or the life support is about to be yanked, just has me depressed. So, I've decided, this will be my farewell post.

Marianne you're an admirable presence in the forums and in Second Life itself, so, it seemed appropriate to choose your thread to say goodbye in.

I realise that Second Life itself still exists (how long? only the Lindens know for sure) and it isn't as if a comet is headed for Earth. Still, this is quite a vibrant community that's just ending. It's like the end of David Tennant's tenure on Dr. Who for pete's sake. Inevitable, but still sad.

I really do not want to name names since I will inevitably forget one and then kick myself later, and be unable to come back to amend that omission since this IS meant to be my final post. So...

Thank you to each and every one of you in the forums for adding so much to my days and even to my life. I've seen some awesome kindness in here; I've learned about Second Life and I've had my limits tested at times in minor personality clashes. All of it was a learning experience, and all of it was worthwhile, and in the end, rewarding in (sometimes) surprising ways.

I've also been the fortunate recipient of help and kindness in Second Life's virtual world itself, from folks who helped quietly and without any wish for reward. That really is golden and is not virtual - it's real. What comes through loud and clear in a virtual world is someone's inner self - for better or worse, and what's nice is how often the very best of human traits are in evidence in this 'virtual world.'

The benefits of all of this are not virtual and I carry them with me. Thanks, one and all. And may the roads rise with you and the wind be at your back. May the sun shine upon you when life feels its rainiest.

(I'm not drunk, honest; I don't drink. I am, simply, secretly quite sentimental.)

Adios and last one to the forum cartel hangout is an oily quacker.

Melita.

Bye, Melita. You've been really sweet. And I don't mean to be patronising - I think it's your name.

Bye, Melita. Keep those Forum Cartel IM's coming. I have always enjoyed yours.

Melita is right. Mari's thread is as good a place as any to head for the sunset. I do have one last observation to make.

In real life I work in an office where the management makes decisions completely inexplicable to me and to the world at large. I am stuck trying to answer for them without an official script and without really understanding why I'm enforcing policies that seem draconian to me. Sometimes when the policies do turn out to be a mistake, I am still left to answer for them when we are trying to backpedal out of them. I get zero support for this and only hear about what I am doing wrong, both from our customers and from the management.

Let me tell you it is horrible. I have seen co-workers (and myself) age ten years in the last three. We are all experiencing complications as a result of the stress hormone cortisol: short term memory loss, temporary loss of cognitive function, and the worst -- a build up of stress related visceral fat, the kind that leads to heart attack and to stroke.

Let's try to remember before we launch slings and arrows at the Lindens that not every employee in a company is in on the decision making process - in fact few are. In this world-wide recession, companies are having to make tough decisions to stay afloat. I am no business man and I can't even pretend to understand what is best for a company. I am content to let the company decide its own path.

Suffice it say, as long as Second Life remains fun and I am given free reign over my own creativity, and as long as people are not forced to break the fourth wall and destroy the wonderful illusions they have created (that is - not forced or even expected to reveal real life info, even though I do so at times) then I will remain a happy customer and not complain.

I have enjoyed these forums more than I can say. I am sad to see them go, but I am not angry. The Second Life experience WILL be supplemented with more in depth discussion, the kind that is only feasible in a bulletin board / forum format. If it is not here, then it will be somewhere else because it is necessary.

I thank you for the venue while it lasted. I thank all the intelligent and creative posters who helped make my life interesting over the past three years. Only the chapter is over. The story goes on . . .

.

Hi, Nimbus!! I've missed your posts.

God speed wherever you go in SL and/or new forums. (I signed on with SecondCitizen II mainly for the "Advice on Sales" thread which will continue there. I will say that I was welcomed warmly and saw a lot of familiar faces.)

I believe Amar has the highlights of the "Advice on Sales" thread. I may go and make notes of that one as well as there was such valuable advice for merchants in that one.

Ah ok, thanks, Lord Sullivan. I went over and read it.

Well, dangit! I had just recommended her store to a Steampunk friend who has a target practice range on her land and thought she might like Ordinal's pistols.

~ ~ ~

By the way, is anyone but me having trouble accessing these forums beginnng yesterday? I'm getting a lot of "505 Internal Error" messages. I can pull up the blogorum "dashboard" just fine, but when I try to come here either via the dashboard or as a link in my email, I get that error more times than not.

~ ~ ~

Also, one of my alts received the "Has your SL experienced improved" poll when I signed in yesterday. I checked no and stated that I was extremely annoyed (upset, irked - can't recall the exact word now) by the closing of these forums. I added that the new blog was very difficult to navigate and I would not be posting there but rather on one of the third party sites. I know I'm spitting into the wind...but every opportunity...why not.

I'm so glad you posted this, Melita. I was thinking my depression and, yes tears, about this forum closing was perhaps over the top. But this forum has meant a lot to so many people.

I hope to continue to communicate with you in world. Right now, even my desire to go into SL is flagging.

Yep Czari the 505 error messages are really annoying despite the status blog saying that they are "resolved". It's like rubbing salt into our wounds before the final death blow on Tuesday.

That's how I saw it too.

This could become rambling so feel free to ignore.

There has been talk of these forums going the way of the Dodo, Passenger Pigeon and smallpox for some time. Such a long time, actually, that the notion became a resident of the back part of my mind where I don't often go. Today I read something somewhere that indicated the extinction will be this week--I've seen Tuesday or Wednesday as given dates in the skimming I've been up to for the last couple of hours. How people know this, I really don't know. I left Resident Answers long before I left The Mainland so that probably has something to do with it. I've also been closing IM windows in-world 90+% of the time over the six weeks as I've been working on projects that require seeing more of the screen. Regardless, I've been out of touch and today's "discovery" has led to some investigation and frankly, I'm saddened.

When I first entered Second Life I found it a little confusing but enjoyed the challenge of trying to figure things out for myself in-world and with use of the Knowledge Base. When I became aware of the forums I resisted the urge to look as it felt not in the spirit of the place as I understood it. Once I did jump in my enjoyment of Second Life grew exponentially.

__I can say unequivocally that my success in this world is owed entirely to the residents who have shared their knowledge, experience and friendship through these forums.__

I took a cursory look at the new official blogorums just now and wasn't encouraged. I followed that by dropping in here and skimming several threads. The most discouraging thing I saw was that there is the potential for so many fine avatars I know to be scattered among several different forums. The Great Forum Diaspora.

We'll run into each other in-world, Marianne, just because our paths share some common branches. The same goes for the others I know here and those of you I have yet the pleasure to meet. It feels a bit hypocritical to lament the coming closing having been away so much. But like the old family home you haven't lived at for a while, at least it was still there to drive past and feel a little grounding. (Let's hope the archive of this place survives.)

Oh, well. Change is inevitable.

I'll be setting aside my creative projects for a while--they've been utter failures to a one anyway--and spending more time being with others in some form or other. See you in IM and social events. And if you're ever in Caledon Glengarry and see a green dot at No. 9 drop by and remind me I was going to get out more

/me waves hi to Bodha

Gosh, reading all these goodbye posts has reminded me of people I enjoy but didn't see in world, or rarely, but felt they were friends on the forums.

Bodha, I just love the little Christmas tree av you made. It is one of my treasures. And the day at SL5B when we became child AVs and had a blast.

I would love to stroll past your home in Caledon and say "Good day" if you're home.

I haven't posted in ages.

I'll miss this forum a lot. It was the first place I came to when I dropped from the sky, managed to get off Welcome Island -- or whatever it was called -- and wondered what the heck I was supposed to do next. I received a friendly welcome and an education here.

Hope to run into some of you fine avis again.