New Zindra Blog Post

Thank you for that insight, that is exactly what we need, not a governing body, or people that see themselves as in charge, it just gets backs up, and you are absolutely right we have one governer and that is a LInden, and all we need. Thank you

I posted here twice Brie asking for an audience from you, Gavin and Jago. You choose to ignore those requests.


And right after Gavin posted about kicking me out of the Zindra Alliance group I posted thisNo response from any of you.

Sin, once Blondin said "So, this is what you all want?" I would have say "whoah, only 6 of us said yes to that - it sounds like a great idea but one we should probably discuss further with a larger, informed group of Zindra Residents. We will send out a written notice to the members and open a dialogue about this - I believe many may not be fully aware of this minor issue". Blondin would have said "cool, we will re-visit this again next Monday".

That is a more inclusive way of dealing with that situation than to accept a 6 person out of 27 people present vote. Yes, I know Qie threw the idea out there - but from that point forward it was not handled inclusively.

It's like golf. Sure, you can pick up the ball and move it - but you really should get out of that sand trap the old fashion way - even if no one calls you on cheating.

This is good.

I am totally supportive of ZA's right to kick a troublesome influence from their group but I can respect some people believe it is undemocratic to kick anyone for anything.

There are various approaches to how people may want to group together, there are also some wildly differing agendas people want for Zindra. For me it is around pro and anti censorship that I would "vote" for others it will be technical issues, others some a democratic flavor they like... what ever.

I don't like that there is this political(for want of a better word) flavor to Zindra, but if there is, having as many widely varying groups as possible is obviously for the best.

Good luck as an *independent candidate* Gomez, I hope you guys go well enough to become representative of another valid position and choice what ever it is.

Divide and conquer.

Then you can accuse me of not saying what you would have said. You can accuse me of being hasty, thoughtless, or selfish. You can accuse me of being a resident representing my own opinions and not thinking for an moment about ALL of Zindra. But you have no basis to imply that the people in that meeting who agreed that "not dumping people in the ocean" is a good idea are involved in corruption, collusion, or any type of backroom dealing.

Why is that so?

You should be able to tell by my post count that I don't get involved in petty disputes here. I come to the forums to read, and become informed. Lias, as th MN of your so called conspiracy, you have pushed this entirely too far and i for one support any actions that have been taken against you.

There was NO vote on the issue that you continue to bring up. An idea was tossed out and six people agreed that it was a good idea. NOTHING was voted on or set in stone. Who knew that LL would for once act quickly on something.

I have never spoken a word to you or even to any of the other 5 who thought it was a good idea. I am NOT part of some conspiracy or involved in any corruption, nor am I a cheater. (your words not mine) You continue to beat a dead horse with your accusations and insults, and I for one am sick to death of it. You don't know me or anything about me, yet you continue to insult me and others publicly. Maybe if you had checked your facts first, before jumping to all of the wrong conclusions, none of this would have happened.

How have I pushed it too far when Gavin decided - after the issue was over for several pages- to post some public note about kicking me out of the group? You feel Gavin doing this before sitting down with me, Jago and Brie is a the way to go in a open enrollment community group?
Blondin asked TWICE was it something that we wanted to go to Linden Lab with.
You have to be more objective than that. Focus on the issue and not your bruised ego. It is about a fair, inclusive process. Not voting or even majority. Just take the time and care to make sure it is something everyone is aware of and is educated about before saying 'sure, take that change to the service provider'.

*I think all 6 have posted in their own defense by now - unless Blondin has something to add.

My ego is just fine, not bruised in the least. I am being very objective about MY issue, which is you publicly insulting me and making false accusations about me and others. That is why you were kicked from the group, not because of your ideas. The only thing I think that could have been done differently is if the ZA officers has consulted all of those who you publicly defamed before kicking you out. My vote on that would have been a resounding YES.

You were not publicly insulted until you chose to identify yourself in a public forum. And these are not false or even accusations. There is a posted chatlog on slapt.me.

So you think the 6 should still sway what occurs in a community group. Well, the Zindra Alliance group should be inclusive - not a group that does such things and then silences anyone that objects.

Lias, you will never understand that the way you handled your objections to what happened in that meeting in the wrong way. I'm done with you. I have already wasted enough of my time on you. Have a nice life.

I handled it the way that was left open to me. In an open letter to the Zindra Allaince - because when I mentioned these same issues I was ignored. Out of this I have a meeting where the officers of ZA will be working with the community landowners to make a inclusive agenda to present to Blondin on Monday. It s never wrong to voice your opinion Mysti - even is the parties you are talking to refuse to listen.

Well, I really don't have any axe to grind here: I'm just rather interested in issues of community and governance. Which is doubtless why some would say I should just shut up. But, hey, this IS public, and very interesting indeed, so what the heck . . .

Exclusion of some one from the rights, privileges, and duties entailed in citizenship has always been viewed by most cultures as a very very serious step indeed. In ancient Athens, ostracism and exile was voted on by every eligible member of the polis, not left in the hands of the most prominent citizens. That it was still prone to abuse is unquestionable. But at least the process was a public and fairly transparent one.

Say what you like about Lias, she is nothing if not "public and transparent" in her views. And while I have absolutely NO opinion about the validity of her concerns, she is, I suppose, also functioning somewhat in the way that the media is supposed to, bringing to light things that might benefit from more public scrutiny. That is NOT to say that she is necessarily correct, but this kind of "muckraking" is actually one of the safeguards of a modern democratic community.

What would disturb me most about all this, were I a member of your community, then, is the arbitrariness of the decision to expel Lias. That, and the opacity of the decision, the lack of proper "process," and the absence of any sort of democratic consultation here.

What you have instead is the same old old: a group run arbitrarily by a few "big players." I am more than willing to believe that these "players" are making their decisions in good faith, and with what they believe to be the best interests of the ZA at heart. But without a transparent process for this sort of thing, they leave themselves open to the accusation that they believe they have proprietary control over the entire community.

I thought the Alliance was a rather interesting and, initially, innovative approach to community governance: it seemed to reflect the sort of openness that is evident in Slapt.me. Despite some (well-known) personal and ideological reservations about some of the content that this group endorses and represents, I'm actually rather sorry to see something so promising apparently spinning out in flames.

Because nobody was involved in corruption, collusion, or any type of backroom dealing.

Falsely accusing people of shady dealings is wrong.

Refusing to retract such accusations and apologize to the accused is not just graceless, it destroys goodwill, disrupts a community, and tarnishes the reputation of both the accuser and the wrongly accused.

If the claim is that the Blondin meeting itself was corrupt, collusive, or some type of backroom dealing, that's just as wrong. It was the sole, official process for getting things done. It's possible that some better process can be devised, but that doesn't justify attacking those operating under the extant rules.

A retraction and an apology are long overdue. At this point, unfortunately, that will not heal the damage inflicted on not only the Alliance but the whole Zindra community.

And yet, back in July, at a meeting with Blondin which you attended, we had a rather similar situation.

Gavin said, after we'd been complaining about the glow and the light-emitting trees, Blondin asked, There was near, but by no means total, unanimity that something should be done; one person there, perfectly reasonably, said she thought there were far more pressing issues that required attention.

Nevertheless,, despite the fact one person was saying, in terms, "that'll be alot of work for the Lindens to change that, Is it really that urgent guys? [...]I agree its not nice but I think there's more urgent things right now " did you say, No, your sole contribution to the discussion of that topic was, Why's one such a big deal it's worth making all this fuss and commotion about and the other hardly worth your attention, or so it would seem?


*I may have miscounted

I don't know why you persist in thinking a region naming mistake needs "wider discussion". That leads to gridlock.

It was a Linden mistake to name a region Zindra, since that's the same as the name of the continent. Anyone who understands anything about geography knows that - you don't give the same name to two places, causes confusion. (New york is a state, and New York City is the city name, they are not the same, but it's rare enough to have a name collision that NY,NY is a notable thing in itself).

It was even a greater mistake to put the Zindra name to a water sim way over on the edge of the continent. It was a third mistake for Blondin to not recognize it immediately as a mistake and ask for feedback. Maybe he's just trying to be nice, but once pointed out, changing or swapping the names is a bug fix, not something for debate.

In this case, the solution is actually a decent one, since the new Zindra location is next to Mosh and Ortiz infohub. All it needs now is some building to make it more useful than the green field it is now (and people do land there, fairly often).

Some things need to be decided by consensus, but this is not one of them. For those that do, run a group vote and report it as N landowners voted for/against, but the Linden staff need to put that in perspective against the total number of Zindra landowners. 100 yes votes from the ZA out of 850 total landowners is still only 12%, so if its something important, they need to query the whole Zindra population, the whole adult region population (Zindra + Estate) or even the entire grid.

I don't think they will do that, as a business. Consider yourself lucky they listen at all to us.

That's a route to getting nothing done. It's hard enough to get the Lindens to listen to us and get something done as it is. If we have to have a debate about what color to paint the crosswalks, we will get *nothing* finished.

Getting nothing accomplished is the whole POINT of committees.

I got a notecard from someone saying the *name* of the photo used in her search listing affected it's visibility in search. She had a photo named "bondage dungeon" and claimed that made it disappear below adult level. I tried to reproduce it with my own parcel, and was unable to. I loaded up a photo with adult words in the name, and it still shows just fine on mature checkbox.

Has anyone else noticed this behavior, or can reproduce it? If it does happen, that's a "hidden gotcha" for people to set up their search entries.

Does setting the object itself visible in search make a difference?

Remember, it takes a while for the Google search engine to rescan your parcel and update it.

I takes a while for the google search engine to rescan your parcel?

That would be extraordinarily weird. It would require that the image name, not just its UUID, be retained when setting the parcel texture, to no purpose that I can imagine. The world.secondlife.com pages that are created for parcels and indexed by the search engine contain only the UUID of parcel textures (as indices into secondlife.com/app/image/...), so that's one place where we know the image names are not present.

If they are in fact filtering Search based on content other than what is used by the search engine itself, that would be a downright astonishing discovery.

Qie, the deal was shady.On purpose or accidentally. Because it was not premeditated it is OK?
I agree. You all should apologize for making that error in judgment. But I do not insist upon it. Let bygones be bygones and we move forward as a community better equipped to be inclusive of everyone.

I am happy to see you are becoming more aware of the lack of process that has plagued this group. I finally had to say something. I am glad you did also. Hopefully, with this new PROCESS of meeting with the community and sending out tat transcript and agenda prior to meeting with Blondin the Zindra Alliance can be an inclusive community group.