New Zindra Blog Post

You are so right, Lord.

LL gives us a great platform to use for fun as well as for serious businesses.

However, being a private person, I do not see much support. I hope to enter a virtual 3D world and they reduce their former great mentor services and support to simple 2D websites, blogs, ... so the new resident experience goes back to 2D, as soon as you got a question.

And when I come as an educator or business man, I see, they don't support the residents that I would like as customers, so I think it over, what to do with my money.

What we see is
- lack of management skills (hierarchy, consistent work, clear decisions, ...)
- lack of skills to organize things (see Zindra, ...)
- but first and most: their phobia to listen and talk to residents

In every little waiting room you will find a display telling the "next number" to be served. So you have an idea, how long you will have to wait.

It would have been so easy to display one swap ticket number each hour, but there was complete silence. However, I had slapt me, and the nearer the day came that my ticket was on top, I could estimate from the entries on slapt.me, when it would be.
And though I hoped it would be earlier (we always hope for wonders), slapt.me helped me to estimate quite exactly. Indeed from day -2 before my ticket was on, I was wrong for less than one hour.

This is a service that we would expect from serious companies, to let customers know how long they might have to wait.
It would have been only minutes for a web programmer to do that. However, instead of giving that little time for their customers, LL kept being silent and hundreds of us logged in several times a day to check about their ticket.
What a waste of time!

Your plans about slapt me sound so great. We need more information about what is going on, just to be informed, to be able to make good decisions and to save time, which would mean money that we might invest into SL.

So I will keep in touch with slapt.me and I want so say a big THANKS for the service you provide.

Thanks for the kind comments and the success of the wiki side of slapt.me has been due to those that have worked hard in keeping the information up to date and they have all spent many hours developing the pages and I hope that this continues for the future as indeed I see the wiki as a good independent resource.

We have now set up the forums and the commerce site and I hope that people will take the time and sign up at the main site (as its separate to the wiki) and join in with the forums. slapt.me will continue to be a neutral area where people can sell their goods, post and enjoy the forums as well as the wiki. We are introducing new features to the site and welcome input as we intend slapt.me to be a community driven effort. Where net nanny is kept outside.

I am glad we have been able to do this for everyone's use and I thank everyone that has and is taking part with the site as without everybody's input it would just be empty HD space, but now it is growing fast into a vibrant community where all members have a say in its development so thanks to all for your help and creating values within the site for others

It makes me proud that people have got smart and got slapt

How to sign up with slapt.me is here: http://www.slapt.me/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=181

Not even that. It only went to people with adult content currently. Not only that, but only to the ones they know about.

They really should have sent that to every current resident of SL. Do they have a crystal ball to tell them who needs notification? What happens if someone 'comes to their attention' next week but can prove they had content all along?

This question was raised before i think, when we kept screaming that 75% of people had no clue... and all they said was *land will be auctioned off*. That may be a question to ask a lawyer... cause according to LL, a couple random MOTD and forum posts, and the radom other things that STILL left 75% of the SL population in the dark was warning enough. I mean seriously, they said it only affected 2-4% of SL remember? They are going to find out the hard way.

I got brownies... who's makin popcorn?

~Brie

The email talks of being removed from PG and Mature search so this should have actually been sent to private island owners as well, if it has only gone to mainland owners then private island owners will have no clue that they have parcels being omitted from search.

The people being informed may not even be required to move to Zindra or entitled to move, indeed I'd wager many of them won't but their words are now getting them put into adult search. People who have been turned down for land swaps have received this email.

Funny how they can send out mass emails now, but couldn't/wouldn't do so in the beginng.

The wiki has been a life line for hundreds and possibly thousands of us, just as the communication between us in these forums and blogs has been. It's terribly sad that Linden Labs opt for the dysfunctional silent treatment rather than open discourse, but I guess that's what happens when the lawyers and bean counters start growing their culture fear. Made worse by a broken internal communication system and a dollop of 'jobs worth' thinking.

So their mass communication is to drop an email note to everyone who has a classified ad or a search listing containing nawty words , less then 24 hours before the cut off date. That's not cock-up and inefficiency it's cynical and premeditated - so that they can tell those who are just beginning to hear about it that they were told.

Given the kind of treatment LL has inflicted on it's residents over the past 18 months or so, I'm pretty sure there are some new nasty surprises waiting for us around the bend - but this time - with the wiki up and running and the experience we have gleaned from this torturous process (which still hasn't concluded) we will be far better organised and informed.

^L^

Take your pick:

If you're in America you don't need a lawyer, you can complain to the FTC.
https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/

My understanding is that the FTC doesn't deal with individual complaints, it looks for behavioural trends of a company. ie if lots of people complain about a specific action of a company then they'll investigate and take action if appropriate.



I would suggest those with the best chance of success in their complaints would be:

* If you have a contract with LL for the provision of server space (pay mainland tier), and
* Run a business that LL considers to be adult

and you fall into one or more of the following categories:

* LL have changed the contract for the provision of this space without formally advising the contract owner until after the new contract has been implemented (anyone who has been ARd, has had adult items returned before now or in the future)

* You were refused the swap to server space where you could continue your business operations in its present form but have now been advised you cannot continue to operate your business utilising your current server space and are therefore obliged to suffer financial loss to purchase server space to continue. (anyone who has been knocked back for the swap but has just got that email)

* You accepted the new contract but LL are seeking to implement restrictions on your use of the server space you pay for without formally notifying you. (deciding that we can't sell the zindra land until they say so but will be expected to pay full use tier for it, despite saying the covenant (restrictions on use) is the same as mainland).

* Since 12 March 2009 you have entered into a contract for the provision of server space without LL making you aware that they were intending to change the contract of use. (bait and switch I believe it's called and this would be for anyone who believes their use of their land will be restricted under the new policy)


There are probably many more too but they're the first 4 off the top of my head.

These are the types of descriptions you need to use to enable the FTC to understand what LL is doing.

The FTC also needs to be made aware that LL decided that the formal mechanism for communicating changes was to be via the blog but they failed to notify their customers of this policy change.

disclaimer: I'm no lawyer, so your mileage may vary.

/me also got the email.

Probably should have come out a week earlier but aside from that, I'm not sure I get why people are annoyed...

"Probably should have come out a week earlier" is plenty of reason to be annoyed.

Yeah; it should have come out -- at the latest -- when first they opened Zindra for us to take a look round before applications opened.

Something on the lines of,

"If you want to carry on using these terms in search in a month or so's time, you will need to take advantage of our free swop for land on Zindra. Don't worry, we're giving you plenty of time to think about it and take a look round, and thus giving ourselves plenty of time to make more land available if it becomes evident we've underestimated the demand."

That and LL has basically told those going to the open house meetings again and again that a days worth of Message of the Day should have been enough to inform *everyone* of the changes announced on the blogs, when we know that a large percentage do not read them. And Jack himself said that MOTD was highly ineffective in their 'test case' using it to advertise a multi-sim owner's business.

So it SHOULD have been done back in March when they first announced the plan for this, as well as it SHOULD have been sent out to everyone, as it could affect those that don't know, and continue buying mature land, without realizing said land would no longer have the use when purchased.

As well, they SHOULD have notified island owners as to when they should flag their estate to the proper maturity level, which SHOULD have coincided with the start of the moving process, else islands gain an unfair advantage over those moved, or moving.

Or they could have made Zindra still rated Mature until the process was complete.

To have expected *everyone* to have seen a quick MOTD, and to end it all with another less than a day from the deadline is just sheer and brutal unfairness, unprofessional, and will only serve to make the entire unaware segment of the residents angry and poorer if they want to move.

Lord knows, Linden Labs was able to send me emails thanking me for attending the Land Expo, as well as advertising XStreet. Why couldn't they have announced the biggest change in their history that will affect untold amounts of people, clubs, and businesses?


Oh, maybe *I* know why!

Because it would have inconvenienced them!

After all, they were overwhelmed with the amount of people who DID manage to know about it

They did not underestimate the demand, they estimated how many they would allow to move. The rest of us will get a NO response.
BT

I think, I share that without comment:



https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/workinginworld/blog/2009/07/21/white-house-deputy-cto-held-mixed-reality-event-in-second-life

https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/workinginworld/blog/2009/07/21/white-house-deputy-cto-held-mixed-reality-event-in-second-life

She must be new.

Well she's half right, they do provide residents a platform to voice their concerns, they just don't take a blind bit of notice of those concerns.

Absolutely. The US is pretty sad when it comes to common sense about sex, but it has the largest porn industry on the planet. so us Americans have a sort of cognitive dissonance when it comes to sex- we celebrate it in practically every aspect of our lives, even use it in advertising things that have nothing to do with sex. We buy and sell porn to the tune of 100's of billions of dollars a year.

But a cartoon titty will be the downfall of western civilization!

LIke I said, LL won't be looking at your violence to determine whether you qualify for a swap. they'll be looking at your sexual content, and whether you advertise/describe your land using filtered search terms.

and BTW, today is the last day to file Zindra swap tickets. at least according to this email we received:





^V^

I'm sorry, but that one made me snort blood all over my keyboard. that's the third time it's happened in these discussions. lucky for you, I was drinking domestic, rather than imported, so you only owe me a new keyboard!

^V^

Just FYI, here was their final response to my third request to swap. I re-opened the denail 3 times. I don't know why I am angry, it is clear there is nothing they can do about it.

Matthew Linden

Hi there, thanks for your ticket.

The process is fair in that it offers those with CURRENT adult commercial content the ability to move as they will be the ones most impacted when the new Adult content rules come into force.

I'm sorry you are unhappy with that intention but I regret there is nothing we can do to change that. There will be opportunity to purchase Zindra land once all the moves have been completed.

Kind Regards,

Matthew

Not only that, but the swap was supposed to be for commercialized or *public* advertised adult content.

Why would they offer a swap to something that is prohibited? why wouldn't they just return and ban?

It makes no sense.

^V^

I'm not sure if this is a viewer or server thing, or some ripple in the improbability field, but:

My Zindra land is deeded to a group that has always had some pretty "adult" terms in its Charter. Starting very recently--I first noticed it yesterday--the *name* of the group no longer appears on About Land, nor in the build tool when a group-deeded object is selected. Instead, it shows "???)(???)" regardless of the ratings preferences of the viewer. (To see it for yourself, go to http://slurl.com/secondlife/Wendersley/147/141/21 and look at About Land.)

Did we know this was going to happen? Is it *supposed* to work this way? And how did it start happening? (I've been using the 1.23 viewer since it was a wee RC; *maybe* it's the 1.27 server, but I'm surprised I didn't notice it until yesterday, if that's the case.)

Can anyone else with an adult-chartered group confirm that the same thing is happening? Or if not, does this mean the group's data is corrupted in the database?

Eh, the "green living" thing was LL's original blurb intended to reflect zindra's "futuristic" build.

You know, the big hamster habitats each placed in the center of its own lawn, surrounded by glowy stuff, and laggy roads.

I'm sorry, did that sound bitter?

Less "Tron" and "Logan's Run", and more "Blade Runner" please!

^V^

More Lady Chatterly, please! Or maybe Lady Lovelace, for a nice steampunk-themed porntopia?

This is happening all over, not just on Zindra.