Kit Lacy

It might have been the news about script limits. It might be a rez day thing. But I've been reflecting on the direction of Second Life of late and I've realised I've seen this all play out before. I'll try to keep this short. Feel free to disagree.

The older ones out there might know what I'm talking about. Sometime back in your 20's you might be lucky enough to find a place. It's a bit run down and seedy but in the right price range. You move in. Meet the neighbours. DIscover what might look a bit run down on the surface or a bit odd is a vibrant community, where people do their thing together or alone, each adding flavour to the place. Fast forward 10 or 20 years. That cool place is now wall to wall office parks, office colleges, corporate towers and Starbucks where it was once a ramshackle collection of old buildings, galleries and coffee houses.

You ask one of the guys in suits walking by "what happened?"

"Isn't it great?" he replies with a smile. "You know this place used to be filled with deadbeats and squatters. Now look at it!"

Welcome to gentrification. We are the cyber squatters of Second Life's servers.

We might see ourselves as clients or tenants. Maybe even residents. But like the tenants of a rent controlled building that's slowly changed hands we are know in the way of progress.

Phase One : Raising of capital and tidying up.

This has already happened. In the open sims move last year we saw that while a lot of us thought we were renting a place to display our art or other projects the company started to see that as a nuisance. Imagine our surprise when we were told we had been abusing Second Life by using the prims we were allocated. Like someone renting gallery space and displaying paintings being told regardless of content while we thought we were renting display space they didn't actually want us to fill that space with anything. We had to clear out. Or pay more rent. To display less.

Some long time tenants complained and found themselves subject to arbitary action. That's because they thought of themselves as paying customers. In reality we're cyber squatters.

Phase Two : Cleaning up the joint.

So you pay your rent. You keep the place tidy and follow the local laws. You might indulge in the odd kinky party sometimes, maybe even party late into the night. A letter comes from the new board running the apartments. There's some concern. You're bringing down the tone. You're too loud. You find this odd. You've always paid your rent. Obeyed the rules of the building. There aren't even any minors in the building. But the board want you to do one of two things. Either stop (think of the children) or move to one of their apartments elsewhere. They won't say what the new rent will be but tell you that the new building will have a 'discreet' security check on the door. Even worse, the old stonemason across the hall who does Michelangelo knockoffs got the same letter.

Again. We live here. We pay our rent. But to the new management we're cyber squatters. We don't add colour. We don't bring value.

Phase 3 : Repurposing the site.

And now scripts. Scripts need to be more efficient. Especially on shared land and in shared spaces running too many scripts is akin to having the stereo turned up all the time in your place. You might like the music but i makes the life for people nearby a living hell. In this case the new manangement inform all the tenants in order for everyone to live in harmony there will be some changes. And changes there are. More and more the building becomes more uniform. And the tenants are seen as more and more of a nuisance. Finally the tenants come back and find the sheriff changing the locks and your furniture (or prims) on the lawn. You're locked out. Because in the end the new owners realised that business tenants are more profitable and less trouble. You don't need too many scripts for teleconferences or speeches. Once us squatters are out of the way.

And this is what Second Life will be eventually. Right now it's a chaotic digital space where we live. And it's messy. And there's scandal. and there's beauty and ugliness. It's all so very human. And the people who set it up originally loved this. Wanted this. Perhaps pictured a digital utopia. But the old faded away to be replaced with the realists who saw the potential. In an economy where travel and resources are expensive Second Life could have a new purpose as a tool for education and business.

But the current squatters are the problem. They're noisy. They make the place messy. We show people around and where they should be seeing row after row of clean crisp buildings facing the beach with young men and women pristene in their clean suits they see a chaotic playground.

And the overhead. I mean how many processes do you need to run for a teleconference? Or to walk people through a virtual tour of a new Walmart? YOu know, serious stuff.

Oh sure, the tenants here might have paid the bills in the past and helped with maintenance but...times move on. Sure they will understand. It's only business. Nothing personal.

So part of me sees this as being inevitable. We will come in to find our sims bare. An email saying "thanks for your custom. We hope we can serve your business professionally soon." Maybe even just a server error as we are locked out.

It's 1 am and I'm rambling.

In the end I've only been here a year. And I might be reading it all wrong. I hope I am. I feel like I came along during the last couple of sets at Woodstock. This place has changed me, mostly for the better. As a tool for personal exploration and expression it's unparallelled. For anyone who's been ill or lonely or just wanted to create or mess about, it's been amazing. THe golden age. But the reality is we're playing in a block owned by corporate interests. And where we see beauty, they see business potential. And we're 'roadblocks' to that. And in the end no amount of tier, internet petitions and the like will change that.
This is a vibrant digital place for characters and artists but in a few weeks, months, years if we are lucky, our digital playgrounds will be office parks.

However...in decades to come I will remember my time here as time well wasted. They can erase our builds, take away our prims but in my mind's eye, those scripts will still be running, in my memory the digital landscape stretching out to infinity in front of me as I remember what was.

(And maybe, next time I post I won't drink first.)

Lordfly Digeridoo

Meh. SL changes every year. I've been here since 2003, it's barely recognizable now.

Well, mainland's still ridiculous.

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Colette Meiji

Hey LL doesn't want doing anything that might be fun, social, or especially naughty ..

That takes away from the time you could be looking at good clean PG rated Advertising from corporations using the platform.

Aodhan McDunnough

I expected constant change since day 1. For me that's almost 3 years ago (in a week it will be).

I'd always looked at SL as a concept in flux. Features were going to be added. Rules were going to be changed. Some things would break as support has to be withdrawn. Lag will increase due to high data demand.

That SL was able to do what I saw back in 2006 I already considered a bit of a miracle (300 typical concurrency). That it can still run, albeit laggy, with the 70,000 concurrent is to me still that miracle.

Sveid Heidenstam

I have two observations.

First, the script limits are something many would agree should have been there from the beginning. The "stereo up too loud" analogy does not really work, though you could say it is like using all the hot water in the building.

Second, I do not believe LL will find lasting success in their current push to repurpose SL as an alternative to teleconferencing. It simply does not compare. As someone said in another thread, Linden Lab currently has the most ambitious social networking/fantasy island platform yet conceived, but it is hindered greatly due to the Lindens not seeming to understand what it is that content creators need to fully realize its potential.

In any case, much of what SL would need to appeal to a mainstream casual audience it would also need to begin to become worthwhile for the business applications Linden Lab is currently trying to position it for.

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Doomed Ship - SL's largest, most detailed and immersive sci-fi/horror build.

Jahar Aabye

As Sveid said, script limits are something that a lot of people (including a lot of scripters) have felt should have been there for a long time. Additionally, script limits are just an attempt to address a problem that already exists. Whether they add script limits or not does not change the fact that there already exists a problem of people writing inefficient scripts that tax a sim's resources.

The other thing is, there's really nothing that you've said that explains why LL shouldn't keep doing what they're doing. I mean, you've explained why it bothers you, but from LL's perspective, you probably do kinda sound like a squatter.

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He pulled a Captain Ahab and Jaharpwn'ed her. - Trout

Coyote Momiji

Jahar, all I can say to that is "Fuck LL".

Content creators were welcomed, feted, and now we're being treated as fairly unwelcome visitors because LL realized their precious platform was unscalable - and that when people use it to actually express themselves, sometimes it comes out naughty.

LL gets money from me every time I cash out, or sell to someone who has to buy Lindens to purchase my stuff.

All LL is engaging in is some sour-grapes hypocrisy - "well, it was lovely when we thought we had a chance - but now that we have to acknowledge facts, we're going to sweep you under the rug (and into a ghetto if you're on mainland). But, uh, don't stop selling your Lindens or paying tier!"

Miriel Enfield

Just because something doesn't involve sex doesn't mean it's not fun or social.

Coyote Momiji

No, and no one said that, Miriel.

However, those of us who do use the platform to express sexual imagination (I don't pixelbang anymore, but I do make stuff for it) have never been in good odor with LL, no matter how upstanding we are and how much we try to do to make the grid a nicer place.

Jahar Aabye

Coyote, script issues have been a problem for a long time now. And while LL may not have done a good job of letting people know, most scripters have been damn well aware of it, and it's unfortunate that many of them ignored good coding practices. A sim can only do so many things at once. It has nothing to do with scalability, and everything to do with the very fact that SL gives us the freedom to write any script and have the VM on the sim run it as long as it compiles syntactically correct. That's all that the compiler checks for, whether the script is valid. At the moment, there's no red flag that pops up to say "hey, this script is going to be laggy as hell."

And unfortunately, it means that a couple of people, or even a single person, can lag an entire sim to death with scripts. As I said, it has been a problem for a while now. If you would like, I will be happy to demonstrate this for you in-world.

If this were something that was being forced on us, then I'd agree with you, but a lot of people, including a lot of scripters, have been practically begging LL for this for a while now.

Coyote Momiji

Whoosh.

Jahar Aabye

What, I was talking about script limits. I get that you're upset about the Adult stuff, but the post that I wrote, that you responded to, was about script limits.

Miriel Enfield

I don't know why LL keeps pushing for this. I mean, I'm sure they have dollar signs in their eyes, but even they should be able to see that teleconferencing via SL has few to no advantages, and a lot of disadvantages. You have to have computers capable of running it, it'll likely be laggy anyway, people need to learn how to move around and talk and move the camera, and in return for all this hassle, you get, uh... your employees sitting around a kinda crappy looking 3D table, wearing kinda crappy looking avatars. Oh, boy, sign me up!

I guess if your company does architectural stuff, letting your employees walk around a virtual model of it during a conference could be useful. Beyond that, though...

Miriel Enfield

It was certainly an undertone. I'm getting a little tired of comments about how SL will now be dull and sterile thanks to the segregation of adult content -- as if nonsexual stuff were inherently stodgy or boring.

Coyote Momiji

For some people, it very well might be. People get a lot of different things out of SL - and why is my particular enjoyment less important than yours?

I'm getting a little tired of comments about how SL is going to be so much better without us ugly fetish people in it.

Aodhan McDunnough

Pretty tired of it myself hearing it from so many places.

I've been in SL 3 years about ... my participation has been PG (R at worst) and I never bothered with any adult content in all that time.

Total number of pixelbumps: 0
Total number of penis attachments owned: 0

Lucifer Baphomet

OK Miriel we get it... you're asexual.

Most of us aren't and expressing our sexual side is part and parcel of who we are.

No one is inhibiting your right to be disinterested in sex, but FFS let those of us interested in it express ourselves.

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FlipperPA Peregrine

"Life's only constant is change."

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Peregrine Salon: Flip & Jenn's thang.

Humps

Businesses must be finding it of some use though. Just in the last week there was a story on the BBC where the tories were critical of the Department of Work and Pensions (social security) who have apparantly set up a presence in SL. It is private and not open to the public but they are here. The tories were complaining about the fact that it cost £20,000 to set up and £12,000 a year to maintain which suggests to me more than one region. Personally I can't think what they are doing with it but they must see a legitimate use? They are even talking of covering the running costs by charging 'partner agencies' to use the facilities.

Here is the story BBC NEWS | Politics | Whitehall defends 'fantasy world'

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Lucifer Baphomet

Wrong....

You missed out Death....





and taxes

Aodhan McDunnough

I think a more appropriate title for this situation is "The Time of Unbridled Excess in SL is Over."

I'm one of those who wished offending creators would get a clue and start creating things that use resources more responsibly.

When I was new there were times that the Linden Sandboxes couldn't be used because someone had created gigantic structures that ate up all the prim allocation. Granted that it's one thing that won't change with the coming moves by LL but it's a testament to the fact that some creators despite their beautiful constructions simply do not care and wind up taking all the resources leaving none for the others ... in a public sandbox.

There were those times that my neighbor would abuse temp on rez to build this skyscraper. How was I so sure it was abuse? When LL cut the limits on temprez I would see parts of the building disappear and reappear. Thank goodness the neighbor changed his build after that.

Kit Lacy

I'd be sad if the adult content went. My worry is that they will throw the gimp out with the bathwater. Make it a totally corporate space.

The virtual world would be a sadder place without say, Tunnel of Light or the Burning Man festival.

Aodhan McDunnough

Oh it's not going ... just moving to someplace that needs verification so that LL can do a CYA.

While I don't like the idea that it will create a hassle for a lot of people, LL really needs to do this. Come to think of it, this should also have been something done early on (like script resource limits and push restrictions).

At any rate, not all "adult" material is moving. From their descriptions it's only the pretty extreme ones (extreme type or extreme amount) that will have to move.

Colette Meiji

I've always found that people with an honest appreciation for sex - IE the ones who would probably find it weird to want to ban it from second life

Are far more rational than the people who want to stamp it out and turn second life into a virtual Disneyland.

What rational person wants to impose their idea of morality on others?

Arilynn

By "CYA" you mean LL must cover its ass from legal liability, right? If not, please disregard this. If so, I don't understand, although I have seen this idea raised frequently in these discussions. When you sign up for SL, you already must state that you are over 18. From the ToS:
So this is a CYA already. If necessary, they could use a more elaborate statement that the user is over 18 and realizes that SL includes explicit adult content, which a user would have to agree to in order to continue. This seems to rightly shift the burden on the user and is used by other adult sites on the net.

I don't see why LL believes it must take more elaborate precautions than some hard-core porn sites. It seems to me to be more about LL's public image and ability to say that explicit adult content is safely tucked away on its own continent. This may be a valid concern, but it is separate from any legal concerns that I can see, although perhaps I am missing something obvious.