Ciaran Laval's blog

So the truth is out there, Prok was right, Pixeleen is Mark McCahill of Gopher fame and hey I can now play the awestruck commoner who got to dance with a bit of a legend in geeksville.



The news, which was relayed by The Alphaville Herald and can be read here. Pixeleen's identity is also now part of internet folklore as it has been entered onto Mark McCahill's wikipedia page. This wasn't added by me I should add.

The story at The Herald is actually a very serious one and shouldn't be overshadowed by the revelation of who Pixeleen really is, there are important issues at stake but you can read about thay over at The Herald.
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It's a sad sight to behold, the forums, obviously aware of their impending doom, have decided to take industrial action and are not working to full capacity this weekend. This is all very sad as I'd like to search for some older posts, the forums have been closed before but got a stay of execution, this time there's no such luck.

You know, I'm not one of the "I hate the new software" crowd", but with Lexie's iron fist rule in full swing on SL Answers I really am not encouraged to participate in the new arena.

When I see a thread like this, it just makes me annoyed about what Linden Lab believe in with regards to freedom of speech, one of the huge things we pride ourselves upon in the west. This sort of behaviour does not improve the human condition, its a rather sad commentary on modern day society that comments that were neither offensive or derogatory are consigned to the dustbin of history in this fashion.

However Linden Lab can try and keep knocking us down, but we get up again, I'm not sure what academics will make of this in years to come but we just plod on don't we, putting it behind us and trying again until they throw another barrier in our path. However Second Life is full of beautifully creative people and hey, I'm fortunate enough to know some of them. My residents rock, on one island they build a wizard tower for me, on another I have someone getting Tauri Tigerpaw to hangout there sometimes, she may even have sung, I wasn't online at the time.
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Yes sir, I can Boogie, but I need a certain song, I can boogie, boogie woogie, all night long! Yes indeed that is Ciaran doing a happy dance, inspired by the news that grandfathered status is going to end on May 1st, as announced by Jack Linden on the blog. This is a long overdue move and I welcome my influence in the LL hierarchy, why else has this been earmarked to start on the date of my RL birthday! That was a joke by the way, well not about the birthday but you can save all your kisses for May.

Now some people will be unhappy about this. Those who chose to upgrade to a class 5 in the more than three years since grandfathering was first announced have the most reason to be unhappy about this in my view. Those who own grandfathered sims will see a devaluation in their estates worth, I don't want to sound like I have no sympathy for those guys but this was an accidental empire, this was never really supposed to have happened so take advantage of your  savings because if you hold onto your grandfathered islands the price isn't increasing at all this year.

Let's take a trip down memory line and remind ourselves of what happened, the blog post from 15th November 2006, which can be read here. The key points as to why those with grandfathered sims have an accidental empire can be seen here, with these comments in the blog:
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I went to Jack's office hour yesterday, alas Jack didn't, for the third week in a row. However any theories I had about the sign telling us that Jack would be here next week was an in joke were disproven as the sign wasn't there. Instead Patch Linden came along to tell us about Jack's absence and inform us that Jack will shortly be blogging something. The something is I believe the pricing structure for the year, which should include whether the July increase for grandfathered homesteads actually happens.

Another announcement that is in the pipeline but not imminent as far as I'm aware is that of the Xstreet changes, these are well behind scehdule but delays were forecast due to ensuring that inactive listings are not hit with a fee, you'll have to wait with baited breath for both of these announcements.

So back at the ranch we still have the puzzling issue of why the Valentine's scavenger hunt requires Facebook participation. I really don't understand why Linden Lab are actively participating with Facebook to this level. I can understand the fan page in general but a platform that actively disallows avatars portraying themselves with their avatar identity is not a happy bedfellow. Linden Lab's insistence on using Facebook, especially now that they've purchased a social netowrking platform in Avatars United, is odd to say the least.

Facebook have their rules and that's fine, although I think they are missing a trick with the avatar issue, but why are Linden Lab getting so snugly into bed with them? I mean this scavenger hunt issue is a snug bed meeting, whereas merely having a fan page is just using an available platform. There's a stealthiness feel to all of this and I don't see it ending well.
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George may well feel he's waxing lyrically about cupid and Valentine's day on the blog, which can be read here. There are three golden hearts to be found in a scavenger hunt, they each yield wonderful prizes, the one on February 13th includes a bonus prize, outing yourself on Facebook because that's where the prize is hidden.

You know if they'd hidden it on Avatars United that they bloody well own, then fair enough, but to take it to Facebook is just yet another step in the direction they pretend they're not heading in. Yet more in the absolute balderdash files I guess, and I mean no disrespect to the avatar of that name. Stop this invasive bus.

I thought that maybe today I'd be more interested in Courtney Linden's blog post about the support team, Courtney is asking people what they'd like to know more about and I'd like some stats, which Courtney positively enthused over, making me think she may have attended the Tyche Shepherd school of statistics. However I am still angry about the forum debacle. At this point I don't know whether I should be more angry with Linden Lab or myself for falling into the same old trap again, I really should know better.

There are parts of this mess I missed yesterday, the blog post has this gem in it:

"One last change: The Classifieds forums will be going away. When we began the classifieds section of the forums, it was one of the only venues in which Residents could advertise. We now offer multiple ways for Residents to advertise their goods: via product listings and banner ads on xStreet, in the Commerce forums (for services, employment and help wanted) and through inworld classifieds (which are also shown on the Second Life website)."
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"Upgrading the forums" shouts the blog headline, as Linden Lab announce that they're, well upgrading the forums, as you can read here. However having used the new forum software for some time, both inside and outside of the Second Life experience I have to say, the technology may be considered an upgrade but the experience often isn't.

When the Xstreet forums closed people complained that they were losing a community, the commerce forums are a very pale shadow of the old Xstreet forums. People do not find the clearspace platform as user friendly and this isn't just a complaint from Second Life users, I saw the same complaints when Frontrange closed their old forums and moved the platform to clearspace, some people who used to post on the old forum never migrated across and the same will happen here.

The warning signs are there that Linden Lab aren't interested in the current community who use the forums, it's exemplified in comments like this:

"More Focus: As part of the transition, we're removing some redundant forums and streamlining others, so you can more easily find the information you're looking for. We want the forums to be about conversations with a purpose; to that end, we're paring down to some of the most focused forums, and letting other conversations continue off-site, or even better: inworld. The forums have become jammed with cruft over the years, and we'll be paring down to a smaller number of top-level forums to make it easier to find the conversations you're looking for."
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