General Discussion Forum

[Venus Petrov Helper]

It has been reported in at least one blog and other SL-related fora that the adult hub (perhaps 'infohubs'?) on Zindra will be removed and replaced by hub(s) on other adult sims owned by The Freedom Continent.  The Freedom Continent won the contract "to build, run and expand an Adult Gateway in accordance with well established principles."  This group is seeking mentors to help run the adult hub(s) who "understand the problems in dealing with adult content users and work with the team to build a good sound adult mentor group who will greet and teach new users as they appear."

This would be great news for adult content 'users' (one can only imagine the sections in the mentor guidelines).

What might this mean for non-adult hubs?  Meaning, hubs on M- or PG-rated mainland?  Might LL have similar plans for these hubs as well?  Perhaps outsourcing the adult hubs is a pilot program?  Surely, improvements could be made to every new resident's entry and orientation experience to convert a new resident to one who would wish to stick around.

Thoughts?  Discuss.

The bolded bits of the OP came from here. 

[Aristophanese Honored Resident]

Interesting. My links to outside source materials were deleted.

http://slconfidential.blogspot.com/#uds-search-results

Since it is not serious and just for fun, there should be no need to delete it, correct?

[Sy Beck Member]

On the main part I can see LL wanting to wash their hands of the dirty little **bleep** under the stairs, as we say, and there may or may not be merits in that decision.  If the new people are enlightened then they may have a more user orientated feedback loop than LL presently does across its whole user base.  This though could cause conflict in the future if their more enlightened view clashes with LL's more corporate public facing view.

As regards the wider maturity rated zones on the grid then I don't see LL relaxing their grip (or lack of) on those unless Disney bid to run them, but it's an area where they are sadly lacking.  It's been said many times by others and myself included that the introduction path to SL and it's learning curve is sadly neglected by LL.  There have been improvements in the starting area but new users are then just dumped in an infohub and expected to get on with it.  It's then left to the good will of volunteers or NCI to show them the real ropes in SL.

I've said it before, but what business in the world would have a known new customer come to the door of their shop and then only show them how to open the door?

So in short, yes to the former and let's see what happens and as to the latter, give NCI a contract to run all the other hubs.  They would deserve it after all the years they've spent doing LL's job for them.

[Innula Zenovka Helper]

Would NCI or whoever want to run the other hubs?   Remember that the basis on which proposals were invited was that the people running it are responsible for the tier on the four sims.

[Sy Beck Member]

Good point Innula, I wasn't aware that LL wanted to be paid for someone else to do their job for them.  A weird turnaround in externalising a service that I for one would never have guessed at.

[Venus Petrov Helper]

That sure is having your cake and eating it.  Now we know the cost of being top placement in search.

[Amethyst Jetaime Advisor]

Have to question now the contractor is going to cover costs if they have to pay for the sims.  Doubt anyone is going to take on the cost of fours sims for grins.  They will either charge for their services or 'sell' advertising and stuff to the newbs.  Now if you were a newb and your first experience was being surrounded my rampant ads and hit up for money before you even knew if you'd like SL would that induce you to stay?

I have to say I think this is an attempt by LL to wash their hands of adult content in an attempt to sanitize their image and limit liability.  Now when the press asks they can say, its not us, its 'them' we're just renting server space and aren't responsible for anything that goes on there.

On the up side maybe when I crash and the location I log back into isn't available, I won't end up all the time in Zindra.

[Knowl Paine]

One more monopoly.

[Ginette Pinazzo]

Ive been intimately close to this entire process and it is indeed a scam somewhat like outsourcing, except that, in outsourcing, you typically pay the outsourced talent. In this case, LL is charging a private enterprise to run an 'officially endorsed' welcome center for ALL of Zindra and Adult SL. Its backwards, at least, and beyond that, highly unethical. Why? Because they are monetizing a so-called official 'gateway' to an entire section of Second Life. A private organisation will be paying to have the 'exclusive rigths' to the name Zindra? (amazingly, that's part of the contract) Think about that. Not only is it obviously unfair on a grand scale to anyone who resides on Zindra or any of Adult SL, it is akin to a government selling the name of its own country to a private corporation, rigth out from under the feet of its population.  Its an amazing level of exploitation.

Incidentally, I have been very close to this and I actually dont think its a move to 'wash hand clean' of Adult Content by LL. I actually believe they want to make it work and recognize that the adults-only market is about to explode in importance in the coming years.Their marketing department just hasnt quite sorted out how to cope yet. And their community relations department has no clue how to prepare for it. They are destroying previous 'organic' and successful community programs to create an undoable and grossly unfair situation. I believe this is coming from poorly applied principles rather than malintent. They have about half the ingredients and intelligence to do what needs to be done. It's that missing half we are all worried about.

[WolfBaginski Bearsfoot]

If I read Rodvic's last announcement right, Basic mode is going to vanish and the UI is going to be re-worked.That's going to be a big change, and it's going to affect all the organisations which affect newcomers. It also means that the Lab's existing newcomer-support infrastructure will need a rework.

So they're going to dump all that work on somebody else?