INVITATION TO MEET FROM UCCSL TO RODVICK HUMBLE AND PETER GRAY

[Elia Melodie]

United Content Creators of Second Life
The UCCSL




October 21, 2013



Rodvik Humble, CEO
Peter Gray, Director, Global Communications
Linden Lab Headquarters
945 Battery Street
San Francisco, CA  94111

VIA: Email & SL Forums

Dear Sirs:

The United Content Creators of Second Life is a group of residents and content creators, in both the commercial and artistic communities, who share concerns regarding the August, 2013 Terms of Service, specifically Section 2.3. To resolve these issues and concerns, we ask that you sit down and meet with the UCCSL Council.

Please contact Kylie Sabra in world to set a time.

Warm regards,


The UCCSL Council

(this has been also sent via email and no we are not trying to do like the bots who spam for sex in dubai. we think that is enough important for being posted in several subforum for Rodvik finally see and answer us. thank you for understanding)

[Amethyst Jetaime]

I suggest you send it as a registered letter , return receipt requested via snail mail.  Then no one can claim they didn't get it and it will call importance to it.  If no response is received then we know we are standing in the we don't care about content creators section, which is where I suspect we are anyway.

[Hoshi Kenin]

If you have been in SL for more than a year or two, you should know by now that LL - and the damp squib CEO - are not exactly renowned for caring about their customers!   

[Elia Melodie]

---

Hoshi Kenin wrote:

If you have been in SL for more than a year or two, you should know by now that LL - and the damp squib CEO - are not exactly renowned for caring about their customers!   

---

thank you. im in sl for 4,5 years now and i know this pretty well. So i wont disagree with you of course.. but we still think that is the right way to do. First trying to contact them directly. That's how things works usually. We know already that it wont be easy.

We also invite all those who have good alternative ideas for this to join the group and share them with us.

 

[Zagnut Avedon]

A forum post is about as far from "contacting them directly" as you can get.  What makes you think Rodvick even looks at these forums, much less takes them seriously?

 

You want his attention, Amethyst's suggestion is the only way to go.  Registered letter, via physical mail, return receipt requested.  Anything else will just be ignored.

[Cerise Sorbet]

A fax is fine too. That seems to be LL's preferred correspondence method.

[Trinity Yazimoto]

yes, indeed, we will send this by certified paper mail, today, within some hours when it will be day in US to Rodvick and Peter Gray.

The fax seems to be a good idea but we dont have any fax for them. im going to look for one today but if someone has it please send me in PM.

Thank you for all these suggestions. You can even help better joining the group :smileyhappy:

[Darrius Gothly]

---

Elia Melodie wrote:

[...]

Rodvik Humble

, CEO

Peter Gray, Director, Global Communications

Linden Lab Headquarters

945 Battery Street

San Francisco, CA  94111

[...]

---

It is very important to get the names of the recipients correct. Mr. Humble's name is not "Rodvik", that is his SL Avatar's name. His real name is "Rod Humble". It may be "Rodney" or some other long form, but "Rod" should suffice.

ETA: Snapshot of Mr. Humble's Bio from the Linden Lab corporate web site:

[Trinity Yazimoto]

oh lol, ok.... ive sent an im to the person who will do the certified name for she fix lol.. thank you for telling us. :smileyhappy:

[Darrius Gothly]

---

Trinity Yazimoto wrote:

oh lol, ok.... ive sent an im to the person who will do the certified name for she fix lol.. thank you for telling us. :smileyhappy:

---

You are most welcome. In business communications, showing respect is crucial to getting your message heard. Getting the names correct is one of the most basic shows of respect .. especially in a world where names are so fluid and, at times, bizarre.

[Trinity Yazimoto]

Lol Darrius... it cant be a lack of respect from me.. i never can get your english names.. except some usual ones and the ones that also exist in french, i never can tell if its a name or if its the good orthograph etc so for me, Rodvick was forcelly the long name for Rod ... all the Rods lol...... well, in short, it would be same for me with chinese names (althought these ones put the lastname first). 

And you have a big thanks from Kylie. she fixed :smileyhappy:

[Jer Straaf]

Your letter represents "the height of hubris..." (I love that expression, LOL.)

Your group really should have had someone with experience dealing with executives write that letter or at least review it. You normally get about three minutes to make your pitch to an executive, five minutes if he/she really likes you. Also, executives don't want to hear about problems, they want to be offered multiple solutions. I'll just cut to the chase: What did you offer him? Nada, zip, zilch. No stick, no carrot, no alternatives, nothing. OK, so if I ask you to inconvenience yourself and bog yourself down for hours at a whipping boy party, you would automatically say "yes?" No, you wouldn't, you would chuckle and hit the delete button because there is no motivation whatsoever for you to to engage me. That's what he is going to do, poof, done, gone, next agenda item please...

What might go through his mind in the nanosecond before he deletes your letter?

- You are replaceable.

- Your long-term personal interests will trump your short-term moral outrage.

- With its "critical mass economy," SL is the only game in town.

- The LL legal team understands corporate risk management issues; SL residents don't.

Of course I wish you luck, but it's the "height of hubris" to make demands on an executive while coming to the negotiating table completely empty handed. You might have laid out a list of "talking points" from which he could identify some sort of appeasement strategy, but you didn't. He definitely won't waste his valuable time by doing your job for you. Sadly, it's not in LL's interest to even bother answering your letter.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Nothing needs to be offered in return but to remain a customer. There's a difference between pitching something to a company and expressing dissatisfaction as a group of customers.

Agree that it should be well thought out, but this is more a petition than pitch. It wouldn't be the first time that LL has responded to an open letter style approach. I think in this case, the more human the better.

If it results in nothing, then you're right ... there's a lack of interest by management in their customers views on the topic.

If there is not a willingness to communicate or reverse a decision largely disliked by many customers, then it needs to escalate into further action. And there is action available outside of the courts, should we need to go that route.

[Trinity Yazimoto]

---

Jer Straaf wrote:

Your letter represents "the height of hubris..." (I love that expression, LOL.)

Your group really should have had someone with experience dealing with executives write that letter or at least review it. You normally get about three minutes to make your pitch to an executive, five minutes if he/she really likes you. Also, executives don't want to hear about problems, they want to be offered multiple solutions. I'll just cut to the chase: What did you offer him? Nada, zip, zilch. No stick, no carrot, no alternatives, nothing. OK, so if I ask you to inconvenience yourself and bog yourself down for hours at a whipping boy party, you would automatically say "yes?" No, you wouldn't, you would chuckle and hit the delete button because there is no motivation whatsoever for you to to engage me. That's what he is going to do, poof, done, gone, next agenda item please...

What might go through his mind in the nanosecond before he deletes your letter?

- You are replaceable.

- Your long-term personal interests will trump your short-term moral outrage.

- With its "critical mass economy," SL is the only game in town.

- The LL legal team understands corporate risk management issues; SL residents don't.

Of course I wish you luck, but it's the "height of hubris" to make demands on an executive while coming to the negotiating table completely empty handed. You might have laid out a list of "talking points" from which he could identify some sort of appeasement strategy, but you didn't. He definitely won't waste his valuable time by doing your job for you. Sadly, it's not in LL's interest to even bother answering your letter.

---

Im going to return you the compliment and congratulate also your large hubris.

you seem to know so better than us and such humility for teaching us that i strongly invite you to join the group and ask for a role there. You ll be certainly more usefull there than here comenting our height of hubris.

I m not the one who wrote the letter and if i ve been the one doing it, i wouldnt have phrase it like this. That's a fact. But its a collective work. While someone was writing the letter, i was doing another job. Then althought i wouldnt have phrased it differently, i have enough humility and openmind, to tell me that its not bec its different than what i would have done that its bad. Its just different and its another point of view... unlike you, i dont have an hubris so large to the point i have the only one right point of view.

There is NEVER only one way to do. There are ways, some can be good, some bad and it all depend of the context but there is never only one but several ones.

i wont comment about your strategy of offering smth... you talk without knowing... But again if you think you can do a better job than you, im me inworld, ill send you an invite for the group and we can talk about a role for you. 

[Storm Clarence]

---

Trinity Yahoos wrote:

---

Jeer Strata wrote:

Your letter represents "the height of hubris..." (I love that expression, LOL.)

Your group really should have had someone with experience dealing with executives write that letter or at least review it. You normally get about three minutes to make your pitch to an executive, five minutes if he/she really likes you. Also, executives don't want to hear about problems, they want to be offered multiple solutions. I'll just cut to the chase: What did you offer him? Nadia, zip, zilch. No stick, no carrot, no alternatives, nothing. OK, so if I ask you to inconvenience yourself and bog yourself down for hours at a whipping boy party, you would automatically say "yes?" No, you wouldn't, you would chuckle and hit the delete button because there is no motivation whatsoever for you to to engage me. That's what he is going to do, poof, done, gone, next agenda item please...

What might go through his mind in the nanosecond before he deletes your letter?

- You are replaceable.

- Your long-term personal interests will trump your short-term moral outrage.

- With its "critical mass economy," SL is the only game in town.

- The LL legal team understands corporate risk management issues; SL residents don't.

Of course I wish you luck, but it's the "height of hubris" to make demands on an executive while coming to the negotiating table completely empty handed. You might have laid out a list of "talking points" from which he could identify some sort of appeasement strategy, but you didn't. He definitely won't waste his valuable time by doing your job for you. Sadly, it's not in LL's interest to even bother answering your letter.

---

Im going to

return you the compliment

and

congratulate also your large hubris.

you seem to know so better than us and such humility for teaching us that i strongly invite you to join the group and ask for a role there. You ll be certainly more usefull there than here comenting our height of hubris.

I m not the one who wrote the letter

and i

f i ve been the one doing it, i wouldnt have phrase it like this.

That's a fact.

But its a collective work.

While someone was writing the letter, i was doing another job.

Then althought i wouldnt have phrased it differently, i have enough humility and openmind, to tell me that its not bec its different than what i would have done that its bad.

Its just different and its another point of view... unlike you

, i dont have an hubris so large to the point i have the only one right point of view.

There is NEVER only one way to do. T

here are ways, some can be good, some bad

and it all depend of the context but there is never only one but several ones.

i wont comment about your strategy of offering smth...

you talk without knowing

...

But again if you think you can do a better job than you,

im me inworld, ill send you an invite for the group and we can talk about a role for you. 

---

Imo, Jer was spot on.  And I have said so in the past.

Imo, you, Trinity, totally missed Jer's point; and not surprisingly so.

Imo, Trinity, it would appear from the words you chose in your response to Jer that you seek to distance yourself from the letter--and as far as possible.    Go figure.

Imo, Trinity, Jer did not write of good or bad, he wrote of the balls ("the height of hubris") to think that you (individually or as a group) can approach the CEO of a company and make demands on how *he* runs *his* business.   While a letter and a sit-down cannot 'hurt' your cause--just thinking that he must kowtow in your presence is "height of hubris"... and yes, without offering anything in return.  Most CEOs like to be kissed before they get fukked. 

Imo, Trinity, from what he wrote it is not Jer who suffers hubris, it is your group and how they are approaching this matter.- there was no need for your sarcasm in writing "congratulations."  Jer never wrote that he can do a better job, he actually wrote that perhaps you should rethink a strategy, and why he thinks this way.  Like Jer wrote: you've got 3-5 minutes talking time before Rod heads out for a round of golf.  Hopefully you will not see his avatar yawn as he walks out with his clubs in hand.  Make it good.

Imo, Trinity, if Jer wanted to participate he would have done so already.  I'm not so sure he wants to waste his time.  And I don't blame him.

 

In closing, Trinity, congratulations on your large hubris [sic] too.

 

[Trinity Yazimoto]

---

Storm Clarence wrote:

---

Trinity Yahoos wrote:

---

Jeer Strata wrote:

Your letter represents "the height of hubris..." (I love that expression, LOL.)

Your group really should have had someone with experience dealing with executives write that letter or at least review it. You normally get about three minutes to make your pitch to an executive, five minutes if he/she really likes you. Also, executives don't want to hear about problems, they want to be offered multiple solutions. I'll just cut to the chase: What did you offer him? Nadia, zip, zilch. No stick, no carrot, no alternatives, nothing. OK, so if I ask you to inconvenience yourself and bog yourself down for hours at a whipping boy party, you would automatically say "yes?" No, you wouldn't, you would chuckle and hit the delete button because there is no motivation whatsoever for you to to engage me. That's what he is going to do, poof, done, gone, next agenda item please...

What might go through his mind in the nanosecond before he deletes your letter?

- You are replaceable.

- Your long-term personal interests will trump your short-term moral outrage.

- With its "critical mass economy," SL is the only game in town.

- The LL legal team understands corporate risk management issues; SL residents don't.

Of course I wish you luck, but it's the "height of hubris" to make demands on an executive while coming to the negotiating table completely empty handed. You might have laid out a list of "talking points" from which he could identify some sort of appeasement strategy, but you didn't. He definitely won't waste his valuable time by doing your job for you. Sadly, it's not in LL's interest to even bother answering your letter.

---

Im going to

return you the compliment

and

congratulate also your large hubris.

you seem to know so better than us and such humility for teaching us that i strongly invite you to join the group and ask for a role there. You ll be certainly more usefull there than here comenting our height of hubris.

I m not the one who wrote the letter

and i

f i ve been the one doing it, i wouldnt have phrase it like this.

That's a fact.

But its a collective work.

While someone was writing the letter, i was doing another job.

Then althought i wouldnt have phrased it differently, i have enough humility and openmind, to tell me that its not bec its different than what i would have done that its bad.

Its just different and its another point of view... unlike you

, i dont have an hubris so large to the point i have the only one right point of view.

There is NEVER only one way to do. T

here are ways, some can be good, some bad

and it all depend of the context but there is never only one but several ones.

i wont comment about your strategy of offering smth...

you talk without knowing

...

But again if you think you can do a better job than you,

im me inworld, ill send you an invite for the group and we can talk about a role for you. 

---

Imo, Jer was spot on.  And I have said so in the past.

Imo, you, Trinity, totally missed Jer's point; and not surprisingly so.

Imo, Trinity, it would appear from the words you chose in your response to Jer

that you seek to distance yourself from the letter--and as far as possible.   

Go figure.

Imo, Trinity, Jer did not write of good or bad, he wrote of the balls ("the height of hubris") to think that you (individually or as a group) can approach the CEO of a company and make demands on how *he* runs *his* business.   While a letter and a sit-down cannot 'hurt' your cause--just thinking that he must kowtow in your presence is "height of hubris"... and yes, without offering anything in return.  Most CEOs like to be kissed before they get fukked. 

Imo, Trinity, from what he wrote it is not Jer who suffers from hubris, it is your group and how they are approaching this matter.- there was no need for your sarcasm in writing "congratulations."  Jer never wrote that he can do a better job, he actually wrote that perhaps you should rethink a strategy, and why he thinks this way.  Like Jer wrote: you've got 3-5 minutes talking time before Rod heads out for a round of golf.  Hopefully you will not see his avatar yawn as he walks out with his clubs in hand.  Make it good.

Imo, Trinity, if Jer wanted to participate he would have done so already.  I'm not so sure he wants to waste his time.  And I don't blame him.

 

In closing, Trinity, congratulations on your large hubris [sic] too.

 

---

IMHO, you should go back to your kindergarden.

IMHO you are a troll, but this is more than IMHO, everybody here know it already.

And not IMHO, but for sure, i have to much more interesting things to do than to waste my time with you and i will certainly NOT start discussing with you, you know already why.

goodbye then, have fun and oh, dont forget... have fun with my english language.... i hope, really hope, it brings you tons of opportinities for having fun. And also dont forget to make post all your troll alts and while you are at it, dont forget also to bring your so well known friend with his horde of alts aswell. 

BYE

 

[Storm Clarence]

---

Trinity Yazimoto wrote:IMHO, you should go back to your kindergarden.

IMHO you are a troll, but this is more than IMHO, everybody here know it already.

And not IMHO, but for sure, i have to much more interesting things to do than to waste my time with you and i will certainly NOT start discussing with you, you know already why.

goodbye then, have fun and oh, dont forget... have fun with my english language.... i hope, really hope, it brings you tons of opportinities for having fun. And also dont forget to make post all your troll alts and while you are at it, dont forget also to bring your so well known friend with his horde of alts aswell. 

BYE

 

---

: yawns

: grabs his golf clubs

Foursome anyone?

 

ETA Where is Hippie when you need him.  Perhaps he can translate for you.

 

FORE!

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Perhaps the hubris is on the other side.

Companies with a couple of hundred employees are a dime a dozen in pretty much any mid to large city at least here in the US. Most of them are in fact, approachable and willing to talk to their customers at that level.

Being busy or gruff isn't an exclusive trait of the fabled CEO. People who think they are generally aren't very familiar with dealing with small to mid sized companies, or their experience in business has mostly been low level, or in sales and they tend to have more of a famiiarity with the old brush off.

Rod already knows about the issue and customer reaction. The rest is whether he'll oblige a bit of time to smooth over relations with them.

For a CEO that tried to convince us how human he was by wearing a toga and paddling a raft, it may not be such a stretch. Or one that took some digs in stride and said how he loves this community and gets less death threats here than he did while at EA.

@Trinity: Don't worry about it. The majority of customers are at the very least are fine with seeing the ToS changed if at all possible. Take the constructive bits, throw out the rest and keep your chin up.

 

[Storm Clarence]

---

Dartagan Shepherd wrote:

Perhaps the hubris is on the other side.

Companies with a couple of hundred employees are a dime a dozen in pretty much any mid to large city at least here in the US. Most of them are in fact, approachable and willing to talk to their customers at that level.

 

---

Perhaps hubris is on both sides... and of course it is.   So, who do you think will win that game in the end?  Rhetorical.

It ain't exactly what I would call a battle of the titans.

Rod Humble, as the CEO of a small business (LL's US business classification) has a dedicated wikipedia page!  Hubris?  You betcha!   I am the CEO of a small business, but I don't have a dedicated wikipedia page.  Hubris?  You betcha! 

[Storm Clarence]

---

Dartagan Shepherd wrote:

 

The

majority

of customers are at the very least are fine with seeing the ToS changed if at all possible.

Take the constructive bits,

throw out the rest and keep your chin up.

 

---

Imo, the majority of customers are unaware of the ToS changes to even consider wanting to see it changed. 

Imo, Jer offered nothing but 'constructive bits'... Trinity pissed on him.

[Darrius Gothly]

---

Trinity Yazimoto wrote:

Lol Darrius... it cant be a lack of respect from me.. i never can get your english names.. except some usual ones and the ones that also exist in french, i never can tell if its a name or if its the good orthograph etc so for me, Rodvick was forcelly the long name for Rod ... all the Rods lol...... well, in short, it would be same for me with chinese names (althought these ones put the lastname first). 

And you have a big thanks from Kylie. she fixed :smileyhappy:

---

You are welcome Kylie. You as well Trinity. No worries on "getting the names" thing. That's why I pitched in .. as long as we all pull, the wagon will move.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Oh, I agree some of his comments were constructive, which I partially agreed to when I replied to him. Also why I said take the constructive, ignore the rest and move on.

Personally I thought the hubris bit was condescending and that there was some misrepresentation of how lofty and unapproachable a small company CEO is.

Other than that, I'm just not seeing the need for the semantic and cyclic bits in crafting a letter.

[Storm Clarence]

---

Dartagan Shepherd wrote:

Oh, I agree some of his comments were constructive, which I partially agreed to when I replied to him. Also why I said take the constructive, ignore the rest and move on.

Personally I thought the hubris bit was condescending and that there was some misrepresentation of how lofty and unapproachable a small company CEO is.

Other than that, I'm just not seeing the need for the semantic and cyclic bits in crafting a letter.

---

I agree with what you wrote^^.  Other than that,  I am not just seeing the need for the spite and ignorance bits in crafting a response such as one Trinity penned. 

[Darrius Gothly]

---

Storm Clarence wrote:

---

Dartagan Shepherd wrote:

 

The

majority

of customers are at the very least are fine with seeing the ToS changed if at all possible.

Take the constructive bits,

throw out the rest and keep your chin up.

 

---

Imo, the majority of customers are unaware of the ToS changes to even consider wanting to see it changed. 

Imo, Jer offered nothing but 'constructive bits'... Trinity pissed on him.

---

In the US Political system, a vast majority of the voting public (those residents that are of voting age and may legally vote) do not vote. Furthermore a majority of the voting public are not involved enough in the issues to even identify the parties by name or recite the "Talking Points" of matters that can (and sometimes do) impact their lives in massive and drastic ways.

The fact that a majority of customers are unaware does not make the matter less important, nor does it lessen the necessity of Linden Lab's CEO to pay attention to the concerns or complaints of a relatively small group of customers.

I cannot imagine the CEO of even a large company saying to a "Focus Group" something to the effect of "Well, a majority of our customers are clueless, therefore we don't care about you either." Is that something you honestly want to base your argument on?

The UCCSL is a relatively small group of customers that has been formed in very short order because of the disrespect demonstrated by the terms of the new ToS. Of those customers that ARE aware of the issues, a very definitive majority either have joined the UCCSL or are supportive of the UCCSL's goals.

Storm, we understand that you are quite capable of typing out posts that are challenging, abrupt and at times make people feel a number of negative emotions. But the real issue that drives this thread is not hubris, is not the moral rectitude of the OP, nor the semantic correctness of an individual entry. 

So rather than continue to lob hand grenades at people's motivation, their method of explaining their feelings, or the words they choose when expressing those things .. How about you contribute to the main goal of the thread and express to us how you feel about the central issues?

[Storm Clarence]

---

Darrius Gothly wrote:

 .. How about you contribute to the main goal of the thread and express to us

how you feel about the central issues

?

---

Although at times I find it so much fun, I hate to nitpick with you now, Darrius.  Is there more than one issue? The only issue ...  If so, then shame on me for not following along. 

Regarding that one issue, I DGAF.  I hit "I AGREE".

It does not mean I trivialize what is happening...

 

In considering your response--from the first line up to where I whacked--I 'felt' was nothing but fluff; it is not worth a response.  However, if you think a response has value then isn't it you that is lobbing grenades; playing semantics; diminishing the effort; getting emotional?