Question: In your opinion, what have been the greatest controversies in the 15-year history of Second Life?

[Coby Foden]

https://community.secondlife.com/knowledgebase/english/openspace-regions-r1032/
"Openspace Regions are a type of Private Region intended for light use such as water, hills, or forest.  They are not intended for building, home rentals, or events.  To own an Openspace Region, you must also own a normal Private Region. Land capacity set at 1000, concurrent avatar limit set at 10."

https://community.secondlife.com/knowledgebase/english/homestead-regions-r1033/
"Along with Full Regions and Openspace Regions, a Homestead Region is a type of Private Region. It is intended for lightweight use cases such as low-density rentals, light commercial ventures, or quiet residential areas. To own a Homestead Region, you must also own at least one standard Private Region. Land capacity set at 5000, concurrent avatar limit set at 20."

[Pamela Galli]

Also, when LL crashed the land market bubble. I was fairly new and it cost me $750 USD. I felt pretty stupid.

[Phil Deakins]

2 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Homestead?

That rings a big bell, yes.

OpenSpace sims weren't the same, Vanity, and they were there long before Homesteads were introduced, accompanied by the fiasco.

[LittleMe Jewell]

I laughed when I saw this as I went through the timeline

[Vanity Fair]

Thank you for your comments and suggestions! I have posted my blogpost:

https://ryanschultz.com/2018/08/16/the-top-18-controversies-in-the-15-year-history-of-second-life/

If you can think of anything I forgot to add to it, please leave a comment on the blogpost or here. Thanks! ?

[Aethelwine]

From my recollection the closing down of the exchanges was later than 2008. I wasn't even in SL at that time. What I was thinking of was from 2015 give or take a year or so. 

Edited August 17, 2018 by Aethelwine

[Fionalein]

bloodlines

[Amanda Crisp]

The fun thing about this for me personally is how much if this I MISSED due to being in a Roleplay sim as an Admin. That essentially ate the rest of my SL and if it wasn’t directly affecting the sim - I had a good chance of missing the drama completely..

Because.....we had enough drama IN the sim .....

Edited August 17, 2018 by AmandaKeen

[Ceka Cianci]

I don't know how big it is in the grand scale of things..But I remember once,years back,maybe 2007 or 08 something happened where everyone's hidden groups became exposed..

That had to put a quick shift in a few peoples days..

[Conifer Dada]

Although it's fairly trivial in the grand scheme of things, one thing topic that is always bound to get people wound up is whether or not Second Life is a game!  

[Richardus Raymaker]

If my memory is right.

The closing and banning from casino's in secondlife did create a shockwave to. We talk about 2007/2008. After that lot's of land started to get deserted.

The second shock that someone already noticed. Where the ban of third party money exchanges. More land started to get empty.

[Ceka Cianci]

20 minutes ago, Richardus Raymaker said:

If my memory is right.

The closing and banning from casino's in secondlife did create a shockwave to. We talk about 2007/2008. After that lot's of land started to get deserted.

The second shock that someone already noticed. Where the ban of third party money exchanges. More land started to get empty.

Yea that impacted the economy pretty good.. both did..

 

Another is the ,oh what was that viewer called? Greenlife viewer or something like which ended up becoming the emerald viewer.. that getting taken down from the third party viewer list for security risk..

Then the birth of phoenix viewer..which is my favorite since then..I was glad I never really messed with emerald that much..I was snow viewer for the most part back then..hehehe

[Phil Deakins]

There was always a misconception about what the emerald viewer did to get it banned, and it's repeated in the blog. Even LL got it wrong in a statement about it. It never perpetrated a DoS (Denial of Service) attack. It wasn't capable of that. What it did was, every time the emerald viewer was used to log into SL, it accessed a competitor's site, so that the access was recorded in that server's log. It was like telling the other viewer's owner that emerald is being used a lot. At least that's what I read at the time, and that's not a DoS attack.

[PhantomPixel]

On 8/14/2018 at 11:20 PM, Alyona Su said:

Third would be the news reports that Anshe Chung made U.S. $ 1 Million from "playing the game" (which I still don't believe, other than "creative financial reporting".

Im curious as to why you don't believe it. She had thousands of sims rented to thousands of people ALL grandfathered to a tier deal you could only HOPE of achieving today. Think about it this way, lets round the sims she had off to a thousand. So 1000 sims, standard rental at the time from LL was 295 a month. Lets say her grandfathered tier was 195 (if I remember the deal for early buyers was less than that but lets use 195 as the base). So after tier was paid she made 1000 x 100USD = 100,000USD a month at her peak....at least.... when SL was at its most popular. Does 1 million lindens sound so outrageous now?. Then include onto of that she was a popular clothing designer back in the day. I think its fairly plausible that she made a million from SL. There are people even today making serious serious money from Second Life. Take the creator of Maitreya for example. How many avatars over the last 4-5 years have paid nearly 3k lindens for that body onto of everything else they sell. Katwa (I think is how you spell it) is another, how many people have the 5k linden bento head as well as purchased their previous non bento heads and other products. 

[Alyona Su]

8 minutes ago, PhantomPixel said:

Im curious as to why you don't believe it. She had thousands of sims rented to thousands of people ALL grandfathered to a tier deal you could only HOPE of achieving today. Think about it this way, lets round the sims she had off to a thousand. So 1000 sims, standard rental at the time from LL was 295 a month. Lets say her grandfathered tier was 195 (if I remember the deal for early buyers was less than that but lets use 195 as the base). So after tier was paid she made 1000 x 100USD = 100,000USD a month at her peak....at least.... when SL was at its most popular. Does 1 million lindens sound so outrageous now?. Then include onto of that she was a popular clothing designer back in the day. I think its fairly plausible that she made a million from SL. There are people even today making serious serious money from Second Life. Take the creator of Maitreya for example. How many avatars over the last 4-5 years have paid nearly 3k lindens for that body onto of everything else they sell. Katwa (I think is how you spell it) is another, how many people have the 5k linden bento head as well as purchased their previous non bento heads and other products. 

What I meant is this: An accumulated million dollars: most likely. Though the way all the news reports reported it gave the strongest impression that she was able to make a million dollars U.S. by cashing it out in a lump sum. So I am saying that maybe over two or three years an accumulated million dollars: sure. If every virtual penny was saved and never spent.

You've made a million dollars, too, and so have I... over the years. Right?

Edited August 17, 2018 by Alyona Su

[PhantomPixel]

10 minutes ago, Alyona Su said:

What I meant is this: An accumulated million dollars: most likely. Though the way all the news reports reported it gave the strongest impression that she was able to make a million dollars U.S. by cashing it out in a lump sum. So I am saying that maybe over two or three years an accumulated million dollars: sure. If every virtual penny was saved and never spent.

You've made a million dollars too and so have I... over the years. Right?

Ahhhhh, yes I agree. I doubt she cashed out a whole mil in one go but I do believe she probably had a million in her bank at one point. She was making so so so much money each month, unless she was living the ultimate of lavish lifestyles I think she would find it hard to spend upwards of 100k each month. Then again I have no idea what her outgoings are, she hires multiple staff to manage her in world sims, website, live chat and not just on SL but on IMVU and whatever other worlds / software it is she inhabits. 

Edited August 17, 2018 by PhantomPixel

[Phil Deakins]

It's easier to become a millionaire in the UK than in the U.S. In the UK, you are officially classed as a millionaire if you earn at least £100k a year.

[Ceka Cianci]

3 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

There was always a misconception about what the emerald viewer did to get it banned, and it's repeated in the blog. Even LL got it wrong in a statement about it. It never perpetrated a DoS (Denial of Service) attack. It wasn't capable of that. What it did was, every time the emerald viewer was used to log into SL, it accessed a competitor's site, so that the access was recorded in that server's log. It was like telling the other viewer's owner that emerald is being used a lot. At least that's what I read at the time, and that's not a DoS attack.

I don't remember all the details that went on..I just remember it caused a big stir..Mention anything about security risk and most will lose their mind before anything..hehehe

I was on snow globe,so I wasn't too invested at the time..

I remember being a little leery of firestorm at first though when it was just phoenix..But after hearing their conference,I remember feeling a little better about it..I couldn't go to SL viewer 2.0..That first version was pure crap..stuff sliding out from the side moving my screen and everything on it over to the side..

I'm so glad M is gone!!@ hehehe

one of the best things to ever happen to SL..Him getting gone..

All i use now is Firestorm..

 

 

 

[Coffee Pancake]

9 hours ago, Fionalein said:

bloodlines

As a social phenomenon, yes .. it has been very successful and long lasting. It's given a lot of people in SL purpose, formed family groups and for a while .. being a vampire was one of the biggest draws to people joining and staying on SL. There is a reason LL added a whole stack of vampire starter avatars.

Most people who weren't a part of the community only saw the annoyances, lame attempts to farm and occasional drama that spilled out.

[Solar Legion]

What are now called OpenSpaces were once called Void sims or similar and what are now called Homesteads were indeed once called OpenSpaces .......

Losing a good chunk of change to try to help someone keep a light duty club running on one (before some of the present limitations were put into place) and then essentially being told after turning over the last of it that they'd decided to close down days before said sum was loaned out, without telling anyone at the time will tend to cement such things in one's mind .....

[Sammy Huntsman]

10 minutes ago, CoffeeDujour said:

As a social phenomenon, yes .. it has been very successful and long lasting. It's given a lot of people in SL purpose, formed family groups and for a while .. being a vampire was one of the biggest draws to people joining and staying on SL. There is a reason LL added a whole stack of vampire starter avatars.

Most people who weren't a part of the community only saw the annoyances, lame attempts to farm and occasional drama that spilled out.

Having been a part of Bloodlines, and those other vampire systems in SL. I can say in my opinion, I find its very cliche, and you get the odd person, who thinks they are an actual vampire. I left them, as I felt it was boring, and not for me. But one of the systems that truly bugs me, is Progeny. They are very snobby and have this air of we are superior. That being said, I had very negative experiences with both, and will not go back with either system.  I think a big thing that bugs me with progeny, is that A they can bite anyone, without asking you, and if scripts are turned off, they still can bite you. Hell most of them, feel that the rules are below them, so if you say no biting. Do they listen? Nope, they still do it. 

 

[Ceka Cianci]

25 minutes ago, CoffeeDujour said:

As a social phenomenon, yes .. it has been very successful and long lasting. It's given a lot of people in SL purpose, formed family groups and for a while .. being a vampire was one of the biggest draws to people joining and staying on SL. There is a reason LL added a whole stack of vampire starter avatars.

Most people who weren't a part of the community only saw the annoyances, lame attempts to farm and occasional drama that spilled out.

I remember before Bloodlines came along..I used to love exploring those vamp sims..

Some were so wild..

I didn't even know how deep vampires really were until going to their clubs and learning about their bloodline pecking orders and stuff, just from the RP aspect of it..

It was really neat and they didn't mind you going to the clubs at all in many of them..I learned a lot of neat things from the people in them..

I didn't go around them much after bloodlines came out..Not because of that,but just getting onto other things is all..

I just thought it was pretty neat that it was a deeper thing than just, bla bla i vant to sook you blood..hehehe

[Phil Deakins]

13 minutes ago, halebore Aeon said:

you get the odd person, who thinks they are an actual vampire

That reminded me of something from many years ago. I came across someone in SL who genuinely believed that she was an empath. And she wasn't the only one. She said that a friend of hers is a stronger empath than she is.

The word 'empath' was created for Start Trek. Before that it simply wasn't a word in any language. But that generated people who deluded themselves into believing that they are empaths. Maybe they still do. They probably never knew that the word was invented for the Star Trek character Counellor Deanna Troy.

[Coffee Pancake]

I'm imagining you're somewhat amused by this >.>

Edited August 17, 2018 by CoffeeDujour

[Fionalein]

10 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

That reminded me of something from many years ago. I came across someone in SL who genuinely believed that she was an empath. And she wasn't the only one. She said that a friend of hers is a stronger empath than she is.

The word 'empath' was created for Start Trek. Before that it simply wasn't a word in any language. But that generated people who deluded themselves into believing that they are empaths. Maybe they still do. They probably never knew that the word was invented for the Star Trek character Counellor Deanna Troy.

...before that they called themselves ESPers...

...and before that psychics...

...and before that witches...

...

...nothing new under the sun...

Edited August 17, 2018 by Fionalein