Is there, like a "Mainland Lovers" of sorts SL group in -world?

[Therese Tammas]

This, although not so nuanced yet, is also what makes sense to me @Prokofy Neva. ALL Of your post. You are right!  Also with the advent of Strawberry being hired and similar people like her, and with Patch, I think the community aspect is coming back. The Blogger Network is an amazing idea that could not have happened without hiring Strawberry.  I think Bellisseria has a huge chance for success too, because of all the factors you describe. I'm really excited for everything, everywhere in Mainland!

[Prokofy Neva]

5 hours ago, ChinRey said:

Yes, that's exactly the kind of things you have to expect on unmoderated mainland. I get the impression not everybody udnerstood what I was saying in my previous post, thank you for illustrating it so well. 🙂

Here's another example of what no building rules mean btw. This is an old one - it's how Mainland used to look.

(Picture by Followmeimthepied Piper. She gave it to me when I asked why she had fled SL.)

Even so, there has to be room for a houseboaty with a huge tower on it somewhere on Mainland. It wouldn't be mainland if it wasn't.

Followme is a Woodbury alt, you know.

[Therese Tammas]

2 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Jack Linden, God bless him, took four very long years to declare ad farms illegal, when it could have been done on day one, and saved the Lindens' bottom line to boot. I recently came across my photos of them at the time -- don't forget initially, they appeared because abandoned land chunked automatically into 16m squares (!) under the hugely hippie crazy collectivist belief that people would just take a few they needed for prims and leave them empty. Sigh. Then they stopped doing that crazy thing, but then land barons themselves chunked them up to force sales.

I'm glad you pointed out the very salient fact that land barons were needed to hold the tier on all this craziness, and did.  And yes, it was indeed enlightened self-interest but I think some of them genuinely wanted to see a decent Mainland. The problem is the unenlightened selfish land barons who didn't even need the money -- Mr. Lee's Hong Kong told me in RL once at a conference that he was a highly-paid computer professional who just enjoyed watching what happened when he set 16m parcels to sale next to my waterfront rentals. Indeed. 
 

GTFO is, on the one hand, a welcome thing because it "gives people something to do," it engages people in building and driving and exploring and such -- I had some tenants who created GTFO warehouses on my rentals. BUT the big problem with them is that they create huge, ugly warehouses on a sim, often by waterfront and roads, of course, and that brings down the whole sim. So it's a mixed bag. Not to mention their blighting of the map with their insignia. GTFO is everywhere, like Tiny Empires even though it doesn't offer any cash value, as I understand it, but is something to do. Maybe someone can beautify GTFO and get them to plan trees and put ponds on their big warehouse sites, but it's not really a solution for Mainland beautification.

As we've said before, the main problem with the group claiming to "salvage" and "beautify" microparcels is that they put up these ridiculous, stupid, ugly plinths with these ridiculous, pointless "good neighbour" aphorisms that leave out even the basics, like not building over two storeys. They are absolutely impervious to common sense or entire sims of people pleading with them to remove these idiocies. They are as bad as the Bush Guy in their way.

Haven't played GTFO yet, but I was thinking there should be a version, "Get the Milk Out," For roleplaying deliveries of regular things like eggs and milk, and cat food, to residents? And yes, the warehouse thing I noticed too. The same people who like to play aren't necessarily the ones with the aesthetic sense, which is okay,  but then someone has to try to offer to help them, maybe.

[Therese Tammas]

1 minute ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Followme is a Woodbury alt, you know.

Who the heck is Woodbury? And also that other game you described, something with Hunts, what is that if I may ask? @Prokofy Neva

[Prokofy Neva]

3 minutes ago, Therese Tammas said:

This, although not so nuanced yet, is also what makes sense to me @Prokofy Neva. ALL Of your post. You are right!  Also with the advent of Strawberry being hired and similar people like her, and with Patch, I think the community aspect is coming back. The Blogger Network is an amazing idea that could not have happened without hiring Strawberry.  I think Bellisseria has a huge chance for success too, because of all the factors you describe. I'm really excited for everything, everywhere in Mainland!

Strawberry is a highly talented and very good person. And of course she is free to follow her dream and make her career as she pleases. But I do want to point out as I have elsewhere that there is a generic thing here that is happening that is not good, and that is when the Lab raids the community and creams off its top leaders and turns them into staff, leaving the community more dependent and with more of the distinction blurred. Some people don't care that these distinctions are blurred. After all, the Linden staff are the kind of people who are unique and special anyway in that they want to do this odd job that many people in the field of social media and games would never take or even look down on. They like SL virtuality and that's a plus, that's a basis for shared understanding. But it would be better if communities -- plural, as there isn't just one -- had their own leaders who interacted with Lindens as equals.

The true test of power and equality comes with justice, as in RL. And that's why these invocations of the idea that the Arbor Group or the Justice League or this one or that one "had the Lindens come running" acquires such myth-like proportions. I was recently studying the WayBack machine snapshots of secondlife.com to try to find the economic statistics (I only found 2 pages out of many years, odd). And I read the police blotter, which was only a fraction of the ARs that got read and answered. Michael Linden used to hold office hours where he really gave a sense of the dimensions of the griefing problem and the policies to respond to them. I don't think it's so much that some residents had Lindens running at their beck and call. It's that some issues were more amenable to Lindens to solve than others.

Case in point: some of you remember the Sutherland Dam meetings I had every Friday, which every Friday were heavily griefed by Woodbury, using the affordance of the nearby Linden road as a "safe" territory from which to bombarb chat, spam particles etc. etc. There was endless harassment and endless insanity from these goons -- who including at least one off-duty Linden as I later found out.

In that entire time I ran those meetings for years, there was ONE police blotter report -- despite the thousands that dozens of us filed to try to stop this harassment. I refused to cave to it because I thought freedom of association was worth fighting for. The goons didn't want anyone using the Internet for anything serious and wanted it to be all anarchy and riot. And what was that ONE police blotter? A well-known RL lawyer who sided with the griefers (!) who filed a report on me when I pasted the nasty thing he said to me into chat. This was "disclosure". Can you imagine? THAT was the only public police blotter for the years I ran those meetings, which were always lively and well-attended.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

6 minutes ago, Therese Tammas said:

Who the heck is Woodbury? And also that other game you described, something with Hunts, what is that if I may ask? @Prokofy Neva

Historical Hunts is a group of sims that have various RL historical themes from the Middle Ages and also various times in history like the Ottoman Empire. They put on various themed hunts and marketplaces every year, i.e. Renaissance or Silk Road (currently it's Halloween).

Woodbury is a very long and complex story (and simply misreported, and deliberately, by publications like the Chronicle of Higher Education). Basically, it was a group of students and drop-outs at a suburban California commuter college who rented islands in SL supposedly for educational purposes, but who heavily griefed people in a variety of ways, used malicious scripts, crashed sims, and stole copyrighted material -- all with the connivance of their professor and dean who found such "transgressive" behaviour something interesting to study. They were related to 4chan and Anonymous, the forces that have caused so much havoc in RL, although a lot of fake stories are put out about their supposed altruism and working for good causes. The Lindens wound up confiscating their sims -- and multiple times as they returned on alts. There were a number of leftwing professors who backed them and gave them positive press and also Linden programmers who identified with them and covered for them, but in the end, a crashed sim is a crashed sim, and copybotted items are copybotted items, and Philip Linden pulled the plug on them -- and rightly so. I was one of the dedicated abuse-reporters of this group so they targeted me and my tenants for all kinds of bizarre harassment.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

16 minutes ago, Therese Tammas said:

Haven't played GTFO yet, but I was thinking there should be a version, "Get the Milk Out," For roleplaying deliveries of regular things like eggs and milk, and cat food, to residents? And yes, the warehouse thing I noticed too. The same people who like to play aren't necessarily the ones with the aesthetic sense, which is okay,  but then someone has to try to offer to help them, maybe.

Yes, I really think whoever comes up with some kind of gathering and fetching and carrying game that doesn't involve heavy trucks and heavy equipment but things like baskets and blueberries will win a lot of followers. Those farm systems where people grow and sell or trade food is one form of it but it doesn't incorporate the desire to travel and build, which people would like.

[Therese Tammas]

2 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Historical Hunts is a group of sims that have various RL historical themes from the Middle Ages and also various times in history like the Ottoman Empire. They put on various themed hunts and marketplaces every year, i.e. Renaissance or Silk Road (currently it's Halloween).

Woodbury is a very long and complex story (and simply misreported, and deliberately, by publications like the Chronicle of Higher Education). Basically, it was a group of students and drop-outs at a suburban California commuter college who rented islands in SL supposedly for educational purposes, but who heavily griefed people in a variety of ways, used malicious scripts, crashed sims, and stole copyrighted material -- all with the connivance of their professor and dean who found such "transgressive" behaviour something interesting to study. They were related to 4chan and Anonymous, the forces that have caused so much havoc in RL, although a lot of fake stories are put out about their supposed altruism and working for good causes. The Lindens wound up confiscating their sims -- and multiple times as they returned on alts. There were a number of leftwing professors who backed them and gave them positive press and also Linden programmers who identified with them and covered for them, but in the end, a crashed sim is a crashed sim, and copybotted items are copybotted items, and Philip Linden pulled the plug on them -- and rightly so. I was one of the dedicated abuse-reporters of this group so they targeted me and my tenants for all kinds of bizarre harassment.

 

You're a fierce old-timer sir. And good grief can't believe the amount of  things people would actually do to make fun or hurt Second Life fans. No wonder we're so private and not so keen on public media.

[Therese Tammas]

Nice guys =D 

[Prokofy Neva]

On 10/13/2019 at 1:39 PM, Therese Tammas said:

If not, there should be. And we should come up with a colloquial name for it that fittingly describes the beauty, delight and exploration bliss Mainland brings!

I decided to make a group, Mainland Appreciation Society, if you want to join.

5e2e4251-e859-ea64-007b-1213b3c240d0

Unfortunately it's not showing up in search yet so IM me for an invitation and then you can invite others.

It's going to be awhile before I can hold meetings but it's a start.

[Beth Macbain]

14 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I had to blink in amazement at this highly subjective and strange post.

[Therese Tammas]

14 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I decided to make a group, Mainland Appreciation Society, if you want to join.

5e2e4251-e859-ea64-007b-1213b3c240d0

Unfortunately it's not showing up in search yet so IM me for an invitation and then you can invite others.

It's going to be awhile before I can hold meetings but it's a start.

Joined!!

 

It was so nice to meet you @Prokofy Neva Was fun traveling today! Lol loved that punch!

 

The great Prokofy and I sitting punch and worshipping the Lindens.

 

 

And thank you soo much for the sign!!! OMG can't wait to use it!!

 

 

[Therese Tammas]

And guys.... 😂 I guess I went all in...spent 8,800L approximately today--

8,000L for a 1024 sq m of mainland, for an office for my new mainland appreciation endevour;

and 800L outfitting new alt....

have a friend who is making a HUD, potentially, so if it comes to fruition, I'm so excited! Meantime Prokofy gave me a thing that I can use 😮 that will work as awesome, Prokofy again thank you!!!

 

Lololol here she is at the new office...she's not sure of the animesh grandpa in the background...

 

Coming soon with more details as I sort things out, so excited for this!!  And hopefully we can work with MAS and LRC on stuff too! 

 

Edited October 16, 2019 by Therese Tammas

[Mollymews]

On 10/15/2019 at 2:35 PM, Therese Tammas said:

I remember mainland like this! For years I avoided it like the plague cause of this. But yes it is so much better now I don't ever see these horrible prims anymore when I was exploring and usually when it's a giant for sale sign it at least looks decent...they're more tasteful these days. I think people overall are mindful now, and also I think you get people, like me, who go over from being Private Sim all the time and are mindful of trying to keep things pretty

the pic posted by Chic is from years ago. Newt Gingrich is some person's hero in that.  Not sure how helpful it is for  ancient pics like that to be posted.  Mainland today is nothing like that these days as you have discovered and shown here, so good on you

the Linden approach to mainland governance and management changed considerably for the better when the Linden Department of Public Works was initiated, and has just got better and better from my own experience dealing with them. Pretty much my mainland support tickets have been resolved to my satisfaction within 24 hours. From region restarts to buying abandoned land 

[Therese Tammas]

23 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

the pic posted by Chic is from years ago. Newt Gingrich is some person's hero in that.  Not sure how helpful it is for  ancient pics like that to be posted.  Mainland today is nothing like that these days as you have discovered and shown here, so good on you

the Linden approach to mainland governance and management changed considerably for the better when the Linden Department of Public Works was initiated, and has just got better and better from my own experience dealing with them. Pretty much my mainland support tickets have been resolved to my satisfaction within 24 hours. From region restarts to buying abandoned land 

When was the LDPW created?

 

And yes =D maybe reposting again but here's another mainland parcel of mine, in Bay City (pic is slightly older but still good...it's changed a little configuration-wise from the other day to today but house, grass and hedges, are  still there and waterfall is still there)-

 

Edited October 16, 2019 by Therese Tammas

[animats]

1 hour ago, Therese Tammas said:

an office for my new mainland appreciation endeavour;

Nice. Let us know when you're open for business.

[Mollymews]

1 hour ago, Therese Tammas said:

When was the LDPW created?

2008. Michael Linden was the first boss. In the beginning the LDPW were residents in their own names who took over making the mainland roads which had been a long time ask from mainland parcel owners

when it was announced that the LDPW were going to make roads, lots of signs appeared on roadside parcels offering all kinds of things by the parcel owners to the LDPW to make a road by their parcel. Some signs included goodies and refreshments set out for the road workers. I also remember seeing one sign that offered a chikken sacrifice for a road 😸

i think after only a short time Linden began to hire residents as Moles, like paid them to make the content. I think that came because of the Bay City project which was a bit more than just a task for people to do in their spare time

 

[Lewis Luminos]

17 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I decided to make a group, Mainland Appreciation Society, if you want to join.

5e2e4251-e859-ea64-007b-1213b3c240d0

Unfortunately it's not showing up in search yet so IM me for an invitation and then you can invite others.

It's going to be awhile before I can hold meetings but it's a start.

As a longtime resident & supporter of mainland, I really like the idea of this group, and I have joined. It is showing in Search now, BTW.

[Vega Firelyte]

On 10/14/2019 at 10:06 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

GTFO is, on the one hand, a welcome thing because it "gives people something to do," it engages people in building and driving and exploring and such -- I had some tenants who created GTFO warehouses on my rentals. BUT the big problem with them is that they create huge, ugly warehouses on a sim, often by waterfront and roads, of course, and that brings down the whole sim. So it's a mixed bag. Not to mention their blighting of the map with their insignia. GTFO is everywhere, like Tiny Empires even though it doesn't offer any cash value, as I understand it, but is something to do. Maybe someone can beautify GTFO and get them to plan trees and put ponds on their big warehouse sites, but it's not really a solution for Mainland beautification.

 

Hi Prokofy.  I just want to clarify a little on what you said regarding GTFO.  I agree, there is a number of hubs that do have warehouses but the owners are really quite amazing in putting them together, so I always have to give kudos to them for their design work.  They are not the only style though.  I have seen some amazing airports, farms, villages, wine yard (that one is really cute), gas stations, motels, vintage diners, neighborhoods (check our Bedos region), and GTFO HQ.  The GTFO game is a freighting game, where you go from one hub to another, collecting and dropping off virtual cargo and it's a great group of people, many of whom are very dedicated to beautifying the mainland and making it more active.  

I personally own a hub myself, over in Jeogeot, which is a farmers market/diner style and along with a few other hub owners over there, we have been working on building more of a community feel.  We have bus stops now at some of our hubs, so that if you want to take a bus ride, we have that and are working towards more little bus stops over on Satori as well.  I highly encourage you and anyone else to drop by our Basenville region, check out our event/display area, grab a bike and take a little ride through our Hill Valley neighbourhood, that is GTFO enabled, and check out what GTFO looks like now.

[Vega Firelyte]

On 10/14/2019 at 10:10 PM, Therese Tammas said:

Haven't played GTFO yet, but I was thinking there should be a version, "Get the Milk Out," For roleplaying deliveries of regular things like eggs and milk, and cat food, to residents? And yes, the warehouse thing I noticed too. The same people who like to play aren't necessarily the ones with the aesthetic sense, which is okay,  but then someone has to try to offer to help them, maybe.

There was an interview with the owner of GTFO by Luke Skywalker of Drivers of SL.  GTFO is changing and expanding in the future and Cinn Morgi, the owner, talks about the different things that are going to happen in that future.  One of the things will be the ability of hub owners to control what type of freight they will have in their virtual warehouses.  For example, I have a hub that is a Farmer's Market, along with a bakery, post office and cafe on my hub.  In time, I will be able to decide on what I want to have leaving my place, like eggs, milk, vegetables, pies from the bakery, etc.  Slowly but surely, the face of GTFO is changing and it's changing for the better as it grows.  If you want more information, please feel free to message me inworld and I would be more than happy to try to help you.

Edited October 16, 2019 by Vega Firelyte
typo

[Beth Macbain]

35 minutes ago, Vega Firelyte said:

There was an interview with the owner of GTFO by Luke Skywalker of Drivers of SL.  GTFO is changing and expanding in the future and Cinn Morgi, the owner, talks about the different things that are going to happen in that future.  One of the things will be the ability of hub owners to control what type of freight they will have in their virtual warehouses.  For example, I have a hub that is a Farmer's Market, along with a bakery, post office and cafe on my hub.  In time, I will be able to decide on what I want to have leaving my place, like eggs, milk, vegetables, pies from the bakery, etc.  Slowly but surely, the face of GTFO is changing and it's changing for the better as it grows.  If you want more information, please feel free to message me inworld and I would be more than happy to try to help you.

I've really got to give this GTFO thingie a try. It sounds fun!

I think that one of the side effects Bellisseria is having on SL is a renewed interest in mainland. I know I've never once considered purchasing my own land for a variety of reasons, but now I'm on the hunt for my ideal mainland parcel. I'll be keeping my two Bellisseria parcels because they're so much fun, but I also have ideas of what I'd like to build on my own little plot of land.

Years ago, I did some exploring on the mainland, and pretty much hated everything I saw. It felt very abandoned. Lately, I've been exploring again and the feeling has completely changed. It feels lived in and well taken care of for the most part, and there are people around. The atmosphere on today's mainland makes me want to be a part of it. 

[Mollymews]

5 hours ago, Lewis Luminos said:

As a longtime resident & supporter of mainland, I really like the idea of this group, and I have joined. It is showing in Search now, BTW.

me too. I signed up as well.  I also think is a good idea that Prokofy set join to 5L.  Will stop the random group bot fishers and spammers that will

[Syo Emerald]

Can someone explain what exactly this group is for? What is its purpose?

[Vega Firelyte]

10 minutes ago, Syo Emerald said:

Can someone explain what exactly this group is for? What is its purpose?

I'm not 100% sure, but it's a group of people who want to see the mainland improve, look better and be more interactive, which is my guess.  If I am wrong though, someone please correct me.

This is what is in the description of the group, "A group devoted to appreciating the Mainland by living, working or visiting the legacy Mainland outside of Linden Homes. Members get a free ad board with "Visit the Mainland" texture created by Jack Linden and a portal script to put in the location of your choice. Gifts will also regularly be provided. Chat is encouraged with recommendations, help, causes. We advocate for Linden policies to encourage Mainland living. A hangout is being developed."

I do admit, I hesitate to join because of that second last sentence, which I have put into bold.  I have seen that abused quite a few times and it all started innocently but went downhill at some point.  Myself personally, I would rather build a good communication between the Moles, Lindens, and Residents where we can work together without the word "advocate" involved and I don't really believe in policies being changed, to make it where you force people to do what you think is right.  I am a believer in people making their own choices.  I may not always agree with someone's choice but I do respect people having that right to make it.

[Therese Tammas]

I'm at work so can't properly reply but I'm loving all this, and yes I think the moves done for Mainland has improved it immensely and renewed interest..there are still floating prims under 1000m in many areas but there is much more love and much more aesthetic planning than previously seen 10 years ago

Edited October 16, 2019 by Therese Tammas
edits from phone didn't make it in, adding now