New "Community Pages" for Second Life

[Arielle Popstar]

Should maybe have started by showcasing people with skin period. Afterwards showcase particular skin tones so it doesn't seem like they are highlighting ones they feel need some sort of extra attention.

[Qie Niangao]

The considerations and concerns in this thread seem to be about which "communities" should qualify for the Community Page treatment. That's interesting and all but I have an (almost) orthogonal quandary: How shall prospective consumers of a particular Community Page come to know of its existence? 

Should new arrivals with that interest somehow be directed to Community Pages matching their community affiliations? Presumably that might improve early retention because it helps newbies find content of interest and—somehow—plug in to that SL community. If so, how are they directed to that page? Something during orientation? Or is the page "that will live directly on the Second Life website" linked on the external web somewhere, intended for people already community-engaged to—somehow—come upon the Community Page and thence to discover SL?

Or are the pages intended for longstanding residents to celebrate their various community memberships? That's nice but I'm not sure what business problem it's intended to solve.

In part I'm thinking of the "Place Pages" that were apparently intended for groups with robust, pre-existing affinity to give members notice of an SL presence of interest to the group. There was no particular facility for making these pages discoverable to an audience of Second Life users; that wasn't necessarily their intent, but in practice they get very little use (AFAIK).

I'm suggesting that Community Pages might be similarly a dandy feature that the intended audience (whatever it is) never discovers.

[Mollymews]

i agree with Linden that they should focus on the real world characteristics of people

i would like to see sections on Brazil, Japan, France, India, Egypt, Italy, Kenya, Australia, Germany, Indonesia to name some

that people from these real world ethnicities, cultures and localities can find a welcoming place for themselves in SL. And that within this they can be a furry, a pixie or play happy childhood remembrances as they like

if Linden go with furries, aviators, happy families, etc then all I see in this is that Linden only be preaching to the existing choir of us

more people identity more strongly with their real world selves than they ever do with their imaginary selves

i don't mean to denigrate communities that are imagination based, I am a neko in SL, but in reality I am a kiwi with cat ears and tail on. I identify more with being a kiwi person than I will ever as a cosplay neko

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

@Qie Niangaoand @Mollymews -- My sense, from the fact that their first community page is about RL identity, is that this is intended primarily to be an outward-facing resource, about recruitment and retention more than it is about in-world community. And that's a good thing, I think, although it doesn't prevent these from being really useful resources as well to existing residents and communities.

So, yes, we're back to the question of implementation. How does LL make these effectively and prominently visible, so that they can function in that way?

A really good start would, as Qie suggests, be to make these available and very visible during Orientation. At the very least, they would assist people in finding communities of others with whom they feel an affinity.

But that's not sufficient to make these worthwhile, I think.

[CaithLynnSayes]

If the Icelandic-Dutch-Belgian people (me) aren't going to get a page, i'm going to throw suuuuuuuch a tantrum... you watch.... *crosses arms frowning*

 

 

I strongly disagree with this and i could go into detail as to why, but some of the points i would make have already been raised.

[Sid Nagy]

18 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

@Qie Niangaoand @Mollymews -- My sense, from the fact that their first community page is about RL identity, is that this is intended primarily to be an outward-facing resource, about recruitment and retention more than it is about in-world community. And that's a good thing, I think, although it doesn't prevent these from being really useful resources as well to existing residents and communities.

So, yes, we're back to the question of implementation. How does LL make these effectively and prominently visible, so that they can function in that way?

A really good start would, as Qie suggests, be to make these available and very visible during Orientation. At the very least, they would assist people in finding communities of others with whom they feel an affinity.

But that's not sufficient to make these worthwhile, I think.

Do you really think that newcomers want to wade trough an encyclopedia of pages on arrival?
If LL keeps a bit of reasonable pace there will be easily more than 100 different groups to highlight.
That is a book. Not an introduction to a platform.

Edited March 2, 2022 by Sid Nagy
typos...... now 2 for the price of one.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Just now, Sid Nagy said:

Do you really think that newcomers want to wade to an encyclopedia of pages on arrival?
If LL keeps a bit of reasonable pace there will be easily more than 100 different groups to high light.
That is a book. Not an introduction to a platform.

That's a good point. There's a LOT of information on the one existing page already.

I don't think that new arrivals are going to be wading through 100s of pages, tbh. For one thing, there won't be hundreds of pages for them to wade through: LL will be doing well if they can get a half dozen of these up in the next year.

But I do think that finding a streamlined way, at the very top of each page, to assist new residents to immediately connect with elements of that given community would be valuable.

[Sid Nagy]

6 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I don't think that new arrivals are going to be wading through 100s of pages, tbh. For one thing, there won't be hundreds of pages for them to wade through: LL will be doing well if they can get a half dozen of these up in the next year.

Someone with a tiny bit of experience as textwriter (like a journalist) writes four or five of these in a week easily, especially when a bit familiar with what is going on in SL.

If someone has to write them in gaps in between fixing broken SL essentials, it could take a bit longer indeed.

Edited March 2, 2022 by Sid Nagy

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 minute ago, Sid Nagy said:

Someone with a tiny bit of experience as textwriter (like a journalist) writes four or five of these in a week easily, especially when a bit familiar with what is going on in SL.

Sure, maybe. We'll see. I am highly doubtful.

[Silent Mistwalker]

56 minutes ago, StarlanderGoods said:

I am a person of colour, so please dont speak for me.

All I am going to say is, my skin is not red, it did not come from a crayon box.

[Rowan Amore]

I have RL family.  I have RL community.  I have RL...fill in the blank.  Personally, I'm not interested in SL being a reflection of RL.  I know a.lot of the black community in SL is into mom, dad, aunts, etc.  I have ALL that in RL and any drama that ensues.  Why in God's name would I drag that same BS into SL?

IMHO, country of origin, furries, RP, General Family RP, LGBTQIA and the likes would have been better choices as black people are in ALL of the above.

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

17 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

BDSM - while LL should tolerate adult behaviour, I don't think it should *promote* violence and slavery in any form, even if "consensual" and LL should avoid reinforcing the adult stereotypes in the RL media.

I have reservations too, and I think that it would need to be handled very carefully to avoid the worst excesses of representations of sexual violence, misogyny, etc. . . .

But I see this as a really potentially useful way of educating would-be BDSMers, in particular but not exclusively, about safety, consent, and so forth.

I'd have reservations about what Prok describes, too. But that's not BDSM as I understand or practice it.

Who'd set the guidelines for this "education" of would-be BDSMers?

There are organizations in RL that do their best to promote a healthy approach to BDSM. You've pointed to one, NCSF. Nevertheless, the entertainment industry proffered "Fifty Shades of Grey" as the layman's introduction to BDSM.

LL is an entertainment company.

[CaithLynnSayes]

Ok, i'm going to say it, feel free to hate me for it:

 

In history, what happened to the people trying to put other people into boxes?

Yes, i know why they are doing it, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I mean, just read this thread and make your conclusion.

 

 

[Mollymews]

1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

@Qie Niangaoand @Mollymews -- My sense, from the fact that their first community page is about RL identity, is that this is intended primarily to be an outward-facing resource, about recruitment and retention more than it is about in-world community. And that's a good thing, I think, although it doesn't prevent these from being really useful resources as well to existing residents and communities.

So, yes, we're back to the question of implementation. How does LL make these effectively and prominently visible, so that they can function in that way?

A really good start would, as Qie suggests, be to make these available and very visible during Orientation. At the very least, they would assist people in finding communities of others with whom they feel an affinity.

But that's not sufficient to make these worthwhile, I think.

when type keyword combinations of 'secondlife' 'black' 'people' 'culture' then the page is the first listing on Google search

edit add. I also notice that Linden are promoting this on the Microsoft platform. First page on Microsoft Edge browser

i agree that this is an outward facing resource

Edited March 2, 2022 by Mollymews

[kali Wylder]

I'm not sure I understand what all the fuss is about.  Is it because the lab chose Black culture as their first community to highlight?  Or is it the idea of there being more than one SL community the thing that's got everyone up in arms?  One of the reasons why people stay in SL is because they find other people here that they like and identify with and want to be around, in other words a community.  So what's wrong with making it easier to find your community by giving them a page? 

Of course I see there are those who worry about which communities will be selected, but it sounded to me like the lab is open to our input so if you want your community to have a page all you have to do is say so and perhaps offer information so they have something to put in the page.

Or are they reacting to the idea that if we highlight differences it's going to become a slugfest and will somehow take away their right to be xenophobic?

[BelindaN]

The SL Flickr community is arguably the largest and most diverse community. I hope this is recognised.

[Qie Niangao]

25 minutes ago, kali Wylder said:

So what's wrong with making it easier to find your community by giving them a page? 

To be clear, my only real question about the initiative is that I don't understand, practically, how this mechanism operates. How is the page discovered by its corresponding community members?

I think I understand from this first page how, once found, a page might help folks connect with the SL expression of their community. There is, however, a tremendous amount riding on the curated Destinations having people always present and ready to engage new arrivals.

If they get this right, it could leverage the existing SL userbase as an important "first mover advantage" over other metaversal upstarts.

[Cinnamon Mistwood]

I guess I don't know how this will work. Do residents find these communities through random groups to join? Does a resident volunteer some land and time and promise to have greeters there? How will someone interested in a certain community be led to it? What will they find there?

Edited March 3, 2022 by Cinnamon Mistwood

[Prokofy Neva]

3 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Not featuring them means LL are still locked into deliberately avoiding what people use their entertainment product for, and by extension not marketing the product to people with interests similar to the established and proven userbase that have kept this ship sailing.

There isn't a whole world of different, better, less controversial customers out there, there is us, and vast numbers of people just like us.

The same goes for each and every sub genre of roleplay, adult or otherwise.

Not featuring a group doesn't mean that LL is avoiding people much less telling people what to do. It's just not featuring. Nobody has suggested that LL feature motorcycle clubs, but there are tons of bars in this theme, to cite one example. 

[Istelathis]

55 minutes ago, kali Wylder said:

I'm not sure I understand what all the fuss is about. 

What I see as potential problems are people feeling they are being left out, be it they are not being selected to be a voice of their community, feeling the people selected for the articles are a poor voice for their community, or their community not being represented at all.  I imagine this is going to just lead to a lot of resentment, rather than pull people together.

I feel bad for whoever is assigned the task of writing the community pages.  They are going to likely be constantly pestered about it.  A better platform for community related information would be a platform similar to MeWe, but that would cost a small fortune and brings with it just more problems.

Edited March 2, 2022 by Istelathis

[Paul Hexem]

1 hour ago, kali Wylder said:

I'm not sure I understand what all the fuss is about.

It's a social justice PR stunt.

Which as you know, everyone always reacts calmly and rationally to, even when it's not LL- who is almost certain to screw it up.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

18 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Not featuring a group doesn't mean that LL is avoiding people much less telling people what to do. It's just not featuring. Nobody has suggested that LL feature motorcycle clubs, but there are tons of bars in this theme, to cite one example. 

Choosing or not choosing to highlight one group or another is, in effect even if not by intent, a political act.

We all get that, in the final analysis, the decision on highlighting "families" --or MCs -- in SL will be a business decision. But those decisions will also make it quite clear how LL feels about one constituency or another as important or viable assets to the platform. And it will also be a political decision because it is harnessing, or not, the leverage that LL possesses as the platform's owner to support one community, and not another. In that sense, it's also a form of social engineering.

All of this is mitigated to a fair degree by the fact that these pages are not going to have a great deal of actual impact on the ground.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

10 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

It's a social justice PR stunt.

Which as you know, everyone always reacts calmly and rationally to, even when it's not LL- who is almost certain to screw it up.

i think it's certainly that, in part. But it may also be a legitimate (and laudable) move in a larger attempt to make SL more diverse.

[Marigold Devin]

5 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

i think it's certainly that, in part. But it may also be a legitimate (and laudable) move in a larger attempt to make SL more diverse.

No. 

I really don't think so.

SL is already as diverse as diverse can be.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

2 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

I'd have reservations about what Prok describes, too. But that's not BDSM as I understand or practice it.

Who'd set the guidelines for this "education" of would-be BDSMers?

There are organizations in RL that do their best to promote a healthy approach to BDSM. You've pointed to one, NCSF. Nevertheless, the entertainment industry proffered "Fifty Shades of Grey" as the layman's introduction to BDSM.

LL is an entertainment company.

Yep. Tricky and dangerous as hell.

But LL is going to be (I hope) carefully curating this, for ALL of the pages.