Does SL Have an Intelligentsia?

[AnthonyJoanne]

On 8/20/2022 at 9:17 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

Those scripters that go to all the code meetings and have the Lindens eating out of their hands are, for better or worse, the intelligentsia, as the scripter is given a very high benefit in this world -- his work (it's usually "he") is generally copy-proof if the inworld object menu tool of "no mod" is used because it's server-side, whereas everyone else making prims, sculpties, mesh, textures, animations, sounds is manifested client-side inworld and therefore eminently copyable.

But how much influence do they exert on the 'world' as a whole?

I script quite a lot in-world. So I am very aware of the changes made to scripting over the past decade. I submit that if the scripters had significant influence then we would have seen a LOT of improvement in the ability to script ... which we have not seen. I'm not saying things haven't improved, but not enough to count scripters as a major influence.

And while you're entirely correct that scripts are one of the few things in SL which are pretty much impossible to do IP theft on ... I have yet to find a single script that I couldn't reverse engineer. A quick trip over to OpenSim will show you a vast amount of reverse engineered scripting which achieves exactly the same result there as does the original in SL ... without a single line of code having been stolen.

Setting that aside ... how many residents of SL are even aware if Fred Nurk suddenly releases a Widget that is far superior to any Widget ever seen in SL?

Among the most influential people in SL are the creators of mesh bodies and the fashions for them. Certainly I would suggest that they drive a very high percentage of the market on the MP, if not the absolute majority. (I honestly don't know ... I really don't bother to track that stuff). But even then ... how pervasive is that influence?

There's a list, I believe populated by @Lucia Nightfire, of the most popular mesh bodies in SL. I don't question her methodology or her results ... but I note that I am aware of a LOT of people who STILL don't wear mesh bodies for a number of reasons. For those people the popularity of given mesh bodies, and whether or not creators are making clothing for those bodies, is entirely irrelevant. Whereas for others the data gathered by Lucia is really important and can influence business decisions.

It's why I suggest that we cannot include 'influence' in the definition.

And of course, what passes for people with influence these days ... I'm sorry, but when people actually care what a sports ball player (who is no better informed than any other member of the public) thinks about complex geopolitical issues ... then it's time to discard influence as a metric.

[Coffee Pancake]

5 hours ago, AnthonyJoanne said:

I script quite a lot in-world. So I am very aware of the changes made to scripting over the past decade. I submit that if the scripters had significant influence then we would have seen a LOT of improvement in the ability to script ... which we have not seen. I'm not saying things haven't improved, but not enough to count scripters as a major influence.

This.

Progressing the scripting engine ceased when they restructured 10 years ago, closing UK offices and letting 30% of staff go (article reads like it could have been posted yesterday) which included Babbage Linden, that one guy who knew how any of this worked and was at the time working on C# support. Oops.

Since then we have had minor command additions to complement feature changes, quality of life shortcuts or the bare minimum to keep compatibility with the wider internet.

Scripting in SL is massively under powered, lacking in capability, and fundamentally treated as an after thought checkbox by the powers that be. We have been begging for more memory for a decade and here we are splitting scripts into multiple parts to work around a limitation that would be TRIVIAL for LL to remove. A work around uses significantly more memory and processing time and is the least efficient solution possible.

Scripters, as Intelligentsia as that makes them, have been able to exert almost no influence beyond tinkering at the fringes. They have either been broadly ignored or LL are so fantastically out of touch they have no idea how people are using their platform.

Advancement in programming language capability is a basic sign of life and viability. By this measure, LSL is a dead language that has been allowed to wither and die in the only place it's used. Opps.

Edited August 22, 2022 by Coffee Pancake
Catch up with what Babbage has been working on - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCYM4HDTFIE

[Love Zhaoying]

5 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Since then we have had minor command additions to complement feature changes, quality of life shortcuts or the bare minimum to keep compatibility with the wider internet.

I think at least SOME functions have been added since then which had a major impact on ME! Specifically, the JSON support was Second Life-changing for me.  (Sorry if it was added before that.)

[Alazarin Mondrian]

Quote

Does SL Have an Intelligentsia?

I'm not sure, but SL most certainly has a massive and ever-growing dumb-o-densia.

[Prokofy Neva]

23 hours ago, AnthonyJoanne said:

But how much influence do they exert on the 'world' as a whole?

I script quite a lot in-world. So I am very aware of the changes made to scripting over the past decade. I submit that if the scripters had significant influence then we would have seen a LOT of improvement in the ability to script ... which we have not seen. I'm not saying things haven't improved, but not enough to count scripters as a major influence.

And while you're entirely correct that scripts are one of the few things in SL which are pretty much impossible to do IP theft on ... I have yet to find a single script that I couldn't reverse engineer. A quick trip over to OpenSim will show you a vast amount of reverse engineered scripting which achieves exactly the same result there as does the original in SL ... without a single line of code having been stolen.

Setting that aside ... how many residents of SL are even aware if Fred Nurk suddenly releases a Widget that is far superior to any Widget ever seen in SL?

Among the most influential people in SL are the creators of mesh bodies and the fashions for them. Certainly I would suggest that they drive a very high percentage of the market on the MP, if not the absolute majority. (I honestly don't know ... I really don't bother to track that stuff). But even then ... how pervasive is that influence?

There's a list, I believe populated by @Lucia Nightfire, of the most popular mesh bodies in SL. I don't question her methodology or her results ... but I note that I am aware of a LOT of people who STILL don't wear mesh bodies for a number of reasons. For those people the popularity of given mesh bodies, and whether or not creators are making clothing for those bodies, is entirely irrelevant. Whereas for others the data gathered by Lucia is really important and can influence business decisions.

It's why I suggest that we cannot include 'influence' in the definition.

And of course, what passes for people with influence these days ... I'm sorry, but when people actually care what a sports ball player (who is no better informed than any other member of the public) thinks about complex geopolitical issues ... then it's time to discard influence as a metric.

Maybe I've lowered my standards as the frog boiling in the water of SL, but the fact that a *third-party viewer* is used by most residents and the Lindens welcome this, despite its history associated with reverse-engineering and the griefer viewer preceding it that was used for Copybot and other exploits and had to be cleaned up (and can still be used for Copybot) -- means that scripters indeed have an outsized influence!

And you're right about the reverse-engineering, starting with LL's very own viewer, which was first reverse-engineered BEFORE they had the policy of open source and encouragement of TPVs, a fact that CTO overlooked and even welcome and was a source of division among the top Lindens.

The place where residents are aware when Fred Nurk issues yet another iteration is in 1) breedables 2) vehicles 3) weapons -- the items that command the top sales and attention. Not to mention all kinds of other things like food givers, adult furniture, etc. I've discovered how viciously this class of scripters and creators they serve will fight for their niche on Twitter recently.

Yes, there is a determined cohort not wearing mesh, and I was long among them and only reluctantly joined very recently and don't feel any improvement in my SL as a result, but only more cost and exasperation. 

And I guess it was the intelligentsia in action when a certain continent and area of Bellisseria were connected up, no? All those maps and charts.

[Coffee Pancake]

4 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Maybe I've lowered my standards as the frog boiling in the water of SL, but the fact that a *third-party viewer* is used by most residents and the Lindens welcome this, despite its history associated with reverse-engineering and the griefer viewer preceding it that was used for Copybot and other exploits and had to be cleaned up (and can still be used for Copybot) -- means that scripters indeed have an outsized influence!

Scripters do not make third party viewers.

They are entirely different skillsets so far removed from each other that even suggesting it is laughable.

 

 

 

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Scripters do not make third party viewers.

They are entirely different skillsets so far removed from each other that even suggesting it is laughable.

Maybe she is conflating "scripters" (LSL programmers) with "application developers who may develop 3rd Party Viewers"?

The scripters = LSL programmers would make a nice chunk of users.  With little to no influence.

[diamond Marchant]

5 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

And I guess it was the intelligentsia in action when a certain continent and area of Bellisseria were connected up, no? All those maps and charts.

Bwah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

Coffee said

Quote

Advancement in programming language capability is a basic sign of life and viability. By this measure, LSL is a dead language that has been allowed to wither and die in the only place it's used.

I would give them my first born prim baby if llMapDestination would just set a beacon and not open the world map.

Edited August 23, 2022 by diamond Marchant

[Love Zhaoying]

28 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

Quote

Advancement in programming language capability is a basic sign of life and viability. By this measure, LSL is a dead language that has been allowed to wither and die in the only place it's used.

I would give them my first born prim baby if llMapDestination would just set a beacon and not open the world map.

Oh my goodness! I must be an expert on "dead languages" and did not know! 

C, VB, LSL among a few that are "dead" that I still work in actively!

[AnthonyJoanne]

On 8/23/2022 at 8:53 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

Maybe I've lowered my standards as the frog boiling in the water of SL, but the fact that a *third-party viewer* is used by most residents and the Lindens welcome this, despite its history associated with reverse-engineering and the griefer viewer preceding it that was used for Copybot and other exploits and had to be cleaned up (and can still be used for Copybot) -- means that scripters indeed have an outsized influence!

Ah - but are we talking about in-world scripters ... or developers of an external program?

Let's note that the devs of FS may well have influence in some regards, but that doesn't make them an in-world intelligentsia.

So we've exposed an interesting difference to RL ... SL can have influence which is both internal and external. External influence would be the development of SL (eg the addition of Bento), or changing the rules (i.e. TOS etc). Clearly LL has a pretty healthy lock on that. Additionally the devs of FS can exert a similar influence (to a lessor degree) with what they do with FS. The same applies to the devs of the other TPVs.

Now some of those external changes (especially TOS) would have a major knock-on effect in-world. We saw that when LL eliminated gacha. I never got into gacha, but I could see that a LOT of people were impacted in a big way by that ... and not just the shop owners who had to replace their gacha machines ... but people who were really (really really really) into gacha who were going to miss it.

But in-world scripters? To a certain extent ... logically it follows that the creation and scripting of the replacement for gacha had an in-world impact. BUT ...

Did it have the kind of impact (i.e. influence) that is required of an Intelligentsia?

 

23 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

The place where residents are aware when Fred Nurk issues yet another iteration is in 1) breedables 2) vehicles 3) weapons -- the items that command the top sales and attention. Not to mention all kinds of other things like food givers, adult furniture, etc. I've discovered how viciously this class of scripters and creators they serve will fight for their niche on Twitter recently.

I'll admit to not being in touch with those aspects of SL ... Breedables have never held any interest, and Vehicles and Weapons strike me as trying to get SL to do things that it's poorly suited to do.  As to dispensers, sitters (ie adult furniture) and the like ... I wasn't aware that there had been any serious upgrades to those in a while.

Even if there were a lot of really significant upgrades ... a sitter is still a sitter. The most profound change that I can think of in terms of sitters was the move from requiring poseballs to not requiring them. And that was quite a while ago. And even that didn't necessarily count as the kind of impact we need to look for in terms of an Intelligentsia.

And so we've arrived at the same point, via two different conversational forks: I've always viewed the influence of an Intelligentsia as the ability to sway the attitudes of society (to a certain extent, as a whole).  That would require a person or group to be respected by the majority of the society.

That no longer applies. The past five years have done an amazing job of exposing the feet of clay of just about everyone who was respected.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, AnthonyJoanne said:

And so we've arrived at the same point, via two different conversational forks: I've always viewed the influence of an Intelligentsia as the ability to sway the attitudes of society (to a certain extent, as a whole).  That would require a person or group to be respected by the majority of the society.

That no longer applies. The past five years have done an amazing job of exposing the feet of clay of just about everyone who was respected.

Well said!

[Love Zhaoying]

I will be disappointed, if the self-appointed Intelligentsia do not attend ALL LL "User Group" meetings, for example this one was just posted:

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

the self-appointed Intelligentsia

And who would that be, Love?

Can you point me to someone here who has declared themselves part of the "intelligentsia"?

Or is this just generic snark and anti-intellectualism?

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

And who would that be, Love?

Can you point me to someone here who has declared themselves part of the "intelligentsia"?

Or is this just generic snark and anti-intellectualism?

Nope.

Paraphrasing - Prokofy Neva, in one of the more recent posts (possible 3-6 pages ago), explained that people should (assumption: if they were to be part of an Intelligentsia) go to the meetings as she and Arielle Popstar have gone - apparently in an act of almost-rebellion.  I think it was safe to assume, with all of the explanations, and specific information provided (including "risk of getting banned), that in the context of the thread - Prokofy Neva was placing herself among the Intelligentsia.  Because she attended meetings.  Apparently, as we should all do.

Do you  want me to fish back through the pages and find all the references that made up the information?

I am not an "anti-intellectualist" on this point.  I think Prokofy Neva did a splendid job explaining the benefits that an Intelligentsia (according to her definition and explanations) could provide to Second Life.  From that aspect - I totally "get it".

Note that someone "called me out" in my thread about "Intelligentsia Roleplay" - because they identified themselves as a member of the Russian Intelligentsia, and know people who have been killed, poisoned, shot.  In THAT context - I find this entire discussion extremely offensive.  If Intelligentsia are to be "respected" and understood as they were explained to me by this person (a real group in Russia who is under real and physical thread of death) - then comparing one's self to an Intelligentsia and boiling it down to "coming to the meeting" - is very, very misguided.

And that is what I have taken away from this entire thread.

Thanks for asking!

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

30 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Paraphrasing - Prokofy Neva, in one of the more recent posts (possible 3-6 pages ago), explained that people should (assumption: if they were to be part of an Intelligentsia) go to the meetings as she and Arielle Popstar have gone - apparently in an act of almost-rebellion.  I think it was safe to assume, with all of the explanations, and specific information provided (including "risk of getting banned), that in the context of the thread - Prokofy Neva was placing herself among the Intelligentsia.  Because she attended meetings.  Apparently, as we should all do.

Do you  want me to fish back through the pages and find all the references that made up the information?

Not necessary, I'm happy to do it myself. I know what a pain in can be to make sure one has quoted something accurately.

Here's what Prok actually said:

On 8/18/2022 at 7:26 AM, Prokofy Neva said:

Well, you laugh, but that actually got me to thinking and for better or worse, I suppose the forums, such as it is, has the elements of the intelligentsia.

Example: recently when the Lindens put this forums "reform" over on the public without consent and without much notice, there was a group of Concerned Citizens including Arielle Popstar and Scylla and some others who made the time to go to one of those inworld office hours, which of course, can be a mixed bag. And they persisted in confronting the Lindens there. So that's all to the good. Being a good citizen or taking on the role of civil society doesn't always mean being the intelligentsia; but those who consider themselves educated and in the arts and in various civic causes of course do well by taking civic actions like this.

It's all we have. So I welcome it. 

Prok didn't attend the meeting, so far as I can recall, and therefore is not suggesting that he is one of the "Concerned Citizens" who may, or may not, be somewhat like an "intelligentsia" on the forum (which contains elements of such a group).

Now, I have no idea whether Prok considers himself a member of the SL intelligentsia or not: you'll have to ask him. But he hasn't asserted that here, so far as I can recall. I also doubt that Arielle would so label herself. As for me, I'm on record in this thread stating several times that I don't believe that SL has an "intelligentsia," and that the communication tools with which we are provided are inadequate for the formation of one. Which would, of course, make it odd for me to identify as a member.

So, you still haven't identified anyone here who is a "self-appointed member of the intelligentsia."

Care to try again?

30 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Thanks for asking!

YVW!

Edited August 24, 2022 by Scylla Rhiadra
Typo

[Prokofy Neva]

7 hours ago, AnthonyJoanne said:

Ah - but are we talking about in-world scripters ... or developers of an external program?

Let's note that the devs of FS may well have influence in some regards, but that doesn't make them an in-world intelligentsia.

So we've exposed an interesting difference to RL ... SL can have influence which is both internal and external. External influence would be the development of SL (eg the addition of Bento), or changing the rules (i.e. TOS etc). Clearly LL has a pretty healthy lock on that. Additionally the devs of FS can exert a similar influence (to a lessor degree) with what they do with FS. The same applies to the devs of the other TPVs.

Now some of those external changes (especially TOS) would have a major knock-on effect in-world. We saw that when LL eliminated gacha. I never got into gacha, but I could see that a LOT of people were impacted in a big way by that ... and not just the shop owners who had to replace their gacha machines ... but people who were really (really really really) into gacha who were going to miss it.

But in-world scripters? To a certain extent ... logically it follows that the creation and scripting of the replacement for gacha had an in-world impact. BUT ...

Did it have the kind of impact (i.e. influence) that is required of an Intelligentsia?

 

I'll admit to not being in touch with those aspects of SL ... Breedables have never held any interest, and Vehicles and Weapons strike me as trying to get SL to do things that it's poorly suited to do.  As to dispensers, sitters (ie adult furniture) and the like ... I wasn't aware that there had been any serious upgrades to those in a while.

Even if there were a lot of really significant upgrades ... a sitter is still a sitter. The most profound change that I can think of in terms of sitters was the move from requiring poseballs to not requiring them. And that was quite a while ago. And even that didn't necessarily count as the kind of impact we need to look for in terms of an Intelligentsia.

And so we've arrived at the same point, via two different conversational forks: I've always viewed the influence of an Intelligentsia as the ability to sway the attitudes of society (to a certain extent, as a whole).  That would require a person or group to be respected by the majority of the society.

That no longer applies. The past five years have done an amazing job of exposing the feet of clay of just about everyone who was respected.

 

Regarding poses, there are now entire sequences and they do evolve in terms of more and more of them and more elaborate variations. 

Again, the fact that most users use Firestorm and not the regular SL viewer shows you the level of influence.

But I refer you back to Rolig's invocation of the "two sciences" -- and I'm not sure this is even science, but technology, or engineering, and if engineering, if it is all that intellectual. Still, the biggest resistance that the TPVs have shown is to the Lindens' crazy mangling of a perfectly good search in their quest to ape Google.

The TPVs kept the legacy search and that's why we even have an economy, shoppers, and log-ins. That's pretty astounding when you think of it. If every resident had to put up with the mangled search I do in the regular SL viewer -- they wouldn't. And they didn't.

It's true that the intelligentsia, especially those referencing obvious local state law and precedent, were unable to get the Lindens to drop the gatcha ban. Yet they came up with the Miepon and Nextup sort of gatcha-like machines to mitigate the disaster, and that's not trivial!

Can the intellectuals among the Lindens even influence their own software any more?

[Prokofy Neva]

32 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Not necessary, I'm happy to do it myself. I know what a pain in can be to make sure one has quoted something accurately.

Here's what Prok actually said:

Prok didn't attend the meeting, so far as I can recall, and therefore is not suggesting that he is one of the "Concerned Citizens" who may, or may not, be somewhat like an "intelligentsia" on the forum (which contains elements of such a group).

Now, I have no idea whether Prok considers himself a member of the SL intelligentsia or not: you'll have to ask him. But he hasn't asserted that here, so far as I can recall. I also doubt that Arielle would so label herself. As for me, I'm on record in this thread stating several times that I don't believe that SL has an "intelligentsia," and that the communication tools with which we are provided are inadequate for the formation of one. Which would, of course, make it odd for me to identify as a member.

So, you still haven't identified anyone here who is a "self-appointed member of the intelligentsia."

Care to try again?

YVW!

I couldn't get to that meeting, they are during the work day, I'm busy with other obligations. I try to get to Concierge now and then, but the geek meetings I generally only go to once a year because they are just so shockingly awful and distressing. And I'm not welcome at them anyway. That is, sure, technically I can go, and the meeting on the forums is one I might have gone if free as indeed I am a Concerned Citizen.

Although for me, the fact that there is a ban on debating RL politics with other people in SL is frankly not a loss, as there is Twitter and Facebook for that, with people whose identities you know, or who at least can't effectively manipulate the moderation system to silence you.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Prokofy Neva

[Scylla Rhiadra]

4 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Although for me, the fact that there is a ban on debating RL politics with other people in SL is frankly not a loss, as there is Twitter and Facebook for that, with people whose identities you know, or who at least can't effectively manipulate the moderation system to silence you.

The fact that we can continue to have discussions such as this one is important. I was initially worried that the intent was to turn GD into a sort of glorified Answers section.

I can live with this.

[Persephone Emerald]

I don't think SL has a true Intelligentia. It has some smart, educated, skilled residents, but most have little power. Social Influencers are not Intelligentia. The closest thing would be mesh creators & TPV programers who've been able to influence the direction SL has taken technically. The big land barons may have another kind of influence, but they're more like SL oligarchs.

 

[Luna Bliss]

[AnthonyJoanne]

5 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

It's true that the intelligentsia, especially those referencing obvious local state law and precedent, were unable to get the Lindens to drop the gatcha ban. Yet they came up with the Miepon and Nextup sort of gatcha-like machines to mitigate the disaster, and that's not trivial!

This is where ... the conversation turns surreal if we're not careful :D

It also may offend some people who don't pay attention to what I'm saying. Before anyone react I implore them to read what I've said closely, and ALL of what I've said.

The thing is, in terms of SL ... LL represent something that didn't exist in the cultural and societal matrix of the period which coined the term Intelligentsia.

LL is, in the narrow and specific perspective of SL, God. Specifically LL represents a living and responsive God that you can literally point at.

Had Nietzche said "God is dead" in SL someone could have taken him to a LL meeting and said "No - he's right over there". If not God, least one of his angels would be at the meeting. :D

 

NOTE: Anyone who believes in God may, at this point, say that I'm being blasphemous. Not the case. I'm saying two things:

1. In terms of SL, LL fills the role of God. LL creates. LL sets the rules. LL punishes. LL literally keeps the world running.

2. LL's existence is not subject to debate or faith ... we have regular, ongoing, concrete evidence that LL exists.

If you believe that God exists, and it's verifiable, then I envy you your faith. But let us remember that for a long time now there have been people who have not believed in God and see no evidence to support the existence of God. I am not saying that God does not exist ... I am saying that there is NO way to argue that LL does not exist. And that's all I'm saying.

 

To my mind, and I fully acknowledge that this is purely my own perception, an Intelligentsia needs to address issues which might best be described as 'profound'. Meaning of life stuff. Issues with major ethical implications. That sort of thing. And Intelligentsia may also concern themselves with more trivial issues, but while we HAVE profound issues extent IN Second Life ... they are RL issues which have come in 'from outside' so to speak. About the only profound issue that comes to mind that truly belongs to SL is "Do LL overstep because they are biased?" Even THAT particular issue requires consideration of SL and RL.

Now that's an interesting question and one which is fit for an Intelligentsia: Are we in the hands of a just God? Or is God a committee of fools?

But the reality is that LL is NOT God ... for all that they fill the role in terms of SL. So how profound is the question really?

Creating Miepon and Nextup in response to market forces and the demand of the customers doesn't really strike me as something that qualifies as an act of the Intelligentsia. Mind you ... this conversation might qualify

[Persephone Emerald]

1 hour ago, AnthonyJoanne said:

This is where ... the conversation turns surreal if we're not careful

It also may offend some people who don't pay attention to what I'm saying. Before anyone react I implore them to read what I've said closely, and ALL of what I've said.

The thing is, in terms of SL ... LL represent something that didn't exist in the cultural and societal matrix of the period which coined the term Intelligentsia.

LL is, in the narrow and specific perspective of SL, God. Specifically LL represents a living and responsive God that you can literally point at.

Had Nietzche said "God is dead" in SL someone could have taken him to a LL meeting and said "No - he's right over there". If not God, least one of his angels would be at the meeting.

[snip]

Any analogy will be imperfect. Just as a map is not the thing it represents, an analogy is just a thought experiment used to help us understand something

I find it easier to think of SL as a country run by a benevolent dictatorship, but your idea of SL being a world run by a god - or more accurately a pantheon of gods - works too.

A god in classical mythology could be just or not. It could disguise itself as a mortal to see its subjects up close. It could decide to wipe out all the mortals and start afresh, to torment one person for sport, or to elevate a particular one to the role of a lesser god. The "gods" of LL could pull the plug on SL, ban a single user, or hire one to be one of the lesser Lindens. For the most part they're indifferent to our small complaints, but can be petitioned to do things for us with the proper rituals and reverence.

I half jokingly referred to the Moles as the secret Illuminati of SL, because they're residents with knowledge and powers greater than that of most residents, yet they don't hold true power. Perhaps in this analogy, they'd be the priests & acolytes of the Linden gods?

Edited August 25, 2022 by Persephone Emerald

[Coffee Pancake]

9 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

The TPVs kept the legacy search and that's why we even have an economy, shoppers, and log-ins. That's pretty astounding when you think of it.

TPV's ported legacy search to viewer 2, LL frequently stated that it would likely be removed at some point.

Due to the way LL operate their development, unless there is a business case for doing something, it doesn't get done. It has happend, fortuietiously for us, that there has been no business case made that includes in some part, removing those search interfaces.

This is more "dumb luck" than active influence.

 

[Randall Ahren]

On 8/24/2022 at 8:24 PM, Persephone Emerald said:

Perhaps in this analogy, they'd be the priests & acolytes of the Linden gods?

I'm their prophet.

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

Do you mean... THE FIC?