20 November, 2009

we built our world of metal, watched it grow, fuelled the fury solid to the bone

Winter Ventura has deactivated all her items on XStreet, and has a very effective cost breakdown of exactly what the new Linden-mandated fees will mean, in terms of USD$ upfront, per month, per year, and what it adds to someone who's already paying for premium account membership and tier fees for land.

Ciaran Laval cuts through the "myths" that the Lindens aren't listening by providing DIRECT PROOF that they don't listen. Which is all well and good, and it's a good read, but--they're likely still not listening.

As far as my own items go, all but one item--the one that has been, to date, selling and selling well--have been deactivated. I will be going through all my stock, repackaging, and getting things up on other services. In the meantime, to compensate for the new fees, that L$1 item is now L$4 until I figure out if any of the other services will work for me.

I hate this. But my prediction is that item, because it is now no longer a Linden-only item, will cease to sell. Still, if it keeps selling, I can make it a rotating 'what's new' placeholder, and drop in a couple of whatever textures are currently in the store, I want to sample out.

Maybe.

It's also Munchflower Zaius' rez day today. Partially to celebrate, and partially to show her dissatisfaction with the XStreet proposed fees, much of her 2,239 items of content on XStreet are L$100 or less until...she says it stops, or deactivates her items. Truly not sure which she wants to do at this point, honestly.

In other news, the issues surrounding Revenge Gears spiral on. For my part of it, I'm fascinated by the music more than anything else--well, that and the fact that she's starting to look so strung out, ill, the dark patch of melanotic skin on her chest bothers me...but in spite of all that...

Claims against Revenge from March 2008
Claims from Aprille
More claims from Aprille
More claims against her from May
Revenge Gears has been banned, June 2008

Which is all well and good, but...she's still in SL. Huh? More to the point, most of the 'proof' the SLThievesHunter blog--and Shopping Cart Disco--provide seem to provide indubitable proof that she was recreating designs, but--by their own posted photos--not copybotting them. Copybotted textures look exactly like their real counterparts because they are the real counterparts; Revenge Gears' items, while clearly and unmistakeably made to imitate, are not direct lifts.

Shopping Cart Disco's take on it from Aprille 2008

I have no idea what it all means. It's more than halfway tempting me to leave the SHE WANTS REVENGE group, though. Another source of drama I do not need.

In other news, I hate it when Prokovy Neva makes sense. But--as I live in Caledon--I know Mr. Metropolitan's side of the story, and Desmond Shang's reaction to it (which was to sever all connections to the NCI group, making Oxbridge pretty much an independent operation unsupported by the Lindens). And it matches at least some of what Prokovy is ranting about.

I'm still trying to figure out where Tateru Nino comes in, but as far as the rest of it--yeah. That's why Caledon doesn't have their own entry point anymore. Though speaking of Tateru Nino, Massively analyzes the XStreet situation.

And while we're here, Philip Linden rips off CodeBastard Redgrave? Well, there are differences, definitely. But I see what they're trying to say.

And apropos of nothing in particular, how to optimize profile pictures by size in Second Life. Because I've gotten a few questions on it recently, so there you go.

I'm running behind on analyzing other choices for XStreet replacement; why? Because I found I had to entirely rebuild--and reupload new textures for rebuilding--the Bloodscratch dress.

Sad, but I have learned a lot since I made it, and I have a different take on things, and even with two different lace panels and ten separate skirt sections, I still came in under forty prims on the skirt build! Considering the other one one comprised one lace panel, one cloth panel, per file..

And we end with the signature tag I can't bring myself to use, or delete, for Gmail, so I'll share it here (because it's too long for Twitter):

"If anybody has any tips for coping with having your demigod take possession of a scrawny naked guy, transform into some other guy, lose a small holy war, and then get stripped of his powers, I'd love to hear 'em. I'm having a crisis of faith over here."
~Barrett (Gaia Online)


You'd have to have played in the last Gaia Halloween event to truly get why that's so funny; but maybe it's funnier without the context.

7 comments:

Dale Innis said...

It's pretty darn funny without the context, definitely. :)

I'm not sure what part of Prokofy's landlord-blackmail letter makes sense to you; from my position it's utterly whacky.

He's telling an organization that rents some land from him that if they don't force one of their volunteers to stay off certain public parcels of land, and to quit one of their groups (a group that, note, the Lindens have not banned or dissolved), he will kick the organization off of the land they rent.

(The fact that this particular volunteer has as far as I can tell never done anything at all questionable except in Prok's overactive imagination just makes it all the whackier.)

But maybe that's just me...

Tony Agudo said...

Emily, I got some bad news about the item you've left up on XStreet. You can't list a freebie on XStreet for L$4 and direct them in-world to grab the real L$0 item, according to their rules:

http://antoniusmisfit.blogspot.com/2009/11/some-proof-of-how-xstreetsls-listing.html

Tony Agudo said...

You'll either have to bump up the in-world item to L$4 or lower the XStreet price to zero and take the L$99/month hit, if you think listing on XStreet is still worth it.

Emilly Orr said...

Antonius,

*facepalms* I forgot about that section of their ToS. Damn it.

I can't take the L$99 hit, that's the problem, and I can't take the L$2 lost per sale. Botheration.

Dale,

The part where Prokovy talked about NCI being overrun with known griefing idiots, which is why Caledon disassociated with Oxbridge, and why Carl Metropolitan was a) banned for three days and b) left NCI. He'd done a lot of good, positive work there; the bad element didn't so much creep in as come thundering in playing kazoos; and Metropolitan said, fine, either kick THEM out--because they're NOT helping--or I'm leaving.

Three guesses what happened from there, and the first two don't count.

Dale Innis said...

Ah, very good. Yeah, I can certainly believe the griefers focused on NCI, and I'm sad that Carl left in such complicated circumstances. But as far as I can tell, the people that caused that are not the people that Prokofy is making the most noise about.

Emilly Orr said...

Well, no, in that the post was an 'open letter' to Tateru Nino, and I fully grant I might have missed something, but I don't get the link.

And the whole landlord/rentals squabble thing, honestly, Neva trots that out SO often--along with the 'they're all watching me! You are too! YOU'RE ALL OUT TO GET ME!!" paranoia, it's just so much white noise at this point.

As far as what Desmond Shang and Carl Metropolitan have said, how'ver, it wasn't that the Woodbury group focused on NCI for griefing--it's a welcome island, welcome islands ALWAYS get hit--but rather that the Powers that Own NCI welcomed the Woodbury folks, knowing they were known griefers, into the teaching group. And that Metropolitan refused to stand for, and that was what he left over--the simplicity of him saying "These people are bad. We don't want them around newcomers. Either they go or I do" and the NCI upper staffers saying "Okay...bye, Carl".

Anonymous said...

Actually, no, not really.

NCI's position was and is that actual griefers couldn't be in the teaching group. Its policy, however, is to deal with individuals as individuals, upholding the right to freedom of association. Being a member of a group that has griefers in it doesn't make one a griefer oneself.

This became an issue for two reasons: (1) He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was agitating against NCI because it had members who were also members of WU, and for reasons I have never been able to fathom, Carl and Des both give credence to the most destructive troll in all of SL. (2) LL itself has no such qualms about free association, and was threatening to remove Oxbridge's community gateway status unless NCI changed its policy. The latter left them with a clear choice between upholding their ideals (and losing the gateway) or keeping the gateway (and compromising their ideals).

From Des's side, this was of course a no-brainer. Des is a conservative on such matters. Having a community gateway in Caledon is Good; freedom of association may be nice, but one must be pragmatic about such things.

Feeling the pressure from all sides, Carl made the unilateral decision to bar anybody from being in both NCI and WU. As he put it, it was the best of the bad choices. I've known Carl almost as long as I've been in SL, I consider him a friend, and I respect him greatly, but I could not disagree more with this decision. Immediately, and to their great credit, darn near everybody else on the NCI staff resigned.

(Do note that this is different from Carl issuing an ultimatum to leave and being kicked out; he made his decision, and the rest of NCI voted with their feet.)

Shortly after that, to his great credit, Carl realized that he'd lost his mandate and resigned himself.

I'm entirely on NCI's side on this one.

hide away, they say, 'cos we don't want your broken parts

Yeah, so...remember that thing I was recovering from? You know, last year ? Yeah. I did it again. So this is Em Faw Down Go Boom part ...