Reader Submitted: Letter to The Editor - The Death of SL

 

From Magnus (Magnustemporal Resident)

as of 11:22:47 am on Tue 11/26/24 there are currently 17,560 active users in Second Life.

"The death of SL."

The title of this does sound very dismal does it not? It makes one think that perhaps the grid will shut down tomorrow, or next year....it just sounds dreadful, however it's not quite what you think, In fact there's a lot more to the picture than you think....read on to find out more.

I have been around in SL for a very long time, 17 years in fact....maybe not on this account. But on total it's been about 17 years.

At one point during this time, when content creators failed to gain protections for their IP from LL....a lot left SL in almost a mass exodus....and this is when I started seeing this pattern...I'm not sure what to call it other than a cyclic event, and it works like this:

Whenever a major content creator leaves SL, or a major DJ or venue switches platforms and leaves SL for whatever reason, there is a exodus of people from the grid. This lowers the number of citizens in world, I have seen it happen time and time again, a major club or person or DJ leaves SL and others follow suit, in time the grid does recover some of the numbers lost, however they're never as "good" as the numbers before.

SL is made or broke by us the citizens, with the content we create, the people we help, or the friends and family we make, when people have pleasurable experiences in world, they are much more apt to come back. At some point when the numbers above get small enough SL probably will go offline for cost reasons. But seeing the impact that a single citizen can make in world. I know the power of good things. And of good causes.

I have seen this cycle repeat it's self so many times, and I have no idea how many have caught on to it. The solution however does start with us citizens. We need to be more active in getting people to try the game, to look around and experience all the great and awesome stuff people make and things they do, 

I used to own my own business in real life, and I never paid for advertising. My customers had good experiences and I was referenced soley by word of mouth. In time I became rather successful.

The point of that is, that we can grow SL's numbers and draw in content creators and new citizens simply by word of mouth alone.

The next statements are more personal views than anything else and are not intended to offend at all but give cause for thought.

For a lot of people, SL starts with finding out the game exists, either by search engine advert, or you guessed it word of mouth from a friend. 

So the experience, the first experience a person has with SL is dependent entirely by the viewer they choose to use. 

What I noticed with the PBR based viewers is that there was a rush to be the first to produce one, and with disastrous results. 

The first few viewers where atrocious as the different viewer makers struggled with the new technology, there where bugs, but some rushed to press to be one of the first to produce a PBR viewers. 

Did anyone stop and think for a moment, how this open experimentation might effect first time users? 

they create an account, log in and......lag, missing textures, stability issues.....all sorts of things....what will these people think these potential new citizens? They may have been referenced to a particular viewer by a friend only to have a first time substandard experience, some may try again while others might quit entirely.....this is not good at all for the grid. 

I think that more and through testing before releasing a version of the viewer on the grid, to ensure that new and seasoned users have a pleasurable experience. When they do, they talk, and for SL talking is good. it brings people.

Content creators and venues should give careful consideration about quitting SL before doing so because that can also have a grid wide impact especially if the person or venue has a lot of support from the community...

I get people are gonna quit, but there's things even then that can be done to reduce the loss of citizens on the grid, and maybe the cycle that I see everytime a big person or place or club or what have you leaves, there won't be such a hit on the grid, and that 17,560 people could become 100,000.....in fact I think we were somewhere near or over that number of people at one point. and it was awesome.

But things start and end with us, so what are we gonna do with our future?

Magnus.

Extra

Burning Man Founder Larry Harvey Dies

By Bixyl Shuftan

Some sad news for Burn2 fans in Second Life, and for all fans of the Burning Man festival in real life. Larry Harvey, one of the founders of Burning Man, passed away on Saturday April 28. The cause of death was a massive stroke earlier in the month. He was 70 years old.

Burning Man has significance to Second Life in that in the early days of Linden Lab before the virtual world was developed, a number of the staff attended one of the festivals, and were influenced by it. Linden Lab would also sponsor an inworld version of the festival, "Burning Life," for several years. Eventually, the Lab would end it's sponsorship, and the festival became known as Burn2.

I had a few words with iSkye Silverweb, one of the Burn2 participants. "He had an influence on a lot of things and a lot of people," she told me, "you didn't even have to be part of Burning Man at all to feel his influence." She mentioned the Smithsonian had recently made a Burning Man exhibition., "Larry Harvey had a hand in this."

iSkye would write a tribute on the Burn2 website.

By now, many of you have heard that Burning Man founder Larry Harvey passed away on the 28th of April at the age of 70. A man who eschewed labels, he was affectionately known as the Man in the Hat.

Since the first Burn on Baker Beach in San Francisco, Harvey saw the development of a movement inspired by his vision of a free-spirited world of creativity and collaboration. With each year, increasing numbers of like-minded people were gathering with him on this beach; in 1990 the practice was shut down by San Francisco authorities. Undeterred and with the help of friends, the event reloated to the Black Rock desert in Nevada as Burning Man.

Every year since then, the event grew still larger, and has spawned 85 officiial Burning Man regionals, of which BURN2 is one. The Ten Principles of Burning Man were written down by Larry Harvey in 2004, a crystallisation of a guiding ethos that developed organically within the Burner community. 

Thanks to his foresight, Burning Man will continue into the foreseeable future; may we always burn the Man.

When the news first came out about his death, some virtual Burners put out memorials of Larry Harvey on the BURN2 virtual playa; if you have an avatar with Second Life® account, you are welcome to visit, to remember the dreamer and Chief Philosophical Officer of Burning Man, the Man in the Hat. The SLURL to the BURN2 playa is http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Burning%20Man-%20Deep%20Hole/226/83/25

Heading out to Deep Hole in an alt, I would see one tribute in the middle of the sim, a wooden man that someone had set to burn. There would also be tributes to him on the Burning Man website.

If you bring a little soul to the encounter, maybe you'll see something you didn't look for; maybe you'll open your heart a little, and see things you didn't imagine.

Burning Man is an annual art and music festival in the Black Rock Desert about 150 miles northeast of Reno Nevada. Having it's beginnings on a beach in San Francisco in 1986, in 1990 the event was moved to it's present annual location. Over the years, the number of participants has grown from just twenty to almost 70,000. The sheer number of participants led to some rules and changes that a few felt compromised the spirit of the event, and there would be a split with one other founder. A couple people whom were repeat attendees told me while good, the real life Burning Man is not like what it used to be. The event has also attracted some controversy from outside due to public nudity. In 2017, a man died when he ran into the flames. But even with Harvey's death, the event goes on. And no doubt Second Life's Burn2 will too.

Sources: Wikipedia, BBC, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Burn2, Burning Man

Bixyl Shuftan

Reader Submitted: Mourning in Second Life

By Alura Messing
 

Death.  We can't escape it in our first lives or our second.  If you have been in any type of gaming community, you know how close an emotional bond you can build with people.  You talk to them almost everyday.  You hear about their families, their problems, and their successes.  You often know them better than most of their families do.  But once in awhile, you log in to get the news that something terrible has happened.  One of your friends has passed away.

In my years of gaming it has happened more than once.  One was very ill and just never came back.  I can only assume that they passed on and their family didn't know how, or felt no need to tell their gaming friends.  One was very young and died suddenly in a house fire with his mother.  I was lucky a real life friend was able to pass on the sad news.  Which brings me to my current gaming experience in Second Life.

I am part of a family here.  We all live on the same land and see each-other daily.  We go shopping together, attend special events the someone is in, and just talk about life.  I logged in the other day, to find out that one of my family had passed away.  Even as I write, we are still waiting to learn the cause.  He was young and no one saw this coming.  We were all devastated and needed to find a way to mourn.

I believe many people in Second Life are faced with this.  They don't know what to do, or how to honor the memory of someone they cared for.  For many years, the Lindens themselves hosted a memorial garden that you could go to and have the name of a resident who passed away added to.  Sadly in July of 2011 they stopped accepting names to add to the memorial, though you can still visit and see existing memorials.   

Residents now have to devise their own ways to memorialize their friends.  We can't rely on the Lindens to have a common in world place as a memorial.  Over the years I have see many ways that people have attempted to find their peace and remember the light and life of a lost soul.  In my early days I happened on a small shrine on the main grid.  It gave me a texture when I clicked it and lit a candle for a time.  On that texture, was the following poem.

     An Uncertain Memorial

     By: Calliandris Pendragon

     Beyond time and space

     I met a fellow traveller

     And we journeyed for awhile.

     Then, I lost sight of them.

     I cannot tell where they have gone,

     Wether they vanished back

     Into the throng of life,

     Or slipped across the threshold

     Into another world,

     Turning from time, to eternity.

     All I can say with certainty

     Is that there is a place in my heart

     Into which that other fits

     Which is empty now.

A beautiful expression of coming to terms with the loss of someone close.

We don't always know how to express what is inside and some people simply place a picture in their profile with a few words about the person. Others, like Noel (Ixinoel) have building skills and build something in world to spread the memory of their lost friend.  Noel owner of Dust Bunny, built a Memorial Garden with her friend Amy's (Scarlet Chandrayaan) favorite things.  She gives it out for free to anyone who comes to her store.  In doing that, her memory is shared by many who display the item in their personal space.

But if you and others would like to gather someplace and take time to remember them in a more "Earthly" way, there is Living Memories Memorial Garden.  There you can dedicate a tree to your missing loved ones.  There is no cost to do so, but donations are welcomed to help cover the cost of the land.  It is a beautiful location that you can visit and and hold a memorial service on your own or with others.

We may not be able to just ignore the grief of losing someone in Second Life, but as you can see there are many ways to honor a memory.  Be sure to take a moment to visit the memorials to remember someone you might have lost here or to pay respects to the others who have come and gone that you may not know.  We each contribute to this wonderful verse and when even one of us passes away it is a loss to the community.  Safe and healthy paths to each of you.

Shrine of Remembrance, Linden Memorial Park (146, 88, 7)

Living Memories Memorial Garden, The Sardar (6, 101, 21)

Dust Bunny New Mainstore!, Dust Bunny (118, 200, 16)

Alura Messing