Socially|Mundane

Re the title of this post...

Huh.

Your call.

With regard to the whole Zindra Adult Continent and all "adult-rated, sexually-oriented" objects and violence and hoopla, the entire search engine in-world will be overhauled to match these restrictions.

Either way, I understand the search system was scheduled to be overhauled since at least a year ago anyway, long before the segregation fences were ever (publicly) mentioned. The idea to be fine-tuning results to return more accurate and relevant listings.

Think about it: have you ever searched for oh, say a "Magick Healing Staff" that works on the "Spellfire" meter system. Good effing luck. Even on X-treet SL (XSL for short) - the web-based shopping mall - the results are a nightmare to sift through.

Ironically, Linden Lab is sending emails to users asking them to take a survey on the very subject of search and how it relates to shopping - and your experience with XSL. The most efficient way to shop for myself is to search XSL, sift through the results, copy the creator name, search for them in-world, check picks, go to their shop and then buy. Yes, I know I am missing some damned good products where the creator is too lazy to set-up on XSL, but it's their loss, not mine.

That's how messed-up the search system is in SL.

Now let's try another: open the search widget and select the "Places" tab. Enter "Meet new people". More than half the results returned are shopping malls and retail stores. Try "Role Play" and see what you get. Hope you're into deviant and wildly promiscuous activities. Yes, there are a lot of "role play" locations in SL where these activities take place. But the "Bondage Ranch"? I've been there before and it is a "meet and greet" - not role play-based.

So the idea is to make your results a lot more relative. I have a good friend who runs around as a "pixie" - not just the costume, but actually role plays that. So I decided to try that as a search term to so if I could find locations where I could role play as a pixie.

Enter "role play" and a lot of results come up. But, enter "roleplay" and a different set of results appear. "role play" should, theoretically include both but I can understand why in this case it doesn't. Part of the problem is how people try to game the search system by plopping nothing but keywords rather than actual descriptions in their parcel descriptions and classified advertisements.

Tip to all merchants in SL: If your advert or parcel description contains nothing but keywords, chances are I won't even bother. Primarily because I expect you to actually sell me and secondly, visiting your place is a waste of time because you are lazy and thus, I suspect your place is not well organized as you are going for numbers over quality.

I search for "Fae".

Of the 1000 results only about 10 actually apply at all for what I'm looking for. About another 15 or 20 appear to actually apply in a secondary sense (places to purchase fae-themed items and clothing) and a truckload of "gamed" results. For instance: "Bondage Ranch".

/me makes a stoic face.

So part of the search system overhaul will be where you will have the ability to filter (important word here: "filter" is not the same as "censor" as many detractors of this project will proclaim) based on the maturity level of what you are looking for.

Thus if I am looking for "fae materials" (clothing, furniture, whatever) then I can surely turn-off the checkbox for "Adult-rated" results. In fact, I can turn-on or off any combination of the type of results I want: "PG-rated; Mature-rated; and Adult-rated".

How on earth is this not a good thing?

As such, if I am looking for the "BDSM Heavenly Hotel" or whatever, I could turn on "Adult" and turn off "PG" and "Mature" and I will get a filtered result where the list is considerably better suited to what I am actually looking for.

By the same token, if I am looking for "Fae" - I can turn-off the "Mature" and "Adult" filters and the results will be what I am looking for.

I repeat: how the hell is this not a good thing?

There are a lot of people whining and bitching that this is a "bad" thing. It is "bad" because many creators who create and sell things have a mixture of items as far as how they might be rated. Someone who created a "naughty sex-bed" might also make "cozy country kitchen table set".

Fair enough.

But according to the detractors, these creators and businesses and the entire SL economy will fail and crash and burn and the end of all known life in the universe will end a violent, painful, viciously sudden and slow death!

My answer to this little quagmire is simple: if you are serious about your business, you'll invest in it and adapt, just like people have been doing in SL and FL since business was first invented. Figure out who your main target customer is and what rating that falls into. In most cases, this will be "mature". Set-up your primary location there - this is your main store. Then go rent spaces in malls in a PG and Adult region respectively. Simply place the appropriate vendors that carry the appropriate items.

Ha! Try searching "Vendor" and see what you get.

As for Networked vendors, any decent system worth its salt can easily filter the vendor to show a specific line of product. Simple segregate your products according to category and rating. In other words, run your business like a business or shut-up and stop whining.

Put these places into your picks and buy classifieds. I won't go into details on the how to do it (though I will for purchasers of my "Successful Business in Second Life" book available in-world, XSL and Amazon - at the companion web site) - the point being that the SL economy will not collapse and die. However, those business-owners who adapt and take business seriously will have an advantage and use it to the fullest. Many are already at work on it.

I most certainly am and already I am seeing a large improvement in sales because this change has caused me to rethink some things, including my marketing strategy. My business has improved by 48% over the last month alone.

Unfortunately, Second Life is full of "Chicken Littles" proclaiming the "end of the world" on a constant and regular basis. In reality, all they do is whine at practically any and all changes, yet try to come-off as "progressive." They flock to the Linden Lab blogs and forums. They tend to get shrill and sound whiney a lot. And there are some who are ignorant beyond belief with their stupid comments such as:

"Not meaning to insult anyone, but the actions Linden Labs are considering taking is compared to in my book, the Nazi's. We are being told what to say, what to do, what we see, what we hear. Businesses are being spirited away to this amazing new land where no one but those foolish enough to place thier personal information into Linden Labs hands can go.

"I would compare this to a concentration camp. Where the fact is, businesses will most likely take a major hit and fail... Ask anyone, 2000 clubs shoved up against one another does not work even with the way things were, yet here we are, shoved into a corner of the world where no one will be able to see our dirty, naughty ways."

[From Search and Adult Content - Second Life Blogs ]

Yes, that's a real comment. And an uncalled-for one.

To be fair: the author of that comment did make a public apology in the same thread.

In direct response to this diatribe beyond that it's entirely uncalled-for, anyone running a business actually expecting to earn real life money from it have better damned well be conformable giving their real life info to Linden Lab. Anything else is fraud in a legal sense. An there are many who proclaim they "make a living" from their activities in SL. To those I say this: you live on the edge by placing your livelihood into the hands of anyone else where you have no legal control or say in it.

AQs to the statement that we are being told "what to say, what to do, what we see and what we hear": get real and grow-up. Since when do you have any rights whatsoever in SL? This is not a democracy nor a republic. It's private property and you are the funky, nasty, rude guest and bitches about the way things are run and who won't go home.

No one is twisting your arm to be here, so if you don;t like it, leave. The world will be a better place when you do.

As for the whole reference to Nazis and Nazi-esque activity by Linden Lab, Am I offended? Not at all. However, such comments from anyone, anywhere shows how ridiculously stupid the owner of that mind really is. They think with their emotion rather than their head which is the first step to losing every single argument argument in life.

So why do I proclaim people who make these kind of comments absolutely stupid?

Because in sounding-off with such idiotic ridiculous statements as such, they look stupid. It is obvious they have nothing that holds any water regarding their argument and all they have left that they resort to angry, ferocious, abrasive insults like this.



It should be downright embarrassing to the purveyor of such comments. Not only does the one who makes such statements (anywhere at any time, especially whacked-out liberal radical knuckle-heads when they whine about current events in first life) look like a completely uneducated buffoon, but the shameful thing in it all is simply this:

It lessens the severity and downright evil-nature of what the Nazis really were and are and what they did.

And that is what offends me.

In the end, there always are going to be idiotic hateful people who hate anything and everything for hate's sake and no other reason whatsoever.

Art: Jhonatas Silva; Jeremy Sale Jr. via Flickr