Socially|Mundane

If you go through the history of Common Sensible, you'll see I was rather vicious toward the 'idiots' and whiners and detractors of practically all things "Linden" (and likewise toward Linden regarding the alphabet letters "S" and "L" and 'copyright'.) What fond memories of how ridiculous those idiots really did sound as I went backward a year, digging into the old Second Life blog to find the original announcement for the "Showcase" search function, posted by Jeska Linden (for the purpose of linking to it from here.)

A quick scan through the talk-backs made me laugh as hard now as I did back then. Well, I've 'chilled' a bit since then. However, there still are a lot of people that let nonsense or paranoid "it might happen" scenarios get the better of them. They become spastic and shrill over nothing. The Ursula continent and "Adult Rating" thing comes to mind.

As for all you detractors of the idea of a "Showcase" replacing the "Popular Places" in SL search: have you tried it, yet? I know, I know, it's about all those other wonderful destinations that won't make the Showcase. But in truth, must I have to sift through mountains of free sex playgrounds and horrible slow-rez builds to have to find one awesome place? That was the case in the "popular places" listing.

Thank goodness for Luc Aubret's new Te.leport.me HUD! That thing is a Godsend - if it's used by the wearers appropriately and when it gains good population, it also can act as a good way to find the best of Second life.

Thunda Masala writes for his blog, which he calls "Twisted Second Life". An article he's written harps on the whole 'phenomenon' of hiding group listings from public view.

Group-watching is a favorite past-time for everyone in SL. When we encounter an interesting avatar, usually the first response is to look into the profile to find out about the person. Surprisingly, a large number of people do not write anything about themselves. They fear that there is not much interesting about them to write. This is simply not true. Someone once said that everyone’s story in his or her lifetime is always interesting to others.

[From My Groups Are NOT Hidden! « Twisted Second Life ]

Huh.

Well I can think of a few reasons why I want my groups hidden. Of course, there are some that are expressly made to be publicly viewable. But the main message I get from Thunda is that he is a "profile surfer".

Okay - there is nothing wrong with profile-surfing. But I suspect you're actually wasting a lot of time in profile surfing rather than just starting with a "Hello, how are you?".

I've done that. Back in my first few months of SL in 2006. I'd pop-up that profile of anyone and everyone I saw and for the same reasons: to "people-watch". Looking at peoples profiles in Second Life is the virtual equivalent of people-watching. Like sitting at the local mall in first life and just watching people go by. And don't you tend to judge them based on what you see?

I like Ciaran Laval's writing a lot. However, sometimes I just shake my head and chuckle. Ciaran's recent post at Your 2nd Place:

The adult content policy threat was this evening raised to level 5 after a rather large dragon revealed that Jack Linden measures reaction to policy by the number of im's he gets.

[snipped a bunch of diatribe]

Level 5

Human-to-human communication in at least two large estates, probably includes mainland, people start to frown and the first uttering of "Class Action lawsuit" is made. A couple of groups are formed but fall out due to not liking the name the other group is using. Someone creates a Jira post, Jira politics aren't far behind and the proposal goes through the "This doesn't belong here", "Oh yes it does" dance. Strong signal pandemic imminent.

[From Linden Lab adult content policy threat raised to level 5 | Your2ndPlace]

Okay. Fair enough.

So I replied there and I post my reply here, but with a little more editing and vetting to clarify what I was trying to say over there:

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