I would like to share the saddest IM I think I have ever recieved.

[20:18] Lillie Yifu: good bye

I think it is useless for me to mention how outraged most of the SecondLife community is at the moment, regarding Linden Lab’s latest decision to give us an in-your-face price hike on OpenSpace sims with no grandfathering clause. Neither on what exact incentives are behind this decision but pure greed and profits.

You may know I’m not the kind to call on a lynch mob. I like to try and be rational, analyze the facts coldly, and try to be reasonable. But yes, I am pissed. Because of the resident side of the things. Linden Labs still misses one major main point about their own community of supporters. We are citizens. We are investors. We are customers. We LIVE in there. We love our Second life.

But now, this latest decision seems to be totally crossing the line for many residents and can easily be described as nearly fraudulent, especially regarding the non-grandfathering clause. It will have major impacts on how each of us residents, content creators, and business people will see Linden Labs from now on, as a company that cannot keep it’s word.

And this, my friends, is a bad thing.

I certainly see how it will impact strongly on the educational, business, creative, social and artistic aspects we happened to reach nowadays, thanks to OS sims. They saved us from ugly, ad filled mainland. Allowed small private ownership of a large nice piece of land with coastlines, so we could place our little house and enjoy our lives.

And one of the biggest spit in our faces is the calling on abuse of technical resources. What of a company that oversells it’s resources like doubling prims on OS sims and then complain of overuse because of their own decisions, penalizing the whole community of people that uses those sims correctly? How is it the resident’s problem if LL cannot QoS or regulate sim usage or network/asset resources? How unreliable asset servers were BEFORE Linden Labs sold massive amounts of OS sims? Those are all questions we should ask them.

OS sims are 16 per quad core machine. They bring 4 times more income to LL (i stand corrected, they make about the same amount). Apart sucking more assets from the asset servers, the only impact an overcrowded OS sim has is to press on it’s virtual neighbours. Nothing LL ever bothered with for mainland. So why the sudden interest?

So, no. Little stores with 2 visitors an hour, like Nimil Blackflag/Lucas Gerard’s LuNi and Autumn Hykova’s Pixel Dust are NOT something I would consider abusive considering their tiers. Not much more than having 16 little stores on a crowded mainland sim. This is all pure bullshit IMOHO and it is an attempt to divide our communities by starting a blame game. Divide and conquer, but we won’t be fooled.

We all know the underlying reason for that is simple.

Maximize profits.

Complain on service abuse on a massive scale and hit your customers with a non-grandfathering clause on a borderline affordable monthly tiers, so lots of people drop their OS sims and they get recycled in new products like mainland or their Nautilus thing.

We don’t really need to dig deeper on the problem to find a solution.

Lindens must know we are citizens.

We create here, we foster here, we provide their content, that makes this place enjoyable.

Putting our tiers on jeopardy, since it’s a steep tiers raise, will affect many talented and emerging content makers, scenic creators, photography artists, sailing and resident communities from everywhere. The raise alone is one thing, but it’s the non-grandfathering clause that will hurt all of the actual owners, pushing them to abandon their land to be recycled.

Attacking our spaces is attacking our content. We are now all stuck to move it, merge it into Class 5 sims, lose hours of work relocating and redoing everything. This is just a big lack of respect for their best and most faithful customer base.

It is a blind business decision, not a very strategically intelligent one. Without all the quality and innovative content created by it’s very involved resident base, SL would be a very unattractive place both for residents and for businesses.

Linden Labs has made many bad moves, but attacking it’s most faithful user base may be the last straw.

We already saw a few very alarmed people, selling and quitting, and our economy is not only undermined but sabotaged deliberately, in such times, I would say it is more than time for public outcry.

You already know what to do. Do it. It’s not true the Lindens don’t listen. They must keep enough of us happy to keep their business viable. Vote the MISC-1776 JIRA issue. Write in the Linden Forums how it affects you and your friends businesses and lives. Make some noise. Pass the word.

We must remain the positive and resourceful community we are. Suggest. Protest. Be inventive. Remember Linden employees just follows their management. But they must hear us all at united saying: fuck NO.

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I won’t do a resource list here, but check on VintFalken.Com she does good recap work.

I’m so weak. I did it. Yes, I did auction myself, and you know what? I pretty much enjoyed it. It was a really fun event even if I really didn’t expect to have fun.

Why did I do it? Because at some point I stopped feeling the pressure, and could take a decision by myself, on my own will. Because most of the people there are my friends. Because I love them. Because many of my lovers were actually on the auction block, and Mistress Codie wanted to support them.

And you know what? I don’t regret it at all. Well, not yet at least.

So, let’s resume a few interesting highlights:

• Yours truely and Gabby Panacek got on the block together and went for 50K late in the auction to adorable Botgirl Questi. We got 37500 from the sale. Half of 12500 went to Locks of Love. And myself and Gabby donated 10K to Rosie’s cancer charity. We kept the rest and splitted it, for ourselves to decide what to do with it. We are dizzy in anticipation about what Botgirl will want from us, but it may be educative. I feel a bit like a sexy lab rat, but I guess we surely won’t be bored with what she has in store for us.
• We apparently got the highest bid apart lovely blog superstar Zoe Connolly that went for 50K too.
• I won the bid on my very admired queen of bloggers, ultimate neko and fellow FIC honcho, Vint Falken for a little 17K and I must say this is probably the best spent money in my SL. You should know I am worshipping Vint since I know her, over one year and a half now. I always admired her greatly, and now I totally pwn her for a whooping 24h, I could not be more thrilled! Since her requirement was no sex (bummer) I will make her do a couple of work related things for me, including helping me to promote my new sim Rouge and other related tasks.
• I won the bid on lovely TheDiva Rockin coupled with Kat Glimmer. Gawd only knows what I have in store for them! *grins devilishly*
• I won the bid on my own girlfriend Nadine Nozaki for around 5K (Crap Mariner you cheap bastard!)
• Vint Falken actually won the bid on my own submissive lover Rheta Shan… and offered her to me! <3
• Rheta then won the bid on Zoe Connolly… and offered her to me too! XD
• And Zoe Connolly won the bid on… yes, Botgirl Questi! Making it the most interesting Domme/Sub autority chain in history!
• I lost the bid on Veyron (it went up to more than 30K) but I cut a deal with Jene that I could borrow Vey for a couple of hours, which honestly delights me.

In conclusion, I can only retain the positive aspects. It was ages I didn’t spend quality time with either Rheta, Zoe, Nadine and Vint. Yes, It will eat up dozens of hours of my time, but you know what? I never have enough for my real good friends. Maybe this will help me set my priorities straight and spend some time with the people I truely love and admire.

Thanks to everyone for morally supporting me, commenting on Plurk and my last blog post, and all of those who IMed me inworld, you put a big bright smile on my face. Thanks to Alidar, Jessyka, Gabby, Marx and everyone that were there with me at the auction, seriously, I wouldn’t have had the guts if you weren’t there for me.

And what about me and Gabby’s hard time with our new Mistress Botgirl? Stay tuned for more.

To the risk of sounding melodramatic, I’m confronted for the first time in my superstar life to a situation I would rather have avoided all over. You know, it always sounds easy to be the cool, fun loving sex symbol of the grid, but it comes with the social pressure of everyone expecting you to jump in every bandwagon that passes by, no matter if I want to participate or not.

In this case, we’re talking of putting yours truly through a slave auction, for my pixelated body to be sold to anybody for a whole 24h. Well that last detail is really a bummer for me. I may seem to be online loosing my time and procrastinating, but I already have very limited online time to take care of my lovers, do my art, take care of my sims, among every other social or creative activities I attend to. I may be the only one in SL with no alts to play around with multiple viewer instance, and after all, there’s only one Codie.

Also, it may sound weird coming from me, I know. But I have very little personal interest in doing such thing.

On the pro side, seeing people fighting to bid on myself may be good for my ego as some say I may reach a very high price, and the money would go on charity, which is my only real point of interest.

On the con side, it’s 24h of precious time slipping out of my fingers, it’s something I have no thrill or appeal of doing, it seriously bruises my Domme ego, and already causes some drama because I’m not exactly excited about this type of party fun.

The thing with this type of social pressure is, I’m damned if I do, and I’m damned if I don’t. In all honesty, I would have rather totally dodged it, and just do what I do, go online, have fun, make love to my sweeties, and do constructive stuff. Why not just have party with no pressure or social obligations? Not only I already lost my weekend on it, but I may have to deal with another 24h to distribute it in chunks to whatever who “buys me”.

Popularity is a double edge sword. I’m not there to amuse you. I’m there to do my work and be happy. And I currently am not happy to be put in such situation. Know that if I finally crack under the pressure, it’s not to please myself.

So I’m confronted to a choice I don’t want to take, to the risk of sounding uncool and selfish and dodge the party and the auction all over, or swallow the load and deal with something I have no interest of doing in order to please the crowds. Both of them leaving a very bitter after taste in my mouth…

I’m doing some serious rethinking about my role in the Secondlife community, it may be time I get a few alts and pull Codie back a little, next time I may be better prepared to deal with such cases.

Washu Zebrastripe, the actual inventor of your beloved prim hair, made me the amazing honor of creating a hairstyle inspired by my humble self. How amazingly sweet. I actually love it, it fits me and I love short haircuts, and it’s got a bit of crazy. Thank you Shushu, you rock so much there’s no word. <3

They are only available at the Hair Fair.  Half the proceeds goes to Locks of Love. They are 95L for a pack of 2 colors, and 995 for all 62 colors.

Grab them here:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Rezzable%20Create/244/41/21

Grab a demo here:
http://shop.onrez.com/item/739876

Heard that it was her most popular style too =) Go get it before the Hair Fair is gone, it will still be on sale after the Fair but half the profits won’t go for charity anymore. <3

Hairspray is having a special blowout sale to help sweet Sinnocent Mirabeau to raise funds for an emergency operation on her puppy. Just go there and buy stuff, she promises 2 for 1 on everything. Also, donate a few lindens for her to rise it quickly, since the fees are hefty. A few people blogged it but I’m just spreading the word a bit more.

You can go to her store direct here: Hairspray SLURL

Here is a copy pasta of a notecard that was passed to me (removed image and landmark, use SLURL up here).

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Hi everyone.

It is with a heavy heart that I write this, but I figure my crisis and personal heartache can maybe have something good come out of it.  Hopefully for myself and for all the people in SL who like my hair or skins and want to get 2 for the price of one.

Anyways, here’s the deal.  I normally hold sales like this every few months just for kicks and as a fun way to get people even more hair than they’d normally be able to purchase on their own.  However, this sale is of great importance to me for other reasons.

A week ago my 9 month old baby puppy, Eris, (even tho she’s not so little anymore) started to have a mass growing in her ear.  I thought she had just gotten bitten by something outside and it would clear up in a few days.  Well that didn’t happen.  In fact, the mass got about 8x bigger.  So I took her to the vet yesterday and got the worst possible news

She didnt get bit.. she has a tumor and a hematoma forming in her ear and she needs surgery to remove it.  Otherwise it will just get bigger and bigger and will either.. rupture… get badly infected…. and most likely both will happen.. and the infection the doc said will eventually kill her.. sooner rather than later.

The even worse news is exactly how much it’s going to cost to save her…  Which is $1447.00 US.  I was in shock when given that figure because it is just not a price I can even close to afford.  I’m getting married in RL in September to my sl hubby and I’ve had to put most of my money towards that for deposits and all the other wedding junk that I need.

The irony is that she was my engagement present, and now… my wedding is the thing that has taken up all my money and put me in this spot.  Blah…

So at any rate I’ll get right to the point.. I have a very little window of time in order to raise the money to save her.. so I decided I would do a buy one get one free sale in order to try and help to get some of the money for her surgery.

Everything in my shop is eligible for the sale, nothing at all is excluded.  The basic idea is whatever you buy.. you get something of equal or lesser value.. free.

So if you buy a skin you can get a skin free or a couple hairs, doesnt matter.  Anything goes.

All you have to do is purchase what you want, then send me a notecard with what you purchased and which items you would like to receive free.  I will send them on out to you after that

But, I thank you all for your time and for the long read.  I hope everyone enjoys the rest of their week/weekend.

Thanks again,
SInnocent Mirabeau.. and Eris

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Good luck Sinnocent and Eris, I’m sure you will make it! Much love.

Yes, bloggers won round one. Not a huge victory but we got the much needed clarifications. As someone with a lifelong tradition of activism, having gone on several strikes (especially student ones), small victories are big victories when it comes to support our troops. Yes, we may not be happy about the content of those clarifications, but that’s what we asked for, and we got it. We can only congratulate ourselves, we did the impossible: make the Lindens listen to us. Now, forward to the next step in the battle.
As much as I’m a Linden fangirl, I’m also a very active SL socialite. I can see popular support for Linden Lab declining, following a few of their legal decisions in the last year.

I am still not going to comply to that policy until I get a letter from the Lindens. I’m not that much affected by the policy itself. But I still feel much for bloggers that must make their domain name comply.

One of the best roundup about the case IMOHO is by lurvely Cuddlefish Jacek Antonelli, speaking about it here. Many bloggers are rightfully angry about the Linden’s vague threat of banhammer for those who would ultimately not comply. As Jacek stated tho, they cannot substitute to the law.

I think to add to the ambient climate of anger is that since about 2 months, the grid is down not only everyday, but several times a day. We now have 3 waves of peak concurrency a day instead of 1, and the poor asset servers are suffering much strain.
Lindens, I love you guys. But you seriously need to get your game together, get better legal counseling and maybe stabilize this grid we love so much. You may be calling yourself a gaming company, but as Phil said, you guys are building a country. You are no ordinary service provider, despite what some thinks about it.

We create this world. We populate it. We are no ordinary customers, we are residents. More than that, we are citizens. We support you for making this world possible. But remember who makes you grow, and don’t bite the hands that feeds you. That means, us all.

For the next 3 days I won’t be publishing any blog post, in protest to the lack of clarity of new Linden Lab trademark enforcement policy (that is despite their actual last round of “clarifications”), and their reversal of decision toward their trademark policy in general, after promoting fan art and fair use of their trademarks for years. Enough has already be said on the subject. This strike is symbolic and there to raise awareness about how it would be without the same people that gave Linden Lab free promotion of Second Life through this huge network of fan websites.

I will not be hiding my actual content, but I will hold my breath until at least friday. Until then, write to Linden Lab asking them more clarification about their policies. Maybe if they get a couple thousand emails, their PR department may wake up and realize that this is another resident communication fiasco.

Read up their FAQ here for more info about their trademark policy and contact information.

Until then, love you sweeties, and sayonara!

Therese Carfagno interviewed me and wrote this lovely article on SLNN. I was interviewed at the Chouchou sim, then we took a ride to Code Red for a few picture. Thank you Therese, that is an awesome job, and you never misquoted me once. Much love!

You read well. According to the latest issue of The Avastar, matching with International Women’s Day on the 8th of March, I am SecondLife’s Top Sweetie, at least according to the ordering. In any order, I am named in the Top 10 most influential girl in SecondLife. A quite flattering denomination really, being sided in that Top 10 with people like Tateru Nino, Callie Cline, Nebulosus Severine and even Anshe Chung. Love or hate her she is still the biggest businesswomen in SL. Again, very honored, and very flattered, even if I don’t think I’m all that sugarcoated.

But as I read the article, something slightly shocked me. I hate pointing fingers or doing personal attacks, it’s not my style. And anyways, it acted as a wake up call because she’s probably not the only one to think like that. Again maybe it’s me that is retrograde but I jumped 3 feet high. Again I won’t name anyone, just read the article and see for yourself.

Here is a citation:

“I think a man is better in a powerful position like boss of a company or in politics. I think a great woman knows how to stand behind her man and raise him up when needed.”

Sorry. Whuuuuuuut? She didn’t say what I think she did, did she? Am I stuck in the 70s or is she stuck in the 40s? Believe me I’m no radical feminist, but I have been raised by a moderate feminist, and one thing my mom made me aspire to was gender equality. And, just a thought like that, does a gay women need to follow her man too?

I mean…Is it just me, or does anyone else finds that idea morally wrong and objectionable? Did the women fought that hard for equal rights (which we all know is far from the case) so that some women today take all of this for granted and decides to live in the past? Is it somewhat normal that I can’t seem to agree with that statement?

Discuss.

Well, way to go. I’m a long time user of SculptyPaint, one of the nicest free software around to make sculpties in a quick and dirty way. Of course as most free software developers, Cel Edman needs to sell other products, mainly sculpty packs. Well sounds like he’s getting ripped off pretty hard and he cites a few reasons on the SculptyPaint page showing his outrage. Indeed, if all of that is true, it is outrageous. Especially the bits about physical threats, and alledgely getting ripped by a big mentoring group. Of course, I have no proof of that happening, yet, but the notice on the Mental Mentor page says a lot. (removed)
I didn’t ask for permissions, lacking contact info, but here is the integral message on SculptyPaint webpage.
(— CUT HERE —)

The morality? Well respect the content creators TOS, or wave them goodbye. Freebies are great, but mentoring groups must preach by the example. Violating someone’s right to distribute his content like he wants to can bite back on your ass. Now, nobody can download SculptyPaint and use this awesome tool, which deprives every content creators on the grid from using it. Which is quite the opposite of what a mentoring group is supposed to do.

I just hope all of this is a misunderstanding. Time for more dialog and diplomacy, and maybe time for the Lindens to get a rapid response team for dealing with DMCA since this kind of problem will get reported more and more often.

EDIT: Ordinal Malaprop also blogs it.

Massively talks about it too.

ADDENDUM:

A few feedbacks are suggesting, like I thought it could be, a big ass misunderstanding. Let’s hope the concerned parties clears it out in a civil manner. While then, nothing keeps us to talk about it and maybe tell the Lindens we need better DMCA provisions.