Why I am Boycotting the Town Hall

Oh dear, God, look at this. Perhaps you didn't notice it either, as it got buried in the Linden announcements:

Meeting: The Morphing of Telehubs

As part of implementing pinpoint teleporting, we have an opportunity to take a new look at telehubs and the role these areas play as regional gathering places and commercial centers.

We'd like to get together with interested residents to talk about the new face of telehubs. Ideally, each telehub will be morphed into a public space which will be at the center of the existing telehub region. The land will remain Linden owned, and there will be some Linden content placed in each area including news, a place for community ads and messages, and free content. Residents in each region served by the telehub will then be able to design and build out the rest of the space. If you prefer, there will be a default plaza you can use.

If you're interested in talking with us about ideas for these public areas, please let me or Jeska Linden know. We'll invite you to join a group to attend the meeting.

The meeting will be held Thursday, Dec. 1, at 3PM SLT at the corner of Borrowdale, Pooley, Seascale and Brampton (Borrowdale 1,1). If you can't attend, but have ideas to share please email me at robin@lindenlab.com. We'll also make a transcript available after the meeting.

I couldn't object to this more strenuously, and in fact, it sends me into a fury. So I will be boycotting this meeting demonstratively.

Why?

Because not a word has been said about compensation of telehub land owners. In any form, whatsoever, with any rational business sense in the way you really should be treating people who have been your highest-paying customers.

Compensation was once entertained and toyed with, it was given to the forums jackals to chew on and slather over, indulging in their hatred of commerce and land barons, and then discarded like yesterday's garbage.

Last week, I decided in advance to boycott any telehub-related/p2p meetings because it was a discussion with the entire "community," i.e. those who fill up the forums and attend town halls (not representative of the entire world) and not with telehub owners themselves. But they are the ones who lose out, sometimes big time if they happened to have bought on the auctions lately.

Linden Lab doesn't meet with them separately or cut separate deals with them to avoid the appearance of favouritism -- so they go on just allowing the favourtism-fait-accompli which is the celebration of their more feted third-party sites.

The entire removal of the telehubs, like the crushing of the GOM, the removal of events stipends, and other actions, are blows against the land-owning and event-organizing classes in the economy, at their expense, to bolster the content-creation class. It's class warfare.

BTW, I've never bought a telehub on the auction, and have some half sim of telehub land which I got at a very good price from people liquidating their hub or near-hub land. And the bulk of my boardwalk rental and commercial lots rentals are outside of telehub areas, in fact. No, my arguments about these matters stem from my beliefs in an open society and a free economy (see past posts) and just some general sense of decency about how you conduct business.

We went from a notion that was in the air that the owners of the telehub land would be the ones who got to judge how this space would be used -- now devoid of the reason for their investment!

And now what's happening, in the usual fit of grasping distributive socialism, is the entire region served by the former telehub will get to decide. Pandemonium! This, of course, will mean basics who don't even pay subscription fees, and people who don't even own any land, let alone telehub land, get to decide how to FURTHER devalue my telehub-area business.

When I read that kind of thing, I can say, well, sure, public spaces should be decided upon by the public.

But the telehub removal wasn't decided on by the public. It was decided on by a Gorean, his subs, and the rest of 370 people only he could recruit to the cause. I'm not impressed by that "democracy".

Even if there is some kind of rough consensus about p2p that can be proved in some fashion, and some rough consensus that land barons should be fucked over, there's still the issue of who pays the tier around here.

I see the Linden falling because some big businesses are selling their land or businesses and cashing out.

I imagine if the telehub issue could genuinely be put to vote to an informed and fully engaged public, we'd get probably something like "keep some telehubs and put in p2p". The Lindens simply haven't adequately adjusted for the obvious problem with this solution:  entire swathes of land being shut out with red lines as people panic and turn off the capacity to land on their parcels for fear of day-trippers and griefers just going map-happy and clicking all over hell's half acre.

Indeed, Hell's Half Acre is probably a good way to describe what SL will be like in those weeks after p2p is implemented, and all those day-trippers get clicking away. That will inspire numerous little cliques and neuralgic authoritarian personalities, of which there are no shortage in SL, to turn off their land access.

Then what? Um, well go to Help Island and get the 1) mentors to give you landmarks to their businesses, I guess, and then go to Pathfinders' Picks for additional landmarks to 2) their pets' businesses. Oh, and look in classifieds, where whoever has the most money (see above 1 and 2) will get on top of the list.

Now let's look at the "public spaces." "Community ads" we imagine to mean telehub ads. Did you ever get a sale from a telehub ad? I don't know if I ever did. Let's hope that now the Lindens will physically remove those squat brown munipal toads called "telehubs," that they will put up a billboard. Bill-board! Yes, a board, upon which you put bills, or ads. It's quite all right, need not be blighty, and will be a great advertising outlet. I imagine there will be a fierce outcry on the forums about the appearance of state-sanctioned billboards but let's hope they ride that one out.

Of course, we'll have to be getting Linden push-media too in the form of "community information".

But look out for the rest of it -- Linden free content -- those idiotic party hats, back-packs that have nothing in them, houses with crappy camera angles, and um a trampoline like the diet guy sells on late-night TV.  Please spare us!

And...what else will go in these 2560 m2 or more square meters around the former hubs? Now we come to this part, the socialist forced march, the communitarianism, the group-grope, the hideosity that the forums have become and so many other aspects of SL:  Residents in each region served by the telehub will then be able to design and build out the rest of the space.

Meaning the same collection of reputation-enhancing forum-FICers and aggressive fucktards will have at it.

Lindens, um, you already tried this experiment. It's called "Second Life As A Whole". It already produces lag bombs, particle hells, spinning crap in the sky, horrid black boxes, ugly modern and ugly kitsch, and a host of other crimes that make up...um...remember?  the whole reason why you are getting rid of the telehubs in the first place.

Duh.

So now you are going to reintroduce this again? Huh?

Or else...a fierce fight among the kind of neuraltic authoritarian personalities and fierce tribal little grouplets that make up "SL society".

Instead of letting people make their own business improvement districts, as telehub region owners, and quietly working together to design some kind of space that will maintain traffic to their businesses, shattered by this hasty and ill-thought move by Linden Lab, they will...open it up to the "public".

If there were a real public, able to be informed and accessed, this might be valid, but the notion of "public" in SL is one of the greater fictions in a world with 4000 logging on at the most, and 400 sitting on the forums dominating the discourse.

Boycotts don't work in this electronic soup, as I've often said. If you demonstratively tier down or go out of businesses, the Lindens give a collective shrug. There are 10 more where you came from, and probably with more disposable income and disposable time than you have. Projects aren't meant to last in SL -- they themselves pull things they even subsidze down in a month, and even something that seemed "a given" like telehubs is scrapped in a day.

This is a sandbox.

To pretend that it is some kind of "community" of a new order, a "Better World" where you collectively, in these fabulous cyber-groups Beth Noveck is touting as trumping the individual and the state, "decide" how "space" is used by the "public" -- well, it's to participate in a collossal fiction.

Boycotts can't have any effect, especially because there will always be a forum wag to say "don't let the door hit you where the good Lord split you" or a Linden to say earnestly, "I'm sorry you feel that way, but you'll do what you feel is best, of course."

But you can do one thing that I've always found to be tremendously effective:

You can withold legitimacy.

You can refuse to have something done in your name, to not take part, to not participate, to not lend credibility to something that is reprehensible. You can withold legitimacy.

I imagine there will be almost nobody who is willing to do this now.

It's OK. I am.

---

Oh dear, God, look at this. Perhaps you didn't notice it either, as it got buried in the Linden announcements:

Meeting: The Morphing of Telehubs

As part of implementing pinpoint teleporting, we have an opportunity to take a new look at telehubs and the role these areas play as regional gathering places and commercial centers.

We'd like to get together with interested residents to talk about the new face of telehubs. Ideally, each telehub will be morphed into a public space which will be at the center of the existing telehub region. The land will remain Linden owned, and there will be some Linden content placed in each area including news, a place for community ads and messages, and free content. Residents in each region served by the telehub will then be able to design and build out the rest of the space. If you prefer, there will be a default plaza you can use.

If you're interested in talking with us about ideas for these public areas, please let me or Jeska Linden know. We'll invite you to join a group to attend the meeting.

The meeting will be held Thursday, Dec. 1, at 3PM SLT at the corner of Borrowdale, Pooley, Seascale and Brampton (Borrowdale 1,1). If you can't attend, but have ideas to share please email me at robin@lindenlab.com. We'll also make a transcript available after the meeting.

I couldn't object to this more strenuously, and in fact, it sends me into a fury. So I will be boycotting this meeting demonstratively.

Why?

Because not a word has been said about compensation of telehub land owners. In any form, whatsoever, with any rational business sense in the way you really should be treating people who have been your highest-paying customers.

Compensation was once entertained and toyed with, it was given to the forums jackals to chew on and slather over, indulging in their hatred of commerce and land barons, and then discarded like yesterday's garbage.

Last week, I decided in advance to boycott any telehub-related/p2p meetings because it was a discussion with the entire "community," i.e. those who fill up the forums and attend town halls (not representative of the entire world) and not with telehub owners themselves. But they are the ones who lose out, sometimes big time if they happened to have bought on the auctions lately.

Linden Lab doesn't meet with them separately or cut separate deals with them to avoid the appearance of favouritism -- so they go on just allowing the favourtism-fait-accompli which is the celebration of their more feted third-party sites.

The entire removal of the telehubs, like the crushing of the GOM, the removal of events stipends, and other actions, are blows against the land-owning and event-organizing classes in the economy, at their expense, to bolster the content-creation class. It's class warfare.

BTW, I've never bought a telehub on the auction, and have some half sim of telehub land which I got at a very good price from people liquidating their hub or near-hub land. And the bulk of my boardwalk rental and commercial lots rentals are outside of telehub areas, in fact. No, my arguments about these matters stem from my beliefs in an open society and a free economy (see past posts) and just some general sense of decency about how you conduct business.

We went from a notion that was in the air that the owners of the telehub land would be the ones who got to judge how this space would be used -- now devoid of the reason for their investment!

And now what's happening, in the usual fit of grasping distributive socialism, is the entire region served by the former telehub will get to decide. Pandemonium! This, of course, will mean basics who don't even pay subscription fees, and people who don't even own any land, let alone telehub land, get to decide how to FURTHER devalue my telehub-area business.

When I read that kind of thing, I can say, well, sure, public spaces should be decided upon by the public.

But the telehub removal wasn't decided on by the public. It was decided on by a Gorean, his subs, and the rest of 370 people only he could recruit to the cause. I'm not impressed by that "democracy".

Even if there is some kind of rough consensus about p2p that can be proved in some fashion, and some rough consensus that land barons should be fucked over, there's still the issue of who pays the tier around here.

I see the Linden falling because some big businesses are selling their land or businesses and cashing out.

I imagine if the telehub issue could genuinely be put to vote to an informed and fully engaged public, we'd get probably something like "keep some telehubs and put in p2p". The Lindens simply haven't adequately adjusted for the obvious problem with this solution:  entire swathes of land being shut out with red lines as people panic and turn off the capacity to land on their parcels for fear of day-trippers and griefers just going map-happy and clicking all over hell's half acre.

Indeed, Hell's Half Acre is probably a good way to describe what SL will be like in those weeks after p2p is implemented, and all those day-trippers get clicking away. That will inspire numerous little cliques and neuralgic authoritarian personalities, of which there are no shortage in SL, to turn off their land access.

Then what? Um, well go to Help Island and get the 1) mentors to give you landmarks to their businesses, I guess, and then go to Pathfinders' Picks for additional landmarks to 2) their pets' businesses. Oh, and look in classifieds, where whoever has the most money (see above 1 and 2) will get on top of the list.

Now let's look at the "public spaces." "Community ads" we imagine to mean telehub ads. Did you ever get a sale from a telehub ad? I don't know if I ever did. Let's hope that now the Lindens will physically remove those squat brown munipal toads called "telehubs," that they will put up a billboard. Bill-board! Yes, a board, upon which you put bills, or ads. It's quite all right, need not be blighty, and will be a great advertising outlet. I imagine there will be a fierce outcry on the forums about the appearance of state-sanctioned billboards but let's hope they ride that one out.

Of course, we'll have to be getting Linden push-media too in the form of "community information".

But look out for the rest of it -- Linden free content -- those idiotic party hats, back-packs that have nothing in them, houses with crappy camera angles, and um a trampoline like the diet guy sells on late-night TV.  Please spare us!

And...what else will go in these 2560 m2 or more square meters around the former hubs? Now we come to this part, the socialist forced march, the communitarianism, the group-grope, the hideosity that the forums have become and so many other aspects of SL:  Residents in each region served by the telehub will then be able to design and build out the rest of the space.

Meaning the same collection of reputation-enhancing forum-FICers and aggressive fucktards will have at it.

Lindens, um, you already tried this experiment. It's called "Second Life As A Whole". It already produces lag bombs, particle hells, spinning crap in the sky, horrid black boxes, ugly modern and ugly kitsch, and a host of other crimes that make up...um...remember?  the whole reason why you are getting rid of the telehubs in the first place.

Duh.

So now you are going to reintroduce this again? Huh?

Or else...a fierce fight among the kind of neuraltic authoritarian personalities and fierce tribal little grouplets that make up "SL society".

Instead of letting people make their own business improvement districts, as telehub region owners, and quietly working together to design some kind of space that will maintain traffic to their businesses, shattered by this hasty and ill-thought move by Linden Lab, they will...open it up to the "public".

If there were a real public, able to be informed and accessed, this might be valid, but the notion of "public" in SL is one of the greater fictions in a world with 4000 logging on at the most, and 400 sitting on the forums dominating the discourse.

Boycotts don't work in this electronic soup, as I've often said. If you demonstratively tier down or go out of businesses, the Lindens give a collective shrug. There are 10 more where you came from, and probably with more disposable income and disposable time than you have. Projects aren't meant to last in SL -- they themselves pull things they even subsidze down in a month, and even something that seemed "a given" like telehubs is scrapped in a day.

This is a sandbox.

To pretend that it is some kind of "community" of a new order, a "Better World" where you collectively, in these fabulous cyber-groups Beth Noveck is touting as trumping the individual and the state, "decide" how "space" is used by the "public" -- well, it's to participate in a collossal fiction.

Boycotts can't have any effect, especially because there will always be a forum wag to say "don't let the door hit you where the good Lord split you" or a Linden to say earnestly, "I'm sorry you feel that way, but you'll do what you feel is best, of course."

But you can do one thing that I've always found to be tremendously effective:

You can withold legitimacy.

You can refuse to have something done in your name, to not take part, to not participate, to not lend credibility to something that is reprehensible. You can withold legitimacy.

I imagine there will be almost nobody who is willing to do this now.

It's OK. I am.

---

Comments

[Squeedoo G.]

Daang. I haven't been to SL in almost two (2? Maybe more) years and this is happenin'? Yeah, I am a frequent reader (and lurker) of your boards, Prokofy, but the last time I commented, you were complainging about a menacing e-mail. NOW it's a Linden socialist, tekkie-wikki, land-baron hating, grid deteriorating, forum FIC nightmare?
Again, I say, "Dang."
I was planning on coming back to SL as soon as I get the time, money, and energy, but with all of this political crap going on inand out world, I don't know.
Although, it would be most interesting to see how things unravel..
Never mind. It's interesting to see you stick by yer views like this, Prokofy. One day (ONE DAY! :D) I'll see you inworld and maybe have a conversation. But, for now, I'll keep lurkin' around your blog, reading the next 10,000 updates.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

sometimes i wonder who give a fuck about what you say prok.

Oh btw where have you heard a word like "compensation" , oooh yeah its this reason to claim money for foggy reasons?

[What?]

Ms. Profoky writes, "Blah, blah, blah."

What?

:O

[Cocoanut Koala]

I gotta hand it to Prok. I would have gotten rid of What? and Kyra by now. Course they'd probably just respawn.

coco

[Squeedoo G]

Oh, I am sorry, Cocoanut. I laughed a little at that last statement. :)
As for What? and Kyrah--come on, people, at least show a little respect! If you disagree with Prokofy, then disagree with some class and dignity.

[Prokofy Neva]

The Lindens then turned around and *did* decide to compensate telehub land owners shortly after this, at $10/m, and then had a program whereby those who didn't opt to get a buyback could opt to develop the hub.