More on Patch Linden's Sudden Exit

 

After it was announced in the Linden blog that Patch Linden was no longer with the Lab, word quickly got around. In the Bellisseria group, Dreamer Pixelmaid gave the news, "Very upsetting News ... Patch Linden gave us Bellisseria and made it what it is today. 'Reorganization'??? My *ss!!! So many things I could say... and they wouldn't be good."

 

Prokofy Neva, who has been critical of Patch a number of times in the past, would announce the news in the SL forums, commenting if Patch had to go, he deserved a better farewell, "The Lindens have provided a terse announcement about the departure of Patch Linden. I think they should have listed his many accomplishments and history starting from a creator and manager of a men's clothing store in the old days as a resident going up to his last position of VP of Product. The Lindens' absolute greatest product from the perspective of business is Bellisseria, and Patch Linden was responsible for much of this, guiding and shaping and troubleshooting it and inspiring the staff and retaining residents through many iterations of its development over the last decades. Patch was also crucial in Linden involvement in resident-organized activities such as Relay for Life including what was advertised as an upcoming Fantasy Faire Jail & Bail, Halloween contests and much more. I think the announcement should have listed some of these accomplishments. I hope the Lindens have an inworld goodbye party for Patch Linden as they did for Oz Linden. I think we will never know the half of all the jobs Patch had to deal with in Second Life and his virtual shoes will be hard to fill."

 

But there will be no inworld party for Patch Linden. Already, his account has been deleted.  

 

In Bellisseria group chatter, there was some discussion about Patch leaving. Someone brought up the Ageplay Allegations controversy of 2024, of which Patch was among those accused. But it was reminded that if there had been any evidence of wrongdoing found, Patch would have been gone a long time ago. 

 

Further in the SL forums thread, many had other questions. How will the Lab's Department of Public Works be affected? Why was he given such a sudden exit without a chance to say goodbye? How come he didn't even get a chance to do his Jail and Bail for the Fantasy Faire this year, which as of the writing of this article is still listed on the FF blog. Who will give the opening speech at the Second Life Birthday? Would this mean less interaction between the Lindens and the residents? A couple commented the way things looked, it appeared something happened and Patch was fired. 

 

One commented even if he was, there should have been at least a chance to say goodbye, "The announcement seems a bit sudden and corpo speaky. I've always felt this corporate double speak approach to things doesn't really suit second life. I know it's a business and all but still. Every time something like this happens, LL feels like a less trust worthy steward of our world. We're talking about people that we know. His bear has sat in my sim for many years. I've seen him up close in all the LL Birthdays and events. Laughed at his dumb jokes at that Casino. I get it. They're employees. They can do things that get them fired. Would be nice to get to say bye."

 

Another would say, "I think the announcement could have been done in a better way, as it doesn't come off very well. For someone that's worked for the company so long, been an important part of major projects, and been a big 'face' of LL inside the SL world, whatever you think of Patch, it comes off as very cold, and 'terse' as other's have said . Even though they 'thank' him for his work. Or maybe it's just standard for LL ? I can't find any other official announcements of depatures in the past to compare it to. I think they had to announce it as otherwise there'd be a lot of speculation where Patch was, not showing up at the Faire and SL Birthday celebrations this year etc. But the announcement is just fuelling more speculation."

 

There will almost certainly be more chatter and comments. And no shortage of people asking "why?" 

 

Top picture from Diamond Marchant

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

 

A Few Fantasy Faire Stories

 

The 2025 Fantasy Faire is over and done.  But the memories remain, as well as the numerous screenshots, and a few videos, made. When asked, a couple people shared some stories of theirs, in one case a short story and a picture. And yours truly has a few words.

 

Read more in Events..

 

The Bellisseria Commissary And Moleseum

 

Recently, Gemma Cleanslate was over at two places in Bellisseria. One was The Bellisseria Commissary, owned by Prokofy Neva. She also dropped by the Bellisserian Mole Day Celebration, and visited one particular place, the Moleseum, showing their accomplishments over the past sixteen years. So what did she think?

Read Gemma's article in Places. 

Memorial to Victims of Covid-19

With the Coronavirus crisis continuing to affect real life with no end in sight, it has affected Second Life in various ways. Recently, I came across a memorial someone set up for those whom perished due to the virus.

Pray for your loved ones who are ill with coronavirus. Put out a free sign and candle. Pray for health care workers. Place a memorial for those who have died of this pandemic. Places of meditation and healing nearby. May God have mercy on our souls!

The memorial is made of up a number of smaller builds. Some are various shrines. In one place was a sink with instructions on how to wash hands thoroughly, One has pictures of some people whom were lost, including Dr. Li Wenliang, whom was the first doctor to try to warn people of the Coronavirus, but was told by his government to keep quiet, until it was too late.

The memorial was set up by Prokofy Neva, and is located in the Atis sim. Trying to teleport over, on one occasion I ended up in a skybox high above the memorial. I ended up having to TP to an adjacent sim and walk over.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Atis/91/86/55

Honoring London, Manchester, and Beyond

Just as the recent radical Islamist suicide bombing of an arena that killed 22, mostly children, in Manchester England was starting to fade from world news headlines, Britain was struck again with another terrorist attack, this time in London. The Islamofacist killers ran a van into people, then stormed out slashing everyone they could find with machetes, killing seven.

The dead of these two attacks and others are honored at the "Memorial to Victims of Terrorism Across the World," located in the Iris sim in the mainland atol continent. At a shrine, there are a number of flags representing a number of assaults across the world. This includes the Middle East, where most incidents of terrorist murders on civilians have happened. Some flowers have also been left.

The shrine itself is owned by Jessica Ornitz, The flags were provided by someone known to longtime Second Life residents, Prokofy Neva.

In recent years, Second Life has seen a number of inworld memorials to the dead from terrorist attacks, Paris 2015, Nice 2016, Orlando 2016 , Egypt Flight 804 2016, and others. Amazingly, in the past there was a sim built by people justifying terrorism, but was gone some time later, possibly taken down by Linden Lab.

Iris (197/200/21)

Bixyl Shuftan

Special Announcement by Linden Lab on Designing Worlds on Thursday November 3

Are we in for a trick or a treat, or something of both.

Just as things in Second Life were getting under way for the "Creepy Crawl" and other events on Halloween Day, "Designing Worlds" made an announcement of an upcoming announcement by Linden Lab.

Designing Worlds has a special show coming this Thursday, November 3rd at 2pm - with discussion of an announcement from the Lab that will impact all our Second Lives!

Designing Worlds DW319 - In The Mist - An Irish Tale for Hallowe’en


And Patch Linden will be in the Designing Worlds studio after the show on Thursday to discuss the announcement.

Join the live audience here in our Studio (spaces limited):
Designing Worlds - treet.TV, Garden of dreams (78, 223, 23)

Or watch the show on the web at 2pm SLT on Thursday
http://www.slartist.com/browse-dw-videos-1-date.html for a showing on Slartist

The show can later been seen on the Designing Worlds blog at designingworlds.wordpress.com .



So just what is this, "important development from Linden Lab ...  that will change your Second Lifes forever"? Saffia Widdershins wouldn't say when I talked with her. Prokofy Neva, a longtime resident noted for his opinions, brought the question up in the official forums. Prokofy was worried about what this change might be, "Am I the only one whose blood runs cold when I hear something like this? Because at best, LL gives with one hand and takes with the other. At best." Speculation has ranged from Project Bento being integrated into Second Life, to the new group of sims that appeared last month, to Linden homes, to something trivial.

Whatever it is, we'll see what the Lab has to say soon enough.

Bixyl Shuftan

Interview with Prokofy Neva, Part Two

Earlier this summer, we interviewed Prokofy Neva, an outspoken, sometimes controversial figure in Second Life. Prokofy had much on his mind as we talked. In the second part of the interview, he discussed last year's third-party Linden exchange services' ban and the recent controversy about content creators' rights. He also talked about his opinions about the plans for a new Grid, and why Second Life hasn't caught on with the masses like Twitter and Facebook have. One thing that might take some critics by surprise, he had a few kind words for a friend.

Read the interview in People.

Interview with Prokofy Neva, Part One

Bixyl Shuftan recently had a chance to interview one of Second Life's more outspoken personalities, Prokofy Neva. Prokofy had much on his mind. His perspective of Second Life's conflict  is not just Linden Lab versus the residents, but also "class struggle" of various resident groups against one another, notably content creators versus land barons. In the first part of the interview, he talked about his early days in Second Life, and how debate and conflict affected Second Life's development in it's earlier years.

Read the interview in People.

Reactions to the News of SL 2.0

It's been a week since Ebbe Linden casually announced during a third-party viewer developers meeting that Linden Lab had another virtual world under development, one with next-generation technology. Word quickly spread not just across Second Life, but across forums, bulletin boards, social media, blogs, and other places Second Life users had a presence. Far more has been spoken than we have time to write about, but here are some reactions.


Jessica Lyon, the head of Team Firestorm, was at the meeting where Ebbe made his remarks. Later on the Firestorm Blog, she stated what she knew so far:

The new platform will not be open source, at least not at first, and so no third-party viewers.

Linden Lab will continue and maintain Second Life for as long as they consider it profitable. Second Life will be continued to be improved, but on a smaller scale.

The new platform will be made "in the spirit of Second Life," and will focus on content creators.

The new platform is still in it's very early stages. She guessed (correctly) that no beta would be around for at least a year.

One detail Jessica was unsure about was objects and items people have in their inventories and on their sims. The Lab had originally stated that they didn't want to limit the new Grid with backwards compatibility with items from the old one. But she felt this wasn't stated with 100% certainly. So maybe one's content, so maybe some content would be allowed over she reasoned.

Jessica appealed to Second Life residents not to stop renting land or making purchases, but to keep on doing so. She also appealed to residents to come up with ways to make Second Life a better place, "Your opinion matters more than ever! Think of one thing, whether a feature, fix, improvement, or whatever ... We are looking for a magic bullet silver bullet to give Oz that can be introduced to SL to make it bigger and better than ever before!"

For Jessica's post, "Second Life Needs You," in full, click here: http://www.firestormviewer.org/second-life-needs-you/

Whitburn Blackburn of the 'SLikely fashion blog was anxious and worried about not just about the Lab having the best interest of it's customers at heart, especially longtime users whom have invested much in the old Second Life, but that in trying to change from one Grid to another for another it will end up stumbling "along with two nonviable platforms to an eventual descent into mediocrity." If the Lab fails, "it may well be time to move completely back to real life and spent my money on other things."

For Whitburn's "The End of SL?," click here: http://whitburnblackburn.wordpress.com/2014/06/24/95-the-end-of-second-life/

Prokofy Neva had quite a few things to say on the issue in his "Second Thoughts" blog. Some moves he felt were good, such as not making the new Grid open-source. He wasn't impressed with Oz Linden as the choice to head the part of the Lab in charge of maintaining "Legacy SL," calling him "the main open-source cult guru ... watch the JIRA close again." But the main point was "What can you take with you to the next world?" What will happen with those whom have invested years and thousands of dollars into Second Life? Prokofy felt the Lindens had an obligation to compensate them for their losses in some manner, "no company wants to have a compensation policy, but they must, and large land-owners should compel them to as they are losing big."

Read Prokofy's post in full here: http://3dblogger.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2014/06/linden-lab-must-compensate-land-owners-and-content-sellers-of-legacy-sl-before-transition-to-new-wor.html

Ciaran Laval talked about Ebbe Linden's own answer to the increasing questions on his post in the official forums, then went on, "People seem to be reading between lines that don't exist ... if Linden Lab wanted to force-migrate people to their new world, a lot of people wouldn't go because their virtual world love is Second LIfe. ... it would be extremely foolish of Linden Lab to close Second LIfe, in the next few years, and to be fair to Linden Lab, there are absolutely no signs whatsoever that they intend to close Second Life."

To see Ciaran's post "We Will Continue to Invest in SL" in full: http://sl.governormarley.com/?p=4045

Tonya Souther, Team Firestorm's head of the Apple viewer developers, made a comparison with the Osborne Computer Company, of which after the CEO announced better computers were on the way, the sales of their existing ones took a dive and eventually the business went under. Tonya felt the announcement, calculated or not, put Second Life at "risk of triggering the Osborne Effect. ... the only thing that could make it worse is the user community bailing prematurely."

Tonya felt Linden Lab's release dates for the new Grid were optimistic, "I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't really viable until Christmas 2017. Until that happens, LL will need money. Guess where they're going to get it? They have no other source of income. ...LL will continue to support, and ... enhance SL. ... They're hiring a bunch of people to take on a big challenge that will take years to pay off, and whether it will pay off at all is very much an open question." She would go on, "I'm not aware of any company that made the transition from open source to closed source and survived. ... keeping (the new grid) closed source would be a big 'f**k you' to a large part of the user community, and community is what LL has to have above all."

"No, the sky's not falling yet. It could though ... fortunately there's lots of time between now and then."

For Tonya's post, "The New SL Announcement" in full: http://secondden.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-new-sl-announcement-is-not-end-of.html

Meeting Up With Prokofy Neva

Recently I was contacted by Prokofy Neva, whom had just found out about Second Life Newser and was interested in interviewing me. So he and Jasmine and I met up, and I was the one being interviewed for a change. Prokofy has a reputation for being opinionated, and has been banned from a few places, but he was friendly and courteous to me, and the interview went without a hitch.

One can find Prokoky's "Avatar on the Grid" interview Here on his "Second Thoughts" blog. Expect an interview of this noted personality of Second Life soon.

Bixyl Shuftan