Sansar Update: A New Direction, Torley, And Account Issues

For years, Linden Lab had been trying to make it's "next generation virtual world" of Sansar a success. But it only attracted a tiny number of regular users. So earlier this year they sold it to Wookey Productions. So how is the world doing? It's still around, with a few from Linden Lab still there such as Torley. And it's found a new path, with an emphasis on being a place for live events. But as one former Newser writer discovered, there are still some customer service issues.

Read more in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.

Is Facebook Deleting Second Life Users? Not Many

Last week, some Second Life users of Facebook were worried when there were whispers going around about accounts of Second Life users being deleted. While there seems to be some truth to this, the number seems relatively small. Of the fans of the Second Life Newser page, the number of "Likes" went down by about ten, or about 2 percent of the total.

The issue came up before two years ago when more residents expressed alarm over what to some seemed like a purge of Facebook users using their Second Life names. The issues are much the same now as then: Second Life users either insisting on Internet anonymity or posting under their SL names because that's what they were known as online vs Facebook being *the* social site on the Internet and having an inconsistently enforced policy that people use their "real names," even if everything the user posts about was done under a virtual identity.

Much of the responses are the same now as then, from "just change the name," to accusations of bait and switch. Hamlet Au of New World Notes recommended instead of using account names as Facebook names, create a page for the Second Life account name. He also suggested since Second Life co-founder Cory Ondrejka has become one of Facebook's top engineers and "brought over about had a oxen other Linden engineers to the Facebook team, … any … attention Second Life gets from Facebook's higher ups is more likely to be positive than negative." Facebook itself insists they do not go looking for people to delete, but that most accounts that are taken offline are from complaints by other users.

For yours truly, most of what I post is about Second Life, very little about real life activities, and so my name on the billion member social site remains what it is. It's simpler that way. Also, the number of fans on the Newser page has been growing again. So it appears the deletions are over, for now.



On another note, Facebook recently made International News. A Khalil Shreateh tried to alert them about a weak spot in their security. But he was ignored. His response, using the exploit to post on CEO Mark Zuckerberg's page about the weakness. Naturally, the response came within minutes.

Although there is a million US dollar reward for pointing out vulnerabilities, Facebook refuses to pay Shreateh. The official reason is that he violated the TOS. But as Shreateh is a Palestinian, perhaps Zuckerberg didn't want to appear to be sending money to the antagonists of Israel, America's best friend in the Middle East. Since then however, Shreateh has reportedly gotten a number of IT job offers, plus a sum of money raised by supporters in an effort organized by cybersecurity company BeyondTrust.



Sources: New World Notes, Venturebeat

Bixyl Shuftan

Facebook Cracking Down on Second Life Users?

Late last week, Some of my friends in Facebook began talking about the social networking site erasing a number of accounts. How many is unclear, Hundreds, maybe thousands. But the statistics meant little to those whom couldn’t find their friends, or found their account vanished. The reason, Facebook’s dislike of members using anything but their “real names.”

Reactions among the posters varied. Some went ahead and changed their account names, “I changed it myself because I will NOT allow Facebook to delete my archive. It is making me physically ill to see my RL name here, but if that's what it takes.” I also saw some react with anger, “So, it seems Facebook is ‘ banning ‘ anyone who isn't using a ‘ real name ‘ or a ‘ real face ‘. As I refuse to use ... a name I despise and have planned to change in favor of the one I have spent 25 years existing under, I might be targeted.” "my name and pic is real so leave me the f*** alone FB" While a few may have given up in frustration and leave Facebook once and for all, it seems most simply started new accounts, either under their real names or continuing to use their Second Life Names.

Of social media sites, Facebook is the 800 pound gorilla. As of January 2011, it had 600 million users, which include more than 40% of the United States’ people as users. Compare this to Second Life having a total of 20 million, and among those, only a fraction regularly log on. Second Life’s page on facebook has 144,000 “likes,” and for some time pages on the official blog, as well as Marketplace have options to share. Facebook became too big for Second Life to ignore a long time ago.

Unfortunately, the two have different ideas about Internet aynominimity. Second Life fully embraced it at it’s beginning, and although there is now a little subtle encouragement to provide real-life information, people are known by their avatar names. In contrast, Facebook encourages users to post information about themselves, and reserves the right to boot anyone who gives it anything but their “real name.”

Facebook is not very consistent about disabling Second Life accounts. It seems to go by for long periods without doing much, then gets rid of a number at once. Indeed when I first signed on, I had the impression this rule of theirs was not enforced. Now, it looks to me like some kind of “bait and switch.” They encourage people to sign up, giving those attached to Internet Aynomonymity the idea they don’t need to compromise it, then weeks, maybe months go by before applying the banhammer, intimidating those who’ve grown attatched.

People have had various ideas about what to do. One friend told me she would move on from Facebook if banned, but it seems most are prepared to stick with them either by changing their Facebook name away from their Second Life one, or starting over if booted. There was a statement from the Second Life page suggesting people instead of using their Second Life names on Facebook instead make a tribute page for their Second Life account. This idea seemed to fall flat with most. Someone in one group chat suggested convincing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerman to use Second Life and develop an appreciation for it.. But others didn’t think he would be up to it, “he probably thinks SL is so last decade.” Then there are alternate social networks. But I have my doubts they’ll catch on unless these mass deletions happen more often.

Myself, I got on Facebook to help spread the word about the newspaper, but it’s my Second Life name connected to it, not the one I use away from the computer. So for now, the account name stays as it is.

I may put up another picture soon, though.

For more, check out comments at Daniel Voyager's Blog, and Kim Randal.

Bixyl Shuftan

Second Life Wiki Loses About 80 Pages in “Clean-Up”

According to an article by Tateru Nino, a number of pages were removed from the Second Life Wiki.

... nearly 80 currently employed and ex-Linden Lab staff were mass-deleted ... along with related meeting transcripts, modification histories, revisions and the like. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the deletions. Some are still there while some are gone, and whether the staff-member in question is currently employed or not doesn’t seem to be a major determining factor.


Tateru contacted Linden Lab, and got the following statement:

After a careful review of the content, we’ve removed a number of pages from the Second Life wiki as part of an ongoing clean-up effort, designed to make that resource more current, more helpful, and less confusing than it has been in the past. Where appropriate, we’ll move valuable content (relevant tutorials, for example) to other pages.


Checking the comments following Tateru’s article and those in Daniel Voyager’s blog, a few people were in favor of Linden Lab’s actions, “The wiki is huge and very poorly linked. For a wiki it is hard to use. There are a massive number of pages with no incoming link. If I did not have a reader tracking the changes to the wiki there are tons of stuff I would never see. Unless I bookmark it, I can’t return to it.” The majority, however, were unhappy, “What?? They got rid of Blue Linden’s page. I want to smack them.” “Ya’ gotta love bureaucratic jargon. ‘..careful review ..’, ... ‘Where appropriate ..’. All good words and phrases for avoiding actually explaining anything.” A few wondered why the Lab didn’t archive the pages instead, even if it would make them less accessible, one wondering if the newer Lindens had no appreciation for “the investment people have made in SL for years and the value and affection people have for the history and culture that has developed."


A list of what’s been deleted can be found Here.

Sources: Dwell on It, Daniel Voyager’s Blog

Bixyl Shuftan

Questions About Linden Lab’s “Local Payment” System

Checking Tateru Nino’s “Dwell on It” blog, one of the Second Life blogs I peek at on occasion, I found a little bad news. It seems some sims owned by Europeans are at risk of vanishing. The problem, Linden Lab’s new “Local Payment” system. According to her post on the matter, the system is buggy, a number of people with premium accounts not able to make their payments. And when landowners ask that their sims not be taken down, the answer they get is, “I cannot assure you of this at this time.”

Tateru’s post got a number of replies, some saying they too have been having trouble with the “local payment” system. Checking the Linden Blog, there was an official post that the system had problems, but assured they were fixed. That wasn’t the opinion of at least one person in the forums.

As Tateru put it, it’s near the end of the month, and not a good time for silence from the Lab.

This news comes at a time in which some Second Life friends of mine have been “testing the waters” in alternative virtual worlds such as AVN and Inworldz. If anyone ends up losing sims because of bugs in the new system, some may just resettle in one of these worlds.

Bixyl Shuftan

Sim Deleted by Owner to Protest Content Theft

After being struck by a content thief again and again, Maxwell Graf, the owner of the LagNmoor sim made the decision for some drastic action: delete the sim. Second Life Newser recently met up with Maxwell, and talked with him about what led him to this desperate choice.

Read the story in Places.