Petition To Linden Lab on Change.Org About Cashout Fee Hikes

On Wednesday May 29, Linden Lab would announce significant hikes to both the price of Premium accounts and the cashout fees for Linden dollars. The move has triggered quite a bit of discussion among the residents. While some are reacting by canceling Premium accounts, one person calling himself or herself "Second Life Residents" started a petition on change.org, "An Open Letter to Linden Lab."

While the person thanked Linden Lab for retracting their decision to cut back basic account group limits, "We are, however, disheartened by the other changes that you have announced that are scheduled to be implemented this month, specifically the doubling of the processing fee from 2.5% to 5%. While we understand that Linden Lab is a business that needs to profit in order to thrive, we feel it is necessary to remind you that we are running businesses, too. As you know, many of us are more than just hobbyists, we rely on the money we earn in Second Life to pay our bills, feed our children, and survive. Rather than simply protest the changes you have made, we come to you hoping for an open dialogue to both understand your needs to implement such a drastic and high percentage and possibly come up with alternative solutions for Linden Lab to generate profits without punishing those you depend on the most to keep Second Life going."

"if your creators and other earners in Second Life are not kept happy and confident in your decisions, you risk a great loss that would eventually render Second Life obsolete. We believe that the decisions you make should not be done in a vacuum. The voices of residents have given you guidance in some of the best choices you've made in the last several years. Bento, Linden Homes, new default avatars, animesh... all of this was achieved with input from resident creators. We feel there is a place for resident consultations beyond content creation. Second Life residents understand this platform on a level that Linden Lab employees cannot achieve without becoming immersive residents who shop, live, and love. We are the ones immersed. We are the community. We are the culture. We have a keen insight into our own needs and many of us are competent, intelligent, and capable enough to advocate skillfully on behalf of the residents."

The writer would go on to suggest Linden Lab hire consultants, "residents who can demonstrate competence and expertise in various Second Life areas ... and real life practical areas ..." and "discuss the possibility of negotiating the 5% processing fee. We understand that Linden Lab does have a final say, but we have a long list of innovative and insightful ideas of how Linden Lab might increase profits without relying on land and without creators having to bear such a severe financial burden."

The petition had already reached over 1600 signatures as of the writing of this article.

To read the petition in full, Click Here.

Addition, as of 2PM SL time, the petition had reached 1900 signatures.

Hat tip: Lia, Braelove

Bixyl Shuftan

Over a Thousand Second Life Residents Sign Petitions to Keep Linden Exchangers Open

In the latest article from Hypergrid Business about Linden Lab's announcement for third party currency exchange businesses to shut down after the end of the month, it seems two petitions to keep them running have gotten an number of signatures. One at "savetheexchanges.com" at over 300, and a German language one at "Open Petition" at over 750, for a total as of the writing of this article of over 1050.

Linden Labs says it has many advantages to buy through Lindex, but the fact is, that they will ask you for your RL data, this is something many people in Second Life don’t feel comfortable doing.

We fear the problems, that will be caused by this, will have a great impact on Second Life and its residents. It will be of influence on shopkeepers, residents, and communities. Many SIM’s will have to close down, events, depending on Exchanges, cannot take place and shops with ATM’s and other possibilities to buy Linden Dollars will have to accept losses. 

We need your help! We call on everyone to protest against these incomprehensible and damaging steps that Linden Labs will take from 1 August 2015! Help us to keep the Exchanges in Second Life!

The article described  various residents describing their problems with the upcoming exchanger ban.

“I have no other option than to buy Linden dollars on the Eldex and was shocked about what Linden Labs has done,” wrote Pfister Hammer Matthias from Vilshofen. “My preferred payment option is the Paysave card.”

“I pay through my bank,” wrote Günther Kaffrell from Fürth. “Not with plastic.”

“Unfortunately, the majority of the world’s Internet-enabled population still has neither PayPal nor credit cards nor MoneyBookers,” wrote Beate König from Heiligenhaus. “This poses a huge hurdle for new and current Second Life users.”

“I don’t want to put payment info on file, there are too many griefer tools in Second Life,” wrote “Havoxx Resident” from Berlin. “If they stop the Reseller Program, I’ll stop buying Lindens.”

“I have always used Podex which has provided great service for years,” wrote an anonymous user from Dillingen. “I want it to stay.”

“It is easier and faster to buy L$ with VirWoX,” wrote an anonymous user from Mülheim an der Ruhr. “An immediate transfer is possible.”

“Using PayPal, it takes me two weeks to get money into Second Life,” wrote Ralf Secker from Heilbronn.

Maria Korolov, who wrote the article, added in the comments afterwards, "Those who are using the third party exchanges use them because they have to. The thousand people who signed the petitions signed them for a reason. If they thought the exchanges were ripping them off, they'd go right back to the Lindex."

Unless Linden Lab can be persuaded to change it's mind, the third party currency exchangers will have to close on August 1.

Source: Hypergrid Business

Bixyl Shuftan

Petition To Save An Island

People don't always think about what happens to their items when they die. In real life, courts often rule when there's no will or one or more items owned by a deceased individual aren't covered by one. But what it the item in question is virtual and used by a number of the deceased person's friends?

My friend Madonna Daehlie of the Relay for Life told me about Helgi Island, also known as "Miss Lucie's Land of Fun & Fantasy". She asked me to get in touch with a Gordan Ninetails, whom told me the sim's owner had passed away and the sim was facing deletion by Linden Lab. "It's a bdsm themed sim, but its focused more around having fun than anything else. It's open to anyone to come and hangout, aslong as your over 18 and not a child avi. We regualy get over 9000 traffic, going upto around 15,000 when we have a dance at our club."

What to do? Rather than just let the place die, the fans of the location started a petition to try to convince Linden Lab to transfer ownership to a group which can keep up the teir payments, "Its up to 73 signatures in 6 days."

So will the petition suceed? Time will tell. In the meantime, Helgi island remains up until the tier is normally due. There are games people can play, and a balloon ride.

Bixyl Shuftan

Petition to Facebook to Allow Avatar Names

If you're a user of Facebook in addition to being a user of Second Life, you're most likely aware of it's policy telling users to use real-life names only for their accounts. Those who don't face the threat of having their accounts deleted. It's been stated by some that sometimes including a real-life picture of oneself on the page may be enough to get the staff to look the other way, and often people get a warning to change the name before the account is taken down. But still, for those whom are known online only by pen names and other pseudonyms, this rule is downright irritating.

Recently on the petition website change.org, someone calling herself Frijolita Avalira started a petition to Facebook's owner Mark Zuckerburg to allow Second Life users to use their account names without worry of deletions, "As you well know Mark Zuckerberg, your team continuously shuts down our Facebook pages, because we don't put our real life information. As far as that goes, it's a virtual world and these people don't need to know our real life names & addresses & phone numbers etc."

Frijolita brought up two reasons as to why Zuckerberg should change his policy. One was that there was already an exception to the "real names only" policy as drag queens could now make account pages under their stage names. Also, a Second Life designer was now making real life designs for live models in fashion shows. "There is a whole world of designers who use Second life as their tool of business, and Facebook to advertise to the Second life consumers. If Linden Labs can recognize linden currency with a world currency value , then we should be recognized as using our Second Life names as our 'Stage names.' "

As of the writing of this article, over 730 people had signed the petition. A thousand are needed before it's send to Zuckerberg. What happens next, time will tell.

To read the petition in full: (click here).

Sources: change.org, The Guardian, New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan

Proposal for UN Agency to Control the Internet

It was almost a year ago in which the proposed SOPA bill threatened do away with the Internet as we know it, including places such as Youtube, Facebook, and Second Life. Today, there's something else that's gotten the attention of Internet advocates: a proposal turn control of the Internet to an agency of the UN.

The ITU, or International Telecommunication Union, is an agency of the United Nations dealing with information and communication technologies. At this time, there is an international meeting of delegates in the Persian Gulf Emirate of Dubai to discuss a plan that would hand the ITU control over the Internet. Currently the entity in charge of the Internet is ICANN which does so through an agreement with the US Government with "a mandate requiring that it operate in a bottom up, consensus driven, democratic manner). A leaked document suggested the delegates of some nations were pushing for a global Internet tax. While worrisome in itself, what got Internet freedom activists more worried was that the plan would allow nations full control of how the Internet operates within their country. For repressive nations, this would mean full power of censorship over online communications. Undemocratic countries such as Iran and China, which already censor websites their rulers don't like, would this time have the blessing of international law.

Vint Cerf, the Vice-President of Google, spoke out against the proposed regulations, "only governments have a vote. Some proposals coulees allow governments to justify the censorship of legitimate speech, or even cut off Internet access." Openness, he argued, was a founding principle of the Internet, "Our protocols were designed to make the networks of the Internet non-propietary and interoperable. … allowed for contributions from many sources. This openness is why the Interned creates so much value today."


Google has also launched a petition against the ITU proposals, "A free and open world depends on a free and open Internet." As of December 3rd, about one million had already signed, the results shown on an interactive map.  Mozilla, the company behind Firefox, has also acted against the ITU plan with a commentary calling for it's rejection, "Why is ITU Governance of the Internet a Bad Idea," and providing "a kit of tools and resources to support people in making their voices heard at the ITU."

The European Parliament has already rejected the plan for the UN agency to take control of the Internet.

To sign Google's petition, Click Here. 

For Mozilla's tool kit Click Here.

Bixyl Shuftan