How do you spell incompetence?

Wanting to reward the open source programmers who worked on the open source client for Second Life, Linden Lab has launched a nomination process for The Jesse Malthus Award for Best Community Influence nominees - 2008 Hippo Awards for Open Source.

Incredibly, it seems that our dear SL creators can't handle an award right. They opened the process, took nominations and closed everything. All was well, wasn't it? That was until they decided to add names after closing nominations.

Without surprise, some questions were asked about the fairness of such a work method. "So nominations are 'OPEN' again or only allowed to 'add' people after it is closed if you are a Linden? I now consider this award rigged and Linden Lab's credibility on this issue compromised", responded Renee Faulds on the award nomination page at JIRA.

Linden Lab had a strange explanation to give to the community.

"One thing we looked at was the fact that the descriptions for many nominees did not match the category, as if the person nominating maybe made a mistake in filing", said Rob Linden, who describes himself as Open Source Busybody at Linden Lab.

"So, we had two choices, adds Rob Linden. We could have slavishly adhered to the exact nomination process, and said tough, wait until next year. Or, we could have done what we're doing, which was to make sure that we considered the existing nominees for the categories they are most suited for. We all felt like it was more important that we get the end result right than it was to rely exclusively on an imperfect process."

There are two problems with this. The first is that they did not manage an awards nomination process right, admitting it was imperfect. The second one is that they changed their minds about their own rules yet again.

When you think of it, there is a continuity in this. Linden Lab has often said it did not want to police SL but it reversed its decisions on plenty of matters such as banking and gambling. It seems to be a work method to do policy shifts, leaving people wondering how decisions are made.

How do you spell incompetence?

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Cartoon of the Day

By Bixyl Shuftan

Click for full size

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Open the Box with Dana

You know there has been a lot going on in Secondlife recently and you can often read here my own cynical point of view of Linden Lab, but to be honest, its cynical simply because I personally have seen promises made and not kept and also things tried that simply do not work or have had the potential to make a big difference (e.g. having a communications officer) that just haven't fulfilled that potential. Now that aside I took the risk and actually downloaded the newest viewer iteration after holding back for a long time - most release candidates simply crashed or didn't work regardless of the promises that THIS was the best one yet - now I can honestly say that I agree this latest one is the most stable iteration I can remember since way back when, I am occasionally a cloud but it rarely lasts long and we all know there have been a few days of disruption, but I am pleased to see fairly prompt notification inworld of problems allowing us to make the choice whether to stay or log off for a while. There are obviously some issues that some face and again the tools buttons disappearance is seriously annoying for us that build, but we can't have everything, right?
I have also felt slightly encouraged at Linden Lab actually starting two way communications in the forums firstly with the questions about VAT and then about the future of mainland, now I haven't covered this latest one too much as it is a huge subject. The present mainland is a huge mess and I truly believe any effort on the part of the Lindens is a step in the right direction, at least they are showing some responsibility about making an effort to DO something about it. Read the forum for yourself and take part in the discussion HERE, you will need to log in with your Secondlife details to read it.
One of the things I hear a lot about is charitable causes in Secondlife and the impact that these can have on real world issues can be immense with little and well known charities benefiting from Secondlife. Always beware that you confirm it is a real charity before you donate anything though - it is as always open to misuse - a real charity will not mind you asking questions.

RFL obviously comes to mind and managed to raise a huge L$55,230,056! total, but although the best known charity in SL it is by no means the only one.

Recently I heard about an event I think you should also know about and that is 'Great Strides' (Healing with Horses).
Great Strides is an RL innovative program that helps people to overcome their mental health issues by partnering treatment staff with equine staff. Now in SL they are holding an event this weekend an auction and a fun cross country course which I actually tried out yesterday and had a huge amount of fun with, Oldrome yer of Homes by Rome is the event organiser with her partner Sawdust Yer (contact either to register for the event), the CCC will be held on Sunday and I know I will try my best to be there and probably see if I can get the slowest time on the course possible while actually completing it :) I loved to see the little purple guys jumping out of my way, hehehehe. The auction is on Saturday with a huge array of items donated - you can go and bid on them right now HERE and maybe have a look over the course while you are there.
Of course that is not the only event going on this weekend it seems everyone has something happening and I cannot begin to hope I will make it to all of them - take a quick look through our other sections for some ideas of what you can do - EVENTS, EXPLORE, MACE and DESIGN will all give you ideas.

I guess I better stop rambling on as I could go on for a while with the things to see and do this weekend, but I think, a look through our sections will give you a better idea.

Enjoy your read and have fun this weekend.

Dana

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Cartoon of the Day

Picture by Dana Vanmoer

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Meet the Crew

Meet the crew - we finally got around to updating our crew page, we have so many new writers and now you can find out a little more about them. You will find the link at the top right of the page or click HERE

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Caliber at Rivendell

Now after you have had a look at this beautiful place go see it for yourself HERE

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SL Grid Trouble - Avatars in the Mist

I logged into Second Life at about 8:30 PM SL time on Monday evening. I appeared as a wisp as first, which was no surprise. What was a surprise was finding everything but me was rezzing. I was still a ghost. Seeing some friends were online, I IMed a couple. I got no response.
Then I got a group IM, saying Second Life was suffering "split servers" and some people would not be able to reach certain others in IMs, "Group IMS still work, though."
Meeting up with four friends, three where ghosted as well. The fourth, who had a male avatar on, had been ruthed and was feminized. One saw me not as a ghost, but as ruthed as well, "nice breasts Bix."
Looking at the Grid Status reports:

[8:45PM Pacific] Many residents have reported that their clothing are not loading and they are seeing others as white clouds. There are also some other issues such as some regions down, inventory not loading and search not working. We are aware of these problems and are working to fix these issues as soon as possible.[8:09PM Pacific] Please be aware that some residents are also experiencing issues with teleporting. We will update this blog as soon as we have more news.
[7:32PM Pacific] SL is experiencing some network difficulties. Some residents have reported problems with loggin in. Please avoid conducting inworld transactions and purchasing lindens for the time being. We will update this space with details as soon as we get them.

There was nothing left for us to do but to log off SL and hope things were better the next day.
Bixyl Shuftan

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