The Weekly Peek: Double Birthday Edition!

Posted on June 1, 2015 Updated on June 24, 2015

Welcome to another week in the SL Universe, lovelies! And while perhaps not quite as exciting as the legendary “double rainbow“, I do indeed have a double birthday to celebrate today! Ever the avie has turned the tender age of one month old, and her RL counterpart is turning 30 years old! (Which may or may not be the first time that’s happened, but y’know, time is relative and such! Ahem.)

Closing my eyes and making a wish! Please click for a full-size image and credits.

And in their most gracious honor of my dual celebratory occasions (me = humblest Ever ever!), Linden Lab really pulled out all the stops and bestowed a lovely gift upon their members that’s been the big buzz in the community over the last few days:

🔹 Residents can now have membership in up to 60 Second Life groups! Ahhh, but if that seems too good to be true – especially given how rare this kind of change is – there is indeed a catch: the change is presently only in effect for Premium members. Boo, hiss! Read more at the Official SL Blog. But actually, it was a genius move on the part of LL, as additional group slots was probably going to be the only perk alluring enough to bring me back into the subscriber fold. I’m so torn! How about you, friends and readers: will this change be enough to sway you into paying for Premium; or if you’re already a paying member, something worth renewing for? Would love to hear your thoughts! Also reported by: Ciaran Laval, Daniel Voyager (who offers an interesting look back at the last times the group limit was raised), and Inara Pey.

🔹 Popular streaming content provider Twitch, in all its lack-of-wisdom, has decided to ban Second Life from being broadcast by its members, owing to its designation as an Adult-Oriented Game. Once again, SL is being viewed through a narrow-minded and wholly inaccurate lens, and this change will now prevent content creators from live-streaming their creation workflow (a concept that had gained popularity of late), as well as those who offered a variety of streaming content from the grid that stayed firmly within a General or Moderate rating. Ciaran Laval wrote about the Rules of Conduct Update and later followed up with a response to an article on NWN about the subject. Jo Yardley also shared her thoughts about the ban.

🔹 At last Tuesday’s Server-Scripting group meeting in world, Simon Linden provided a notecard with some useful Debug settings that could be employed to help improve viewer performance, particularly at events with a large number of attendees. Nalates Urriah detailed these settings in her blog post and gave excellent summaries of what the various tweaks entail. She also outlined some really helpful rendering shortcuts that may be especially useful for optimizing performance during events, such as the SL12 Community Celebration that’s coming up in only a few shorts weeks!

🔹 Speaking of annual celebrations, Jo Yardley’s 1920s Berlin Project celebrated its 6th anniversary this past weekend, with events ongoing through Wednesday, June 3rd. A hearty congratulations to Miss Yardley for the longevity and accomplishment of her project, and here’s to many more!

🔹 And last but not least, fans of the Avie Choice Awards may now vote for their favorite brands, creators, bloggers and more in the SLife category, which covers topics like Favorite Furniture Designer, Favorite Sim to Explore Through, Best Annual Event, and many others. Voting closes on June 15th!

The Weekly Peek: May 18th Edition

Posted on May 18, 2015 Updated on June 24, 2015

Welcome to a new week, everyone! This is a long round-up, so I’mma get right to it. One thing first though: I’m massively enjoying the fun and engaging conversations that have been sparked on Twitter in the last week or two, and I’d love for you to join in! If you have an account, please feel free to add me @EverAfterrSL and I’ll be more than happy to follow back. 💗

🔹 By far and away, the most notable buzz around the Second Life blogsphere this week was concerning a post that appeared on New World Notes regarding the recent article about SL in Atlas Obscura, which was thoughtfully reported by Eric Grundhauser and guided by the singular Ziki Questi. While most residents who shared their commentary on the Atlas Obscura article were enthused by its positivity and appreciative that it focused on the artistry and exploration of Second Life, NWN administrator Wagner James Au had a different perception of the piece:

Reporter Who Only Gets Expert Tour of Second Life Only Gets Part of Second Life’s Story Right

The post spurred lively comments and conversations about how Second Life is perceived in the media and by non-members, as well as the troublingly inaccurate tendency for some people to mistakenly believe that Adult regions as play host solely to highly sexualized content. The latter misconception was deftly dismantled by these fine writers:

A Pornographic Tour – Ricco Saenz
Living in a Second Life Bowl Full of Perverted Monkey Sex – Honour McMillan
So… How Sex Crazed is Second Life? – Nalates Urriah

Fair warning: you will be disappointed if you are indeed looking for “perverted monkey sex”. Dang clickbait, it gets me every time! ;)

Other residents took umbrage with Au’s persistence that SL reporting is flawed if it does not thoroughly examine all sides of the grid, including what he perceives to be a prevalence of “pornographic” content. As a result, Au was invited to engage in a conversation on the subject on the excellent Drax Files Radio Hour with Jo Yardley, and he later wrote a follow-up piece reiterating his stance.

Second Life bloggers offered their own perspectives of Au’s seeming dismissal of the Atlas Obscura piece, ranging from bemused to frustrated. While the posts themselves (the ones I’m personally aware of) were respectfully critical and analytical, Becky noted that some of the discussions on social media and in comments were devolving into ad hominem attacks and asked that people rally together to focus on engaging in debate and discourse. All of these posts make for very interesting and thought-provoking reads:

A Skewed Perspective on Second Life – Inara Pey
Please Stop the Social Shaming of Hamlet Au – Canary Beck
Role Play Journalism – Uccie Galway
The Positive SL Article, Wagner Au’s Story, and the Public Response – Jo Yardley
What You See Is What You Get – Lindal Kidd

Basilique Town Square (Photo Credit: Apollo Scribe)

🔹 The Linden Lab in-world meeting was held at the Basilique sim, home of prolific writer and SL Blogger Support maven, Canary Beck. On Twitter and in blogs, several residents wrote about the “surreal” experience of attending the meet-up, where the population swelled to over 100 visitors (massive attendance for an SL event) and Local Chat flew by so fast, it was impossible to keep up. It sounds like many enjoyed the experience, though there’s room for improvement to the format for future get-togethers. Here are some of the attendees’ fascinating first-hand accounts: Canary Beck, Inara Pey, Huckleberry Hax.

🔹 The iconic SS Galaxy, a full featured cruise ship in Second Life known as being one of the virtual world’s most iconic landmarks, recently retired from the grid … or so we thought! As reported by Daniel Voyager and Inara Pey, the former managing director of the SS Galaxy, DBDigital Epsilon, published a blog post detailing that the ship was acquired by Linden Labs and would be accessible to the public once more in more of a “museum” or monument capacity. It’s lovely to hear that the Labs stepped in and saved the ship from retirement, although its preview crews and residents will not be involved with the retooled launch. Will be interesting to see what the future holds for the Galaxy!

🔹 Kat Feldragonne raised some interesting questions at her blog about Second Life networking – particularly the nuances of using various social media sites to foster connections with other SL residents. I’m personally really enjoying chatting with SL members on Twitter, as well as at the excellent Second Life subreddit and the SLUniverse Forums. But if anyone would like to share their personal tips, recommendations, and observations on the vast world of social networks out there, we’d both be grateful to learn more!

The Weekly Peek: May 11th Edition

Posted on May 11, 2015 Updated on June 24, 2015

Whoops! I meant to get this post published on Sunday, but time got away from me. So Happy Belated Mothers Day to all the mums and moms out there in the real and virtual worlds! 💗

It’s been a fantastic first week back in Second Life. To be true, I’ve spent far more time outside SL than in, but I hope to have more free time to explore the grid this coming week. I’m starting to work on some fun projects including detailed round-ups of freebie hairs and skins (to be updated on a consistent basis, time-willing) as well as a curated calendar for interesting, newbie-friendly gatherings and events to check out in-world. I’m excited to dive in!

First things first though: thank you SO much to everyone who has visited, followed, and/or commented on my blog over these last 10 days. (It feels like time just flew by, wow!) It means the world to me that people are enjoying my concept and content, and I look forward to engaging with you all more and more as time goes on. To that end, I’ve got some social media accounts up and running which I’d love for you to check out – and of course, I’m happy to follow back:

EverAfterr on Flicker
@EverAfterrSL on Twitter

Thinking of setting up a Google+ account next, and I’m still contemplating Plurk and Facebook, although I’m irritated by the latter’s insistence that people only use “real names” on their profiles, and that avatar-based accounts may be deleted without notice. There looks to be a vibrant Facebook community for SL residents though, so it may be worth a look anyway. It just seems silly that our viewers have a built-in “send snapshot to Facebook” capability, and yet the FB overlords don’t seem keen on having us amongst their ranks. Boo to that!

In blog news, I finally wrote a proper bio page – About EverAfterr – and I massively expanded my blogroll and renamed it to Second Life Blogs & Resources, as there are just so many excellent sites to cite, I had to get all organized and fancy with it. That was a hella fun project! My RSS feed reader (the fantastic Feedly, which I adore with a burning and slightly inappropriate passion) is now subscribed to something like 112 different SL-related blogs, although a good number of them haven’t been updated for quite a while and may sadly have become defunct. But I’m always on the lookout for more (I would gladly and happily read blogs for a living if someone would kindly pay me for the privilege), so please never hesitate to leave a comment or similar with your blog link!

Nuff about me; what’s new in the Second Life community?

🔹 Xiola Linden posted in the official Second Life blog that the Lab is soliciting suggestions for the next in-world meetup, which takes place this Thursday (May 14th). I had no idea the Linden crew arranged meetups with members – what a cool idea! Here’s Xiola’s post, and she asks that destination recommendations be shared in this forum thread.

🔹 Linden Labs confirmed that the new platform’s working name is Project Sansar, and several of Second Life’s noteworthy bloggers have shared their thoughts on the name and its potential to shape and define the next generation virtual world. My decidedly banal observation was that the name reminds me of Sansa from Game of Thrones, because I’m a giant geek. Thankfully our community has wonderful writers like these who have offered their more candid and captivating thoughts: Canary Beck, Ella, Hamlet Au, Huckleberry Hax, Inara Pey, and Serendipidy Haven.

🔹 Ziki Questi toured SL with Eric Grundhauser from Atlas Obscura, a website that describes itself as “the definitive guide to the world’s wondrous and curious places”. That they graciously have included Second Life in their wanderings is awesome to see! Ziki’s destination picks and photos are a perfect showcase for this unique virtual world of ours. Check out the Atlas Obscura article here.

🔹 Ella at The SL Naturist wrote a fantastic three part series on the new resident experience with a special emphasis on creating a great look for your avie on the cheap and her recommendations for newbie-friendly introductions to the SL Naturist community. A great read for both newbies and nudies alike!

🔹 Kara Trapdoor wrote an interesting and provocative commentary on role play prejudice in SL, which was inspired by a post in the Second Life Friends group on Facebook. It prompted discussion at both NWN and r/SecondLife on Reddit and is well worth a look.

🔹 And finally, the luminous Strawberry Singh just celebrated her 8th rezday in Second Life. Here’s to many more, Miss Berry! :)