I do not care about the moral implications of the recent controversy surrounding the 5th anniversary of Second Life. I wouldn’t have visited it, I don’t think its a big PR event, and quite frankly probably wouldn’t have even known about it at all if it wasn’t for the stupidity of Linden Labs. I’m really done with just saying they do a poor job at managing a community for a company running ’social software’. This is either a strategy, or stupidity, and I don’t think they are clever enough to create their own controversy like this for the publicity of their event.
For those of you who haven’t read it yet, it comes down to answering one simple question: How do you tell the world the virtual world you are desperately trying to turn into a business platform is overrun by BDSM fanatics, slave keeping barbarians and adults roleplaying children? Because that’s what Linden Labs did when they publicly announced they’d ban the BDSM, Child and ‘Gorean‘ community from participating in their event, which ironically carries the tagline ‘calling all cultures’.
I really think SL has every right to do the PR events as they want them to do. I’d even applaud the attempt to create some positive PR and shake their ‘explicit content’ image in the promotional event as intended. The residents of Second Life would be allowed to demonstrate how they contributed to 5 years of Second Life. But they (LL) managed to do exactly the opposite - causing the exact topics they wished to avoid, to become the center of the conversation. The very word conversation seems lost on Linden Labs however, there is no transparency, and no opportunity for debate, there is just policy. Policy which never mentioned non sexual age play or BDSM affinity and still doesn’t by the way (which makes me lean towards Crap Mourniers point of view of ‘ban it or allow it 100%).
The consistency in the sheer stupidity when it comes to communicating to its community will break Linden Labs long before its niche of adult content will, and they just don’t seem to get it. After all the outcries, all the controversy and attention every misstep has been getting, this is just making them look like idiots all over again, they still don’t get it. Writing a blogpost about your first week at work isn’t community management ‘M’, it’s about thinking of your community as an asset to be taken into consideration rather than to kick them in the face every opportunity you get.
Filed under trends because this is just another pattern I don’t see going away anytime soon. More avatar controversy to come…
P.S - I don’t have much sympathy for the public outcries (<-that is just creepy by the way…) either. Accusing Linden Labs of all sorts of things and extrapolating this to banning all slightly controversial aspects of SL - they are a company, you are the community. Don’t like it then leave - that would be a statement. If you are not going to leave, you are going to have to put up with corporate policy and PR events. You are giving Linden Labs every excuse to behave as ignorant as they do by just dutifully participating again after things have ‘calmed down’.
P.P.S -As this is so predictable, and in the unlikely event of some sort of strategy being involved, it’s also worth wondering who is using who. After all, controversy is publicity for SL and the blogosphere.
Posted on: June 1, 2008 | Share on:
Abhishek Saxena on 
Sophie on 
Dale Innis
said on June 1st
I can definitely identify with the thinking behind, “if you don’t like it, leave”; on the other hand it seems just as legitimate to say “if you don’t like it, complain.” :) Many people are, I think, doing both.
My main wish is that LL would come out and *tell us* why they aren’t taking submissions for builds by or about child AVs for SL5B. I can imagine various reasonings behind it, but I really can’t imagine a valid reason behind not telling us. Are they just getting in the habit to not talking directly and forthrightly to residents? That would be too bad…
Digado
said on June 1st
I think that your observation has been a trend for a while now Dale - well, i guess most would say it’s been here for a long time. I think the main problem is SL is scared to tell its users, or potential users about the course - the roadmap. On the one hand, a strict business platform would upset the large roleplay community - the users producing the pretty numbers for SL to flaunt, and more of a ‘creative’ approach would cause investments (and IPO value) to plummet.
Transparency in this case is a big dilemma, but something they are not handling very well given the evidence of creating major unclarity and uncertainty with each decision, upsetting both ‘camps’. Now people with a more business approach to SL see the more explicit side of SL become the leading topic again, and on the other hand the community of social users feel offended because SL is ‘threatening their expression’. Something which happens everywhere (I doubt you ever wondered why there are no porn adds on Amazon) but in a perceived ‘community owned’ platform, it becomes a problem SL obviously is unable to cope with.
I think you also know why they wont allow the child players content - its just not the publicity they seek for this event. It tends to be misunderstood and become the dominating topic of conversation for any present media. The controversy is much higher than the news of the 5th anniversary of ’some game played by half a million people’. However, publicly refusing the content makes no sense. You either ban it or support it. And by supporting it you could create the story instead of letting media, and the blogosphere run with it :)
dandellion Kimban
said on June 1st
Yes, they did a awful thing by placing in the spotlight the same thing they wanted to hide. And they are doing awful thing by pissing off the community they are dependent on. And I agree that they haven’t thinked about this as planned controversy.
But I don’t see what biz community have against peple engaging in BDSM, Gor or non-sexual age-play on some sim far away. It is like company refuses to have its offices in the same street where cinema that shows violent of sex-explicit movies. It doesn’t make sense at all. And, as I said, I’ve never heard from the biz people that they find role-players bad for what they do. Some technical things are more important for biz than what some other residents are doing in their free time.
Sure that LL can do their PR anyway they want. But, then it is not a community event. And it is not celebrating diversity if three very populated groups are banned from the event. PR is one thing, telling lies and making a fake image is another.
I don’t know why you keep insisting on “setting the roadmap” when that is the mere opposite of the idea of SL. If Lindens wanted to set the roadmap, they wouldn’t throw the grid of empty land and call the residents to build the world.
And I am not sure that any of the “camps” would be much upset by the existance of the other one, especially when there is so much residents on the both sides, if some people headed by Linden’s PR team wouldn’t try to impose the gap between them.
Digado
said on June 1st
We don’t agree on the roadmap - which is fine, It is my explanation for the stupidity in community management and failure to address a good market, I have yet to hear a better explanation. This is my experience as a marketer, and I am well aware this doesn’t collide with the notion of a 3D web being born from the ashes of Second Life, which i find a very unlikely scenario for a number of reasons we discussed on previous topics :)
Furthermore, to address the valid point whether or not the ‘camps’ (which i used because I lacked of a better word really, the lines are obviously not as clear as that) being upset about one another, that is different from what i am saying here. Decisions like this (LL’s one) are based on creating a better corporate image, which should benefit the business ‘camp’ pitching their concepts and strategies to mostly uninformed execs (uninformed on the details of SL) if done well. After all, running your investment on a ‘pornsite’ doesn’t go down so well in most boardrooms and LL was worried that would be the message that got across. BDSM, slavekeeping and ageplay tend to catch the attention like that when hold next to something about educational benefits.
Now, we know the distinction, but clearly it’s not as obvious to someone who has never set foot in SL but learns of the presence of BDSM, ageplay etc inside the network. Secondly, your comparison of streets isn’t exactly right because of you set one foot outside the corporate sims (or go into ’search’) you are bound to run into (very) explicit content sooner or later whether you go looking for it or not. Now suppose you where the company that invited that user into SL to visit them, that reflects on YOUR image. That is certainly something to be considered.
I can’t really say what most people on the investing/commercial side think of the explicit content - I think most would just like to see better filtering of adult VS non-adult, like the web has learned to do - so I’d agree: here is nothing against one another, but rather the implications of some decisions by LL to be successful are going to collide along the way, and LL is taking the heat for doing such a poor job at it.
Alberik Rotaru
said on June 2nd
There’s an old theory that you should never explain adverse events by a conspiracy when it can be explained by a cock-up.
The roadmap is one explanation for the company’s lunacy. Simple incompetence, particularly in community relations, is another. If you look at the serial explanations offered to defend decisions like the grammatical copyright rules, the obtuse and opaque language in which those explanations get written, the need for the PR Lindens to have 2 or 3 tries at communicating new policy before they get it anywhere near understood, then you find powerful evidence for the cock-up as explanation.
Tom Wolfe wrote the old joke that the true artistry in modern art is in the catalogues which attempt to explain the theory of abstract art, not the art itself. ‘to lack a persuasive theory is to lack something crucial’.
I think the corporatision of this virtual world is merely an attempt to cover failure with theory. You’re doing a heckuva job, Lindens.
If only the Lindens would put as much effort into coding as they put into explaining coding failures. They might not then need theory, or opaque spin from their PR section.
Digado
said on June 2nd
Hello Alberik, thank you for commenting!
I think you are are right, as I said, it probably is a cock-up, but even cock-ups are motivated by something unless you are satisfied with consistent personal incompetence. I think this incompetence is caused by uncertainty, and unclarity on their own future, which is not surprising for a start up experiencing the roller coaster LL has been trough.
So I wouldn’t go as far as to think in theories or conspiracies even, its more an objective analyzes of a series of events. A cock-up is just one event, two means incompetence, three, four or five means there is something causing the consistent incompetence which could very well be the murkyness of the concept of ‘being everything to everybody’ - they have no clear focus on users, on application, on goals.
Llola Bedrosian
said on June 2nd
I think that trying to be “everything to everybody” gives no solid foundation, which invites incompetence–moving forward requires everyone moving in the same direction, so pick one and go. Why not focus on growing what exists in the productive community and let whatever is undesirable fade away into the corners. I’m not saying that questionable behavior by the majority community standards is okay on the fringe, but as we’ve seen from real life, nothing is going to eradicate it. So remove the focus and move forward.
dandellion Kimban
said on June 2nd
Llola, you think that web, as being “everything to everybody” is a bad thing without solid foundation?
by the way I
said on June 2nd
…it’s Linden Lab, not Linden Labs.
dandellion Kimban
said on June 2nd
LOL
Jordyn
said on June 9th
Gonna agree with these two points and clock out..
“You either ban it or support it. And by supporting it you could create the story instead of letting media”
and..
“A cock-up is just one event, two means incompetence, three, four or five means there is something causing the consistent incompetence which could very well be the murkyness of the concept of ‘being everything to everybody’ - they have no clear focus on users, on application, on goals.”
well said Digado!