YouTube just FORCED me to say goodbye to my nick. Youtube just FORCED me to say goodbye to the nick I've used for 27 years when I went to save a video to one of my lists of fav videos. oO  It was 17 min interview, and halfway through I decided to save it to one of my lists, and the video STOPPED, covered by a great big dialog box saying I HAD to select how my real name was going to show, and not GIVING me an option back out of it! So, to continue watching the video, I HAD to say YES to their irresponsible FORCED CHANGE to a name NOBODY KNOWS ME BY! I kept looking for a defer-till-later option, but there wasn't one. There was ONLY a SAVE CHANGE option, which OF COURSE stripped away my KNOWN nick name in favor of a real name that is the same first and last as GAZILLIONS of other people have. Yes, I could have COMPLETELY QUIT OUT OF THE WINDOW (and thus the rest of the video), but without a doubt the NEXT TIME I tried to fav-list a video, they'd have forced this non-option option on me again. I hope key ppl eventually get FIRED over this! Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with ppl knowing my real name, provided that was shown, say, by MOUSING OVER my nick, but STRIPPING AWAY my known-by-many nick in some misguided attempt to "make people accountable" is just lunacy by ignoramuouses!

I was well aware for days, even weeks, that this change was being made, that YouTube users were being forced to get switcherooed to their real name only, as part of some damnfool, misguided, stop-the-trollers dickhead move, but I also gathered there WAS a way to get around it.  Word was that while they'd made it HARD to not select Yes on this option, it wasn't impossible to get around it, but you had to look REALLY hard to find the right button to press to get out of the dialog with your settings left unchanged.  But until today, I had NOT had the issue come up yet.  I'd been saving videos to various favorite lists on my account all the time, and in fact placed at least one other there last night.  But evidently the YouTube and/or Google techs must have decided to get even MORE aggressive with their insistence that you HAD to have your desired name forcibly ripped away from you, because now, simply by clicking the Add To button under the video was enough to garner the forced change.

I am not a happy camper.  In fact, I am seriously pissed off.

I'm sorry, but as far as I'm concerned, this real-names-only policy is irresponsible.  It is Google+ and YouTube, and other like-minded companies, giving a great big fuck you to the culture that made the internet what it is today.

I have been following "Nymwars" since its very beginning, since I am also known separately by an entirely different name I appear frequently on Second Life and other (OpenSim-based) virtual worlds by, with people who literally know me ONLY by that name, I have VERY GOOD reason to care about this issue, because when people are only allowed to be known on, say, Google+ by their real names, it makes it IMPOSSIBLE to know if any of those other people I might meet on Google+ who are clearly involved in virtual-worlds are people I know well under their SL names, or which one of those real-name people go with what SL names.

I continue to watch huge social networking companies like Facebook and Google+ continue down this path that is guaranteed to harm innocent people while at the same time WILL NOT protect people against spammers and fakes and trolls, and that when South Korea actually mandated a similar real-names-only policy by law it actually got unanimously struck down by their Constitutional Court!

This real-name-only thing WILL, absolutely, come back to bite those mandating it in the behind down the road.  I pray to God that sometime sooner rather than later (i.e. within months, NOT years), they are forced to reverse this decision, publicly apologize for it, and that Google (and thus YouTube and Google+) then immediately give us ALL the option to go back to using whatever the hell name we WANT to use and that we WERE using before they forced this deeply offensive and wrongheaded real-names-only policy down our throats.  In fact, I'd be quite happy if everyone responsible for this real-names-only policy wound up being fired... from the CEO down!  ¶ 7:00 PM

 

Well, digging around a bit more about Emeraldgate... it appears the one now running the official Emerald website was one of the three LL specifically wanted removed from the project, with one of the other three kinda sorta still involved even though supposedly not involved, and the more respectable devs have bailed.

It is interesting that there seem to be about 40 different clones of Emerald (well, 40 different sets of sources of them) at Google Code:

http://code.google.com/p/emeraldviewer/source/clones

I suspect one of those will become the dominant version, or another one separate from that, with all of the good and non-troublemaking members of the old devs rallying to it, and with all the "suspicious stuff" removed, but appearing under a new name... and the ones now left in charge at the current, official emerald website, who apparently are keeping the rights to the name... will be left holding an empty sack.

One thing I can't tell from here is.... what became of the SL2.x-enabled version of Emerald that was in the works for months, and if that code is included somewhere at Google Code. I hope it is there, and/or that the respectable members of the dev team that were developing it still have enough of those sources that they can be cobbled back together again if not, so that that line of Emerald can be continued in a fork.

In any event, for the time being at least, more out of inertia than anything else, I'm continuing with the latest Emerald release until some independent offshoot of it comes along (probably not Emergence, since that's not being continued either and is from a slightly older version of the sources) or until LL blocks it, whichever comes first.

I've used Imprudence as well, though, and currently use it on other grids... and might wind up using that on SL if the current Emerald gets blocked. But at the same time I am actively watching for an Emerald offshoot that IS being maintained and DOESN'T have anyone or anything potentially suspicious included.

  ¶ 3:24 PM

  Well, I've been following the recent so-called Emeraldgate events with a certain... dark dread, and a certain detached fascination.

A handful of people involved in the creation and maintaining of the famous Emerald SL viewer... behaved irresponsibly and... things started getting very, very ugly in cyberspace.... coming from people who frankly had way too much time on their hands, and at the same time... genuinely had NO real stake in the matter beyond the deeply held, emotional need to tear someone down.

Eventually, those responsible (or maybe I should say, those irresponsible?) were removed from the project, and a whole new team was started from scratch after what amounted to a hostile takeover. I consider this brand new, from scratch group as a completely separate entity from the one before that. In short -- and let me be frakking blunt here -- anything before that is irrelevant! And anyone that talks with contempt about Emerald due to what happened before the new team... I am sorry, but you are a DAMN FOOL, for reasons I will describe below.

And yes, certain ones from before the new group came along.... deserved to be expelled from the project.

In any event, the new system being put in place there, under the new group, was designed such that no one would ever be able to do damage to anything ever again... since any such things wouldn't even be able to GO IN PLACE without it being caught and stopped before it could ever make it to a released version of the program.

And yet, despite all that, the Emerald project still went down. Today.

Frankly... I am very, very disturbed about what happened this morning when certain additional people that LL, mere days ago, demanded be removed -- and don't get me wrong: I have no objection to them being removed! -- couldn't be expelled fast enough... but probably could have, given a few more hours. And a difference of a few hours, or even a couple of days, would have made absolutely no difference at all in the rehabbing of Emerald, or in the nature and state of TPVs in general!

They were already heading irrevocably down the road toward a place where the Emerald project could never have been misused again, LL and others had only to let the remaining events take their course.

But even then... Hell! They could theoretically have gone through and replaced every cotton pickin' person in the team so long as it allowed the project to go forward, and I would sooner have THAT then what actually happened today... bearing in mind that the system that was already being put in place was such that no nefarious stuff could have ever made it to a release version of the program ever again -- assuming there ever was anything truly nefarious in there to begin with -- and any that might have still been there was already in the process of being removed, and that by definition it was probably impossible for anything nefarious to ever be put back in again, either.

I am sorry, but I have VERY little respect for short-term thinkers in high places. They are an abomination!

I am now.... frankly.... pissed off that the new Emerald project was never really given a chance to succeed. Yes, I am aware LL demanded the removal of certain key individuals from the group, and that one of those three entrenched themselves and refused to go quietly -- and to be honest, I don't know enough about why they were asked to be removed, and I strongly suspect the majority out there don't know either... and at the same time, for the reasons I outlined above, I don't think it would have really mattered that much if they'd all three been let stay in place, either -- ...but given a bit more time, they likely would have been able to pry that one loose and the remaining team be able to regain control of things. They should have been given that time.

I put to you that there is no possible security, technical, or technological harm that could have been done to Second Life or to the Emerald project had the Emerald people been given a few more hours, or even a couple more days, do deal with these ones that refused to leave the project! The then soon to be released new version of Emerald would not have changed one jot in its content, would not have become more or less secure or "troublesome" to people, with these three team members gone or not gone, because anything nefarious was already largely or even fully removed... because, in fact, the entire rest of the team had been running themselves ragged removing anything potentially nefarious from the program, and because all possibility of abuse had already been removed... simply from the fact that, with every cotton pickin' nincompoop watching their every move minutely, no one could have AVOIDED being spotted TRYING to do anything even the SLIGHTEST bit suspicious without being lynch-mobbed by the bloggers and run out of cyberspace on a rail! And none of them would have dared doing so anyway because the future of every damn one of them was dependent on not screwing up now!

And bear in mind, the removal of these three team members was the ONE and ONLY remaining issue that could not be resolved on the list of demands LL made to the Emerald team for being returned to their good graces. And one that could not be resolved only because some double-damned chair-warmer ran out of patience when he should not have!

I say again that anyone who despises the new Emerald, based on what may or may not have happened before the new group came along, is worthy of nothing but contempt.

Labels: Emerald viewer, Emeraldgate, second life, third party viewer, TPV

  ¶ 11:24 PM

  Well, I've been a regular on Second Life since about February of 2009, with two different versions of me (they call them "alts.") But, there've been any number of problems with the ones running the place kind of... being in their own little world and not listening to the wishes of their regular customers.

Anyway, someone posted a message to their old forum -- a forum they are about to discontinue in favor of some sort of bug-riddled, ugly, unpopular pseudo-blog thing -- a post kind of like Martin Luther nailing a missive to the door of the church, and now suddenly people are reposting the whole text of it all over creation, so it can't be ignored, before Linden Labs disappear it down a memory hole, for all the world like George Orwell's Ministry of Truth making it unhistory.

What follows is the whole text of the original:

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A Letter to the Lindens

Some of you may have read and laughed at Trout Recreant’s hilarious “Letters From the Lindens”, lampooning our Service Provider’s policies and the haphazard ways in which (it seems) they make decisions.

There have been a lot of those over the past year. The Homestead bait and switch, the introduction of themed, Linden-built mainland areas, the ghettoization of Adult Content, “Linden Homes”, the flirtation with FaceBook and Twitter, the purchase of a FaceBook clone, the abolition of the Mentors, and the abolition of the XStreetSL and the official SL Forums.

There’s more on the horizon. The imposition of script limits. A dumbed-down Viewer 2.0. Favored status for some, but not all, content creators.

And of course, some real problems remain unaddressed. Lag. Inventory loss. Failed teleports. Maximum stable concurrency. Content theft and its mirror twin, false accusation of content theft.

With all of that, I thought it was about time that the Residents wrote a letter TO the Lindens. It’s arrogant of me, I know, to place myself in the position of speaking for “the Residents”. We are a diverse group with a wide range of opinions. Still, I think that a great many residents will agree with what I’ve written here.

Dear Linden Lab,

We love Second Life, the virtual world whose infrastructure you created and manage. Although it has many flaws, it’s far and away the best virtual world platform in existence. We want to see it flourish and grow, just as you do. Because of that, we are passionate in our opposition to a number of changes the Lab has made, and is apparently planning to make. We are passionate because we, as the people who are in SL every day, see the damage that they have caused, and greatly fear what damage the new changes will cause.

We are also passionate in our desire for improvements. We see the problems with SL. We are frustrated by them every day. So it angers us to see you ignoring these real problems, and us, in a quixotic quest for “millions of new potential Residents.”

Let’s think about that one for a moment. At present, the grid can only support a maximum concurrency of between 70,000 – 80,000. Somewhere in there, things begin to break and either some functions (transactions, teleports, rezzing) become unstable, or the grid itself goes down. Until that problem is solved, it makes no sense to waste time with policy changes that might (you hope) bring in huge numbers of new users.

SL is a communications platform. As such, it shares some characteristics with MMORPGs, and some with social networking sites like FaceBook. These other platforms and virtual worlds like SL compete for the on line time of a large number of people. But, although they are similar, they are NOT the same, and they have distinctly different strengths and appeal to different segments of that potential audience.

MMORPGs are graphically rich. They have (and users need and demand) high frame rates. They appeal to those who want to play a game, to compete within a fixed and relatively limited rule framework. SL, in contrast, is largely user-created. And it is open-ended, with a very loose framework that lets users pursue the activities they choose. While the graphics performance of a video game would be wonderful to have, SL trades off some of that performance potential in order to gain its distinct advantages.

Social networking sites are all about facilitating connections between people. As such, they are a tool to enhance a user’s life and expand their circle of friends. Such sites are used by people to find potential friends, business associates, lovers, or mates. They are outward-oriented, and closely linked to the real world lives and identities of their subscribers. SL, on the other hand, features anonymity. While users can use it for social networking, and reveal personal information to either those they choose, or to everyone, many Residents use SL as an escape from Real Life. Their SL existence is quite meaningful and real to them, but it is largely separate from, and carried on parallel to, their Real Life.

As users of modern internet connectivity platforms in general, we see the advantages of all three of these types of platforms. MMORPGs are good for entertainment and escape. Social networking sites are good for making connections. However, it is only a true virtual world like Second Life that is usable for both purposes. There are necessary and unavoidable tradeoffs involved in creating such a multipurpose platform.

Because of that, we see it as a grave mistake for SL to try too hard to become either an MMORPG or a social networking tool. For example, in acquiring Avatars United, LL may be opening a door through which many residents will exit the grid in favor of a tool that better suits their main purpose. If LL were to go in another direction, and take control of content creation in order to dramatically improve performance, residents who are interested in creating, or running a business, will depart.

You must pursue the middle ground that you have already staked out. No single application can be everything to everyone, and it is a mistake to squander resources in trying.

What you have is an entertainment platform with (potentially) broad appeal. Instead of trying to force SL into a FaceBook mold, or turn it into WoW, make it the best of its kind.

SL has another unique feature: its economy. This is perhaps SL’s greatest selling point…that people can come here, and leave (if they are skillful and lucky) with more money than they came in with. But this economy is fragile. There are a limited number of products that are possible. By eliminating gambling, you cut off a whole segment of that economy (the fact that it was a legal necessity is irrelevant. It still harmed the economy). By restricting adult content, you are slowly strangling another, larger segment. There are really only three basic commodities in SL: virtual land, content creation, and entertainment.

Linden Lab has ultimate control over all of these. Each policy change or shift you make has an effect on the thousands of merchants who use SL. When considering policy changes, you must do a better job of discussing them in advance with a wide range of Residents than you have so far. We would suggest that you ask yourselves (and us) two questions of any new proposal: “Who will this benefit, and how much?” and “Who will this harm, and how much?” And the “who” that benefits should not be Linden Lab! Not directly.

Any time LL raises fees, or cuts services, it might seem that it’s good for your bottom line. But in the end, if it hurts the SL economy, it hurts LL. If we make money, so do you. If we lose money, or leave the platform, you lose too. Any time LL competes directly with Residents within the SL economy, you ultimately wind up shrinking the economy. Nautilus, Bay City, and Linden Homes are examples of this. Instead of competing with your SL merchants and land barons, you should be developing tools to help them, starting with a better and more robust permissions system and a better process for detecting, reporting, investigating, and resolving content theft.

Here is a short list of what we, the Residents, would like to see you concentrating on in the coming year.

1. Viewer improvements. The enormous popularity of Emerald clearly demonstrates the kind of features your Residents want…and it’s not a dumbed-down viewer, it’s one with more functionality.

2. Lag reduction. Upgrade your servers. Streamline the code. Deal with issues like the notorious sim freeze when Mono scripts arrive via incoming avatars. If you must impose script limits, target the worst offenders…like resizer scripts in every prim of an avatar’s hair or jewelry.

3. Improved content protection. More vigilance in catching and punishing content theft. Improved permissions system, especially for things like textures and scripts that are often incorporated in another product and re-sold.

4. Avatar improvements. We want a better avatar mesh. Better facial expressions. More versatile body morphing. True transparency in the mesh. More flexibility in clothing layers. And one you can do right now, with a simple XML file mod…duplicate Emerald’s secondary attachment points.

5. Improved resident to resident and resident – LL communications. Closing the XStreet forums and the SL VBulletin forums was a move in the wrong direction. The new blogs are not forums, and their format does not support the development of a dedicated forum community. Such communities are an invaluable resource and need to be nurtured and encouraged. You need a better way to collect Resident suggestions and feedback. I would suggest something like the old forum polls, but with the polls coming from you, LL. Office hours don’t allow a large enough cross section of Residents, and feedback via forum or blog threads is too cumbersome to wade through. And, when you talk to us, please learn how to speak in plain , unambiguous English. Corporate weasel-wording does not promote user confidence or trust. Case in point: Creating a new position of “Conversations Manager” immediately prior to eliminating the primary means of carrying on conversations.

6. Improved in world communication tools. In many cases, this means adding the ability to turn OFF communications when desired. Being able to temporarily disable group chat and notices. Improving “Busy” mode to allow content creators some peace and quiet. Add the ability to send a notecard to a group of residents by Shift+click selection in the Friends list or the Calling Card folder. Add the ability to open a conference IM by clicking multiple avatars. Add features like basic text formatting to Notecards. Make them directly exportable into, say, WordPad. Here’s a business-related improvement for you: add support for PowerPoint files.

7. Improved New User Experience. Take back the Infohubs! Develop and implement more community gateways of the caliber of Caledon Oxbridge, or Virtual Ability. Sites with real helpers present, 24/7. Sites that feature in world moderators, with eject/ban powers. Second Life is not for everyone. As a Mentor, I met many people who were really looking for an MMORPG, or a FaceBook. I knew they would not stay long. But I met countless others willing to give this virtual world thing a try. If you can show that audience what SL is all about, what it can be for them, you will see the user base grow steadily.

We need these things. SL needs these things. We need them a lot more than we need a FaceBook tie-in or a free cottage. Your bottom line will thank you.

Sincerely,
Lindal Kidd

(ps: I'm going to be bad and cross post this in the bloggs too.)

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Labels: forum post, linden labs, second life, unhistory

  ¶ 10:43 PM

  Been a long time since my last post, to put it mildly. I guess this is partly because at the time I started this thing, I was still on dialup, and it was rather inconvenient to go online "just to update my blog," particularly since my folks during the daytime (when I had a big block of free time and was going stir-crazy looking for stuff to do) kept telling me "Don't tie up the telephone, somebody might need to call!!!"

Aaaaaargh...! So I got out of the habit of going online except in measured moments and to collect my email...

Well, now we've got high-speed, always-on internet through Clearwire, but old habits die hard... I suddenly realised I'd just let all my internet WebBBS participation and my blogging slide by the wayside...

Oh yes, and speaking of WebBBSs, I now have my own site up at http://www.joshua-wopr.com/phpBB/index.php where I'm hoping to start some round-robin stories, among other things. I have also joined a web-ring related to the subject, reachable from the main page of my website, http://www.joshua-wopr.com.  ¶ 12:31 PM

  Well, a few days ago I directed a netquantance to my blog, and... it came up 404! What the...! I found then that I couldn't get it to come up either!

My account still existed, since I could sign on at blogger.com and it knew me by name, but I couldn't get to my posting page from there. Today, I tried my site again, and it still came up 404, but then I found I could access my "New post" page, and the original post was still there! I could click on View Blog, though, and it just came up as a blank white screen.

I then went into the Settings tab, selected the Publishing tab, where my selected domain extension was still listed... and simply clicked the Save Changes button. Suddenly View Blog worked again! :-D

I guess there must have been a hickup at the servers or something. Perhaps that blaster-worm thing had something to do with it... anyway, I'm back now!!! :-)

(Knock on wood...)

  ¶ 2:39 PM

  Well, looks like the Nomadic One has finally entered the world of Blogs! :-)

Got led here by Google's nifty Toolbar feature for Internet Exploder^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HExplorer, which has a built in add-this-page-to-your-Blog button. I looked at that, and decided... What the heck! It's time to get a Blog! :-D

So, blame Google for this! ;-D

NoN

  ¶ 12:12 AM