Sex in the ghetto, when will Linden Lab grow up?

I’ve had to stop going to the various office hours I used to attend, simply because for a long time they’ve been a waste of my precious inworld time.  There’s only so many times you can be fobbed off with lies and disingenuousness before it becomes exceedingly tiresome.

I also noticed that if I pretend LL don’t exist my irritation levels drop considerably.  I’m just not good with watching incompetents fuck me around.

Unfortunately I made the grave mistake of thinking I should catch up on the transcripts of the zindra office hours I’ve missed over the last few weeks.  Funnily enough my irritation levels are back to where they were after reading this particular bit:

[11:11] Blondin Linden: We’re talking about the plans to turn the currently empty ZIndra region into a Lotery, like Luna

[11:12] Blondin Linden: DPW has there weekly team meeting later today so I’ll ask about progress / timeframe

[11:13] Blondin Linden: yes. there are differnet sizes and prim allowances

[11:14] Blondin Linden: it’ll be a way to showcase new talent and get some fresh blood into ZIndra, as well as a little promotion

[11:15] Blondin Linden: where is Couldbe? I havent seen her in a while. Hope shes ok

[11:15] Blondin Linden: i know that she was skeptical of the timeframe. I was just looking for her and didnt se eher

[11:15] Blondin Linden: well, keeping busy is good! Idle hands as they say :)

[11:16] Blondin Linden: lead to negative blog comments

[11:16] Blondin Linden:

The comment about being sceptical of the timeframe refers to the their incompetence at managing the simplest of tasks.  The idea of including Zindra in the lottery was first suggested in late October and by mid November I pointed out that they’d never make it by January if they didn’t start planning soon.  Of course we were assured that it didn’t take 4 weeks to organise something like this. Then we were assured as soon as the snowball fight was over on Dec 28th they’d start the set up.  Here we are in late January and they still haven’t sorted out the sim, let alone anything else.  It’s unlikely they’ll manage it before the next round of applications for the others in April, since it will take at least 4 weeks from the blog post release before people will have taken up their stalls and if they leave it any longer the winners of this first round will have about a week before they have to pack up and leave.   So sceptical?   more like well aware of how incapable they are of delivering anything promised to a reasonable standard in a reasonable time frame.

The idle hands leading to negative blog comments is the most riling.  With the content separation, LL demonstrated a level of ineptitude that I have never seen before in an organisation.  I’ve been meaning to do a review of the initial objectives against the deliverables for a while now but they failed on every point and it serves me no purpose publicly documenting it.  I just keep it as part of my list of examples as to why LL are not suitable for my corporate clients.

The blog comments referred to was a post I made in a thread where I pointed out that LL has succeeded in giving adult content the unattractive label of pornography amongst the general SL population and some elements of the media.  Those inworld who use the term justify it as the general definition of activities etc designed to titillate.  I’d have some sympathy for this if they’d also pushed for all the slutwear and other blatantly sexualised items floating around inworld to be made adult but of course they didn’t.  So really the term is used in its tawdry modern setting.  Is it any wonder people shy away from venturing into adult? If I were new and someone told me that adult meant pornography I’d be completely disinterested.

The reality of the content separation is that it defined sex workers, those people who indulge in what they call extreme activities or in BSDM activities as beyond the pale.  “Normal” sex is once more ok for mature mainland.  I suppose it was easier than cleaning up the keyword spam in pg and mature search or dealing with all those ARs for people who refused to move.  Cyn was asked in May what the plan was if people refused to move and she didn’t have one. The only conclusion to be drawn is that they weren’t really serious about this from the beginning and now the FTC review is over there’s no need to pretend.  They may have claimed they were doing it at the request of “residents” but when you look at the outcome, the reality is very different.

What truly irritates me about the exile is the way they’ve effectively stopped any retail activity on adult land that isn’t sex themed.  It is impossible to put a mature ad in search if the shop is on adult and I’ve noticed that people just don’t buy non adult items when they’re over here.  Thanks to LL I’m effectively condemned to churning out sex toys or I can pay them yet more tier and go back to the mature mainland and start afresh.

Now obviously there’s nothing wrong with being a purveyor of kinky sex toys (have you seen the catalogue lately?? ) but I really do begrudge the fact that all my other items are tucked away in the inventory as they just waste prims being out. Prior to the move I was running 3 different brands; an art galley (non smut on the whole), a general miscellanea shop and Satiated Desires.  Now all I have left is SD.  I object to being so completely boxed in to adult content – it demonstrates a juvenile approach to sex by LL that beggars belief.  Sex is just one part of human behaviour and a well rounded human being has more interests than that.

While LL insist on being so scared of sex that they won’t allow the land to be used for anything other than sexual items and activities, adult is always going to have the seedy pornographers reputation rather than being a flourishing place where adults can undertake any of their interests – sexual or otherwise.  There is no reason that adult land shouldn’t have the same options that mature land has for advertising.  The only difference should be that to enter you have to be verified as an adult and be aware that if you cast your eyes around outside of the shop you may see things you might not see on the High Street.

Or is that asking for too much maturity from Linden Lab?