Cartoon of the Day

Eye on the Blog: Enforcing the New Third-Party Viewer Policy

On March 31, 2010, M Linden announced an updated Second Life Terms of Service (TOS) that becomes effective on Friday, April 30th. We have incorporated our new Policy on Third-Party Viewers into the updated TOS. This Policy governs access to Second Life and our technical platform that supports Second Life by any third-party viewer, by which we mean any third-party software client, regardless of its source code, that logs into our servers. This includes software for viewing Second Life, any chat clients, utilities, bots, and proxies as well as applications that may not be listed in our Third-Party Viewer Directory. This policy does not place any restriction on modification or use of our viewer source code that we make available under the GPL. Rather, the policy sets out requirements for connecting to the Second Life service using a Third-Party Viewer, regardless of the viewer source code used, and for participating in our Third-Party Viewer Directory.

On Friday, we will begin enforcing the new Policy on Third Party Viewers. The steps we will take may include blocking viewers that do not comply with the new conditions for access to Second Life. We know that there are many compliant viewers in use -- beyond the seven that are currently listed on the Third-Party Viewer Directory -- and we will not interrupt their access to Second Life. The Third-Party Viewer Directory is the best place to find out whether the developer of the viewer that you are using has self-certified that the software complies with the new Policy.

We hope that this step will provide a safer and more secure Second Life environment for all Residents.

And, if you haven't yet tried Second Life Viewer 2, the official Second Life Viewer, then we encourage you to try it, now updated with additional performance and stability enhancements.

To view the blog post, Click Here.

Second Life Viewers and the Third-Party Viewer Directory

For the Official Experience from Linden Lab
The Official Second Life Viewer

We at Linden Lab have optimized this viewer to help you have a safe, stable, and enjoyable experience in Second Life supported by our Customer Relations team.

The Snowglobe Viewer

We also support the Snowglobe viewer, which typically has new features not yet available in the official Second Life viewer. Developed jointly by Linden Lab and the open source community, this viewer may be somewhat less stable than the official Second Life viewer.

For a More Experimental Experience with a Third-Party Viewer

You may connect to Second Life using software released by a third-party developer. We have a Policy on Third-Party Viewers to help promote a positive and predictable experience for all Second Life Residents. However, because third-party viewers are not our viewers, we cannot guarantee that they will follow our rules. You are responsible for evaluating whether you want to use and share information with them.

The Third-Party Viewer Directory

To be listed in the Viewer Directory, a software developer must self-certify that it complies with Linden Lab policies. Beware of third-party viewers that are not in the Viewer Directory – they have either declined to self-certify or been refused for noncompliance with our policies.

The Third-Party Viewer Directory

Viewer Name - Developer Name
Emerald Viewer - Modular Systems
Kirstens Viewer - KirstenLee Cinquetti
METAbolt - Legolas Luke
Mobile Grid Client - Kurz Socke
omvviewer project - Robin Cornelius
Pocket Metaverse - Pocket Metaverse
Sparkle IM - Genkii KK

For Developers: How To Apply for the Viewer Directory

1. Your Second Life accounts must be in good standing, must not be suspended, and must not have been permanently banned or terminated.
2. You must have valid payment information on file with us or have been age verified by us.
3. Review our Policy on Third-Party Viewers and the Second Life Terms of Service.
4. Make sure you and your third-party viewer are in compliance with our policies.
5. Complete the application form and certify your compliance.

Disclaimer: Linden Lab makes no representations or warranties regarding any of the listed viewers or developers. These third-party viewers are not affiliated with or overseen by Linden Lab. Please take reasonable precautions, including virus scanning, before installing and using any of the listed viewers.

To view the blog page: Click Here, page from a link at the bottom of the Download page.

Correction: Linden Lab Makes the BBB’s Grade After All

On Monday April the 12th, we did a story about the Better Business Bureau giving an “F” rating to Linden Lab. We got a little reader feedback on the matter. And as it turned out, things had changed since we had last looked at the BBB website.

For the story, go to Extra Extra.

Linden Lab Gets “F” From BBB, But ...

“Linden Labs: F .” That’s the rating the Better Business Bureau gives the company behind Second Life. So is this a stinging confirmation of the repeated stories about the Lindens’ dismal service to the residents of the Metaverse? Maybe not.

For the story, go to Extra Extra.

Linden Lab Release New Viewer

'Unveiling An Improved New Resident Experience


One of the things we've been working hard on here at Linden Lab, as M pointed out in his  New Year post, is the new Resident experience in Second Life.


Today, we're proud to announce an important step forward as we continue to improve the welcome experience for new Residents; it's a more streamlined introduction to our online world, one that is simple, linear, and integrated with Viewer 2.  Our primary goal is to make Second Life more welcoming for new Residents, because more new Residents means more opportunity for merchants, landowners, creators--and for the whole ecosystem that is Second Life. However, Viewer 2 isn't just for new Residents. It also delivers a better, more intuitive user experience for all of us and gives everyone in Second Life the capability to integrate web-based media seamlessly into Second Life--a huge leap forward. And, what may not be immediately apparent--but equally  important--it provides us a robust and flexible platform to build on; we have much more goodness planned to roll out in 2010 and beyond.
Key points:
Second Life Welcome Island and Second Life Discovery Island
New Starter Avatars
Updated Terms of Service
Updated Maturity Ratings
Second Life Viewer 2 in Registration Flow'

Read the full post HERE

Reading through the entire post it seems aimed more at new residents and the Lindens actually point out that many testers experienced in SL have had difficulties adapting and basically completely relearning how to use Secondlife.
So looks like the long suffering residents will have to wait that little bit longer for all the bug fixes and better search etc that we have all been asking for for so long, of course we can expect bug fixes for the new viewer will take priority over little things like that as of course the new residents have no idea how Linden lab works and will expect the best service.
Luckily for now the update IS optional ;)
Dana

New Third Party Viewer Policy Runs Into Backlash

At the same time as the Beta of it’s new viewer, Linden Labs also announced a new policy concerning the use of “third-party viewers in general,” such as the Emerald viewer. The Lindens say they are willing to accept the use of these viewers, though a number are raising questions about the wording of the policy.

The policy was a long list of legalese that this blue collar worker in real-life found hard to understand. Going through the Linden blog, readers expressed similar confusion. Some thought things looked fishy.

Well, not one single instance or version of the 3rd-party clients that I have ever seen or used can meet a strict interpretation of the new rules for an "approved" client, So you have, despite all your noise to the contrary, effectively banned ALL 3rd party clients, as they exist today. At least, banned their use by anyone that plays by the rules. The thieves will still use fake tags and pretend to be an LL-approved copy of Snowglobe and have a field day.

And you know what? LL's OWN CLIENTS can't pass those restrictions!

One of my friends came to me. He thought that the Lindens were making the use of a third party viewer punishable by suspension or ban, and pointed out an entry in the “Boy Lane” blog. Boy Lane called herself one of the people behind one of the 3rd party viewers, and had this to say:

What happened now however is going way too far beyond a reasonable policy. Besides making some clear statements about content "backup" LL also introduced some funny terms they could not legally enforce previously. Such as not using the generic term "life" which one has to explicitly agree upon by signing LL's new policy.

But unfortunately not all can be labeled "funny". To come to the (at least in my opinion) main point. LL introduced one killer clause:

7. Your Responsibility for Third-Party Viewers
If you are a user or Developer of Third-Party Viewers:

a. You are responsible for all uses you make of Third-Party Viewers, and if you are a Developer, you are also responsible for all Third-Party Viewers that you develop or distribute.


What this means is that a viewer developer has to take (legal) responsibility for any action of any viewer user. That's something GPL specifically allows to exclude, now LL forces such responsibility back to software developers. It is pretty much impossible for anyone to take such a responsibility. Besides many other questionable points this clause renders the whole 3rd party viewer policy unacceptable.

Boy Lane stated she refused to comply with the new policy, and recommended others stop using third party viewers, saying they were risking being banned from Second Life.

Tateru Nino in “Massively” called the new policy, “the worst day's work that we've seen come out of the Lab to-date. TPV policies have a number of glaring flaws, chief among which are multiple incompatibilities with the existing source licenses, so that you can't actually build and distribute a viewer from the open source code-base while simultaneously being in compliance with the TPV policies. That's quite an astonishing oversight. In fact, not a single release of the source-code made by Linden Lab to date complies with the TPV policies. An unmodified build from the trunk code-base would be violate the policies as they presently stand.”

Why were the new policies so poorly written? The question was summed up between comments between Tateru and one of her readers. He thought the Lindens were too proud to admit that their viewer was inferior to that others could build. Tateru thought this wasn’t the case, but rather a blunder, wondering if, “someone on the legal team just phoned this in half-asleep.”

Word is, Soft Linden is writing up a more clear policy. Hopefully this will clear up a good deal of confusion and suspicion, and quiet fears the Lindens are trying to ban third-party viewers without saying so.

To go to the Linden Blog post, Click Here

To go to the comments, Click Here.

Other sources: Massively, Boy Lane

A Few Valentines’ Day Happenings in Second Life

Valentine’s Day hasn’t gotten as much attention this year as previous, at least from my point of view. Maybe more people were knocked off SL by bad weather than before. Maybe people are just feeling blah. A few of my friends openly disliked the holiday, saying with the trouble they had finding someone, the holiday seemed like a cruel joke. One flower shop owner told me while bouquet sales weren’t too bad, she expected much more. Maybe this is why some places never bothered with this theme on Friday, Saturday, or at all

Still, there were a few events. The Mystery riverboat club had some Valentine-themed events last week, such as the red, white and pink party on Friday. Saturday had no party. But on Sunday Valentines Day, the Mystery sim had things all set for a heart-filled good time. At 12 Noon SL time, DJ Bentham began broadcasting the romantic tunes. The wolf Silverwolf Sweetwater was the hostess of the party, as always lifting a friendly paw to all visitors. People danced to music like “Love Game” by Lady GaGa, “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” by Areosmith (“Armageddon” theme), “All I Ask if You” (The Phantom), “White Wedding” by Billy Idol, and others. Jetta even put up a recording of her singing “My Guy.”

Unfortunately, there were a few technical difficulties that messed with the party a miss. Yours truly ran into a glitch when trying to tip the DJ, which sent his account down to -1 L. Someone looked up the details, “[Posted 12:55pm PST] There are current issues that are preventing some logins, as well as affecting in-world transactions, teleports and related actions. Our engineers are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible. In the meantime, please refrain from any sensitive transactions or rezzing any no-copy items.” This naturally got a few in group chats rolling their eyes, “Ah yes were would SL be without problems? (laughter).” Because of this, tips were lighter than usual.

Despite the glitches, the people at Mystery were determined to have a good time. People wisecracked and joked, “Plumbers are red, Hedgehogs are blue. Would you press start and be my player two?” Corky Darkstone added to the humor by going next to SilverWolf and changing into another feral wolf avatar. People began cracking jokes as to whether Silver now had a boyfriend, “Hi-ho Silver, awaaaayyy!” Silver herself joked, “Oh look, a twin brother.”

There was a bit of confusion when some people found themselves knocked to the corner. Confused, they walked back, only to find themselves slammed against the wall again, or thrown out of the building. Then one of the staff noticed a dancer had on a forcefield, and he was then asked to remove it or leave. The man did so, profusely apologizing.

There was a 300 Linden prize for the man and woman for best in theme. Asemia Avedor won for the ladies. Jedrek Leodhais won the male contest. For Mystery, it was a glitchy, but happy, Valentines Day.

Other clubs had their parties. At 1 PM SL time, Cutlass had it’s Sunday Euro-party, the theme naturally being Valentines Day. DJ Tamara Peart played the tunes for a small party, “Another Day in Paradise,” “I Want to Step Right With You on the Mountain,” “Love is in the Air,” “Unbreak my Heart,” and others. It was not a large party, possibly due to SL glitches limiting teleports, and Tammy’s tip jar was empty. But the party went on.

On Friday February 12 and on Valentines Day, the Lindens had their “Kiss a Linden” event on Isle of View and Isle of ViewToo, from 7-9 AM and 5-7 PM SL time. As their blog stated, “Never met a Linden before, or interested in celebrating Resident Volunteers? Come on over and enjoy the lovin’! And there’ll be even more love: look out for Cupid Linden on February 12th & February 14th, she will be flying around and looking forward to meeting you! “ Besides the Lindens, there would also be volunteers to kiss.

Reporter Gemma Cleanslate had the fortune to see people, Lindens and residents alike, having an ideal, romantic, time. Yours truly stumbled across what the poor volunteers had to go through sometimes. There were no Lindens around, just a couple volunteers. And they had to deal with a few characters from Woodbury, a sim with a reputation for harboring griefers. They included a guy wearing a lampshade and a self-described “kissable griefer,” taunting the volunteers. Not exactly Valentine’s Day greatest moment.

Some moments were more important than others. There was meeting up with friends whom were feeling dispirited over not having found someone. Time spent together, reminding each other they were not alone. They still had their friends.

So to those who found their special someone, and those whom need cheer from being unable to find love, may your Valentine wishes come true.

Bixyl Shuftan

Lovin Lindens

Lindens are really being nice to us! As they do every Valentine Day they made several kissing places. 

I consider it apology time for all the things I have said about the lindens all year LOL!
Lindens and volunteers gathered on the Isle of View and the Isle of View Too. 

Hearts were everywhere. 

Cupid Linden was the first to arrive but disappeared to the teens realm. Katrin arrived and began and stand in the Kissing booth. 

People gathered immediately to join the lines waiting for that kiss! Perhaps they hoped it would improve their future SL life. 

One cute little tiny looked on longingly but could not make the animation so Katrin came out to pick the tiny up in a long hug. 

It was great fun as usual. 

Now I cannot wait to dunk them again! 

Gemma Cleanslate

A Laggy Problem in Foxworth Part 2: “It’s Your Fault”

Recently, Foxyfurman Kunami had some trouble with lag on his sim, lag that turned out to be from a sim that was basically a Shoutcast server farm. Although Linden Lab eventually took care of the problem, it was after a friend of his found it and alerted them. In the meantime, it appears some in LL kept pointing the finger back at Foxyfurman, as this note sent by him suggests.

* * * * * * * * * *

Bix thought you would find this entertaining, the "it's your fault" response by LL. I do want to add as a side note when I called LL I got Gareth Ontyne on the line, by moving my ticket someone took care of this the next day, so the problem was fixed and everyone knows what happened, it is obvious that the shoutcast server was basically locking up all the performance, but the "canned response" in words is just stupid. I commend the actions but the BS that "blame the sim owner" is just so stupid it is funny.

* * * * * * * * * *

Foxyfurman:

Re: Huge Lagg issues on my sim

Spontaneously about a week ago we have had HUGE lagg spikes, we have tried shutting down scripts section by section, with zero help, your service desk told me to re compile all my top scripts into LSL, this is NOT the problem, and it will break many items. We have shut down section by section we still have huge problems, basically my sim is un-useable at this time. Again I have tried shutting scripts off section by section and the only way it even works OK is when ALL scripts are off, even a few scripts will over tax the sim. I have NEVER in a year had this issue and have added nothing new, yes I have restarted, many times including a LL initiated re start. I was informed by my manager that this could have started mid Jan.(ish)but just not as bad, not sure who is new sharing our server but this is a huge mess, thanks for taking care of this ASAP.

* * * * * * * * * *

Gareth
Linden Lab Support:

Hi Foxyfurman,

Thanks for contacting us in regards to this issue.

I am going to escalate this ticket to the appropriate department and they will contact you shortly via email regarding your request. In the meantime, if you need to contact us again about this issue, please add a comment to this ticket rather than creating a new ticket.

* * * * * * * * * *

Spike Linden
Linden Lab Support

Hello Foxyfurman,

Thank you for your ticket regarding your region and the performance issues.
I'm sorry to say that if there are lag spikes in the way you have described and they continue after restarts, then the source of the problem is within your region. As you have scripted spikes, then it will be scripted items within your region causing this.

Every time you restart a region, it will change server, so other regions can not keep causing issues if you move from host to host.

How were you disabling scripts section by section? This can't actually be done completely.
Unchecking the Run Scripts option in About Land will only disable scripts for non-parcel owner. You can't actually disable scripts for items that are owned by the parcel owner. So if a parcel is deeded to a group, all deeded items will still be running. If a parcel is owned by an avatar, then all items belonging to that avatar will still be running, with both 'All Residents' and 'Group' unchecked for Run Scripts.

This can help you narrow down the problem though, as you can eliminate most parcel/objects through this method.

I've had a look at the region today and script time is high (18-20ms). The chances are high that as avatars go to the region you will be running low on available resources and start to have issues. In this case your 'only' option is to look at your content. You will have to either re-script more efficiently or remove items completely from the region. There is no other choice for this type of issue.

Please make sure to look at our wiki page for 'Improving Region Performance'. This page can help you greatly in managing your region better. Key thing to remember is that you can't just fill a region with anything you want and expect it to work. You 'must' manage your regions content effectively.
TICKET CLOSED

* * * * * * * * * *

Ticket RE OPENED

Foxyfurman:

This was fixed prior to your investigation :)

Someone from LL moved the shout cast server sim that was running on the same CPU and like magic everything is totally fine. We are crazy careful about what we put down and paranoid about Time Dilation and our total script time. With a shout cast sim as a "virtual neighbor" our time dilation was 70 now it is 99. In addition for fun we ported to these shout cast sims and all of them were horrific with lag/with time dilation in the 80-50 range and all of their virtual neighbors were a train wrecks as well regardless of ANY avatars.

We had shut down all scripts in the estate manager panel and still had lag this is how we know to look OUTSIDE our sim. It is not always the sim owners fault as you say.

Sorry I re open this ticket but this caused my sim to basically stop in its tracks, it will never happen to me again because I will know what to look for, but I know others will not be so creative in looking outside their sim for the problem.

* * * * * * * * * *

It seems persistence is in order when dealing with the Lindens. Fortunately, Foxyfurman has plenty of it.

Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Labs Purchases “Avatars Unite” Social Network Site “For MMOs”

On January 29, M Linden announced on the Second Life blog that Linden Lab had acquired “Avatars United.” They were now the owners of the “web-based community site designed especially for avatars” through buying the company that runs it, “Enemy Unknown” of Sweden, “We’re proud to announce that they are now part of Linden Lab.”

M Linden explains that “Our goal is to extend and support the great work done by so many on their SL-related blogs and Web sites, because they are a powerful network in themselves. We want to give you more tools, feeds, and connection points to build even more richness and depth into the experience of SL.” Buying up Avatars United, M Linden says, “will soon start to give Residents new and better ways to connect with each other and with the rest of the world.”

Of those with no connection to Second Life already on Avatars United, M Linden says they will continue to be supported, “we're committed to keeping this ideal of a place where avatars from multiple worlds and games can come together.” They also promise to respect the privacy of those “who keep a strict separation between SL and the rest of the Web.”

Taking a look at the website, one can put up pictures, install applications, or give gifts to others using Avatars United own virtual currency, as well as posting updates. There do seem to be a few minor bugs, such as the "Feed Reader" application not being able to work quite right.

It is noteable that M Linden’s blog post states that among Linden Lab’s future plans is “Optional registration and sign-in using credentials from other properties (Facebook, Yahoo!, etc.)” For those who have been asking for integrating Second Life with popular social networks, a welcome move. Looking at the comments to the blog post, one called it, “the first thing since Havok4 that I’ve seen done right.”

One question is how Avatars United will compete with other social networks that already have large numbers of Second Life residents, such as Flickr, MySpace, and SLprofiles. Time will tell how Linden Labs’ move into social networking turns out.

For the complete blog post and comments, Click Here.

“Blips on the Grid”

If Second Life seems buggier than normal lately, that’s because it is.

In an SL blog entry on January 18th, FJ Linden admits that “over the past 4-6 weeks, we have had some regular operational blips, specifically affecting logins, teleports, and in world performance. “ The reason for this he says are that Linden Labs is relocating from it’s central database in San Francisco, and taking the opportunity to upgrade some old infastrucure. Trouble is, it seems someone forgot to write some paperwork on these “legacy systems that are deeply tied to every part of the Second Life experience. ... In many cases these systems were designed and deployed with little or incomplete documentation, which only adds to the challenge of migrating with minimal disruption.”

Comments after the post were a mix of some relief as they now had an explanation of why things were buggy, with some wishes that things would be better soon.

FJ Linden states that they are “in the final stages” and that it will most likely continue for “the next few weeks.”

Click Here for the complete post and comments.

Cartoon of the Day

New column for SL residents

A day of a newbie's life

Hi all first of all I want to introduce myself,

I'm Shackle Simsider, and as it will say above I'm a newbie.

And I want to share my experiences with other people.

So here I ended up writing an article in the newspaper

One of the first things I stumbled on was money:

If you are new to this game and don't know what to expect i can imagine people don't want to spend real money,so I tried to find ways to make money in game

And there it is a Money tree:-

You can pick dollars off it by left clicking them (don't fill in any forms or login in a browser window if it opens, it might be a trick to get your password)

a linden dollar looks like this:-

There can also be fruit in it, bannana's oranges or apples depending on the owner of the tree they will be worth more than 1 linden.

There are a few useful things around the tree; the signs will tell you if the 'balance' of the tree is more than 0 linden so in other words "if it is able to spawn dollars on it"

another is 'money in tree', this indicates that there is or isn't any money in the tree (occasionally this will say there is when in fact the tree is empty this can be due to sim lag) the best way to find the money is to go to world than envoirment options and put it on midnight this is becouse the notes are full bright and easier to spot another cool tool is the alt look;

if you want to use this press and hold left alt then left click and hold your mouse now move the mouse forward and left and right

it makes looking in trees and shops a lot easier

I think this is one of the best things to know of as a newbie, not only becouse it gets you your first few linden dollars but its a good way to explore the world, I saw loads of nice places when I was picking money off tree's and lots of freebies near the trees

This is a nice place to start your quest on finding money tree's

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Silla/128/36/75

Opinion: Second Life’s Numbers Going Downhill

A recent article in “Massively” spelled out what many residents have kept saying would happen if the Lindens didn’t get their act together. More people are moving on from Second Life than moving in.

Second Life’s “User Concurrency” reached 88,000 in Spring 2009, and then began to slowly fall. Officially, the reason is Linden Labs new policies against bots used in camping and gaming. It’s also been thought that after several years, most computer users inclined to give Second Life a try already have. However, this decline comes after a number of questionable decisions by Linden Labs, the Openspace/Homestead controversy, “Age Verification” rules, the end of the Mentor Volunteer group, and others.

Of these decisions, the Openspace debacle may have been the most damaging to Second Life’s numbers. One former SL resident explained that with the new rules and prices, a number of his favorite places closed down, “if the really cool areas with your friends go, then you have little reason to go back.”

By all means, it’s not too late to turn back, but given the Lindens’ past history, people can be forgiven for looking to see what else is out there.

It’s interesting that Massively compared Second Life to Everquest, saying the Metaverse had just about reached the same number of users at the MORPG’s peak. Everquest had been the top game for a few years, then it declined. The arrival of a better game, World of Warcraft is recognized as the big reason, but one gamer pointed out another. The makers of Everquest kept making changes to the game that gradually robbed the game of it’s social aspect, the shrinking number of players finding it harder to meet up to trade or team up. A one-two punch that sent Everquest into a shadow of what it once was.

So far, there is no “Second Life killer” on the horizon that would do it what WoW did to Everquest. But already the actions of the Lindens are driving people to look for new pastures, even if it means abandoning open-ended virtual landscapes and going back to games.


Bixyl Shuftan

Source: Massively

It Is On!!!!

Oh My Gosh!!! What a great time again!! The snowball fights with the Lindens are on !
The attacks were ferocious. Snowballs fly everywhere! Everyone had been practicing so the hits were often. I began to feel sorry for Blue Linden when he was the only one there for a time but he took it like a man (even though I think he is a dragon). Well, Robert Linden was there but he was hiding under a HUGE snowball so no one could see him for a while. I put on my skates and moved fast to avoid the snowballs hitting me but it did not help much. I spent most of my time at Zermatt because it was so much fun but did visit some of the other vistas At one place I was outnumbered by a host of Lindens all aiming at me because there were few there. Finally I went back to Zermatt and found the same fun continuing with some of the same avatars who had been there for most of the time!!!! There was some furniture throwing going on for a while, lol. I think I saw a few cows go by too. Some lindens came armed for bear, like Patsy. Several , like Rothman and Nathan Linden were there for the first time , but had lots of hits!! I will try to get to another session because it is great joy to throw snowballs at the Lindens!!! They are really nice to do this, lol! 

 

 Gemma Cleanslate

Get Ready!!

It is early but I want you to be prepared! The sites are ready and the dates are set. One of the most fun things in sl, in line after dunking the Lindens at Dreams/Shockproof sim, is the Linden snowball fight! 

This event goes on for days. Lots of Lindens appear at sites to take part. There are several sims locations to visit and find them. They even provide the snowballs. You will have so many laughs and an all around good time. 

I do not want you to miss it if you have never been before. If you visit one of the sites listed ahead of time you can pick up a free snowball dispenser. Practice your throw and I will see you there.  

You can read about the snow ball fights and other winter activity dates at The Winterfest Calender of events

Gemma Cleanslate

A Former SL Mentor Speaks Out

With the official Second Life Mentor Volunteer group no more, where can a newbie go for help and whom can older residents recommend? Is good help hard to find? Former Mentor Xymbers Slade has a few thoughts in Community.

Eye on the Blog: Script Limits

Second Life is a rich and engaging interactive world due to scripts. Every time you open a door, fly a plane, sail a boat, use a vending machine or dance in a night club a Resident authored script is interpreting your interactions to make things happen.

Unfortunately the current scripting system does not include any mechanism to limit the number of scripts that can be added to the world or attachments on avatars. This allows both malicious Residents to cripple simulators by running huge numbers of scripts and well meaning Residents to accidentally run more scripts than a simulator can cope with.

When too many scripts are running in a region the server simulating that region runs out of memory, dramatically increasing the lag experienced in all regions running on the same server. This is especially noticeable in homestead regions as more homesteads run on a single server. In addition, when an avatar with many scripted attachments enters a region the simulator has a lot of work to do setting up the scripts to run in the new process, causing a lag spike that can be noticed by all Residents using that region.

At Linden Lab we are working with Mono developers to reduce the lag spikes experienced when scripts enter a region, adding scripting functions that allow more efficient scripts to be authored and building a system for limiting the resources used by scripts on a per m^2 and per avatar basis.

We're also working very hard to analyse the current memory usage by scripts across the grid to determine the best values for script limits that minimise the lag caused by simulators running out of memory while affecting as few Residents as possible.

We're planning to make script memory usage along with our proposed script limits visible to all Residents for an extended period before enforcing any limits. This will give us time to gather feedback on the proposed limits and identify any situations where we're going to be imposing unreasonable restrictions and give will give you time to compare your usage against the proposed limits, give us feedback and have plenty of time to prepare.

I'm looking forward to working with you all towards a lag free and more efficient Second Life in 2010.

Posted by Babbage Linden in the Second Life Blog.

Read comments under the blog post Here.

Eye on the Blog: Lindens "to Retire the Current Mentor Volunteer Program"

Upcoming changes

The company has decided the time to evolve and grow as a volunteer community has come. While the official Mentor Volunteer Program has been an extremely valuable endeavor, its sheer size has made it increasingly difficult to support, and we need to reallocate our resources at the Lab for other Resident-focused programs. We've decided to retire the current Mentor Volunteer program—launching new opportunities for expanded volunteerism within Second Life.

For more information about the close of the Mentor Volunteer Program, please take a look at our FAQ.

We're sad to see the Mentor Volunteer Program go, but we're also excited about new opportunities! Now is the time participate in new offered programs, create your own programs or groups, or simply volunteer on an individual level. On our end, Linden Lab will work even harder to create the framework that highlights your efforts and supports the efforts of even more volunteers—heralding in a more sustainable and more creative phase of volunteerism. Rest assured that we will always want and appreciate volunteers in Second Life!

Announcing two new programs!
Linden Lab is focused on building robust volunteer programs in collaboration with the Residents of Second Life. Not only do we plan to help support their amazing work, but we also want to increase the visibility of their contributions for other Residents to enjoy.

If you're looking to volunteer, here are two Linden-supported programs that might interest you:

1. Second Life Answers. Residents submit questions and other Residents answer them—it's both simple and awesome at the same time. With over 200,000 page views, the Second Life Answers Beta has been a huge success, thanks to our Residents who participated by sharing knowledge, guidance, and friendly support on a wide range of topics in multiple languages. As Second Life Answers continues to grow, it will become even more effective as it attracts even more questions from Residents and more knowledge from our volunteers.

2. Coming Soon: The Resident Help Network (RHN) Beta! This program, which is expected to launch in about a week, will highlight the “best of the best” Resident-run help groups. There's a lot of great information out there among different help groups, and this network is designed to help our Residents find what they need. To apply to be part of the network, help groups must meet a high standard for helping new Residents, maintain over 50 active members, have an established history, produce documentation on how they help, and submit three Resident testimonials. There are more criteria for applicants, which you will be able to read when the blog and wiki information is available at launch. The accepted RHN groups will be listed on the website, featured inworld, and help shape future new Resident experience. We also hope to have an inworld Resident Help Network Fair early next year, so you and other Residents can learn more about the first groups accepted into the network.

Read more in the complete blog post by Lexie Linden Here.