I am so glad to see SL banking finally regulated. Kudos to Linden Lab on this decision, truly… We will (I assume) be seeing a few less bling-tards with ‘executive of all executives’ tags floating around. Not wanting to sound harsh, but the fact is- if one has never made it to be a banker in first life- they are not capable to be one in Second Life. If you are a shitty violinist who never made it even to a school band, successful streaming into Second Life 512 plot doesn’t make you a virtuoso. Case Closed.

It seems to be a growing phenomenon though. Somehow- the fact that we are connected via medium where we are represented in a form of pixels, makes some people act as if interactions between avatars(people) are less personal. That runs along the lines of being a person who breaks up with their boyfriend/girlfriend over the phone. :- You may leave whenever you desire (though you won’t leave because it is fun) and you can always avoid all responsibility for your actions via your non-verified avatar. :-/

So many people with shattered dreams trying to catch their 5 minutes of greatness creating illusions of being someone they are not- to the point of themselves and others actually believing in it- failing and saying ‘well it’s a game’ casting a horrible picture about Second Life to prospective community members and developers. While anyone has the ‘liberty’ to plaster CEO above their avatar name- freedom of expression does not come above duty of being truthful, mind you.

Not so long ago, a friend of mine was deceived by a SL ‘organization’, and kept in deceit for weeks, running his end of the job preparation properly, exchanging letters with them on the first life progress of the project, while these shit-bags apparently sat back at their computers with a bag of cheese puffs laughing at him- and finally when they saw this guy had done completed his prep-work and was ready to get the project introduced to the general public- they realized ‘woah, this dude is for real, let’s scoot while we can’. He got a note card from them which said ’sorry we are not really into it anymore, don’t attempt to contact us’. :-/ While my friend indeed was a bit naive to get self involved into a project where he didn’t anticipate this possibility and check everything that was to check before he got into it- that still doesn’t justify the rotten behavior of people who screwed him over. It also makes no sense to me that people like these guys have the ‘right’ to advertise their mock-up as a legit business, and even (this is so sad) be actually considered a business in Second Life just by being members of a few elite groups where nobody takes care of WHO the members are- rather the mere number of members and popularity of the group. There is no doubt Linden Lab should step into regulating businesses. If LL ways of regulating banks are too ‘American’ for some international residents, well, perhaps those should develop their own virtual world and have a virtual business there.  Any business owner (whether it is Second Life based business or first life based business) in Second Life should NOT be anonymous to Linden Lab. The ‘liberty’ to remain anonymous in Second Life and conduct business anonymously from the service provider which makes your business transactions possible is a load of SHIT. So instead of considering Linden Office Hour groupies some sort of SL social elite, perhaps we could indeed seek out actual professionals of all kinds within the community to form legit bodies which would deal with our community issues…

***

Last week I ran into a guy who owns several sims and is quite ’serious’ about his ‘businesses’ on them. He saw my profile, saw my portfolio, told me I was god-sent because he needs a builder of my skill, showed me some blueprints and asked me for a quote. I gave him my per-hour requirement upon which he asked why do I think I deserve to be paid that amount, considering this is not ‘real life’. My argument was the mere fact that my back hurts the same after sitting and doing 8 hours of graphic design from home or a first life office, thus the wage (though a bit less then my first life wage would be) was very realistic for me. After that he turned to bullying me about my Croatian origin (which is in my profile) violently screaming at me in voice chat in front of a group of his co-workers repeatedly asking ” in WHICH LANGUAGE my ass wants to hear that this is a ‘ F GAME’ and there is no way I deserve to make more then 100 000 Lindens for nearly a full sim of a commercial build”. I told him: “In a business language, plese, not a bar language” and teleported out.

I suppose that’s all I could have done about this moron…

Some six months before this, I did a build for a group of legit first life corporations where one of the ‘partners’ (in SL- IBM’s Ansi Orochi ) decided to credit his first life colleague, (SL) PeaVey Voom, for my design and my build- telling me that I would be credited only in SL community- where it may matter to me, but not in “real life” because IBM doesn’t give a damn about artsy people like me who have no science degree- adding that he understands that in my ‘artist world’ truth and happiness are everything, but in his corporate world they sometimes have to bend truth to help their own.  A PDF presentation was made (and sent to my email) about the making of Eolus One, and my first life photo was right there, next to Ansi Orochi (in first life- Ansgar Schmidt of IBM) and Eolus McMillan (in first life-Oliver Goh of Implenia) which was to be presented as introduction to Eolus One project to any prospective partner/sponsor/whatever. But that PDF presentation was, obviously, a ’special’ version ‘for Eshi only’, since not long after that PeaVey’s picture appeared on the presentation displayed in-world, at the very little museum building I have built. That’s when a conversation with Ansi Orochi took place, and his points were made clear to me despite his broken English. Not seeing anyone who could actually help me with this (after all, had this been taken out in real court of law- it would have been a dispute between the big IBM guy’s word against the word of a fresh-out-of-college ‘artist chick’ who at the time lived in a small town in Louisiana over some ‘Second Life’ virtual game thing.) :-/ I was banned off the Eolus One Sim after raising the question about getting my credits for the build and that was it. I gave up on this for a long time, but managed to lose control over this matter at Dr.Dobbs Summit event (forgot the full name of event, sorry) and showed up and credited myself gracefully in main chat while Eolus McMillan was insisting on stream-in crediting himself and his buddy for my building. So, not only that I never got full credit in first life- I also did not get that ‘promised’ credit in Second Life.  Needless to say- just as I expected- a number of people I have met through this project NEVER spoke to me again. The strategy of making someone look like a lunatic by letting them speak the truth while you smile and count on your ’suit’ to save you- worked. To be honest, if I ever promise a full time paying position to a just widowed young woman who lost her house and lives in a room behind the kitchen of some people she barely knows just to not be homeless, then use her 18 hours a day to build and arrange a full sim of prims and then change my mind about hiring her after I realize she won’t bend over and agree to be used- I’ll use that strtegy myself. :)  Even though I was given a great tip on the initial commission for the building (which was obviously an expression of their satisfaction with my performance) in plain ‘fear’ of being punished with bad references for trying to not have them slide with crediting someone else for my work, I hesitated to list this project in my portfolio for quite a while. VIEW ORIGINAL BUILD HERE!. (Any difference from the images of the builds from my flickr and the present looks of the build in question are *not* my responsibility).

Come a few days ago, another 2 builders (!) who were brought in to develop the other sims for this jolly Eolus crowd of men in suits- did not get paid their agreed fee and were both kicked off the project with barely any explanation.

Not to whine, but really- I truly do what I love and give my best without swindling and scamming, just like many of us creative people, yet there is nobody to protect us from this kind of stuff. WHY?

Stuff like this needs to be exposed. Standards need to be set *somehow*. After all- it protects us- people who are serious about Virtual Worlds, and motivates the ones who are not so serious to, perhaps become more serious. Banks are just a step. Hopefully towards some sort of a rating system which would ban businesses with repetitive negative feedback off Second Life.

Cheers.

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