I don’t have any interest in being a virtual child, and I sometimes find child roleplay in virtual worlds even more annoying than how real children can act. I similarly don’t have any personal interest in BDSM (in either the virtual or the real worlds). And I actively disapprove of Gorean roleplay of slavery. But nonetheless, all three of these groups should have the right to be involved in any event that purports to be “Celebrating the cultural diversity of Second Life.”
In this instance, however, they cannot, except as spectators. Everett Linden, in comment 103, says “I’ll be working over the weekend with a few other Lindens on a blog post for Monday to help explain and expand on the SLBirthday.”
In the meantime, I’ll join my voice to that of Ordinal Malaprop, Marianne McCann and Loki Eliot, Dusan Writer, Daniel Regenbogen, Erbo Evans and many, many others in saying how utterly disappointed I am in Linden Research, Inc.
As ever, we owe a debt of gratitude to Tateru Nino at Massively for first covering the story.
Update: There’s now a JIRA issue for “missing cultures and communities from SL5B.”
Resolution: Linden Research, Inc., is now taking an active role as organizer. The entire birthday celebration is now PG, and everyone is welcome to submit applications.
Seems a comment on the Massively blog from Everett Linden implies Goreans are still allowed. Though whether that’s allowed to participate or allowed to turn up is unclear.
They have definitely been removed from the application form, along with BDSM (I looked at the form when the event was first mentioned).
I find it regrettable that LL has decided to snub three of its more significant and loyal constituencies by excluding them from SL5B: kid avis, gor and bdsm.
I find it doubly regrettable that LL has lumped the kids community – in my experience, one of the nicest, smartest and *least* sexual communities within SL – together with gor and bdsm. Not that I have any objection to the latter – or for that matter, anything else between consenting adults. To paraphrase Voltaire, “I may not like what you roleplay, but I will defend to the death your right to roleplay it.”
I simply resent the insinuation that the kid community is centered around sex, because that is just false. Furthermore, we are not child molesters. In fact, virtually everyone I know in the kid community really cares deeply about real kids (just look at our fundraising for real kid charities) and has zero tolerance for anyone who would hurt a RL kid. Nor do we abound in real kids hiding behind the kid avis. Our community is probably tougher than most of SL about reporting any real kids who sneak in.
Most of us just want to be young and happy again, to release our inner child, to re-experience our youth with the good stuff – and without the bad stuff, which for some of us was really bad. Particularly for gay people, our school years were usually somewhere between lonely and nightmarish. Is it anything to be ashamed of that we want to re-experience them in the way that we wish they had been? Does LL really feel they have to sweep this under the rug? Aren’t emotional needs (not to mention civil liberties) like these one of the business premises of “Second Life”?
Perhaps LL thinks they can make piles of money turning SL into a corporate virtual networking platform. If so, good luck. I guess you don’t need us. But right now, the kid community represents a fairly large base of loyal users who pay significant real money into SL. It is a shame that LL doesn’t have the backbone or vision to see that publicly advocating “roleplay rights” (i.e. virtual or fictional activities between consenting adults) is in their business interests.