Linden Economy Changes

Lawrence Linden:
I have some recent and upcoming LindeX Tier changes to talk about, as well as an update regarding L$ Sales by Linden Lab.

LindeX Tier Updates

We recently made a major update to the code that powers the LindeX tier system, we split apart LindeX trading limits from account billing limits.

This change allows us to increase Currency Trader Tier trading limits while limiting our potential fraud exposure by keeping the billing limits at much more conservative levels. With the rollout of this change we’ve doubled the Currency Trader Tier trading limits.

This change also cleaned up how the tier limits are stored in the database, and we’ve reworked the tier description page so that it should automatically remain current with the latest tier limit information. If you visit that page while logged into the Second Life website it will highlight your current tier information.

More information about how the trading and billing limits are computed and applied can be found on the LindeX Tier Description page

LindeX L$ Average Rate Spike

Recently the average LindeX exchange rate spiked more than we’d liked to have seen. This spike occurred during a time when fewer than normal L$ were listed for sale on LindeX. In this sort of situation we would like to list enough L$ for sale to limit exchange rate movement, but Supply Linden’s LindeX tier was quickly exhausted. This was noted by some market participants which likely lead to an even greater change in exchange rate.

L$ Sales by Linden Lab

This is an adjustment to the limitations that Philip blogged about on http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/07/17/linden-dollar-economy-announcement/

Limitation 3 is being revised and limitation 4 is being deleted. Regarding limitation 3, we believe that greater L$ sales ability will help stabilize the exchange rate, and that market knowledge that Supply Linden is at or near the limit will have detrimental effects on trading. Limitation 4 is becoming a redundant limit which is more properly covered by (former) limitation 5.

So, here is the new set of limitations to take effect starting 10 September 2006:
1) Sales will not be secret. We will trade only from the account name Supply Linden. Our sell orders will always be visible on LindeX, and the supply of Linden Dollars sold by Linden Lab will be displayed on a separate line on the Economic Statistics page.

2) Sales will not be market-sale orders. Supply Linden will list only limit-sell orders. We will not sell Linden Dollars through market-sell orders.

3) Sales will have restrictions applicable to currency tier traders.
Supply Linden will trade under the limitations of the LindeX Tier system, subject to the same daily and 30 day rolling limits as other residents at the same tier. Further information about currency trading tiers is available at the LindeX Tier Description page.

4) Sales will be volume-restricted based on Linden Dollar sinks. In any 30-day period, we will not sell more than Linden Dollar sinks in the past rolling 30 days.

All of these limitations are subject to adjustments, but all
adjustments will be announced at least 10 days before taking effect.

LindeX Currency Trader Tier Limits Change Coming Soon

We’re finishing up some changes now that should allow us the option to express tier limits as a percentage of average market volume (in US$) instead of fixed US$ limits. These changes should go live in the next couple of weeks, and when they do it’s likely that we’ll convert all/most of the Currency Trader Tiers to using percentage of market limits for both buying and selling.

Kin Keiko Unbanned

Kin Keiko, the banned hair designer,  has been allowed back into Second Life. She made this statement on the Forums:

 I’m so happy to be back in SL. I didnt think it would happen and it probably never would with out so many people bringing it to attention. It really means alot to me that you all cared and wanted me back. Thank you everyone who posted and said those nice things, it makes me happy to see how I make people happy for the hair I make.

I didnt expect people would go out of there way to do things for me, like Neil and Nephilaine Protagonist for shutting down there entire sim of Nakama because of me and elka Lehane for making those T-shirts, ^-^ thank you that was too kind <3. Thank you everyone on Pixelpinuponline for the support and Iris Ophelia and Toni Bentham for Interviewing me on the situation. Thank you to those people who signed the petition made by Dazzo to bring me back.

I know this has happened to many other people, I’m pretty lucky I was well known in SL because of my hair or I probably wouldnt be able to come back. It was hard to get out to Linden Labs that, I really didnt do anything and it wasnt fair that was banned.

Well I’m glad to be back and start my Second Life again. Thanks again everyone for the support! <3333333333

Talented Hair Designer Banned!

Charge: Being Related In RL To A Banned Resident

Linden Labs has perma-banned Hair Designer Kin Keiko. According to forum posts and PixelPinup, Keiko was banned after Linden Labs “cross checked her account info, and found her old brother’s account that had been banned in 2004″ - Quote from Keiko’s boyfriends profile.

The account information was checked when Keiko tried to sell her hard-earned Linden Dollars to help pay for this upcoming school year’s tuition.

If you would like to sign a petiton asking LL to let Kin Keiko back in, IM Dazzo Street.

Forums to Close, Somewhat

Robin Linden posted earlier that within the next month, the “Bulletin Board”, “General Topics”, “The Sandbox”, “Land and Economy” and “In-world Political Science” forums will be locked to all new posts, and then

• Announcements along with Press and Events, both of which will be replaced by the Linden blog,

• Known Issues & Development Updates to be replaced by Support > Known Issues, and
• References and Policies, to be replaced by the knowledge base as it is expanded

Long Term Changes

• The knowledge base and blog will take on some of the responsibilities of many of the feedback and content creation forums.
• The Classifieds will be closed in favor of Resident advertising and portal sites such as those listed on http://secondlife.com/landing fashion/, the In-World Classifieds (which can also be found on the secondlife.com website).
• Inactive group sites have been culled as time goes by; we expect groups will have better asynchronous communication options within Second Life with the release of v1.12, so the groups forums will be closed within the next three months.”

This sounds fammiliar… Oh, Wait! TSO closed it’s forums and had Stratics run the new forums! That resulted in the fact that moderators could now abuse members and not be fired by anyone for it.

 

Are the new SL Stratics going to do the same when the current SL forums close? Will we see any stapler-fondling Miltons, or Power-Abusing Leah’s?  Will EA LL begin to stupidfy itslef and start becoming more like EA?

 

We here at Metaverse Media have decided to add into next weeks redevelopment with this news that our forums will be modified to be more user-friendly and not corporate-friendly. Hopefully you will join them when the old SL forums close.

SLStats Is Watching

Well, the asset server is down again, so I will take this time to write a story on SLStats.com.

Ahem…

The Second Life Herald has been covering the latest way for your private information to be posted for everyone to read. The new way: The SLStats Watch. This watch records and then publishes online how long you have been online, who you met and how long you spent with them, and information about your avatar (Even the payment information posted on your SL profile), and people that you saw/saw you. (It’s even supposed to tell the server your  EXACT location, including what direction your facing) This has caused many people to post angry letters on the Forums.

What does Mark Barret, owner of SLStats.com have to say about this? Well, the SLStats Privacy Policy says “The information we collect could easily be acquired by other Second Life script and/or objects without your consent or knowledge.“

The watch also gathers most of the same information for avatars around you without their consent and adds them on your page. You can not opt out from this, although many residents were fooled into believing they were opting-out using a object at the SLStats HQ.

We will continue to cover this story.

Metaverse Media Closing For 1 Week

Starting THIS SATURDAY (August 12th) and lasting untill August 19th.

Why? We’re rebuilding ourselves. The org chart is too messed up right now.
So, I made a list on what to get rid of and what to keep. This will be the new Metaverse Media on August 19th:

DIVISIONS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK:

• Metaverse Media Productions
• MetaTec Technologies
• Metaverse Publishing
• Metaverse Media Graphics

DIVISIONS TO KEEP:

• The Second Life Times
• MetaWiki

DIVISIONS TO ADD (OR RESTART):

• The Financial Magazine (RESTARTED)
• The Furry Magazine (RESTARTED)

Why are we closing for a week? So I and other staff members can concentrate on getting these all ready, updating logos (We’re getting a new graphics package!) and websites, and changing things that need changing.

The Second Life Times will also be reformatted during this week. Currently, with the blog and the new in-game newspaper, I have been receving some questions about what was the main source now. “Will more be posted online or in-game?” was one of these questions. At this current point, I am still working on the Times reformatting. Announcement to come most likely Saturday.

If you have any questions, please contact me.

Simon Lameth,
Metaverse Media CEO
E-Mail: metaversemedia@gmail.com