Caledon Oxbridge General Q&A for 2019-09-15

15:01 Carl Metropolitan Welcome to Oxbridge General Q&A.
15:01 Carl Metropolitan This is not Q&A With the Deans. That event happens every 2nd Sunday of the month now.
15:02 Carl Metropolitan For the remaining three and a fraction of Sundays in a month, we have Oxbridge General Q&A hosted by Andrea and myself.
15:02 Carl Metropolitan We are here to take any and all questions about Second Life, Caledon, Oxbridge, Steampunk, and related topics—and answer them.
15:03 Carl Metropolitan Hello Lindal
15:03 Lindal Kidd Hi!
15:04 Carl Metropolitan So. Introductions over, let's get started. Who has a question?
15:04 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) Apologies for the prior look -- got the invite late and didn't take the time to change.
15:05 Badass Fae (larkylouz) Enbie, this is a moderate region. Not nearly as strict as Oxbridge proper.
15:05 Kara2016 she looks fantastic.
15:05 Bitsy (hayden955) /me hasn't been around for very long and has questions about everything!
15:05 Badass Fae (larkylouz) Yes, she does
15:05 Carl Metropolitan Good. Please ask them! We should be able to answer many of them or at least point you to the right place to learn
15:05 Dusty (dustybunns) Why did the former Dean's meeting split in two?
15:06 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) *I* am strict about my appearance, but didn't want to miss the opening of the meeting.
15:06 Kara2016 split personalities.
15:07 Carl Metropolitan Dusty. The deans as a group decided that they did not have time to do a weekly meeting
15:07 Dusty (dustybunns) :) Good answer! :)
15:07 Carl Metropolitan I volunteered to organize and run a general Q&A session the other three weeks and Andrea volunteered to help
15:08 Carl Metropolitan And Lindal is sort of a "Special Guest Star" today :)
15:08 Lindal Kidd /me blushes
15:08 Kara2016 Smiles brightly.
15:08 Carl Metropolitan Next question?
15:09 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) There was a Lindal Crowd in Oxbridge today.
15:09 Carl Metropolitan What is a Lindal Crowd?
15:09 Lindal Kidd um...a well-attended class
15:09 Kara2016 giggles.
15:09 Lindal Kidd nothing to do with me, per se. Elfbiter started calling it that
15:10 Carl Metropolitan Ah. Well, you have three good classes each week.
15:10 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) It means that there is enough people that the sim filling warning activates
15:10 Carl Metropolitan I'm not surprised people attend.
15:11 Bitsy (hayden955) Okay, I have one. I know what Lindens are, as far as currency, but I've heard the term used in other context that was very confusing. I know it's also the name of the company that runs SL, IE Linden Labs, but is there more?
15:11 Carl Metropolitan Yes
15:12 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Employees of Linden Labs are called Lindens when they are inworld.
15:12 Carl Metropolitan They all have the last name of "Linden"
15:12 Carl Metropolitan Which no one who is not an employee of the company can have inworld.
15:12 Carl Metropolitan The company is named "Linden Lab" by the way. No "s"
15:12 Bitsy (hayden955) So there's Linden Residents?
15:13 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) Yes, and Linden Labs (LL) strictly controls the use of that name element.
15:13 Lindal Kidd Like Kiera Linden, Oz Linden, Dakota Linden
15:13 Carl Metropolitan There are residents who work for Linden Lab and who have accounts under a non-Linden name. They almost always keep their work account and private account separate.
15:13 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) As well they should!
15:14 Gronk Seriman There is also the linden tree, which probably gave its name to the street where Linden Lab was started. There is a linden tree as one of the clues in the Quest.
15:14 Lyban /me Mutters
15:14 Bitsy (hayden955) Why do I see so many last names that aren't Resident? Are they special accounts too?
15:14 Carl Metropolitan Except in rare circumstances where LL hired a current resident based on what they had done as a resident. For example, Strawberry Singh hired as "Strawberry Linden"
15:14 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) And too many people think the quest means the "system tree"...
15:15 Carl Metropolitan No. About eight years ago, Linden Lab changed how last names work.
15:15 Bitsy (hayden955) /me flattens her ears!
15:15 Bitsy (hayden955) THAT is loud!
15:15 Carl Metropolitan Up until that time there was a rotating list of last names new residents could pick from at the time they created their account.
15:15 Carl Metropolitan These names aged out over time.
15:16 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) whispers: Those were the days, my friend...
15:16 Carl Metropolitan So from a pre-"Resident" last name, you could sort of guess when someone joined.
15:16 Carl Metropolitan But then LL introduced "Display Names".
15:16 Carl Metropolitan Which allowed you theoretically to have any name displayed as yours
15:17 Carl Metropolitan But because many people opted to have their browsers set to show the account name, and many scripts used account names, they never really went away
15:17 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) BTW, do a Google image search for "Linden in Heraldry" to see some abstract images of the linden tree.
15:17 Kara2016 I have my own display name.
15:17 Badass Fae (larkylouz) My display name is really an honorary title, not a name.
15:17 Carl Metropolitan And the overall database system just lists everyone who joined after the elimination of last names as "resident"
15:17 Bitsy (hayden955) Linden in Heraldry... got it.
15:18 Carl Metropolitan One more thing. LL has promised to bring back last names. When this will happen, no one knows.
15:18 Carl Metropolitan One other use of "Linden"
15:18 Bitsy (hayden955) Whoa, that's a LOT of images!
15:18 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) My original FB [he meant "SL" here] name was 'Greenman Mondegreen' There are still artifacts I created 10 years ago floating about.
15:19 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) Just check out the first few in 'shield' shapes.
15:19 Carl Metropolitan If you hear the term "Linden Tree" in SL, people are not talking about an actual Linden Tree (a species of tree) but about trees that are in the library and that can be rezzed (randomly) from the Build menu that are just one prim each. They are handy for landscaping large areas on a budget. Less so now that we have mesh
15:20 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) the characteristic is the flat presentation and the club card "pique" leaf shape
15:20 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) hence the confusion when people in the Quest should be looking for linden linden tree...
15:20 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) ty for that extra insight, Carl
15:20 Lyban /me Twitches at the mention of Linden trees
15:21 Carl Metropolitan Next question?
15:22 Bitsy (hayden955) Where's the Linden Library?
15:22 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Which one?
15:22 Bitsy (hayden955) Nothing shows up in search.
15:22 Carl Metropolitan The "Library" is part of your Inventory
15:23 Dusty (dustybunns) At the bottom o0f everyone's Inventory?
15:23 Carl Metropolitan Your Inventory consists of two parts. Scroll down below the part you use and you will find a Library folder
15:23 Carl Metropolitan That is a lot of Linden-supplied content.
15:23 Carl Metropolitan Lots of us forget it is there
15:23 Bitsy (hayden955) What the flip???
15:23 Carl Metropolitan All of the Linden-supplied avatars can be found there.
15:23 Kara2016 giggles.
15:23 Carl Metropolitan (for example)
15:23 Bitsy (hayden955) I think I miss that in orientation.
15:24 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) Not so much forget, as use it without conscious thought.
15:24 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Copy anything interesting because LL will change he contents periodically
15:24 Carl Metropolitan It is not part of most orientations. I believe we cover it here at Oxbridge though in the College of Finding and College of Avatars sections.
15:24 Kara2016 There are a couple of houses in there you can use.
15:24 Lindal Kidd It's possible to obtain copies of the old Library contents
15:25 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) There is an archive of old library contents at the Stillman Free Bazaar.
15:25 Carl Metropolitan There is also a lot of Linden Free Content that never made it into the Library for various reasons, too. Some of what I've found is in the Oxbridge freebies now. Especially textures.
15:25 Carl Metropolitan Hello Jorge
15:25 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) NCI has collections of freebie LL textures.
15:26 Jorge Serapis *waves hello to everyone!*
15:26 Carl Metropolitan Yes. They do. Because I assembled them back when I ran NCI :)
15:26 Badass Fae (larkylouz) Hey Jorge
15:26 Agatha Macbeth /me waves to Jorge
15:26 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) hi jorge
15:26 Lyban /me waves back
15:26 Carl Metropolitan They are at Oxbridge Freebies, too now.
15:26 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) Hello, venerable Jorge!
15:26 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) Good deal, Carl.
15:26 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Builder's Brewery has its collection of textures as well.
15:27 Carl Metropolitan Jorge. I've had a question I've been wanting to ask you for a few weeks now. And since you are here now, I've totally blanked on it.
15:27 Carl Metropolitan Such is life.
15:27 Carl Metropolitan Yes. They have some nice free textures, too.
15:27 Bitsy (hayden955) There's more collections? Awesome.
15:27 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) Stop chewing on the corners of your manuscripts, Carl.
15:28 Carl Metropolitan Speaking of freebies, if anyone has not seen them, I've extensively reorganized and expanded the Oxbridge freebies available in the Train Station
15:28 Lindal Kidd yay!
15:28 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) And some Hunts include texture places
15:28 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) Oooh! Thanks muchly!
15:29 Carl Metropolitan If you get free textures, do pay attention to the license they include. Most don't allow you to redistribute them as textures. The ones in the Oxbridge freebie area are collections of textures that explicitly do allow that.
15:29 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) As I mentioned elsewhere recently, it's often the textures that make the build.
15:30 Carl Metropolitan Okay. Let me shut up for a bit. Does anyone have any questions for the two actual deans here, rather than the fairly loud fast typist?
15:30 Lia (tokyorii) Wait you hear my typing?
15:30 Carl Metropolitan Welcome Skuld. Nice Dragon.
15:30 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Well, Arcadia Asylum said that details came from textures...
15:30 Skuld Aki (skuldaki) Thank you Mr. Metropolitan
15:31 Carl Metropolitan Or just questions in general!
15:31 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) Also, if one takes a texture of some sort, including pictures, from Wikipedia commons, be sure to include a notecard in the build to satisfy the Creative Commons (CC) license.
15:31 Carl Metropolitan Welcome Kiyiki
15:31 lovejoy2199 Just a general question. Moles. I have seen some here. Do they do works here?
15:32 Carl Metropolitan Good point.
15:32 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Actually, Wikipedia has its own license as well.
15:33 Kiyiki thank you, Carl
15:33 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Although it is concerned of the _articles_
15:34 Carl Metropolitan "Mole" is a LL-reserved last name assigned to alts of paid resident contractors who build infrastructure stuff for the "Linden Department of Public Works" on the LL mainland continents.
15:34 Carl Metropolitan http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Department_of_Public_Works
15:35 lovejoy2199 So, do they build here?
15:35 Carl Metropolitan Yes, but only on the Linden Lab Mainland areas
15:35 Bitsy (hayden955) Like the roads?
15:35 Bitsy (hayden955) Or the trains?
15:35 Carl Metropolitan And places like the Linden Home continents
15:35 lovejoy2199 So, not here.
15:35 Carl Metropolitan Not in Caledon
15:36 Carl Metropolitan Estate owners are responsible for all that.
15:36 lovejoy2199 Ty
15:36 Bitsy (hayden955) Okay, what's the difference between Mainland and other Land?
15:36 Carl Metropolitan Roads on mainland were built by the Lindens or the Moles (depending on how old they are)
15:37 Carl Metropolitan I would encourage you to take Lindal's "How to Buy and Rent Land in SL" class for more details on that, Bitsy
15:37 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) ^^^this
15:37 Carl Metropolitan However, Mainland are large groups of sims (referred to as Continents) that are run directly by Linden Lab
15:38 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) More Lindal Crowds :-)
15:38 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) FWIW, I've kitsune and tanuke alts, but no moles. ;)
15:38 Carl Metropolitan If you want to rent land there, you pay your monthly "tier" (i.e., rent) to Linden Lab directly in USD
15:38 Carl Metropolitan (or go through a resident-run rental business, who does it for you)
15:39 lovejoy2199 So, the 'moles' I have seen here are probably just avatars, and not 'real moles'.
15:39 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Or moles on avatars' faces
15:39 Lyban Fake moles
15:39 Carl Metropolitan People with Premium Accounts get 1024 m2 of land on the mainland tier free, though they are still responsible for buying it if the land they want is owned by someone else. But there is plenty of abandoned Mainland that people can put in ticket to have sold to them.
15:40 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) Check with MI-6 about the effectiveness of moles.
15:40 Carl Metropolitan Real LL-contractor Moles have the last name of "Mole"
15:40 lovejoy2199 Ok. I didn't know that.
15:41 Carl Metropolitan Andrea, I have a question for you. What superhero or pulp character costume are you wearing today? It is very familiar, but I can't place it.
15:41 Bitsy (hayden955) Is Caledon a mainland group of sims?
15:41 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) Flash Gordon
15:42 Carl Metropolitan No. Caledon is a private estate
15:42 Carl Metropolitan Thank you Andrea
15:42 Carl Metropolitan Caledon is owned by Desmond Shang
15:42 Carl Metropolitan You pay rent to him.
15:42 lovejoy2199 Independent
15:42 Badass Fae (larkylouz) CTRL + M opens your World Map. You can see Caledon there.
15:42 Carl Metropolitan He pays the monthly costs to Linden Lab
15:42 Lindal Kidd All hail the Guv!
15:43 Lyban Hail!
15:43 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) and there is no cat girl dungeon
15:43 Lindal Kidd or....IS there?
15:43 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) nope
15:43 Carl Metropolitan If you want land in Caledon, contact Desmond Shang (affectionately known as the "the Guv", "the Guvnor") via email or drop a notecard on his account.
15:43 Carl Metropolitan desmondshang@gmail.com
15:43 Lindal Kidd You can contact one of the Caledon Estate Managers too
15:44 Lindal Kidd such as Mari Moonbeam
15:44 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) OR ask Jorge
15:44 Carl Metropolitan Yes, but they can not set you up with land here
15:44 Carl Metropolitan Only Desmond can deed land and set it up for you.
15:44 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) You will maintain a 'free' FB account, but will need to pay a periodic (monthly) rental to the Guv.
15:45 Carl Metropolitan Enbie, I believe you mean a free Second Life account
15:45 Carl Metropolitan A facebook account does no good here.
15:45 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) Ya know, I do believe you are right! <blushes>
15:45 Carl Metropolitan But if you would just like to be shown where there is available land, just ask in Caledon Oxbridge group chat or Caledon group chat.
15:46 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) I just washed my hands and I can't do a thing with my fingers! :P
15:47 Carl Metropolitan Facebook actually goes on semi-regular purges of accounts held by SL avatars and not under people's Real Life names.
15:48 Carl Metropolitan Like all of Facebook rules, application and enforcement are capricious
15:48 Badass Fae (larkylouz) /me snickers
15:48 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) /me knows people with multiple non-English fake names FB does not recognize as fake names
15:48 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) Fer Sure, Carl!
15:49 Carl Metropolitan LinkedIn does not seem to care though
15:50 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) I managed to convince the FB goons to accept my SCA, 15th C. Rhenish name for a secondary account. And it did take concerted interaction.
15:50 Carl Metropolitan More questions? We still have about ten minutes.
15:51 Lindal Kidd If no one has a question, I have a bit of an observation.
15:52 Carl Metropolitan Please observe away!
15:52 Lindal Kidd It may be useful for those of us who help newcomers.
15:52 Lindal Kidd I have recently noticed many changes to the registration and orientation process.
15:52 Lindal Kidd There are now several Community Gateway sponsored paths into SL. I'm aware of Firestorm, and London City, and Carl may know of others.
15:52 Lindal Kidd These Gateways offer a customized Learning Island/Social Island experience, and a certain percentage of new signups are funneled through them.
15:53 Lindal Kidd Another change is to the LL-created Social Island.
15:53 Lindal Kidd When a person registers for SL and logs in, they first go to Learning Island. Or, actually, one of several identical Learning Islands. After completing a couple of basic tutorials, they go on to Social Island.
15:53 Lindal Kidd Once you leave Learning Island, you cannot return. This is to protect newcomers from predatory residents. Up until now, any resident could visit the Social Islands, though. And this meant that you could often find troublemakers there.
15:53 Carl Metropolitan (one of several identical Social Islands, too)
15:53 Lindal Kidd Recently, LL has restricted access to the Social Islands. Only actual newcomers, and members of the White Tiger Orientation group can visit. This should cut down on the harassment of newcomers.
15:53 Lindal Kidd This is similar to the situation a few years ago, when Help Island access was restricted to newcomers and members of the SL Mentors group.
15:54 Carl Metropolitan Did LL retain a "Social Island Public" for open access?
15:54 Lindal Kidd Up until about two days ago, yes
15:54 Lindal Kidd but then they closed access to all the SIs
15:55 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Apparently some newcomers cannot go back to Social Island, either, since some of them have been puzzled why they cannot. I have yet to recognize a pattern.
15:55 Lindal Kidd (unless of course, they opened them up again when I wasn't looking)
15:55 Lindal Kidd Yes, this may confuse newcomers
15:55 Carl Metropolitan If you can't see a pattern, it means LL is doing "A/B Testing".
15:55 Carl Metropolitan They are fond of that.
15:55 Carl Metropolitan It replaces thinking and observing for them.
15:55 Lindal Kidd since Social Island still has signs saying "take a landmark so you can return here"
15:55 Badass Fae (larkylouz) When I've visited those Social Islands, there is often a group of avatars that have apparently not attained sufficient social skills to progress to SL itself. Their behavior is obnoxious; whether they are actively predators is anyone's guess.
15:56 Lindal Kidd a few are, but most are just...um, obnoxious.
15:56 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) I do have noticed that lots of newcomers come in with London group tags
15:56 Lyban In my opinion there were predators there when I went through.
15:57 Carl Metropolitan I think that Londen sends a lot of people our way for a more detailed tutorial.
15:57 Carl Metropolitan Theirs is pretty basic.
15:58 Carl Metropolitan I would point out that Oxbridge is not part of the current LL "Community Gateway" program.
15:58 Kara2016 Caledon is the best.
15:58 Carl Metropolitan We were part of the original Community Gateway program
15:58 Carl Metropolitan But LL abruptly canceled that program and left all the original Gateways dangling.
15:59 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) And lists Caledon as newbie-friendly
15:59 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) LL giveth and LL takes away
15:59 Carl Metropolitan So while we can rightfully refer to ourselves as a Community Gateway, we are not part of the current iteration of the program.
15:59 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) Should Caledon (Oxbridge) have a community gateway participation? Perhaps something that could require a Caledon group to continue participation?
15:59 Carl Metropolitan M. Enbie. I can answer that
16:00 Carl Metropolitan Back when LL decided to revive the Community Gateway program, Oxbridge was part of the talks to be involved.
16:00 Carl Metropolitan After several weeks of talks and conversations among ourselves, we elected not to participate.
16:01 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) 'K
16:01 Carl Metropolitan It might be something to consider in the future, but that would be a decision for Wordsmith and Desmond and the current Admin team.
16:01 Carl Metropolitan (the Dean team)
16:02 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) Speaking from and InfoSec Professional perspective, I can imagine that there was no coherent security policy to protect the newcomers and eject the griefers reliably.
16:03 Carl Metropolitan That was left up to the individual Community Gateways based on their policies and their use of the land tools
16:03 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) Yuppers.
16:04 Carl Metropolitan Okay. It is after four now, so I think that it is time to call this session of General Q&A to an end.
16:04 Kara2016 Thanks Carl and company.
16:04 Carl Metropolitan /me pulls out out a gavel from his pants (yes, it turns out he was not happy to see you) and raps it twice on his wooden armrest.
16:04 Badass Fae (larkylouz) As always, a fascinating look into SL history, Carl. Thanks.
16:04 Carl Metropolitan Thank you all for coming.
16:05 Lindal Kidd /me chuckles
16:05 Carl Metropolitan I wonder what we will talk about here when we run out of SL history sometimes :)
16:05 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Okay, past my bedtime but I have to try to get some sleep anyway
16:05 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) night mr eb
16:05 Lindal Kidd if we ever run out, we can make stuff up!
16:05 Lyban Rest well
16:06 Elfbiter Skysmith (elfbiter) Hold the fort
16:06 Andrea Jones (andreajonesms) night. poofs
16:06 Lyban Really should fix that fort
16:06 M. Enbie Techno (technoboi1024) Carl, those who do not learn from history... ;)
16:06 Carl Metropolitan ....become politicians
16:06 Carl Metropolitan Goodnight everyone. I'm off to see if the Brazilian help area is still up and running.