I like to write positive and informative articles. Adult Content should be fun. I also think Adult Content is a popular …item?… in Second Life. After all sex sells and meeting people is a major recreational activity. Just look at the online dating sites. I’ve long thought SL could be a new level in the Facebook and eHarmony type dating game. But, I have yet to see the Lab get a handle on Adult Content and take the sexual aspects of SL in a positive direction. They have yet to figure out how to move from escorts and hookers to matchmaking, casual hookups, and romance. So, I am rather negative when it comes to the Lab’s management of Adult Content.

It seems no agenda items found their way to Viale Linden, the Adult Content User Group (ACUG) facilitator, this week. You may or may not know agenda items are now handled by Viale via email now. The email address is on the Ault Content User Group’s agenda page…

Meeting Schedule Changes

The meeting time shifted from 11 AM to 10 AM SLT/PDT. Also this was the last weekly meeting. Meetings will now be bi-weekly. The next meeting is 10/24.

Viale feels that the meeting time makes it difficult for all to attend. I guess the keyword is ‘all’. It is true it is difficult for ‘all’ to attend a meeting when attendees come from the international population. What would be good for an Aussie would be bad for a Brit.

In other groups those that are interested in or committed to a group make it to meetings regardless of local time. When that is not possible, they can review the meeting minutes in the wiki. It is not ideal. But, it is a real life problem and there is no ideal solution for meeting times. The RL solution is that some will be inconvenienced. We minimize the inconvenience and so far on this planet that is the solution. However, it is probably the reason for Viale trying to make the meetings more asynchronous.

In general Linden office hours and user groups that must interact with Lindens are scheduled during Linden working hours. It is a problem for our international users. But, there is a RL financial cost to schedule meetings for Lindens outside normal working hours. That’s just life.

Gateway Agenda Proposal

No news on this item. I asked if the recent blog posts, IM’s, and emails were a hoax. No answer from Viale. Presumably the announcement about the gateway provider that splashed across the blogosphere last week was a spoof that several bloggers bit on. Looks like it will take some time to find out what actually happened.

A couple of more times Viale was asked about the gateway proposal and the questions were ignored.

Asynchronous Meetings

Viale wants more people engaged in the adult community and user group. To achieve that he hopes to get an Adult Content section in the SL Forum and Blogs… The forum section will be open to all.

Possible problems with moderators removing posts about adult issue topics were brought up. Seems the moderators will have to be trained to deal with the special handing the section will need. Some think that will work. (hint of sarcasm) Time will tell. It sounds like a recipe for problems to me. Management and development teams try to avoid special handling cases for a number of reasons.

One of the problems with an open forum section is the groups that are anti-sex. I expect that is why the previous adult forum section was invitation only. An open forum is likely to be overrun with anti-sex activists. But, we’ll have to wait and see. May be we have enough moderators to handle it.

Agenda Dries Up

Viale says the agenda is drying up… I guess that means he thinks there are fewer issues the Adult content people want to discuss. Of course the one agenda item that made it to the wiki agenda since I started attending has never been discussed. So, people may be learning an agenda is pointless.

Hypatia commented, ‘Well we seem to have lost the ability to submit agenda items.’ I have to agree. As far as I know there is only one place in all of SL-dom that tells one how to submit an agenda item… and I added that to the wiki…

All comments and questions about the agenda problems were ignored.

Disenfranchising

Viale says people feel disenfranchised with the current meeting time and format. Because of scheduling conflicts and a town hall format people supposedly feel their concerns are not being addressed. Really? Time and format are the problem?

I would say the direction the Lab is taking as seen by Viale is to minimize use of the ACUG meetings and move them to a forum discussion. Viale still wants to continue to have ACUG meetings, but less frequently. Open discussion will be in the forum.

Zindra Help Vortex

The Vortex region will continue as a public sandbox and presumably the management of it will remain as it is. That it will remain was clearly answered. The management part of the question was left unanswered.

ACUG Notices

Viale tells us he posts notices of changes and news in the in-world ACUG… I think that or something like that is the invite only group. Wherever it is, I can’t find it. Also notices are sent via the Zindra Alliance and Zindra Expo.

Search sucks so I can’t find posts by Viale in the forum. So, I have no idea if I’ve been missing a communication channel or it’s just not there. The Google search site:http://community.secondlife.com/ viale only produces 60 hits. Looking at his forum profile it shows 1 post…  Brooke has 181 and we think… well… never mind.

The Zindra Alliance and Zindra Expo are probably the best in-world groups for catching announcements.

Summing It Up

Viale seems to think the ACUG is making great advances. I think the group is dying. Some of us have realized there is no viable way to add items to the agenda. Sending agenda items in via email when every other group uses the wiki pages makes ACUG a special case, which means it has a higher learning curve than other groups. But, I can see how some could think it would seem it should work.

Using email makes for an opaque process. The wiki agenda makes things transparent. One can read the agenda in advance and know whether they need prep or even whether it is worth attending. When email is used people are probably hearing a question or issue for the first time in the meeting. In such a case emotional issues have no time to discharge. But… we’ll, we see how it works.

Meeting attendance is decreasing. Viale seems to have decided the forum will be a better place for User Group discussion. I suppose that would be fine for groups that do not need interaction with and decisions from the Lindens. After all we can see how well it is working for the Commerce Group. (Irony)

It appears the ACUG is being crippled and made more and more awkward to work with. It appears it will become a slow path for information and solutions. I expect ACUG to become a mostly useless group.  One will not need to attend meetings. One can set their reader/aggregator to watch that section of the forum…

I read about the IRS taking over a brothel in Nevada for back taxes. They took over management and within a year they had bankrupt it and closed it. Imagine not being able to sell sex and booze at a profit… may be we have some parallels here.