Today there was an Adult content user group meeting, the minutes of can be read here. The meeting being today quite frankly scares me because these meetings are now fortnightly and I swear it isn’t a fortnight since the last one! Time really is flying. Anyway there was some big news at the meeting regarding the controversial use of the Zindra name on the new Adult Gateway.
Serjourn Daxter announced:
“This weekend I was approached by Counter Landfall, a member of the Zindra Alliance. We talked and looked into possible cooperation models. It became clear that the use of the Zindra name was a sore point for the alliance. I was also given an insight into the reasons. In the interest of buillding unity in the adult communities, I brought this issue up in my management team meeting Saturday. After some discussions, we passed a 16 to nil vote on to go ahead and profile what we are (an adult hub) rather than to use the Zindra name, that we understand has a value for the Zindra continent, but is of little consequence for us as a hub.
As a first result of the new cooperation, the Zindra yellowpages have now been placed in 4 locations in the central HUB sim, and will over the comming weeks be placed also in the 4 surrounding sims. ”
This is good news on several fronts and extremely encouraging to hear.
First of all, it’s good to see groups talking with each other, one of the reasons I stopped going to the adult content user group meetings was because it was like Groundhog Day, the same arguments would come up time after time. The meetings aren’t as busy these days, which may help with the conflicts of interest, but it’s good to see Zindra Alliance talking with the Freedom Continent people and coming up with a result that is most satisying.
I have mentioned before that the Zindra name was an irritant, it was peripheral to the bigger picture of whether these hubs work well for the adult community as a whole, but it was an irritant that was likely to get under people’s skin and cause offence where none was intended. Discussion and compromise are certainly the better way to go and I’m pleased to see that has been achieved, well done to all involved.
Other news from the meeting was largely about the new hubs, they will be added to the adult content section of the destination guide shortly, they are resident run areas and they are hoping to avoid some of the pitfalls of other welcome areas …. is Ahern still as bad as it always was or has that been cleaned up? I’m afraid to go back there to investigate!
Although the sims are accessible now, the big launch date is December 2nd, so arrangements are still being made, there are rentals on these sims for merchants and advertising space too, personally I thought they were a bit pricey but you have to appreciate they are looking to meet tier and provide plenty of space to make the place as welcoming as possible, the premium prices may well be worth it if they get the foot traffic there, this is always the consideration in Second Life, it’s why some people pay an arm and a leg for an inworld classified. Value is realised when the sales come in, via either advertising your wares or directly from stores, so it’s up to people to decide what they want to do, initially at least, I imagine people will get value from their rentals.
I have no idea what the new sims will be called! Which is a shame, they were called Zindra North, Zindra South, Zindra East, Zindra West and Zindra Prime, I’m not sure how quickly the names will be changed.
As I said at the start, it’s encouraging to see dialogue winning the day and people listening to the concerns of others, well done to all involved.
I agree, it’s excellent news all round, to my mind. And it’s so encouraging to see such a potentially contentious and drama-laden issue resolved so quickly and sensibly at an ACUG meeting. Quite a change, as you suggest!
The sims have already changed their names to, and are , Adult Hub, Adult Hub BDSM, Adult Hub RP, Adult Hub GOR and Adult Hub SEX.
Very encouraging, I pretty much gave up on those meetings many moons ago because comrpomise and sensible discussion seemed so difficult, it was extremely refereshing to see the compromise and sensible discussion over this day reaching an extremely satisfactory result.
Thanks for the sim names, a little bland but they say what they are clearly.
When adult people talk together, solutions can be found. The new adult hub is a service to the community. When a substantial part of the community have issues, they must therefore be solved. That is how we intend to operate as long as I am in charge.
The pricing is a bit on the upper side. We rent the sims from Angelic Estates at commercial terms. Unless we cover tiers, the hub is “out of my pocket”. We then have the choice of many but inexpensive shops, or fewer and more expensive. We have choosen the later, as we want to tone down the mall aspect as much as it can be done. Besides, we will deliver high traffic to the shops and adboard renters. Some sims are “more loaded” – some are less. Across the 5 sims, it is my target to cover tiers with 80% of shops/boards rented out. I need that margin to cover for seasonal variations (like July and August) as well as temporarily unrented space. That will in turn mean a sustainable HUB, which means it stays – which means that adverticing there will be effective.
Sure, you need to provide space and cover tier, it’s a tradeoff, I understand that and if you deliver the eyes on advertisers prizes, then the price is right. All prices are relative to performance.
I was encouraged by the way things were shaping up when I went out to look at the sims, so I hope it all goes well for you guys.