Project Open Letter

Cristiano Midnight asked for our help in this, and I agreed. Though I think LL is perfectly aware that their world is going to crap, with the amount of new residents daily, I’m not sure they care. Cristiano has written an open letter and is asking for resident support.

Project open letter was started after I read yet another open letter in a third party forum begging Linden Lab to fix myriad problems that have been going on daily for more than a year, in some cases extending years. Since Linden Lab had worked actively to cut off two way communication methods (the removal of the official discussion forums as well as restricting commenting on their blog), I knew a post on a third party site was not going to get any attention.

As I thought more about it, I realized that just because we no longer have a centralized place we can raise and discuss issues collectively does not mean that we do not have a voice. While an individual forum post may not draw much attention, the visibility of an open letter on a large number of SL web sites and blogs, along with locations in SL would at least help to get attention to the message. Whether it can bring about change remains to be seen, but the effort so far has been worthwhile.

On Monday, April 30th, the letter will be sent to Linden Lab, and will be posted on participating sites. The letter will remain for a yet to be determined amount of time, based upon the response received. It is not an effort to embarass or anger Linden Lab, who we do have a great amount of respect for. It is simply using the tools we have available to express ourselves collectively, since other outlets have been removed.

Ultimately, it comes down to wanting Second Life to survive and to flourish, not to continue to languish under current conditions. It is something that benefits all of us, and Linden Lab especially. It is much easier to retain customers when things work as promised.

Thank you to everyone who has helped with this project, from helping to compose the letter (not an easy process by any means) to adding your signatures and including it on your sites. Your efforts have shown how important this is to you as well, and that makes it very gratifying. Special thanks to the Second Citizen forum members who actively participated in this process from conception, and to Vivianne Draper, whose original, sincere open letter provided the inspiration for this project.

Cristiano N. Diaz

Cristiano Midnight in Second Life

So check out http://www.projectopenletter.com when you have a chance please, and add your signature if you support what Cristiano & other SL residents are doing, which is to bring attention via external pressure on LL to fix the major problems of SL. Cnet already picked up on it and the SLH is carrying it in the morning, the MM is putting it in their Tuesday edition, and a bunch of other sites are including it.