On Saturday, October 17, 2009, we held a special Chilbo Town Hall meeting to discuss whether or not the Chilbo Community should submit a proposal to participate in Linden Lab’s new Community Partnership program. [A full transcript is available in world at the Town Hall.]
The idea was discussed briefly at the October 10th Chilbo Town Hall meeting, and at that time we decided to table the discussion until the following week when we’d all had time to read the program guidelines and the comments and guidance provided by Blondin Linden on the official blog post about this topic.
It is Fleep’s sense that the general feeling in the community is a mixture of confusion, concern, and scepticism, but a general willingness to give it a try if we think it might benefit the community. During our discussions about the program, various concerns surfaced:
- How would the program benefit Chilbo? What would we have to do in return for participating?
- There seems to be some backlash about this program, would participating damage Chilbo’s reputation as an independent, free thinking, and open community?
- Linden Lab is somewhat notorious for starting new programs and initiatives that fizzle out, is it worth jumping through a bunch of hoops if this program continues in that vein?
- Would we lose any rights by participating?
Others expresed the sentiment “Nothing ventured, nothing gained” and the consensus seemed to be to move forward with as much openness and transparency as possible with the intention to submit a proposal IF we have broad community consensus to do so and IF we can craft a proposal that clearly benefits our community.
Why would Chilbo want to participate in the first place? Fleep tried to summarize by saying, “Chilbo is a well established community, we’re good community citizens, we want to participate in helping new AND existing residents become more connected and we’re willing to teach and share in exchange for some official recognition of what we do.” How best to formalize such an arrangement with Linden Lab is the question, and as always, the devil would be in the details.
During the discussion, we talked about structuring a potential proposal around two questions: What do we want from Linden Lab? and What are we offering in return?
In the “What do we want from Linden Lab?” category, many ideas were floated, including:
- A new “Communities” listing in the Showcase page, official recognition of Chilbo in the list
- Better reclamation process for the abandoned parcels and ad farm squares, and better management of the Governor Linden owned roadways that intersect our community.
- We have established community standards, but no way to enforce them if someone breaks their agreement with us (no covenant or reclamation process if we “sell” community land).
- We spend a lot on tier for infrastructure, sidewalks, bridges, green spaces – the very things that help make the “community cohesion” we have visible, perhaps Linden Lab could help with that.
- We are experiencing a ton of lag in some sims, any way for Linden Lab to help us pinpoint problem scripts and troubleshoot the lag problem?
- The Hanja Welcome Area is just a few sims north east of Greater Chilbo, and it seems pretty darned underutilized with just a handful of the typical Linden Lab signage, but nothing that helps visitors to the Welcome Area connect to any of the sims or communities nearby. Perhaps Chilbo could volunteer to build/manage/staff the Welcome Area to help visitors move beyond a cursory visit and connect with the communities around it?
In the “What are we offering in return?” category:
- We offer a well established, long term model community, one that has arisen organically in the mainland, and seems to work well for our members. We can teach others how to start their own communities based on the Chilbo model.
- We are an example of a community _without_ a roleplaying or other distinctive theme – more akin to an actual community from real life, with residents having many different interests. We believe this diversity strengthens our community and makes us both more viable and perhaps more representative of a broader cross section of Second Life residents than some communities.
- We provide free or extremely cheap land, housing, and project space to Second Life residents who want to explore projects that benefit the public good. We have an excellent track record of privately funding education, the arts, public health, and other projects of this nature that contribute to civic life on the Mainland. As participants in the program, we would continue to focus on this “public and community service” model in all of our endeavors related with the Community Partnership program.
- Our residents have expertise in Second Life – everything from event planning to scripting to building to avatar creation and machinima, we offer our expertise in exchange for participation.
- Our community is large enough and diverse enough to staff events and manage projects with a high level of quality and professionalism.
So, that’s where we are in the discussion at this point. What are YOUR thoughts? Which ideas do you like best? Do you have other suggestions? Something you think we should NOT do? Other concerns?
We invite feedback especially from Chilbo residents, but readers of the Chilbo Road Press are also invited to participate. Is your community thinking of participating in this program? What would be your concerns with the ideas we’ve proposed so far?
We will reconvene in the Chilbo Town Hall next Saturday, October 24, 2009 at 11AM SLT to discuss feedback received on the blog and to determine whether or not to move ahead with submitting a proposal.
Thanks for your feedback on this issue!
