THe History of the Mainland InfoHub

At the beginning of 2006 Linden Lab decided that they would no longer need Telehubs because direct teleport was taking the place of the Telehub that people had to rez in to get anywhere in a region. Many Realtors and retailers made quite a bit of money from these telehubs - With Linden Lab taking telehubs away these people were loosing money. Land within 100 Meters of a telehub sold for top dollar at that time. These landowners were so upset about this decision that they signed a letter to Phllip Linden and consulted a attorney about a class action suit. Linden Lab then offerred everyone within 100 meters of a telehub 10,000L for their land. Then Linden Lab decided that the Telehub land would be either sold on the open market or made into a InfoHub for new citizens to visit for information once they leave the help islands. Linden Lab asked the people in these telehub sims if they wanted the InfoHub. Some said yes and some said that they did not want them there at all. The Infohubs were built by residents and new players rezzed there - looked around and went on their way.

Cut to July 2007 - Linden Lab is rolling outthe voice program sim-by-sim and announces in the blog that people should go to infoHubs to try it out. New players began to see these INFORMATION areas as chat areas - and they quickly over powered the resources in these sims. A mainland sim can hold 45 avatars and then you would get the REGION FULL message when you tried to teleport into that sim. The group that has taken over the Bear InfoHub (where I have owned land since the sim came online in 2005) calls themselves the Bear Co-op or Bear Buddies or Bear Bitches. They force-sit on a unscripted wall placed there for decoration and recruit new players as they rez in the infohub. The normal flow of traffic into the sim is disruppted by this group asking people to come sit on the wall an chat

(From one new Bear Co-Op recruit on November 9th:
[21:50] Raven Dallagio: invite your friends to make bear home too
[21:51] Raven Dallagio: and come sit on the wall with us)

They have even suggested to me that I pay to join their group and when I want to enter my parcel I should ask them in their group chat and perhaps one or two would step over the sim line. http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=212274&page=1&pp=15 . This is not just about me being able to enter the Bear Sim. It it about InfoHubs being mis used as chat areas and Linden Lab not making any effort to enforce their own definition. And Blue Linden's intention to drop more of these greifer spots all over the mainland with no plan to make them useful to the community or tier paying residents in these sims.

Advancement of InfoHub Missions

IF YOU HAVE A MAINLAND PARCEL OR WANT TO HELP PRESERVE THE MAINLAND - THIS IS IMPORTANT TO YOU.

I am asking several concerned Sl citizens to join a community improvement group and help save the infohubs from extinction. Several Infohubs have been griefed and lagged out of existence in the last year. This group would work on a grass-roots level to help the infohubs get closer to serving the new players in Second Life - which is the intended audience for these parcels. The definition of infohubs posted by Linden Lab in their official blog in 2006 is:

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"These spaces, called Infohubs in Second Life, are distributed throughout the mainland grid. Because these spaces vary in size from very small plots of land to larger ones, we are considering two types of builds. The smaller of these would function as an information center for centralized distribution of Linden Lab news and announcements as well as resident content. The larger type of space would be used as a public gathering space for meetings, events, or general socializing."
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HEADQUARTERS OF A.I.M. DONATED BY RYAN RADIO - ACROSS FROM THE BEAR INFOHUB.
We will concentrate on saving the one sim smaller infohubs that are being griefed out of existence. our Mission Statement is:

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Advancement of InfoHub Missions - A.I.M.
is a group of residents who are determined to see the infoHubs become effective griefer-free information areas for new players. Activties include: Hosting think tanks on developing networked infomation systems, InfoHub-based training sessions, reporting on griefer groups that abuse the InfoHub resources and working with Linden Lab to enforce the definition of the InfoHub.
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-bladyblue Bommerang & Lias Leandros
Resident in a infohub Mainland Sim since 2005