SLSAILING.COM – The Portal Magazine for SL Sailing.

A number of USS owners (along with Dale Irata of Island Yacht Club), AND and old time sailor, Pixeleen Mistral, attended the Second Life Community Convention in Oakland CA this past weekend.  It was the first time most of us had meet one another in RL. We had a GREAT time. Get Chad to tell you about the French cutie he ran into in  Jack London Square. Let him tell you his side of the story, then Aislin and I will tell you what REALLY happened.

By the way, SL isn’t the only “service” that loses inventory. United Airlines lost Chad’s luggage. It showed up a couple of hours after the convention was over. Too bad RL isn’t immune to body odor like SL is.

The Blake Sea Community Issue

As far as USS/Blake Sea and SL sailing community issues go,  the highlight of the show was a face to face meeting with Viale Linden, Directory of Integrated Marketing at LL. Basically Viale is in charge of Acquisition Marketing and Retention Marketing. Another hat that Viale is wearing at the moment is Director of Communities. That will likely change when LL hires at new person for that role. At this point we have no more information on the timing of that hoped for event other than I can tell you that at least two residents from the SL Sailing community have applied for that position. We have no idea how many others have applied nor when a decision will be made.

While Viale is keen on getting NEW residents into SL  (e.g. “what can you guys do to help increase the interest and bring new residents into the SL sailing scene?”) we  also had a chance to talk about how the relationship between LL and the USS and the resulting Blake Sea Community Partnership ought to emphasize the RETENTION side of his responsibilities. With the continued decline in the performance of sim crossings LL is in danger of  losing more residents all the time.  In this regard we had a very productive meeting with Viale on the very simple topic of getting the Blake Sea  and USS regions back on the same colo (server farm) and hopefully on the same version. This was something that worked well for a number of months before Keira Linden was let go. Now no one is watching the farm on this issue. He is working to help restore that arrangement.

Requests for some interface between Viale and the overall SL Sailing community have not progressed very far (e.g. “office hours don’t scale well.”  ”Lets leave that issue  the back burner until we get a community person in place”). More information will be shared as it becomes available.

Pixeleen Mistral

Any oldtimers out there will remember Pixeleen Mistral and her epic battles with yours truly over just about anything going on in SL Sailing. Pixeleen and I finally met, in the flesh as it were. We had a GREAT time. By the way, I suspect some of you old timers might be surprised than Pixeleen and I have pleasant IM chats about once a month these days on one topic or another.

USA 76

The day after SLCC ended a number of us went for a sail on the AC Boat, USA 76 (winner of the Moet Cup against Alinghi in 2003, 2nd boat in the BMW Challenge in the 32rd America’s Cup in 2007). Thanks to Dale Irata (commodore of the RL Island Yacht Club in Alameda, CA and the SL version of the same yacht club)  who coordintated the event. I will begin working on a video of the day as soon as I get the video files from Chad (we used his camera). In the meantime here are a few shots.

One thing that struck me was the sound of the wind whistling on the main. That’s something the on-board mics don’t pick up during television coverage of  an AC race.

 

 

Most of these shots are courtesy of Chad Sawson. You can see more here: https://picasaweb.google.com/101577248260922323688

 

 

 

 

 

 

MarkTwain White has sold SLSailing.Com to Bea Woodget.

SLSailing.Com (COM) was launched in September 2007 as a companion to the SLSailing Forum to provide increased coverage of the SL Sailing scene. Over the past three and a half years COM has grown to an average of 5000 visits a month with an average of 30,000 page views per month (Google Analytics).

COM has had three editors over the course of its history, MarkTwain White, Jane Fossett and its current editor, and now owner, Bea Woodget. It is rare for a hobby web site to boast such experienced editors as COM has had.

“I am pleased to turn over the ownership of COM to Bea”, said White. “I gave COM birth and grew it,  Jane Fossett’s skills helped move along that growth, but it was Bea Woodget who stepped in and expanded COM to the wide ranging information source that it is today. A good deal of the current traffic that COM enjoys came from Bea’s efforts.”

 

I am pleased to announce that Bea Woodget has been appointed Editor of SLSailing.Com. Bea has shown great energy and vision in her service to the SL sailing community. With the 2008 and 2009 Fizz Cups, Bea has set a standard of excellence in running major SL Cup style events that has yet to be equaled.

For many months now Bea has brought SLSailing.Com readers compelling articles that have taken each of us to a higher plane of understanding about our sport in SL. In recent days she has been more than prolific in her writing, and I can tell you the list of upcoming articles is just as impressive as what you have seen from her recently.

However Bea’s role is much more than being the #1 author at SLSailing.Com. She is also calling upon you to contribute. A number of articles are in the queue from other authors, and we are looking to add even more. SLSailing.COM is not MarkTwain White’s blog, nor is it Bea Woodget’s blog, it is a vehicle to share the best insights, news, and entertainment from both the SL world and the RL world of sailing. If you would like to become a regular contributor to SLSailing.Com please contact Bea or myself with a note on what you would like to contribute, as well as a sample of your writing.

Beyond the traditional articles we post at SLSailing.com, the magazine is also the home of official information about the Blake Sea and the Blake Sea Community Participation Program designed to improve sailing for all SL sailors. In addition to racing and cruising, over time you will begin to see coverage about Fighting Sail and Ironclads as the Blake Sea Battles Group gets established and operational in the Contested Waters of the Blake Sea.

SLSailing.Com is also pleased to announce that Nber Medici has been appointed to the role of Assistant Editor. Please congratulate both ladies on their new assignments.

Hi everyone. I have a sad announcement to make today. It appears that Jane Fossett will no longer be associated with this publication. For those of you that don’t know, Jane has moved on to start her own blog, Metaverse Sailing. She has taken material that belongs to SLSailing.Com with her. Last time she and I got to the point we could not work togehter she simply deleted a years worth of articles. Now she just takes them and publishs them under her own banner. It’s unethical.

Now let me qualify the above statement by saying that I made a mistake when I started SLSailing.Com. I SHOULD have spelled out what publishing rights I was claiming when I published articles. Because of my oversight (its a damn hobby publication not a source of income) Jane can get away with what she has done arguing that her words and graphics published and distributed to the world (which has created a bully pulpit for her) belongs to her. While I would counter that the articles we published belong to COM and the publication of said articles enhances the author as much as it enhances COM. So there really is no legal basis for action on my part. All I can point out is that Jane is acting in an unethical manner and ought to remove the material that COM published and promoted (and provided her with a platform to have a great influence on the community).

Jane did a great job for a long time first a writer then editor of SLSailing.COM. But in the past few months she has changed her mission. Instead of concertrating on building SL Sailing, she began to turn more and more to personal opinion about what was wrong with SL sailing, and presenting it as objective journalism. She cleverly used some classic propaganda techiques to do this and it created GREAT tension between us.

So now Jane has her new platform to continue her plans disguised as objective journalism. And SLSailing.Com is without an editor. Because Jane had done such a bang up job in the past I have let managing SLSailing.Com go, trusting the combined vision she and I had in the past to carry through.

The fact of the matter is that I don’t have time time or energy to put in the time that Jane did. So the question is before us. What is the future of SLSailing.Com?

The short answer is: I don’t know. The longer answer is: Will the columnists we have had cotinue to write for COM? Some have not been heard from for awhile. Will they go over to Jane’s blog and write there? Is there someone out there in the community that has the skills and desire to join COM as and assistant editor and help continue the publication? I don’t know.

If any of you are interested in contributing to COM either as an editorial person or a feature writer please contact me in world.

Whatever happens to COM I will promise you this: I will continue to work for the growth of this community as I always have.

The Lindens are excited about the upcoming Fizz Cup. Michael has been helping us set up an additional race course, The Turnbuckle Line, where the finals for the Fizz Cup will be held. Additionally we will be adding additional marks for the Fizz courses that will run from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Turnbuckle lines. A big thank you goes out to Yuu Nakamichi who has been instrumental in getting all this organized.

The three courses should be available for practice in just a few days, maybe even a couple days.

Michael Linden has just blogged about the Blake Sea and the coming Fizz Cup here. I will be coordinating with LL to get some formal promotional help as we get into the Cup.