User:Qie Niangao/Zindra and Adult Content

Grounding Assumptions

1. Linden Lab and adult content providers have common cause in the success of adult ventures in Second Life.
2. Direct community support by Linden Lab has proven neither necessary nor sufficient to insure success of adult ventures in SL.
3. In the past and ongoing, specific policy misjudgments and technical faults have hurt in-world adult ventures and, by extension, LL itself. Adult Content User Group meetings have been useful in communicating the consequences of these mistakes / bugs for repair.
4. Zindra is a themed Mainland continent with a uniform Adult maturity rating. It has abundant LDPW infrastructure and (increasingly) diverse use by landowners not limited to adult ventures nor necessarily "adult" content.
5. Although there is some overlap of the interests of Zindra residents with those of adult ventures, not all of Zindra is about adult content, and only a small minority of adult ventures are on Zindra.
6. The Zindra sim spans from the 2-sim infohub at Gilda/Oritz to the infrastructure-intensive "Kama City" sims. Thus, by name and location, the Zindra sim is uniquely positioned to be a showcase and gateway for the whole Zindra continent.
7. The ZEXPO group has a contentious past that's unproductive to consider at this point. The name is confusing because it refers to a group, an event, and a cluster of sims where that event took place (and may again). At this point, we're charged with addressing management of the group only (to the limited extent that it can be considered separately from other "ZEXPO" matters).

Scope and Context

Although the immediate objective is to make sense of the Zindra sim and the ZEXPO group, it's important to understand the larger context of Lab investment in Zindra-hosted, adult content-related land and groups.

Ginette's labels for these assets / initiatives are shown at https://sites.google.com/site/zindrabusiness/home/zindra-expo-group-overview-plan , corresponding to seven sims. (These seven in addition to extensive Linden infrastructure on the Zindra continent, including at least five 1- or 2-sim infohubs at Arapaima, Gilda/Oritz, Nelsonia, Ungren, and Vilania.)

• Four of these seven sims are the "ZEXPO Island" sims (Distrel, Girenzi, Jaraded, Tramoyn).
• One is a public sandbox, "Zindra Vortex", located north of Arapaima. This sim also includes some permanent content and seems to offer mentoring and has hosted a build-contest event(s?). It does have some traffic (some of which is non-landowners building and boxing Adult content for Marketplace sale).
• One is a proposed Mature-to-Adult instructional gateway (Podyan, or "Zindra Quickstart").
• One is the Zindra sim itself ("Zindra Promenade").

Other than the Zindra sim (presumably), these target Adult Content broader than just that on the Zindra mainland continent. (It's even arguable that they detract from businesses and events on the continent itself, but if the Lab is to promote broader Adult Content in SL, it's reasonable to use Mainland sims to do it).

Although the ZEXPO group is open enrollment, the Zindra Vortex group (also originally founded and owned by Blondin) is not.

Submission

Sunk cost is irrelevant to business planning. It profoundly does not matter how much effort has gone into reaching some situation; it only matters that the current situation supports options with better or worse outcomes.

The current ZEXPO event for which preparations are underway should be allowed to run to completion. Presumably there is relatively little additional effort that must be invested in order to reap whatever benefits it will realize. There's probably not time nor resources to really assess whether those benefits are worth the remaining investments.

The event is really not specific to Zindra (other than being hosted in a corner of the continent), and is more about adult content in general (as well as other, non-adult content). As such, the "Z" in ZEXPO really isn't much about Zindra, and so the event should be renamed in future. The group, then, should be replaced by something corresponding to the new event name, and scoped only to the event.

Going forward, Linden Lab needs to decide if the most cost-effective way* for it to support a semi-annual four-sim adult content expo is by hosting it on dedicated Mainland sims, or to offer temporary standalone event sims. (There are costs either way.)

Matters pertaining to adult ventures should be addressed separately from matters specific to the Zindra mainland continent. Ideally, the latter would be migrated to a new user group concerned with Mainland (including LDPW) or Land topics in general. Confounding these topics in a single user group has not been productive.

A gateway sim such as Podyan, providing hands-on instruction in gaining access to Adult content, is in the interest of all adult ventures (and LL). As such, it should not be called "Zindra"-something, and its design and operation should take into account adult ventures outside Zindra, and be naturally, seamlessly integrated with the New User Experience for those opting for adult content.

Zindra Vortex is not limited to Zindra (same as ZEXPO and the Podyan gateway); it just happens to be hosted on an island a few sims from the continent. It probably should be replaced by a group with a different name; renaming a group is very tricky, especially if it has in-world assets. A more substantive question, however, is the group's management, which is very different from other sandboxes and help islands in that residents play a direct role in operations. This may be a great model for other sandboxes (or not) but it would seem to need some official sanction, in the absence of the original group owner.

Plans for the Zindra sim should reflect its role as central to the overall Zindra continent, not other adult ventures, and not adult ventures only. Features and events on the sim should be for the enjoyment of Zindra residents and their guests, enhancing the Zindra experience. This is in contrast to trying to use it as a mechanism for solving specific business issues of adult ventures -- disputes over which have proven disruptive to forming any semblance of a Zindra community, and such an objective is ultimately futile anyway. (Incidentally, some problems with details of builds on the sim need to be addressed if they are to be retained.)

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* Although not demanding immediate decision, another question is whether LL should continue supporting such an adult content expo at all, guided to some extent by the community's sentiment. Although it's tempting to see four free sims and an adult event as necessarily beneficial, there's reason to be skeptical of their value to adult content ventures in general and especially to Zindra-based ventures. A business case for an expo event would have to trade off the value attributable to the event against the costs, including: opportunity costs: Merchant time and attention is expended on the expo that could have achieved value if directed elsewhere. Just as one example, how many Zindra-wide or all-adult hunts could be organized for the time and effort expended on an expo? and which would produce more value?; brand dilution: Relatively small share of expo ventures are Zindra-based (indeed, many are otherwise Marketplace-only). Even without the "Zindra" nomenclature, the event is not exclusively adult, so merchants' own brands appear alongside hotels, etc.; and probably the most important, customer diversion: During the expo, adult commerce not associated with the expo suffers; it is not a realistic option to "just ignore" the expo and still do normal adult business while it's ongoing.