Meeting Overview
- The Web User Group exists to provide an opportunity for discussion on Second Life web properties and their related functionalities / features. This includes, but is not limited to: the Marketplace, pages surfaced through the secondlife.com dashboard; the available portals (land, support, etc), and the forums.
- As a rule, these meetings are conducted:
- On the first Wednesday of the month and 14:00 SLT.
- In both Voice and text.
- At this location.
- Meetings are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
- Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.
General Updates Since last Meeting
- Some clean-up of the What’s Next page – but no re-integration of the Destination Guide as yet (The DG situation is further discussed between 17:32-21:33].
- Fixes for spaces within Map links, with more fixes for incorrect spaces in links still to come.
- Requests were again made to be able to search maps.secondlife.com by region name, which is apparently a little harder to implement than had been thought.
- Minor fixes to the Marketplace:
Project Zero / Firestorm Zero (SL in a Browser) Update
SL Viewer Work
- Recent work has been focused on stability and performance.
- Work has resumed on the new viewer UI for the Project Zero SL Viewer, and the first iteration, featuring very small changes should be released “pretty soon”.
Firestorm Zero
- A core focus has been on the Firestorm version of Zero (Firestorm Zero, launched in March), running through bugs and issues reported with that. Some issues include:
- People purchasing time and having issues launching a session.
- People being locked-out of Firestorm Zero after a session (or even during) – most likely as a result of Cookies being corrupted, thus requiring Cookies to be cleared from the browser & the browser restarted.
- It’s also been suggested that using a private / incognito version of a browser works better, as this should clear all Cookies on exiting.
- Note: I have experienced multiple “locks-outs” (one both “public” and “private” browsers – Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Brave) and have found that clearing / resetting Cookies within the browser does not work, and it requires LL to bang on things (indeed, as of this moment, I cannot access Firestorm Zero!). If you encounter the same, please file a report.
General to Both
- It was acknowledged there there is a degree of confusion around Project Zero and Firestorm Zero, and the fact there are differences between them:
- Project Zero is effectively the official viewer, offered on a limited capacity basis, with the focus more towards incoming new users / returning users.
- Firestorm Zero is the “paid” service utilising the Firestorm viewer and focused more towards current users.
- Some aspects of this confusion might be seen in:
- The link found at the top of the Second Life Dashboard (Launch Second Life in a Browser) will launch Firestorm Zero.
- The fact that at the WUG meeting, people conflated issues of logging in to Project Zero which were likely due to the limited capacity / new user focus more than anything else, with a discussion on specific issues those attempting to use Firestorm Zero were experiencing.
- As a result, Sntax Linden noted that there should be more / better differentiation between the two.
- Shortfalls with both Zero and Firestorm Zero were (again) noted as:
- Lack of ability to directly upload (mesh, textures, etc.) to your account.
- Lack of ability to save snapshots, etc., to a local disk.
- The noticeable latency in camera movement (and similar) for those more distant to the host computer running the viewer. [It has been hinted that this could be address by relocating host computers for Project Zero / Firestorm Zero in additional Amazon GameLift end-points such as Éire.]
AI Content on the Marketplace
A feedback request to Add marketplace policy regarding AI generated content sparked a request for clarification on what people would like (e.g. disclosure of the use of AI generated content / listing images; outright banning of anything related to the use of AI tools; filtering out content made purely with generative AI (as opposed to content which has been created by someone and which happens to use some AI elements), something in-between; limiting some forms of AI content, etc.).
- Within the meeting, disclosure (e.g. clearly indicating a item uses AI generated content / the listing images are AI generated, etc.), was preferred by most.
- It was noted that using purely AI-generated images (e.g. created using Midjourney) as a non-representative means to promote / sell content on the MP is already against policy (misleading advertising) and so can currently be reported.
- Kali Linden indicated LL are looking to add reasons for flagging content, and something along the lines of “violates LL policy” might be considered, to make such reporting easier.
- It was acknowledged that those using generative AI tools (e.g. Meshy) for content on the MP probably are not going to self-identify through marking check-boxes etc.
- It was also noted that some people using generative AI images for advertising on the MP are not doing so with intent – but rather because it is the New Shiny for them to play with, and so some allowance should be made for this.
- There’s also the issue with people who may take images of their creations and then heavily post-process them to the point where they are no longer fully representative of the item it promotes – so what should be done in these cases? Or with those using art pulled from the physical world?
- Part of this conversation inevitably rolled over the idea of AI “companions” / bots and an expressed desire to “ban everything” about AI – including bots, despite there being nuances – such as with the latter (e.g. in-store CSRs, more dynamic role-play NPCs, etc.).
In Brief
Please refer to the video for details on the following.
- [Video: 1:32-4:44] General discussion on the Second Life booth at the 2025 Games Developer Conference, which some at the meeting felt to be underwhelming based on the photographs posted to social media, etc.
- LL also appear to have received feedback from the SL creators who attended the event, and it appears lessons are being learnt for future possible events / appearances.
- [Video 17:32-18:50] Further discussion over the lack of a visible-by-default chat bar in the official viewer.
- [Video: 22:03-35:15] Discussion on use of the in-viewer browser vs. using an external browser – most preferred the external browser option.
- However, most browser-based shopping stats the Lab has for the Marketplace point to the viewer’s internal browser being primarily used for purchases.
- Sntax Linden noted that as the internal browser is the only option for accessing the web from within Project Zero / Firestorm Zero, LL do want to improve on it – such as making the responsive MP not only work on small device screens, but also work better within the in-viewer browser.
- Traditionally, the in-viewer browser has been avoided due to concerns of general security (e.g. clicking on phishing links and opening them within the in-viewer browser). This led to a discussion on ways to block “bad links”.
Next Meeting
- Wednesday, June 4th, 2025.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 