Linden Estate Services: Trust and Safety User Group meeting place
The following notes were taken from the video of the Trust and Safety meeting held on Tuesday, October 20, 2026, as recorded and provide by Pantera Pólnocy video of the meeting (embedded at the end of this article) – my thanks to her for providing it.
As I am currently unable to attend these meetings in person, the following is an abbreviated summary of the meeting with links to the relevant parts of the video for ease of reference.
The Trust and Safety User Group is to provide a forum to discuss topics relating to safety and security in Second Life. However, please note that for matters of privacy and personal safety, the following will not be openly discussed by members of the team:
Reports of abuse, together with the outcome of investigations or actions taken in response; specific account information (including terminations, suspensions, warnings, etc.); DCMA or copyright issues; internal processes; ToS interpretations.
The meetings:
Are held on the 3rd Tuesday of the month, at 11:00 SLT.
For descriptions on all SL user groups and their purpose please refer to SL Official User Groups.
Trust and Safety Blog Posts
The Second Life Trust and Safety team shares regular community blog posts to help keep the community informed and educated on various topics. These blogs cover topics such as maintaining strong account security practices, tips and tricks, and helpful how-to guides.
[Video: 1:19-2:24] Work is still continuing with the in-world Trust and Safety Team offices; this has been somewhat delayed due to other priorities. Currently, the hope is to have the work finished by December 2026.
The current plan is to have a holiday themed meeting/tour at the new office space in December.
Part of the new Trust and Safety Team in-world office spaces
Marketplace Blog Posts Discussion
[Video: 9:55-20:00] General notes on the Marketplace blog post noted above, including:
Reviewing aim and purposes of the two posts.
Reminder that MP product reviews are for reviewing products, not for airing personal grievances.
A request was made for a similar blog post for buyer to be made on in-world shopping – seen as a good idea for a future T&S blog post.
Questions related to listing management removal of mass listing of of poor-quality AI generated (AIG) content, etc., use of AI generated images for products, etc., were asked but were more questions for the Marketplace team / Web User Group (although there have been internal discussion on the matter of AIG content and use of AI images).
Other Web Group specific questions and requests were made and referred more to the Web Group.
Melody Linden noted that she (or a member of T&S) will be attending a future Web User Group meeting to discuss overlapping matters.
There has been a range of concerns about scripted agent / bot activity within Second Life, which Alabaster Linden attempted to address (in a somewhat circumspect manner).
The Lab is looking at matter of policy with regards to the use and operation of bots, including potentially updating the policy, bringing bot usage more into line with policy requirement, identifying scripted agents, etc.
These discussions are described as “on-going” and “collaborative” (presumably with bot / bot service creators, etc.), and are aimed at trying to strike a balance to allow bots (and associated services) to be used usefully and preventing the use of bots being abused (e.g. to inflate traffic numbers, to harass, etc.).
The hope is that people will start to see “some progress and changes in this area”.
There was further general discussion on bots during the open discussion part of the meeting (see below).
A blog post is in development on the use and registering of scripted agent (or “registered bot” if you prefer) accounts.
It is not clear as to whether this work will involve defining the use of bots for “legitimate” data gathering (e.g. gathering data on grid use, for the production of 3D maps of regions, etc.).
In the first two T&S meetings questions were asked about preventing people creating multiple accounts specifically for the intention to harass (some are known to make multiple accounts per week or even per day).
At the times of those meetings it was indicated that the Lab was aware of the issue – and of some of those involved – and steps would be taken to try to address the problem.
Alabaster Linden confirmed at this meeting that two new measures – system and monitoring – have been put in place to try to cut down these incidences and make it easier for LL to spot when it is happening. Details as to what they are were not discussed (to prevent people trying to circumvent them).
This does not entirely prevent such situations occurring, but it is hoped the changes have diminished the ability of those concerned from being able to mass-create accounts.
The new Group Role ability to moderate who can post links to Group chats came up – please see my Leviathan Officer Hour notes from the session immediately after this T&S meeting for the latest on this.
Requests on managing Tiny Empire bots crowding-out OpenSpace (open water) regions and thus blocking them from being accessed by those sailing or flying was again raised alongside the general discussions on bot (see above). No definitive answer, other than LL continue to work towards removing unregistered bot accounts.
Bot identification: there have been requests to make Scripted Agent accounts (that is, properly registered bot accounts) identifiable in-world (e.g. via a Profile symbol or a colour surround on the Profile + giving them a default dot colour on the viewer maps). Whilst a good idea which should be implemented:
It would not make the identification of “bad actor” bots any easier, as these would most likely not be registered as scripted agents.
It runs the risk of people determining that “all dots of X colour are bots – and all bots are BAD!” – leading to the potential of stores, etc., being avoided, etc., on account of, “they use a bot, and bots are BAD!” As such, care on implementation and communication needs to be addressed.
It was suggested that bots could only be allowed to access Groups if invited by an Owner / Operator – the problem here being – if the bot is not registered as a Scripted Agent, how does the system tell it is a bot simply because it responds to a Group Join request just like any other “normal” account?
With regards to Groups and phishing scams:
The suggestion was made for a T&S blog post on Group management tips and tricks – this was taken on-board.
It was requested that the message people receive when ejected from a Group for causing trouble (such as spamming) should be updated to not include the name of the person doing the banning (e.g. just leave it as “You have been ejected from [Group name]”), so as to prevent instances where the officer / owner doing the ejecting comes under personal attack. This request is being taken back to the Lab for discussion
Please refer to the last 15 minute of the video for more general discussions (e.g. OSGrid shutdown, SL Discord server moderation, etc.).
The Simulator User Group meeting place at Longfellow
The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, October 6, 2026 Leviathan Office Hour, the “off-week” sessions of the Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. These notes form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the meeting by Pantera is embedded at the end of this summary – my thanks to her for providing it.
Meeting Overview
The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas is held every other Tuesday at 12:00 noon, SLT (holidays, etc., allowing), per the Second Life Public Calendar.
The “Leviathan Office Hour” meetings are held on the Tuesdays which do not have a formal SUG meeting, and are chaired by Leviathan Linden. They are more brainstorming / general discussion sessions.
Meetings are held in text in-world, at this location.
Simulator Deployments
No updates, only restarts.
General Updates
Game_Control
Game_control has now been been remerged with the 26.5 Chat Modernisation viewer code.
This means game_control should start appearing as part of future updates to the current RC version of 26.5 and will be a part of the viewer when it is promoted to release status.
Current points of note:
Game_control is be positioned behind a feature flag so it won’t send the GameControlData UDP message to simulators without the required back-end support in order to prevent crashes.
“Send GameControl Data to server” option is also disabled by default in Preferences UI.
The reason for the above is if the GameControlData UDP message is sent to a simulator without the required game_control support, the simulator will take the message as an “attack” or a hacked viewer, eventually dropping the UDP circuit to the viewer AND the region would put that UserID + computer_fingerprint on a short-term blacklist – logins to that region would fail for several minutes unless the user migrates to a different computer.
Whilst the current simulator release (code-named Nectarine) is grid-wide, it doesn’t have the necessary code to correctly set the feature flag to the viewer (and so issues can occur). The next simulator version – Olive (in development at the time of writing) – will have the required code.
During discussions a bug with game_control in which buttons don’t appear to fire when used in Mouselook. Leviathan is going to look into this.
Leviathan further noted:
Items “not set in stone” for game_control: default mappings and the full list of client-side actions available to be mapped.
Items “pretty much” set in stone: the UDP message format and the LSL constants (new constants can be added, but existing ones cannot be changed).
Items seen as “missing right now”: the ability to navigate the viewer UI with a game controller.
New Group Ability to Define Who Can Post Links to Group Chats
Leviathan Linden has developed a new Group Role ability to define who can post random web links in group chat.
This capability will:
Allow the posting of URLs to be set to the default Everyone, Owner and Officer roles, with Group Owners and moderators will be able to set it as required to other roles.
Include a defined “whitelist” of LL domain URL links which can be posted regardless of who is positing them and whether or not the ability has been set. This list may include certain recognised third-party website URLs as well, and may be subject to expansion.
Not (initially?) include support for user-defined whitelists of URLs.
This new ability will be deployed as a part of the upcoming Olive simulator update. However, as it requires corresponding viewer updates and back-end database changes, it will initially be set behind a feature flag. The viewer-side updates should be made available in viewer 26.5.
Messages posted with URL links by those not authorised to do so will see the message go through, but the URL will be redacted.
This is part of the on-going work to limit the ability of some to post scam and phishing links to Group chats.
In this meeting, Leviathan indicated the new ability will be “on” by default for the default roles mentioned above; this brought forward understandable requests that the Everyone role does not have the ability to post links be default.
This would more effectively deal with issues of phishing in existing Groups, notably those Groups which no longer have an active Owner or assigned Officers who can adjust Role abilities.
Currently, the plan appears to be to only have the ability to post links toggled of the the Everybody role when creating new Groups.
Leviathan noted the final decision on how the ability should be set is down to the Product Team, but he would relay the feedback to them.
Broadly speaking, the time frame for this ability is possibly going to be: simulator updates (Olive simulator release): late October / early November; viewer-side support (26.5 release): and the database updates: by late December.
General Discussion
Please refer to the video, below.
The Group Role ability news led to a discussion on Group abilities and capabilities (e.g. renaming a Group, providing additional information within Groups – date Group created, date someone joined, managing groups where the Owner is no longer active and there are no active Officers, etc.).This ran through the second quarter of the meeting.
Kyle Linden noted he has “a long list of group improvements in my back pocket,” and is writing Product Requirement documents for them one at a time.
Leviathan Linden is trying to track down some physics crashes on the simulator – although it is providing difficult to identify the cause.
The Puppetry project remains shelved. However, there have been some internal discussions / questions asked around it in terms of possible future capabilities for the viewer – but this does not mean the project is about to (or will) resume, just that aspects of the work – such as Inverse Kinematics (IK) might be looked at again in the future with the hope of enabling “simple” actions: holding hands, touching a light switch, etc.
This led to a discussion on IK, animation, etc. during the last quarter of the meeting.
Emberhaus, October 2026 – click any image for full size
The Destination Guide recently gave me cause to drop into a four-region estate operated by Clare (Clare Loring) and Dean (Dean Xochitl), forming a unified and engaging visit which simply put, is an absolute delight.
The primary region within the group is Emerhaus, a Full private island region utilising the Land Capacity bonus offered by Linden Lab. Its description alone offers a warm invitation for people to drop in:
Step inside and leave the rush of everyday life behind. A place to listen to live music, meet friends, explore, or simply find a quiet corner and stay awhile, or take photos.
– Emberhaus Destination Guide / About Land description
Emberhaus, October 2026
Emberhaus sits at the southern end of the estate, and is neighboured to the west by Thimblewick and to the north by Oakmere and Teapot, to which it is joined by an old and long disused railway line.
Thimblewick is also a Full region and home to the small town of San Virello, which also appears to be open to the public. However, as I didn’t come across a means of crossing one to the other during my visit (or at least not one I spotted!), I’ll leave that for possible future visit.
Emberhaus, October 2026
A Landing Point is set for Emberhaus, delivering visitors to a point no far from the middle of the region, located on a large wood deck. This sits before a grand row of what might have once been warehouses and one point, but which have been combined and converted into an engaging hangout space, complete with a miniature underfloor garden with little childhood remembrances scattered through it.
Where you go from here is entirely up to you; there is much to discover throughout the region, from the store and park office just across the deck from the warehouse-hangout, to the waterfront facing San Virello to the old track pointing north to Oakmere and Teapot.
Teapot, October 2026
This is a setting offering a balance between rugged woodland, water, and human habitation. The waterfront area on the west side of the region is marked by the local pub and a large terrace open-air event space with the old railway lining running beside both.
Directly on the waterfront and facing Thimblewick are a series of nautical businesses – although I rather think the local boatwright might have an interesting time when it comes time to launch the boat he has up on the stocks!
Emberhaus, October 2026
The southern half of the region sits as a group of islands; a large body of water crossed by bridges and connected to the open waters at their eastern end by reedy wetlands, separates them from the rest of the region.
This area is notable for the roughly rectangular island sitting within the channel separating it from the rest of Emberhaus, and for being the home of a local café and a large greenhouse through which the landscape flows, the glass roof perhaps offering shelter from rainy weather for the deer within. The smallest island has the remnants of a garden sitting on its back, perhaps best seen by the pier extending out from the café’s island.
Oakmere, October 2026
Within all of this there is a lot to explore and discover, including places to hang out and wildlife to see, so to be sure to take your time wandering.
Taking the route north along the old rail lines will bring you first to Oakmere, and herein comes a word of warning: there are three residential units to be found along this ribbon island as it connects to Teapot, so whilst it is open to visitors to wander, do be aware of them and try to avoid trespassing!
Teapot, October 2026
Sitting furthest to the northern, Teapot has its own Landing Point sitting on a little bridge, together with its own Destination Guide entry and description.
Teapot is a welcoming community cantered on creativity, conversation, and acceptance. Explore peaceful gardens, discover scenic spots for photography, relax with tea at the café, and enjoy live music and art in a friendly atmosphere.
– Teapot Destination Guide / About Land description
Emberhaus, October 2026
This is a rugged little island which is ideal for getting away from everything and just relaxing. Scattered across it are multiple hideaways and decks for hanging out – including the one that gives the island its name!
When approaching via the rail lines, the island is reached via a covered bridge with a tunnel facing it. Whether you head through the tunnel into the heart of the island or swing to the right and around the coast to head inland is entirely up to you.
Emberhaus, October 2026
As with Emberhaus, there are good opportunities for photography to be found across Teapot. There’s even a touch of Halloween to be found here as well, although me being me, I preferred some of the other places to sit and watch the world go by 🙂 .
There are one or two rough edges in the landscaping, but this is down to the fact Dean and Clare have been making one or two alterations, so will likely be be cleared up. I gather a horse riding rezzer should be making a return to the setting in the near future, and a kayak rezzer is due to get positioned – maybe for paddling to Thimblewick? I also understand from Dean that the estate could be seeing a further region added, so I’ll be keeping an eye out for that as well!
Teapot, October 2026
All three regions – Emberhaus, Oakmere and Teapot – share the same overall environment (I assume this is true for Thimblewick / San Virello, but as noted that will be for a possible future visit). This gives a nice sense of natural continuity between the three; no suddenly roiling skies and galloping Sun as the environments transitions 🙂 .
An engaging visit to a engaging setting and well worth the time taken to explore.
BOSL, October 2026: Jennifer Steele – The Thinning Veil
The thinning veil: a concept rooted in ancient traditions, particularly Celtic beliefs, which suggests that during late autumn – especially around Samhain – the boundary between the physical world and the spiritual realm becomes less distinct, allowing for increased communication with spirits and heightened awareness of spiritual energies.
It is a period said to be filled with signs and portents, be they visions or dreams, increased psychic awareness and sensitivity to the environment, perhaps even sensations of being watched or noticing inexplicable movements; a time of preternatural sudden shifts in weather and / or temperature; a time when animal messengers – crows, black cats – even deer – seem to be more prevalent.
BOSL, October 2026: Jennifer Steele – The Thinning Veil
It is also a time being celebrated in an atmospheric exhibition of physical world oil over acrylic art, digitally treated (scanned, sized, etc.) for upload and display in Second Life, and created by Jennifer Steele (JenniferSteele Wilder).
Presented at the BOSL Gallery through until November 20, 2026, this is an engaging and atmospheric exhibition of art designed to be experienced as well as seen. On arrival, visitors should set their environment to Midnight and make sure local sounds are enabled (note: this is not media or the music stream).
BOSL, October 2026: Jennifer Steele – The Thinning Veil
Many of the pieces are captivatingly tactile in nature; rough surfaces (presumably of acrylics) built up to give feathers, hair, clothing and more a sense of depth and reality, turning them into something we simply want to pass our fingers over as much as look at. All of them capture the feelings, atmosphere, symbols and mysticism of this time of year; the colour palette used throughout is entirely captivating, giving each piece further life and the impression these are not simply works of the imagination but direct studies of the physical (or at least given the subject, the inhabited metaphysical).
From animal familiars through to mystical acts and symbols, the subject matter is wide, pieces standing either individually or, potentially, as small sets. The latter is perhaps most noticeable with the trio Into the Veil,Ancestral Embrace and Lilith Comes, simply because they have been placed together – however, Hecate Comes sits slightly apart and makes up a quartet (or these four might be split into two pairs for a collector). More widely spaced, but equally united as a potentially themed set are Familiar Feline, Familiar Raven and Familiar Owl.
BOSL, October 2026: Jennifer Steele – The Thinning Veil
Individual pieces are available for sale in-world via the usual means (click and select pay) and include a resizer/hanger script. However, Jennifer is offering the originals a physical world pieces – anyone interested should contact her directly.
The Thinning Veil is an engaging exhibition for the time of year, expressive and rich in motifs and content, offered in a suitable lightly immersive setting.
BOSL, October 2026: Jennifer Steele – The Thinning Veil
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates for the week through to Sunday, October 18, 2026
This summary is generally published every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:
It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy.
This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
Outside of the Official viewer, and as a rule, alpha / beta / nightly or release candidate viewer builds are not included; although on occasions, exceptions might be made.
Boogeyman’s, October 2026 – click any image for full size
Grace Loudon is perhaps best known as a singer / performer in Second Life. However, she is also a creator of worlds, notably within her Full region of Amainiris, currently offered under the name of Boogeyman’s.
The name may seem to be appropriate for the time of year when I’m writing this, but I gather the overall themes of the setting – dark mystery and fantasy with a good splash of horror – are pretty much year-round. It offers an enticing visit and, as the home of Grace’s music venue, the chance for some good live music sessions.
The Landing Point takes the form of a little residential street busy with trick-or-treaters scurrying between the houses. Those arriving are advised to read the scrolling introductory notes which will appear before them (don’t land and hurry forward!) to get the best from their visit. Head lights are also available for those who might find things a little dark.
Boogeyman’s, October 2026
There’s not a lot to see within the houses along the street – they are all façades – but the little Trick-or-treaters are fun to observe – including a couple from Cica Ghost.
However, the fun begins at the far end of the street relative to the Landing Point. Here sit three paths leading into the dark woods covering pretty much the entire region. Which one you take first is entirely up to you as all have much to offer.
Boogeyman’s, October 2026
Along one, for example you’ll find an asylum which might not carry the name Arkham – but so easily could. Beyond it along a winding path more is to be found from weird creatures to a scene that might have you mentally quoting The Scottish Play (if not When shall we three meet again?, then almost certainly, Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble), and more before coming to a creepy swamp.
The main thing is, all the paths – and their branches – should be followed, and followed carefully if you’re to experience everything: the creepy playground balancing the swamp; the zombie train (complete with outdoor cinema close by – just be wary of anyone coming up behind you!); the cemetery and – within its own Landing Point and forming another jumping-off point for explorations, the delightfully spooky Boogeyman’s club itself.
Boogeyman’s, October 2026
This is actually one of three venues within the region, the other two being the quirky Groovy Girl Café and Sound Control. Both are located in the sky, with the former celebrating Second Life’s female sings and live performers, and the latter carrying a cabaret club vibe with a strong celebration of the RCMP. Both are packed with detail, and I’ll likely cover them as a part of my Coffeehouses and Cafe series.
Back on the ground, there are two particular spots await discovery. They sit fairly close together along a path, each carrying a warning: Don’t Go Down the Ladder!, together with And Don’t Go in the Water Either!
Of course both are open invitations – although you’ll need to accept the local Experience to either climb the ladder or take a dip (you’ll only need to accept it the one time, obviously!).
Boogeyman’s, October 2026
The ladder will take you to my favourite part of the setting: the catacombs. This, for me, has wonderful echo of Tolkien – not that this is likely intentional. You’ll heard the dragon before you see it (just look up!), whilst the entire arrival space has a feel of the great halls of Erebor after Smaug’s arrival.
Across the field of bones, an entrance beckons, carrying you on down. I’m not going to spoil things any further other than to note that the path through the tunnels and caverns will mix elements of beauty and touches of beasties. Just be sure to key an eye out for points where the tunnels branch.
Boogeyman’s, October 2026
Take a dip, meanwhile and you’ll be on something of an undersea adventure. Again take a good look around and then follow the path winding down into the sea floor sinkhole. Both the caves and the underwater elements have teleports that will carry you back to the top of the ladder’s well or the banks of the pond. Elsewhere you might find a door with a warning of its own and a trip through a maze containing the season’s Ghoul’s and Ghosts game (also seen elsewhere in SL).
Throughout all of this are touches large and small (beware of a giant spider dropping in on you in the caverns, for example), and places which simply offer somewhere to sit down – even if one is beneath the roving eyes of a ventriloquist’s dummy sitting on a shelf!
Boogeyman’s, October 2026
Whilst offering something of a Halloween-y style of destination, Boogeyman’s leans more towards fun and light scares rather than gore and horror (zombies notwithstanding!), with the touches filtering lightly into the two skyborne venues without being overpowering or spoiling their very individual environments and ambience.
In all, a fun visit, with plenty of opportunities for re-visits to enjoy some of SL’s best music and vocal artists.
