Caledon: possessed of character, IMHO

The name of this blog, by design, has a great number of interpretations. First and best, it is an invitation for the Reader to put your own spin on what may be the range of content here.

Second Life is getting smaller. While Linden Labs probably thinks it is trivial, the Grid is losing sixty to eighty sims a week and has been for a while. With 23,000 private sims out there…. well, one half percent is trivial. Or is it? Hmmm. That could be over 15% a year. LL has funding beyond tier payments, but such a loss is hardly trivial. Someone needs to do some forward thinking.

Caledon is getting smaller, too. Ah, but we have ‘top men’ working on it.

Here are my thoughts, as someone who has put down roots in Caledon and found the people of this micro-nation intensely welcoming, warm, and creative. Friendly faces yet abound here. Poke about in the ISC channel and you may see veteran names of the nation returned to chat and/or taking up new parcels. We, the people, are not getting smaller. Caledon is shrinking to improve the experience for all of us. Land should not sit vacant. Neighborhoods of the nation should have people in them, not eye candy, because Caledon is character. It is us, not our prims.

Desmond Shang, our guv’nah, has an eagle-eye for protecting Caledon and keeping it stable and strong. We are about to celebrate six years of the nation. I think we can all take some ‘huzzahs’ for being part in that. And yet, it is the Guv’nah that guards our security and peers in the scrying pool to keep us viable immediately and into the future. Amidst the trouble times, he knows we want Caledon to be here next year and ten years down the road.

He cannot spend a lot of time with us these days. That’s sad. But he’s working long hours to keep us vibrant. So we have lost a few regions in Caledon and other regions have been made Duchies for their own solvency. (It costs less to run a Duchy, y’know, as long as there is a fiercely stable person to step up for the task.) We will regret the lands we’ve lost. We will miss the parcels we’ve let go.

If there are not enough Neighbors to pay tier, we should be a smaller country.

As land becomes scarce, every remaining parcel will become more valuable.

Here’s the best news: riding through Caledon on my stallion or flying over Caledon on a gentle flyer… the builds and creative energy are still there. We should make ourselves Victorian and Steampunk and Witty in abundance and other folks will want to be our neighbors too. Our Oxbridge University is still a wonder of helpful and kind people who volunteer hours and hours to greet new folks to Second Life. The classes taught there are still some of the best ways to brush up your appreciation for all things possible in the Grid.

Let us not forget to be welcoming and gentle with all the new people who might see the strength of Caledon.

Everyone knows how tough the economy is right now. We are all on budgets. Some of us have lost jobs (perhaps more than once lately) and the world is spinning harsh about us. I have on my desk several letters from distant friends who tell me of dire conditions in unemployment. We do what we have to do …that’s part of ‘good character’, making things right, doing what needs done, and keeping our obligations whenever we can.

Thank you Gentles, for making Caledon the wonderful community I crave during these troubled times.
Please take care of yourselves and happy birthday, Caledon.