Monday, January 14, 2019

Tinies Protest at Governor Linden's Mansion


By Bixyl Shuftan

While some people have a distrust of certain others who don't look or act like them in Second Life, the "tinies" of Raglan Shire are usually greeted with smiles by all. With their cartoony appearance and whimsical way of talking, their reputation is that of a happy and friendly folk. So what would get them mad and angry? Not much it seems. But on Friday January 11, many went to protest at Governor Linden's Mansion in Clementina.

The reason for the anger, a bug in anupdate to Second Life in late November. Jira "BUG-225893" filed by Chaser Zaks described the issue.

Ever since 18.10.25.521081, Me and various other people have noticed that avatars that are full mesh and not normal sized (EG: BentBox Imp) are floating 0.2 to 0.3 meters off the ground. This was not the case a few days ago where the avatar would be much lower to the ground.
This is not a viewer issue because it happened overnight on various viewers, including the official viewer. No viewer updates were involved.
Did something get changed on the asset server, or did the physics shape server side get modified?

While hover height can be used to correct this, it shouldn't be needed. Expected behaviour of an asset being changed like this is a big deal.


The Lab didn't fix the issue. So preparations were made by the tinies to have their voices heard.

The tiny avatars of Raglan Shire along with Dinkies and Titchys around the grid will be marching in protest on Friday at 2pm, seeking a fast resolution for our inability to keep our feet on the ground!  The protest will take place at Governor Linden's mansion.

So on Friday January 11 at 2PM SL time, dozens of protesters headed over to Governor Linden's Mansion. The sim's 45 avatar limit was quickly reached, and those who couldn't get in headed to a smaller protest in the shore of the Taber sim to the north. Just to the west was Natoma where the Ivory Tower is, and a number of sims further west was Luskwood and Bay City. But that day, the Mansion was the focus of the news with dozens of avatars with protest signs and a few pitchforks.


     ??  What do we  want??   ??
 ??  TO GET BACK ON THE GROUND!  ??
 ??  When so we want it??   ??
  ???? ?? ??  ?? MEOW!!??  ????????

Many of the tinies were indeed hovering off the ground. Some stood on stilts so they wouldn't appear to float. They carried signs such as "I wanna come down man," "We want our paws back on the ground!", "don't wanna be High any more," "Let petites walk in Second Life like me" (carried by a prim tiny), "My body my hover height," "Let us Riverdance on the ground," "Lower Dinkies back to earth!", "Hover is over," and more.

Not all involved in the protest were tinies. Also there were normal human avatars, as well as ferals, a petite, and a Colossus avatar

"A hover bug that been going on since last year of November!" Nerxual Oh shouted, "This affects everyone, and we have to constantly change our over heights every switch we make! Second Life is fifteen years old, focus on us small people that make your dream a reality!" Linn Darkwatch yelled, "We can't even use hover height adjustment to fixt it because then we are messed up if we sit or lie down!" Bloodsong Termagant yelled, "New avatar makers can't make avatar rigs and animations properly!" "We opened tickets to LL, and we had no answer!" Mia Rose grumbled, "We want one!!!"

Governor Linden's Mansion was built by Stellar Sunshine, Second Life's first resident in the Grid's alpha days in 2002, and given to the Lindens before Second Life went to it's beta version. There were a few events here in the early days of the virtual world, including ironically enough protests on the issue of stipends.

On the issue of the hover bug, I was asked to talk to Etheria Parrott. She told me she had talked to one of the Lindens who told her it was a high priority issue and they were still working on it. She then showed me a group announcement, "Anchor Linden has found the root cause for the issue, buried in the Bake Service. He has a fix for the problem, and it will be going out as soon as possible after it has been through testing and QA."  Etheria went on, "Whirly Fizzle had hinted to me that it might have been that new bakes on mesh code since it contains both hover and shape information."

The protest would go on for about two hours before the numbers in the sim began to dwindle. There were still people left before I headed out just before 4PM. I never saw any Lindens there, though it's a sure bet they heard about the protest.




Nitwacket would make a video of the event. It would also be covered in the blog "Second Sighting."

How much longer the "Hover bug" will last is unclear.

Source: Second Life Wiki

Addition: shortly after this article was published, Linden Lab announced there would be an update the next day to correct "avatars experiencing issues with hover height."

Bixyl Shuftan

14 comments:

  1. Aww man, justice for the tinies! 💖

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  2. The problem has been fixed! A big box of choco waffas and a box of Wootjoos to the Lindens! Hugggles!

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  3. More than 40 years in RL news business without ever being in controversy, and here I am in SL caught in a photograph protesting how far off the ground some tinies float. Oh My!

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  4. Thanks for the soon to be fixed, Lindens! And thank you April Linden for passing the message to your peers!
    °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°
    - Nerxual Oh

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  5. On behalf of my dinky and titchy friends, thank you for fixing this! *Tiny Riverdances*

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  6. Thank you programmers for helping me, my frens, my frens' frens, and all those affected by involuntary flight.

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  7. Thankyou Linden Labs from our Titchy Heads to Paws for getting us grounded again and stopping us floating like Bob Marley after a night out in Trinidad !

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  8. Now I can dance on the ground again! Thank you LL coders for the fix!

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  9. *dances by while singing* Thank you very much, thank you very much! Its the nicest thing anyone has ever done for us!

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  10. A great big thank you to the Lindens - dancing can commence !

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  11. Glad there was a good ending to this story - the problem is solved.

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  12. Thank you so much for all your help!! It is greatly appreciated throughout da Shire and other places too!

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  13. *wiggling toes in the virtual playa dust at Burn2* Thankies, Anchor Linden and all the Lindens at the Lab!! Bacon for you all!

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