Thanksgiving Weekend Open Forum: Who In Second Life Are You Thankful For?

Who are the creators, the volunteers, the leaders, the innovators, the artists and musicians, the catalysts, the educators, the thinkers, the lovers, the explorers, the comedians, the iconoclasts, the entrepeneurs, the joy bringers, and everyone else that makes Second Life worthwhile? Share them in Comments, and I'll highlight as many as I can.

I'll start first: along with Bettina Tizzy, who joins this blog soon, I'm thankful for all the readers of New World Notes. As you can see by the passionate, sharp, and (mostly) civil conversations going on in controversial posts like this one and also this one, they're a diverse and smart group, and I'm honored to write for them. If you're reading this, thanks for being part of it.

How about you? Who else deserves a special mention here?

Update, 11/27: Bumped up for extra thanks!

Comments

[Kean Kelly]

Four Yip for being generous with her amazing art, Colemarie Soleil for being an amazing inspirational singer and Eloh Elliot for her fabulous gift to the community.

[Kean Kelly]

Four Yip for being generous with her amazing art, Colemarie Soleil for being an amazing inspirational singer and Eloh Elliot for her fabulous gift to the community.

[Csteph]

All those many guys and girls who make stuff like sculpty pipe sections, or fences, or nuts and bolts, or trees, or blankets, or whatever so that I don't have to. Thanks to you all whoever you are.

[Aree Lulibub]

I'm thankful for my fellow Green Lanterns, my partner "PK" Pierce Kronos, the amazing serendipity that led to meeting Grace McDunnough and Noe Lightfoot \o/, all the SL artists, singers and musicians that help make my in-world experience so rich.

[Tymmerie Thorne]

In addition my husband, I am truly utterly, unbelievably, thankful for the SL BLOGGING COMMUNITY!

Thanks to those of you who entertain me with your words! Thanks to those who teach me and keep me informed! Thanks for showing me new places to explore and new things to do! Thank you for putting your time and effort into this world of ours!

[Scylla Rhiadra]

There are some wonderfully strong and enterprising women in Second Life right now who see the potential for this platform as a means of engaging in education and activism about some of the most pressing issues under which our culture labours. These are women who devote considerable time and effort to networking within SL with the goal of making a real difference in the real world, as well as in our virtual one.

I could name many such women, but millay Freschi, who heads up Amnesty International-E in Second Life, comes to mind immediately. Through her tireless efforts, SL has become an important and valuable vehicle for the dissemination of information about human rights abuses throughout the world.

Siri Vita, who works closely with millay in AI-E, as well as for Peace Train and the Four Bridges Project, is another such apparently inexhaustible source of energy; an astonishingly accomplished organizer, she is currently hard at work running Second Life's 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence, an enormously impressive series of events happening in-world, dedicated to the ending of abuse of all kinds.

Paty Amiot and Ledoof Constantineau, two strong and fiercely committed women deeply engaged both in-world and in real life with combatting violence against women, will finish my list, but I could certainly name others as well.

Speaking personally, it is a real honour to know these women. Second Life is much the richer for their contributions.

[Effie Emmons]

I am thankful for the live artist musicians in SL. Of course, I am especially thankful for Kim Seifert. Meeting Kim at her live shows was the stepping stone to a beautiful friendship. Kim became my best friend in RL. SL musicians as a sweet melody to both my worlds.

[Judi Newall]

Madcow Cosmos and Glyph Graves, just two of the artists that keep me amazed, entranced and entertained in SL. Lauren Weyland for constantly making me laugh at her comedy shows.

[Crap Mariner]

Too many to list. Perhaps too many.

-ls/cm

[Bixyl Shuftan]

Thankful for my friends (too many to list here).

[Arcadia Codesmith]

There are a great many friends in Second Life that I am truly grateful for, but I'm going to take a moment to be thankful for my enemies.

I don't have any real "hunt you down, duct tape you, take you to the woods and murder you slowly" enemies (or at least none that have succeeded). I'm thinking of people with whom I disagree, fundamentally and often vehemently. By challenging my basic beliefs (incessantly), they force me to reexamine, refine, defend, and on rare occasion modify those beliefs.

It's not a pleasant process. But it is a valuable one. So with teeth only slightly gritted, I say thank you and may the blessings of the season be yours.

[Coughran Mayo/Dick Dillon]

I know if I started a list, I would leave someone off who is really important. To all the builders, scripters, visionaries, social organizers, community developers, entrepreneurs, non-profit workers, volunteers...thank you for your commitment! To all of my friends, thank you for your patience and tolerance!

Thanks to you too, Hamlet, for thinking to start this conversation!

[Bartholomew Kleiber]

The german mentors here: http://deutsche-mentoren.de/ .... all volunteers, doing such a great job.

[Aevalle Galicia]

I, for one, am so thankful for the entire Steamlands community in SL. Not only is it filled with amazingly creative people, but there is never a dull moment. Cheers! :D

[Dio Kuhr]

I'm thankful for:

- friends like Aldo Stern and Betty Doyle, because it IS a social medium after all, just not in the way that the marketing nabobs seem to think it is...

- all the folks in the rp communities I am part of, like Deadwood and Hogwarts United--just like rl families, it ain't always tidy, it ain't always pretty, but by God, it's good to have some place you feel like you belong...

- the contrarians and non-conformist voices like Prokofy Neva and Crap Mariner--yeah, they can be infuriating, annoying and oftentimes downright wrong, but sometimes someone has to look at things differently for the dialogue to have real meaning: if they didn't exist, we'd probably have to invent them...

- the Lindens who see the need to try to understand who their customers really are and what they want and need. I know there are those of us who argue that lack of such perspicacity is one of the things that frustrates us the most about the company, but you do periodically see evidence that there are some LL folks who actually freakin' get it...

- my good friends and fellow writers of rp-based serials (our odd-little sub-genre of metaverse fiction)--people like Rhianon Jameson and Headburro Antfarm, whom I can always count on to not only read my blog, but also actually comment on the silly thing...

- All the wacky and brilliant virtual library folks like JJ Drinkwater and Riven Homewood, who have have spent the last several years bringing to fruition their wonderful ideas about what the platform can do in terms of enabling widely dispersed people to share information, ideas, and stories...

- And finally, the funny folks at SecondLie...because, well...because damn it, they ARE awfully funny more often than not. Plus, if we can't still laugh about all this nonsense we're involved in, it's probably time to turn off the machine and go do something else for a while

[Fabiola Sutton]

Thanks to those things that makes us in shape, makes us healthy, and to MAC Training that makes me more confident of myself. Big thanks to those who cares, dreams, and make things possible what ever trials the country had been through. To those who prayed and still praying. To those who never give up fighting. And, to HIM who never get tired to understand our shortcomings, who never take HIS back in times of our difficulties, HE who carried us to those days that we don't have anymore strength to move on..It's HIM, it's GOD.

[Extropia DaSilva]

I am thankful to Gwyneth Llewelyn and Jamie Marlin, both of whome have done more than anyone else to help me find my inworld identity.

Oh, and Hamlet, whose blog was what prompted me to set up an SL account in the first place.

[Nexus Burbclave]

I'm thankful for the original dreamers that created Second Life. I'm thankful for the cyberpunk authors that inspired them, especially Gibson and Stephenson.

I'm thankful for the artists, educators, philanthropists, and entrepreneurs that have stuck to their creativity and imagination in the face of an increasingly mundane grid. I am thankful for "your world, your imagination". It may be gone from the site, but as long as there are people who remember it and live by the mantra, there is hope for the metaverse.

I'm thankful to the bloggers, forum frequenters, and social butterflies that keep us all informed of both Linden Lab activities and those of our fellow citizens.

I am also thankful for my RL partner, whom I would not have met, were it not for Second Life.

[Elle]

I am thankful to the kind folks in my various groups who have helped me with my building questions, taken time to show me things when I needed and helped to make me the builder I am today.

I too am thankful for Prok Neva, I love anyone who speaks their mind without hidden agenda and who speaks with such utter conviction.