What Happened to the Arab Community in Second Life?

A reader named "MH" stopped by last Friday's open forum to ask an interesting if concerning question:

Were are the Arab Sims? After 4 years i have returned to SL to find the entire Arab community gone! What happened to Arab World & Kuwait City and the other 100 region estates? What happened to the 50,000 active daily people in those regions? Kuwait city once had the highest traffic on the grid at 190,000 per day..What happened?

If by "Kuwait City" he means this sim, it's indeed gone. Not speaking Arabic, I can't speak directly to MH's question, though NWN's top 50 sim chart used to fairly regularly include one or two Arab-themed sims, and now none are extant. Arab language speakers reading NWN, any ideas?

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Comments

[Jake K]

I'm guessing that when the free google translating service was taken down, it really cut back on people from less prosperous countries being able to participate in Second Life. (pretty much every Arab & Turk I was able to chat with was via the translator service)

[zz bottom]

Yes that is one of the reasons, another is that there are much worrying issues on most of those countries that for sure deny the use of internet.
Or perhaps they just found out open sim.

[muhammad ahmad]

Of all the communities it was the most ignored by the owners of the 2ndLife
for years most Arabs were faced with huge discrimination by other residents for not speaking English
People think its simple to learn English when many are in nations that frown on western culture & ideas so when one starts typing or speaking English the censors take notice of you and family that's why they had choose to not learn or speak it on unprotected channels,
yes loss of translation in viewer combined with the newer tighter rules over last 3 years they all look at other things online,
Even owners of 2ndlife wanted us gone so the biggest communities all sent elders for a big meeting to decide with vote to close a winner
[2ndlifes staff was asked to join the meeting but we was told no one was available thru a phone call then a remark was made they did not want to get blown up jokenly by the rep for hanging up]
people can only go so long knowing those around them only see them as savages and who question there very esistance as human beings because of a difference in the language and faith not by the content of there character,
they spent more money while renting more land then any other community the loss was 2ndlifes.

[muhammad ahmad]

in 12 years can anyone point out any linden showcase of Arab or middle eastern culture..of course not! only thing was destination guide had over 30 of the most popular Arabic Sims in it

[Connie Arida]

To generalise, I think Second life is very "white bread" with any other cultures usually represented by some american or european idea of that culture. Sl is a monoculture. Discuss.

[zz bottom]

No it is not.
the only issue with SL is its freedom that makes it dangerous to many cultures that survive upon fear and guilt!

[Hand Held]

Seems Second Life just got more safe..on a more positive note maybe they all went back to africa were they belong.

[A.J.]

I don't see SL as a great melting pot. It feels very tribal to me. If a certain tribe started to deplete, I don't think it would take long to become virtually extinct.

SL is only friendly when you are able to plant yourself in a large enough tribe that can support an illusion of a well-rounded social experience.

[Karen]

I visited several of those Arab Sims a few years back & they were very friendly while the Sims were just gorgeous builds.Sadly the landmarks now lead to empty ocean now.

[Rin]

The noted decline in Arab-speaking participation and regions in SL does correlate with the various developments we have witnessed happening in the Arab world. And sadly almost all of the autocratic regimes there jumped on any sign of free speech or uncontrollable online service that might allow to spread - for them - dangerous materials and ideas.

I would not be surprised if SL would be hit by this as well and found itself blocked in some countries. And those who spend lots of time in it, are involved and host sims, might found themselves as much of a target for the oppression-forces (I decline to call those people police because it would be an insult to all the proper police people out there) as bloggers or other people who are active online.

I sadly have no data right now on the state of access to SL in those countries or how it might be seen there, but such a dramatic drop in participation as noted in the comment above is rather telling. If this is the real reason cannot be said, but it kind of offers itself as a very likely explanation.

And as far as cultural representation from LLs side goes, they have not put a 'showcase' on any culture as far as I can tell. It is of course the residents who do and create everything and since the biggest communities are from North America and Europe, their ideas are often most prominent. Of course both are not monolithic cultures and cannot be subsumed under one special culture either.

[Peggy Sue]

Most of the Japanese population is leaving due to linden lab allowing stolen content to be sold on the marketplace with very little chance of penalty.

Look at the Jews & Indians they are mostly gone as well.

[Kirsten Corleone]

What about Kingdom of Sand- https://www.flickr.com/photos/kirstentacular/14268227947/in/dateposted-public/ I know it is a role play sim but it seemed to be an Arab community. I know when I visited I saw two men talking in open chat with some form of arabic language. It is also an extremely beautiful sim.
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/KoS/247/26/552

[Hanna]

@@ Kirsten Corleone

Was just recent stories here regarding those sim owners -yes- they have a RPG community that's nice to pretend to be living 1000 years ago.
Also still left and a marvel of both a build is the Sim - Majilis Al Jinn, Sands of Time

Both have something in common they are fantasy sim's with one full time RPG - a community yes but nothing related to the article.

Example 4 years ago i ended up visiting the Arab Four Season sim's for around a month.
it was 18 regions with thousands of real Arab's living in it as a community but not as roleplay

a real life get together for people around the middle east- one day asking how many lived in the Sims and was told 15k people off & on in shared homes
- Shocked & in my travels the number cannot be 50k more like 150k residents lost - paying residents too boot 10,000s of thousands of active residents poof!
- It's worth trying to find out why for the new grid if you ask me.

You make a good point Kirsten that some Arabian inspired Sim's are still left filled with fantasy and adventure-that's kinda like a taco bell store selling tacos in Mexico city.

[Frank Rost]

I believe localization is the key to international success. Understanding an international customer base, catering to their needs and providing them with support if needed can do miracles to customer relationships.

That said, Linden Lab provides nothing even rudimentary related to that. Second Life is for Americans and Americanophiles. You need to be able to communicate in english or you are doomed. Try solving a support issue without speaking english, try finding help topics without speaking english, try to move within SL without speaking english - you will soon find out that this is a daunting experience and most probably leave.

There used to be quite some lively communities of non-english speaking customers and they used to be supported by Linden Lab. The Lab decided to remove this support with Rand and Noelle Linden just being the last ones to get the boot and since then basically all of those communities have basically vanished.

[Shockwave Yareach]

I believe they got a double whammy. When the translator disappeared a numbers of my groups members from Germany and Spain dropped out. No doubt some of that is at work. Combined with the chaos in so much of the Middle East and folks there simply need their attention on real goings on.

As for SL being white bread - if you make your area boring, that's your fault. I'm a furry and my private quarters and sandbox are in orbit, stars slowly rotating around it. We have games, dances, movie nights... All in animal costume. You can call it many thing, but "white bread" will never be among them. I've also personally seen zombie shootemup sims and mech warrior sims and once upon a time, bab5 sims. If everything you see is white people in America, you really should explore some more.

[Petal Abdool]

They left due to western perception of superiority