The Closet.
This amazing new product lets you drop in an item of clothing, and a picture of that clothing (or shoes, or hair) and click through the items in your closet. Then you can choose to have the item GIVEn to you, or to AUTOMATICALLY WEAR the item. Note: Please use copy items. If you find any bugs, please contact me and let me know. I'm leaving it at my welcome center for you to buy for 0$. cyberdatastorm.com:8002:SandBox (yes the doors open and close...) Note 2: The automatic WEAR only works if you are on dreamgrid, or if you own your own grid your on and have OSSL functions enabled. :) Note 3: This was Arielle's idea. So I think she should have the first one. But anybody can get one. Enjoy!

* Black White Village *
A small, sleepy village on the brink of mayoral elections. There are posters on the streetlights everywhere. Really annoying ...
* * * *
* Black White Village *
Ein kleiner verschlafener Ort, der kurz vor den Bürgermeisterwahlen steht. Überall hängen Plakate an den Straßenlaternen. Echt nervig ...

Ich wünsche Euch für das neue Jahr: Eine Hand die dich festhält, ein Netz, das dich auffängt, ein Schild, das dir den Weg weist und 1000 Sterne, die dir diesen Weg erhellen.
I wish you for the new year: a hand that holds you tight, a net that catches you, a sign that shows you the way and a thousand stars that light your path.

Kaum zu glauben, aber nun liegt das letzte Neujahr schon wieder ein Jahr zurück. Heute ist schon wieder Silvester. Das Jahr ist geradezu an uns vorbei geflogen. Es kommt mir so vor, als ob das letzte Neujahr erst gestern gewesen wäre. Aber nun steht das neue Jahr schon vor der Tür. Ich wünsche euch, das ihr heute einen wunderschönen Abend verbringt. Habt Spaß, feiert das vergangene Jahr und kommt gut in das Neue. Für das neue Jahr wünsche ich euch, das alle eure Träume in Erfüllung gehen, das ihr die Vorsätze, die ihr euch vorgenommen habt, umsetzen könnt und das ihr gesund bleibt. Alles Gute für das neue Jahr!
Eure Nasti

UPDATE: The Adachi shopping regions will not be reopening. Visit the Tribute Club at the CopyKat Collective Center to hang out and dance with old and new friends.
login.friends-grid.com:8002:Collective Central

*The Past And Future of Adachi*
~2012 to 2023...and beyond!~

Adachi is an area of Tokyo, Japan - a place Oni has a deep connection to. Oni opened the first Adachi in OS eleven years ago. In 2020, Oni opened the CopyKat Grid, with the Adachi regions at it's core. CopyKat quickly became the #2 destination in OS. Why? Well, just look at the glowing comments people made about Oni when I posted about his retirement.

After Oni's retirement, he gave ownership of the Adachi OARs to Maurice, a member of the CopyKat Collective. We are reopening Adachi again to shoppers within a week. See you at there soon!

Photo: Adachi Fireworks Festival. 2023.

I would like to collect a list of those who make original items or systems or scripts for Opensim. Currently I have the following listed :

Vivosim
Arcadia
Encantada
Monentes
Ashland
Lunaria

I'd love to add to this list if anyone can help me out, please. These will be listed in an information office I wish to set up with a poster leading to a link for each one. If you happen to be a creator and would either like or not like to be included, please let me know. Thank you.

I am a little confused because I see people complaining when they go to regions and try to copy stuff and get upset when it comes up "no copy" or there is a sign posted to the region that says, "Items here are not copiable". Some may not like what I have to say and some may agree with it, either way I don't care. The most of the things on my residential or educational regions are built by me. Not that I don't get furniture and plants which I can't build yet, but I do my own building and my builds are unique to my regions, made specifically for them, so you'll excuse me if I don't feel like sharing that with everybody and anybody who comes along. I did the work, I made the effort, I designed it and I did so to make it unique so why should I have to share it? Can you not come up with your own ideas and use your own creative juices to make your own unique things? Yes Open Sim is free, but that doesn't mean that just because someone is using it, they have to "give" everybody else their stuff that they've created and built. I've seen nowhere in the literature about Open Sim that it says you have to share your stuff. What it does do is give you a platform in which to create, develop and design for other people to enjoy.
Now I can understand if it's stuff that people know full well has been pirated from Second Life, which a large percentage of stuff in Open Sim is, however there are some outstanding creators, programmers, scripters, developers and designers who make their own original materials and if they chose to charge for that stuff that's their right, though I know most of them do not, they give it away freely out of the goodness of their heart. That said, I do give my stuff away, but it is located in our Masala Al Kohav region which is a whole region of nothing but freebies which includes original content and those things I've picked up from around Open Sim. The one thing I try to do is make sure that the original creator's name is on it and I can tell you that if it's pirated from Second Life the creator's name that you will see is NOT the original creator. So, here's the deal, if you visit any of my regions in grid.genesis-roleplay.org:8002 that are open to the public to visit, and you see something you like, just go to our Masala Al Kohav region and you'll probably find the very same item there all boxed up and ready to go for you. If you see something you like in one of my regions, and it's not in our Mall Region, just shoot me a message and ask me nicely, you'll probably get the item in a couple of days depending on how often I'm on.
If you don't like how I do things, just remember this....You don't pay my grid costs.

I had for this lady a deep respect and appreciation and so created this memorial wall to her memory to reflect the beauty of the soul who was Veritas McMaster. May she know eternal peace and beauty as greatly and deeply as she created it in virtual for all to enjoy. She brought many smiles to many people may her joy be full in her eternal slumber.

!! NEUHEIT IN OS !! BAAALD.. kommen die beiden Bodys Luna & Chonsu (based on Legacy) in den Laden. Dazu gibt es natürlich für Frau und Mann auch Kleidung. Darum ist es im Moment auch ziemlich still bei uns im Grid .. ich bin mächtig am arbeiten. Spezieller Dank für die Bodys geht ans Adult-life Grid, Moonrose Grid & das Mare Grid. Vielen Dank für Euer Vertrauen !

!! NOVELTY IN OS !! SOOOOON .. the two bodys Luna & Chonsu (based on Legacy) come into the store. Of course, there are also clothes for women and men. That's why it's pretty quiet in our grid at the moment. I'm really working. Special thanks for the bodys go to the Adult-life Grid, Moonrose Grid & the Mare Grid. Thank you for your trust !

Kerzenschein und Christlaterne leuchten hell die Weihnacht ein.
Glocken läuten nah und ferne,
Friede soll auf Erden sein.
Wir wünschen dir gesegnete Weihnachtsfeiertage
und einen guten Start ins neue Jahr!
Genie & Bella
Candlelight and Christmas lantern brightly illuminate Christmas.
Bells ring near and far,
Peace shall be on earth.
We wish you a Merry Christmas
and a good start into the new year!
Genie & Bella

Sometimes a few greifers come to your sim and they use a trick to crash your sim or create lag. They do it by wearing a device which runs many scripts, and each script is created to do intense math calculations which take a lot of cpu time.
Wouldn't it be great if you had x-ray vision and could see who these people are? Now you can. Just wear my "person lag detector" and it will show you how many scripts a person has running, how much memory their scripts are using on your sim (some are designed to eat up all your sims memory), and how much time they are using of your cpu (some are designed to use up all your cpu with calculations). Get it free, now at Wizardry! :) All you do is attach the device to hud center or center2.

***POPLAR TREE PACK (Populus Nigra Italica): Up to 4 of them using only 1 single prim! Smooth animation on leaves // Seasonal textures included! Available for FREE and FULLPERM at FOREST AREA, BOX 08. Enjoy :)

Today I've released my last addition to the Fairies and Sprites of the Glen.

The Sprites of the Glen with Magic are now out in the enchanted section of the shop.
These like the other 2 versions come in 5 colours and this time they have a little extra trail of light that flashes around them (it's magic ;)).
I don't believe these are any more mischievous than the others however they insisted they were, it's probably just because their feelings were hurt because they were last to go out, I'm sure they'll get over it.

They are animesh and directions on set up are on the enclosed notecard.

Have a fantastical day!

My apologies for the repost, I was trying to edit the post not delete it :( I got click happy.

Fairy of the Glen is available in the fantasy section of the shop. They are animesh with 5 styles to choose from.

Scripts are thanks to Arcadia Shop. Directions on activation are included in the box

The fairies float and fly around fluttering their wings. The animations are in a different order for each fairy in order to avoid synching if you put out more than one.

They add a little action wherever they are.

Have a great day!

ANNOUNCEMENT - ANKÜNDIGUNG


[GERMAN VERSION]


Liebe Freunde and Starkies,

was wir heute ankündigen werden, fällt uns nicht leicht. Niki und ich, Mathilda, haben beschlossen, den Betrieb von Stark Islands nach dem 30. Juni 2021 einzustellen.
Wir haben uns viele Gedanken darüber gemacht, unter welchen Voraussetzungen wir Stark hätten weiterlaufen lassen könnten. Aber letztendlich hätte es zu viele Änderungen geben müssen und Stark wäre nicht mehr das gleiche gewesen. Außerdem haben wir uns außerhalb von OpenSim eine neue Aufgabe gestellt. Einerseits bedauern wir, Stark zu schließen, nach all der harten Arbeit, die wir in dieses Paradies investiert haben. Aber wir sind auch sehr stolz darauf, dass wir es bis nach ganz weit oben auf der Liste der beliebtesten Regionen von OSW geschafft zu haben. Das wäre ohne euch, unsere wunderbare Gemeinschaft, nicht möglich gewesen.
Deshalb möchten Niki und ich uns an dieser Stelle bedanken. Danke an alle Starkies für eure Unterstützung und Treue. Danke an unsere DJ’s! Jeder einzelne von Euch hat mit seinen mittlerweile legendären Sets zum Erfolg von Stark beigetragen. Danke an das Zeta Worlds Team, ohne dessen Unterstützung der stabile Betrieb einer solch leistungshungrigen Region wie Stark nicht möglich gewesen wäre. Danke auch an alle Besucher, die jederzeit herzlich willkommen waren und viele nette Kommentare und Likes hinterlassen haben. Wir wünschen euch allen von ganzem Herzen alles, alles Gute!
Für OpenSim wünsche ich mir, dass die Leute, die Grids, viel stärker zusammenarbeiten und nicht gegeneinander. Ihr seid ein Grid! Das Hypergrid! Nur gemeinsam hat OpenSim eine Chance.
Wir werden euch im Auge behalten und vielleicht, irgendwann, sehen wir uns wieder.

In diesem Sinne, lebt wohl!
Niki & Mathilda Stark

Why there are people they give their avatars names like "Nazi German" and "Adolf Hitler"?
Why they visit a sim like Stark and say they hate gays and threaden people to find them in real and kill them?
Why are people so full of hate?
Why can't they stay away from Stark and let live people their (virtual) life in the way they want?
Lots of questions that I don't have an answer to!

But one thing is absolutely clear for me:

WE DON'T WANT GUYS LIKE YOU HERE AT STARK!

So please stay away and spread your hate somewhere else. Or better: Don't spread it anywhere!

And stop crying in the Stark OSW review section because we banned you several times. We would do it anytime again!

Announcement regarding the passing of DJ Azraella.

To the community, friends, and fellow artists,

It is with profound sadness that I am writing to inform you that DJ Azraella passed away peacefully surrounded by family just weeks after her final event and her public post regarding the lack of process on Neverworld grid. I am her surviving spouse. Alithea (her real name) spent her final months bringing her passion, music, and talent to this platform as a DJ and music producer. Music was a large parts of her life, and she deeply valued the genuine connections she made with her listeners, fans, and fellow performers.
Regarding the recent events: Alithea spoke the absolute truth about the abuse she experienced and the systemic failure that followed. We are deeply grateful to the community members, onlookers, and witnesses who saw through the edited timelines, called out the manipulation, and stood up to defend her integrity when she was at her most vulnerable. Your solidarity meant the world to her, and it means the world to me. The institutional response here was entirely compromised, but the court of public opinion has already spoken. No amount of righteous indignation, fabricated evidence, or protective bias from Neverworld grid management can rewrite history or erase the reality of how she was treated in her final weeks. This will be my only communication on this matter. I am completely disconnecting from this Platform to focus on my grief and to honour my wife’s memory in the real world, where her true legacy, her music, and her staunch integrity remain entirely unblemished. Thank you to everyone who brought her joy, danced to her music, and stood by her side. Sincerely, Road Kill.

Reposted on behalf of DJ Azraella.
Why Never Neverworld.

There is something particularly bleak about a community calling itself “The Friendly Grid” while apparently treating abusive behaviour as a problem best solved by telling the person on the receiving end: “You have a mute button.” Welcome to Neverworld Grid, where, judging by my experience, “friendly” may be less a standard of conduct than a decorative slogan attached to the front door.

I was a DJ in a virtual worlds for years lately as a visiting performer at Neverworld. By the point this incident occurred, however, my personal circumstances had changed. I am dying. That is not written for melodrama or sympathy. It matters because it explains what it cost me physically to be there at all. Despite being seriously ill and largely confined to bed, I got out of bed and DJed one final event to say thank you to my audience for supporting me and to draw people in one last time, which also helped to promote Neverworld Grid.

The reward was memorable, although perhaps not in quite the way their promotional department might prefer. During the event, I was verbally attacked and abused by a member of Neverworld Grid.

Behind every avatar is a human being. The fact that an interaction takes place in a virtual world does not make the behaviour, or its effect on another person, imaginary. The following day, despite the physical toll, I got out of bed again and raised a formal complaint with the owner of Neverworld Grid. I expected, at minimum, the complaint to be taken seriously. What I encountered instead was dismissal. No action was taken against the resident. My complaint was pretty much ignored and seen as nothing other than an interpersonal issue despite the fact I was a victim of one of their residents.

And then came this: “You have a mute button.”

And there, in five small words, lies the much larger problem. Of course I have a mute button. A mute button is a useful tool for an individual. It is not a substitute for moderation. Those are two entirely different things. A mute button allows the recipient to stop hearing somebody's behaviour. Moderation determines whether that behaviour is acceptable within the community in the first place. Confusing the two produces a wonderfully convenient system for administrators: the offender remains, the complainant makes them disappear from view, and management is spared the disagreeable business of actually managing anything. Problem solved. Well, invisible, which is apparently close enough. Imagine applying this philosophy anywhere else. Someone behaves disgracefully in a cinema and the management responds: 'you can use ear-plugs.' One can only admire the efficiency. No difficult confrontation. No standards requiring enforcement. No possibility of upsetting a patron who may have a life-time ticket. Just mute and carry on.

Neverworld Grid presents itself with the tagline: “The friendly grid.” That is precisely why this incident matters. If you advertise friendliness as part of your identity, then friendliness ceases to be merely a pleasant aspiration. It becomes a claim about the community you operate. And claims should survive contact with reality. A genuinely friendly community is not one in which nobody ever behaves badly. Such a place does not exist outside advertising copy and unusually optimistic children's television. A friendly community is one in which antisocial behaviour is taken seriously when it occurs. It is demonstrated by what administrators do when unfriendliness becomes inconvenient. That is the test. Not the logo. Not the website. Not the slogan. Not smiling avatars standing beneath carefully selected promotional photographs. The test comes when somebody crosses the line and management has to decide whether its proclaimed standards actually mean anything.

In my case, I believe Neverworld Grid failed that test spectacularly. I cannot state why the owner chose not to take action. Only the owner can answer that. But users are entitled to ask uncomfortable questions when enforcement appears absent.

What behaviour actually results in consequences?
Does a resident's financial contribution affect how complaints concerning them are handled?
Are paying residents subject to precisely the same behavioural standards as visitors are?
What happens after a formal complaint?
And perhaps most importantly: What behaviour would actually be serious enough for Neverworld Grid management to intervene rather than telling the recipient, “You have a mute button”? These are questions created by the apparent absence of action. If Neverworld Grid wants people to believe that payment of tier guarantees renters a friendly safe place, there is a very simple way of showing it: Have standards and apply them.

There is another unpleasant implication to the “you have a mute button” response. It transfers responsibility. The person accused of behaving abusively does not apparently need to change their behaviour. Instead, the person experiencing it must change theirs. You must mute. You must avoid. You must adapt. Management remains comfortably above the unpleasantness while the individual affected quietly rearranges their virtual existence around somebody else's deplorable conduct. That isn't moderation. It is outsourcing moderation to the victim. And it creates an obvious incentive for the worst personalities in any community: behave however you please as long as you keep paying. Eventually you can achieve the remarkable distinction of being peacefully surrounded by people who either tolerate you or cannot see or hear you. Community harmony, achieved through selective deafness as decreed by management.

There is another aspect of this which a mute button cannot undo: the physical effect of the encounter has already happened. Verbal abuse is not experienced solely as words arriving through speakers or appearing on a screen. Human beings respond physically to confrontation and distress. The body does not first consult the graphics card to determine whether an attack is sufficiently real to react to it. For a healthy person, that reaction can be deeply unpleasant. For somebody who is dying, already seriously ill and functioning with greatly diminished reserves, the consequences of that stress can carry considerably greater weight and could even be the last stress that body can take. And once that distress has occurred, telling the person “you have a mute button” is not a remedy.

The button cannot take you backwards in time. It cannot prevent the encounter that already happened. It cannot erase the stress already inflicted. And it certainly cannot answer the question of why the behaviour that caused the complaint apparently attracted no consequence. There is a peculiar cruelty in dismissing that distinction which no amount of virtual-world branding can disguise.

I did not expect sainthood. I did not expect somebody to erect a statue of my avatar outside the welcome centre. I expected basic human decency and a complaint to be treated seriously.

Apparently that must be the 'Super Ultimate Friend of the Owner' premium feature. Neverworld Grid calls itself friendly. People considering investing their time, creativity, communities and money there should understand what “friendly” meant when my complaint was placed in front of its owner. Because communities reveal themselves not through their slogans but through the behaviour they are prepared to tolerate. Anybody can write: “We are the friendly grid.” The interesting question is what happens when somebody isn't friendly. In my experience, the answer was depressingly simple: Nothing. The complaint was effectively binned. Apparently making bad actors into clouds is your only option meanwhile Management avoided doing anything meaningful other than preserve a monthly tier payment. And the slogan will survive. Perhaps that is the most impressive achievement of all. In virtual worlds, apparently even irony can be rendered in 3D.

Neverworld Grid also seems very keen on telling people that it isn't Second Life.

Second Life gets plenty of criticism, some of it deserved. One complaint you hear is that region owners can make their own rules and, if you don't follow them, eject or ban you. That can certainly be irritating. People can make ridiculous rules. People can throw you out for reasons you think are unfair. Give somebody control over a virtual patch of land and occasionally they begin behaving as though Buckingham Palace has asked for the keys back. But there is another side to it. If you enter somebody's region, you know they have rules and that breaking them can have consequences. If you behave badly enough, somebody can actually do something about it. After my experience with Neverworld Grid, I find myself wondering why removing that is supposed to be an improvement. If the alternative to somebody saying “These are the rules here” is somebody behaving abusively and the person being abused getting told “You have a mute button,” which system is actually friendlier?

There has to be some middle ground between petty little dictators throwing people off regions because they don't like the colour of their shoes and a free-for-all where nobody wants to intervene.
Rules can be abused. So can the absence of rules. The difference is that when there are sensible community standards, ordinary people know where they stand. Don't abuse people. Don't deliberately disrupt things. Don't make somebody else's experience miserable. Hardly tyranny. And if somebody does cross those lines, there should be consequences. Neverworld seems to dislike the way people in Second Life exercise control over their own regions. Fine. But what is being offered instead? If the answer is greater freedom, then whose freedom are we talking about? The freedom of somebody to enjoy an event without being abused? Or the freedom of somebody to behave however they like without anybody in authority becoming involved? Because those freedoms collide eventually. Mine did. And apparently I had a mute button.

Then there is the question of tier. People pay to be on grids like this. That makes it reasonable to ask whether somebody who keeps paying can expect considerably more tolerance than somebody who just visits but still contributes to the success of the grid. I cannot prove that this is what happened in my case. But the response I received certainly gives me reason to ask. If somebody pays tier and behaves disgracefully, what happens? Are they warned? Are there consequences? Or does everybody they upset simply get reminded where the mute button is? Because if the practical message becomes: Pay your tier and management will look the other way, then who exactly does that attract? Most decent people don't need immunity from basic standards of behaviour. Creators don't need it. DJs don't need it. People running events don't need it. People who simply want somewhere pleasant to spend a few hours don't need it. The people who benefit most from a place where bad behaviour carries few consequences are, rather obviously, the people most likely to behave badly. That seems an extraordinary foundation for something calling itself “The Friendly Grid.”

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be different from Second Life. But different does not automatically mean better. If Second Life says, in effect, “behave yourself here or somebody may throw you out,” while Neverworld's answer to abuse is “you have a mute button,” I know which approach now looks more like a community and which looks more like an incompetent Management avoidance strategy. Being different is easy. Being better requires rather more than a tagline. If Neverworld Grid believes this account misrepresents its standards, it can explain them.

What happens when someone reports serious verbal abuse? What behaviour actually results in action?
Are paying residents treated exactly the same as everyone else? And why was “You have a mute button” considered an adequate response to my complaint?

Those answers would tell people considerably more about Neverworld Grid than any slogan ever could.
Until then, perhaps the tagline deserves a small amendment:

“Neverworld Grid — The Friendly Grid. You have a mute button.”
or
" Welcome to Neverworld the Friendly Grid where you may have to mute your fellow residents"
or perhaps as almost happened in my case:
" Neverworld the Friendly Grid (we let you away with murder just keep paying you'll see)"

The bottom line has to be this:

If you claim friendliness you automatically accept a duty of care to all users. and paying doesn't excuse unfriendliness. Community standards you claim must be enforced swiftly and across all tiers of membership and extend to visitors. I was told my abuser hadn't broken any TOS. I guess there is no actual TOS beyond the owner's mood. Yes you guessed it my abuser is a friend of the owner.

My final advice to anyone looking for a new home...lift the carpets before you decide.

I won't see a resolution to this issue or see Virtual again but that doesn't mean you can't learn from my experience.

Azraella.

It was truly my honor to be a part of the celebration of Star & Drew and to help create a day that reflected the two of them. Their wedding was filled with love, laughter, friendship, and more than a little bit of magic.

As I put together this video, I added a few AI-created moments to bring to life some of those little moments that couldn't actually happen in-world, but somehow played out so perfectly in our minds. The glances, the gestures, the laughter, the quiet moments between them, the things we could all imagine even if our virtual world couldn't quite make them happen. For me, that is part of the magic of creating in a virtual world: sometimes our imaginations get to fill in the spaces between what is possible and what we wish could be.

To Star & Drew, may this be only the beginning of a beautiful adventure together, and may you always find as much happiness in each other as you did on this day.

We wish you all the happiness in the worlds! ❤️

Click the link to watch the video
https://youtu.be/1XIlsWOzL0c?si=VMTsXwF7QE3h4LRU