IMPORTANT! - A note to potential new members to SL Bloggers - PLEASE READ!

[Zoe Connolly]

I would guess that nearly half of the people who apply for membership to SL Bloggers are rejected. I've banned others from this Network later because they are "Atomic 1st Worlders" posting photographs of their Real Life children and have nothing to do with SL. This is a group of Second LIfe Bloggers who write, podcast, and create photographs and video about Second Life.

In order for your application to be accepted, you need to have an account in Second Life (SL) AND a blog, podcast, Twitter, flickr, YouTube, or some means of communicating about SL other than this NING group.

You should be communicating about SL at least part of the time.

And if you do not have an avatar in SL or you do not have a blog, micro-blog, podcast, or flickr or YouTube account that covers some aspect of SL at least part of the time, you must have a compelling reason for joining SL Bloggers.

Submitting applications without a proper URL with at least partial SL related content, or without references to an SL avatar, may be rejected.

A typical rejected application gives a RL birthday of 14 years old and/or only lists a bad URL, or a URL like http://www.google.com/ or http://www.none (???), or an email address.

[Zoe Connolly]

okay....I've sorted through and declined the 13 and 14 year olds attempting to seek membership ;)

I've also cleared others through to membership status.

I apologize for taking so long to approve. Some of you have been in limbo for several months (yikes!)

Anywho...I'm caught up now and should be able to stay on top of new member requests in a much more timely manner ;)

Thank you for your patience.

~ Zoe

[Zoe Connolly]

Even worthy causes may be rejected.

I have to draw the line at even very worthy causes such as cancer research. It pains me to do so, but if I allow the membership of a cancer NING network here, I open the floodgates for everything.

Obviously, if it was a SecondLife Relay-For-Life group that would be a different situation.

Again, this is a Second Life oriented group and will remain that way.

[Adric Antfarm]

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a Second Life Blogger to blog mostly about Second Life. To avoid anyone questioning calls however, you may want to set a bar however. Perhaps say that x% (75?) of your posts should be related to Second Life.

Not only should you have an avatar (and a ton of alts) you should be on a decent amount of time. I often suspect a lot of bloggers are blogging from memory.

[Zoe Connolly]

Hi Adric,

Good point on the % of posts. I considered that, but again it's more of a judgment call on my part.

I think I'm VERY generous on acceptance, but some applications are just far too obviously not SL related.

[Terry Toland]

Really, when there are so many other Ning groups out there (and the ability to make your own), asking for those expectations is not a lot. It's not like you're reviewing content quality and setting a standard that way. I think part of the problem is there are people that assume that 'Second Life' doesn't refer to a program, despite proper-noun capitalization. This happens often in FlickR groups, by SL and non-SL members a like.

Sometimes the SL-members can even be snotty about being in the wrong. @_@

[Zoe Connolly]

Just adding a comment here to bump this to the top of the discussion list.

I still get dozens of membership apps from children who are under 16 years old who have nothing to do with blogging or SL.

[spyvspyaeon]

I do agree with your concern.

[Dale Innis]

That's so weird! Do they just apply to every Ning in the universe, just in case? Or is it some bot pretending to be a child to hundreds of Nings for some reason? It is a funny world...

[Botgirl Questi]

I know there was a good reason you were head of the Virtual Vixens. Keep up the great work!

[Aubrey Monday]

Omg! I waited like a couple weeks to finally get in here.
Thank you and I understand your concern about mixing RL and SL.
However, my account here and onlines are purely SL..XD