A week or so ago, Hamlet Au posted an account of how an avatar called Nexus Burbclave was starting a new project to highlight beautiful builds on the mainland. I read up about his Mainland Renaissance Project and, as Designing Worlds was playing a show about the mainland – Riding the Trails, Riding the Rails, which will be broadcast on November 7th, I decided to contact Nexus and see if he would be interested in appearing on the show.
And something odd happened.
When I searched for Nexus Burbclave, there was no avatar with that name.
Well, unusual name. I checked the spelling again from his blog – but still no joy. I wondered if he posted under one name and had an active avatar under another name – which would be a little strange. It seemed to be the only explanation – at least, it did until I received an email in response to the one I posted on his blog.
Because Nexus Burbclave was indeed his avatar name. The reason I couldn’t find him was that his avatar account has been closed by Linden Lab because of a billing problem – one that he has been desperately trying to resolve ever since he learned about it.
In fact, not only has he been locked out – his girlfriend has too, because she surfs from the same household and thus has the same IP account.
It all stems from a failure to make an automatic debit payment of $10 in June – although his account has been working perfectly ever since and he had no notice that anything was wrong with his account – in fact, his tier and membership payments, apart from the one in June, went through perfectly. For the last week and a half, ever since he learned about the problem, Nexus has been trying to rectify the error, but with no success – in fact, it’s been six days since he supplied all the information that was required – and his account is still in limbo. You can read all the details here: Is Linden Lab about to kill Nexus Burbclave?
This is someone who loves Second Life and is working to make it better. We’d love to have him on the show … the Renaissance Project is very exciting and supportive of the neglected mainland. But in three days time, on October 26th, as Nexus himself says he faces losing, “my account, my land, my creations, and a part of my virtual identity altogether.”
