If you want a really quick and revealing snapshot of what's wrong with Second Life, look at this seemingly innocuous and ordinary tech help thread called "Nuts & Bolts* at Second Citizen: (scroll up to the start of the thread).
Here's what happened:
1. A newbie asked what time it was.
2. A half dozen oldbies told him the history of the watch.
3. A midbie told him an easy way to find out what time it is *all by himself*.
4. Oldbies and newbie suck-ups to the system, wishing to keep the
secrets of time-keeping to themselves, responded hysterically saying
that telling the time does serious damage to watch and time-keeping
history-telling.
5. The midbie stuck to his guns and kept telling everyone the simple secret of the time.
6. The oldbies began to bully and insult the time-teller, hoping to kill him.
7. Seeing that his own necessary status-seeking was jeopardized, the
newbie began to deny that he sought the time and began to butter up the
time-keepers and insult the time-teller, figuring that now he knew how
to tell time by himself, it was ok to do that, cost-free.
8. The midbie kept insisting not only on what time it was, but how it
can be told, and that many other simple secrets like that could be
accessed, if only...
9. Other oldbies began to ask whether anybody really knows what time it is, or does anybody really care? about time?
10. The newbie tried to erase the record of time-telling, with a post
appealing to the game gods to close the thread -- this had the added
value of ushering him into the ranks of the all-secret-knowers of How
to Tell Time.
11. Oldbies kept trying to silence the time-teller, trying to reassert
their time-keeping and time-telling authority. They ushered in
reinforcements, publishing wierd Internet pictures purporting to be the
time-teller to distract from the actual importance of telling the time,
simply. They began to claim that telling time was the symptom of a psychiatric disorder.
12. Fearing for his reputation and game status if he sided with a
time-teller, and wishing to reinforce his now apprentice-status to
important time-keeping oldbies, the newbie muted the time-teller.
13. The game god punted, noting that there might be multiple ways to
tell time, there wasn't any such thing as "the time," given that twice
a day, even a broken watch is correct.
14. The time-teller continued to tell what time it was, and also to point out what happened here.
If someone asks what time it was, why not find a clock and look at it? Obviously they have internet access and go to www.whattimeisit.com or something like that.
Posted by: Nimrod Yaffle | 04/07/2006 at 10:22 AM
*Can go to ;-)
Posted by: nimrod yaffle | 04/07/2006 at 10:23 AM
you forget to say the time teller was called prokofy neva, aka public enemy N°1 and peoples champion
it give all the reasons to bash the "time teller"
Posted by: Kyrah Aattoir | 04/07/2006 at 01:35 PM
This is the second post in so many days that just cuts off in mid sentence.
It's a little weird.
Posted by: Schwartz Guillaume | 04/07/2006 at 01:58 PM
Actually the newbies response to you was well reasoned and very true Prok.
or to paraphrase you .."If you want a really quick and revealing snapshot of what's wrong with ==Prokofy Neva==, look at this seemingly innocuous and ordinary tech help thread called "Nuts & Bolts* at Second Citizen"
Sorry, but he's right, sometimes you just won't shut up. You have a huge tendency to make a small situation a HUGE problem. You rant at the smallest excuse.
Posted by: Red Mars | 04/07/2006 at 03:17 PM
Yeah, I think this was a good one to pick to rant and rave and illustrate what's wrong with the world.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | 04/07/2006 at 06:19 PM