Second Thoughts

Hobos and Habbo

Philip Linden scheduled an office hour the other day -- you can find him doing that unexpectedly on his "first life" profile. I camped the spawn with a group of other residents, some very old, some very new, and we had a very interesting conversation.

It was refreshingly free of that kind of sympering to Lindens and attempts to silence other residents with reprimands that you find in almost every other Linden encounter -- something about Philip's presence achieves that.

While we were waiting for the King to spawn, we had a vigorous argument among ourselves which he then later tuned into. So I've included that in the transcript to follow up on some of my past articles.

Terra Antiqua

Long before I was banned today from the stodgy Terra Nova "academics' blog" by the churlish and vindictive Dan Hunter, I've been drafting this essay for some months now about the spiraling downward of what I must now call Terra Antiqua. I became more and more alarmed at the perilous state of the intellectual discourse around Second Life and other virtual worlds there, and how much critical debate was being stifled by put-downs, reprimands, and having a forum where mainly credentialed men spoke. (There was a flurry of female guest authors, some of whom tended to talk in stereotypical fashion about sex and feelings, and then it was over, and now the current guest author, a male business specialist unfamiliar with gaming, has put it back to "normal").

Sadly, the discussion in what used to be the go-to thinky watering hole for the meta-take on games and worlds has become more and more frozen and static and driven by corporate and establishment concerns, more and more an orthodoxy in support of corporate goals, more and more a decoration that is supposed to enhance very large deals in a frenzied arena that has propelled from obscurity into fame a handful of decidedly mediocre minds.

Terra Nova is a website that isn't really an academic site per se as far as I can tell, i.e. not on the webserver of a university as an official project; it was founded by academics who were in non-ludology fields who tried to make a go of making ludology itself respectable. By themselves, shorn of their games, none of these names would mean anything; even with their increasing celebrity status on major media like CNN's "Virtual Worlds Summit," most people would not find them household words.

If before, Terra Nova, whatever its "egghead status" was open enough so that people like me could drop in, and various anonymous students or business people or tekkies without an academic bent could express their comments, today, Terra Nova is trying its hardest to become a School. That is, not a Forum where a variety of ideas are debated vigorously and compellingly, but a School that is trying to create its canon and to achieve Orthodoxy. It's like Clickable Culture, which once seemed to be a very independent and critical publication welcoming robust debate about game companies and social media makers, but in time, given Tony Walsh's increasing need to make a living as a consultant, it became more of a bulletin board about the latest panels to which Tony had been invited to speak, or the latest games and technological inventions he had been invited to review, turning it more into a technology beat than a critical review. What's been sad about this corporatizing of these formerly independent and open fora is that they've been accompanied with really nasty, rancorous and vindictive debates, symbolized by the summary banning of me -- and the creation of a false moral equivalency of simultaneously banning an unhinged stalker who has used sexist and vulgar language to attack me and real-life disclosure. I suppose this is because very big interests are at stake here.

We Need a New Kind of Philanthropy

We need a new philanthropy. That's because the old philanthrophy, like the old media and the old industries and businesses are going by the wayside -- in fact they've been very much connected. In the old days, you huffed and puffed, made a grant proposal, spent a lot of your organization's and your own time trying to frame and pitch it and get the grant, do it, then report on it, and all the way hope you can get in the newspaper or on TV to prove that you have the influence and reach that the foundation wishes you to have. Enormous amounts of staff time get spent on the getting, spending, and reporting of grants, and it takes away from the substance.

We could get a new philanthropy by using new social media and virtual worlds, but it's worth treading carefully so as not to fall into the tarpit of the cycle of the old philanthropy and media -- trying to appeal to foundations' brand spanking new "digital arts programs" and get the hits in the old media. Sure, there aren't metrics developed. But if you can't tell whether you've accomplished something to make the world a better place, then you haven't framed your mission -- or maybe you shouldn't have one.

I've made a hugely long and rambling podcast about all this, but I'll sketch out some theses here.

There are at least 10 ways a new kind of philanthropy could get started with the combination of social media and virtuality in worlds and games.

What's the Difference Between the Internet and the Metaverse?

In the Metaverse, everybody knows you're a dog.

Meniere's Disease

Meniere's disease, in case you haven't heard, is characterized by dizziness, feeling off-balance and even falling, ringing in the ears, and such. So if you thought Van Gogh was "suicidal" or "cut off his ear" as a symptom of a profoundly disturbing psychiatric disease like a bi-polar condition or something, you'd be wrong. Evidently, he just suffered from Meniere's disease. Or at least that's what the Wikinistas would have you believe, as they are working overtime now to cook up this notion of Van Gogh's problems -- heedless of the fact that few, if any, other Meniere's patients have cut off their ears. Don't let the facts get in the way of a good yarn. Of course, people cite the JAMA articles -- and not the *rebuttals* that came later in JAMA. Read the Washing Post for a good discussion of this increasingly popular Internet parlour game. -- now played by Daniel Linden, head of Linden Lab's Community Affairs department, who loves to appear inworld in a skin depicting himself as a replica of Van Gogh's self-portrait.

A Funny Feeling

I don't know what it is. It isn't the Forbes article hating on SL, or the Digitas guy at Cannes saying SL is full of pervs, a story showing up in the Google news ticker. All that's to be expected, and my funny feeling came even before all this.

The funny feeling isn't even about the LindEx, which is the source of funny feelings for many people. Yes, it's dropped at least a point -- that is, for practical purposes, looked at from the perspective of the cash-out. For the longest time, months and months, you could cash out by parking a packet at the 265 mark and waiting no more than a few days, especially over a weekend. You put it at the 266 mark only if you were in a hurry; but now you have to put it there if you are willing to wait reasonably, with all the millions piled up at 265; and really, 267 is more prudent. So it's dropping, and the Supply Linden account is printing and selling less Lindens, which is was doing to "keep it stable" (and devaluing the cost of labour).

Or could the feeling come from seeing traffic cut in half on even some top venue places, or falling precipitously? I suppose that's good "therapy" for when the Lindens take out traffic for ideological reasons, but many ascribe that drop in traffic -- and sales -- to a summer slump. It isn't really properly summer yet until after July 4th, in my mind, but may be it is for some people. I think when I go to a Frogg Marlowe and JayCatt Nino concert and I can get on the sim in the middle of the concert which is usually "You cannot enter because the server is full" that I start asking: where are the people? That's always the question to ask in SL: now is no different.

No, I got a funny feeling from something else, and it was a while ago.

The A-Team?

Well...Judge for yourself!

Sometimes words fail!

Here's Meta Linden's and Chadrick Linden's office hours today!

"How many Grateful Dead Concerts?" "Zero".

Daniel Linden (yes *that* Daniel Linden) actually showed up for an office hour in SL today. While still reeling from the shock, a group of us managed to lob in some questions past not only griefing chickadees upset about a growing ghost prim problem obstructing movement on servers, but the usual gaggle of absolutely insufferable fangirlz and fanboyz who remain awestruck at Linden power, can never ask them a critical question, can only fawn obsequiously before them, and worst of all, try to knock down anyone else willing to ask them the same kind of normal accountability questions you'd ask anybody in power anywhere.

I really LOATHE these types, who are visible in full force in this meeting. Nobody has an excuse of not typist fast, or even not speaking English. They are just as capable of the rest of us of preparing on a notecard a question, getting it translated from free translation templates on the Internet, or just typing it out as best they can in the rolling chat dialogue. It's annoying that people talk at once, but you have to; Linden interface time is extremely premium. So often, the people who show up at these meetings don't really have any real issues, as they don't own lands or manage events or participate even in any kind of RP or non-profit community -- they are just the types to show up and *KVETCH*.

Nonetheless, if you scroll through to Daniel's words in bold here, you'll get a good deal more than we've gotten so far about what the Lindens are up to.

The Noospherists

Aw, the grinding and grashing of teeth, the IMs, the wails, the chilly silences, the unanswered IMs....people wondering why they weren't on my FIC 2.0 lists below...wondering if they had lost their edge...wondering if they were still too cool for school.

Hehehehe I kept you waiting. There is still *at least* one more list, but it is beyond FIC. These are the non-FIC. The people are the ones who in fact have always quietly ruled SL. They are the ones who Get Things Done who aren't some plodding altruistic types who "do the work but don't get the credit" -- these are the ones who do the work and get the big checks and even the big magazine spreads, but wind up subtly pwning the forums, which is their greatest reward -- or never going on the forums at all, which is priceless.

If you haven't heard of the Noosphere yet -- you will. There's the Metaverse -- that silly arcade, that tawdry, blingy, pixelated confection being built for the masses that many will use to advance their careers and influence men's minds but back of that...back of that is something else, something higher and penetrating, something that forms the substrate for the Metaverse.

The Metaverse has its Meterati -- those at the pinnacle of power making virtual worlds and games, with a list of people you haven't heard of, in old media and other virtual worlds. But who among us in SL is already in the Noosphere (for lack of a better term - one is yet to be invented)?

Remember Age Verification?

I did some polls inworld on this issue, and here's what I got:

Do you plan to submit to new verification required to visit explicit adult parcels in SL?

Baileya: Total Ballots: 73

21, No, I don't wish to visit adult sites.
18, No, I will do what I wish on my own land.
17, No, I don't trust verification companies.
12, Yes, it's not a big deal at all.
5, Yes, but I'm not happy with it.

Ross: Near Ginko ATM

Total Ballots: 89
22,Yes, it's not a big deal at all.
22,No, I don't trust verification companies.
18,Yes, but I'm not happy with it.
18,No, I will do what I wish on my own land.
9,No, I don't wish to visit adult sites.

Ross: Infohub Memory Bazaar

Total Ballots: 151
54,Yes, it's not a big deal at all.
36,No, I don't trust verification companies.
25,No, I will do what I wish on my own land.
19,No, I don't wish to visit adult sites.
17,Yes, but I'm not happy with it.

Thus, 49 do not plan to visit adult sites -- 15 percent of those polled. 88 said sure, they'd register, it's not a big deal at all -- 28 percent. 24 percent said no -- and cited the verification issue as their reason, and 19 percent planned to buck the system, evidently, and said they'd do what they wish on their own land. 15 percent said they weren't happy with it, but would go along (pecentages are rounded up). So...that means
43 percent planned to register, even if they weren't completely happy; 15 percent didn't plan to go to the adult sites; and 43 percent said no, they wouldn't register due to the concerns about the verifying company or the frontier spirit of wishing to do WTF they wanted on their own land. So...as of today, there is an even split between those who plan to register, and those who don't, and a surprisingly large percentage of people saying they aren't interested in adult activity.

This is a very, very different picture than you get from the Linden Official blog, Hamlet Linden's New World Notes, the SL Insider, and other official FIC sources. If you're a business owner in SL -- question it. Your customers may not be leaving, and they may not be fussing as much as the forums FIC.