Massively OverPowered has an article by Editor-in-Chief Bree Royce titled: Why MMORPG’s Still Need Traditional Chat. The article is about the problems of jerks annoying people in global chat. We have our share of those people in Second Life.

Je suis Charlie.. by VOIDAR // Ashley Carter, on Flickr

I find the article interesting because I think it reflects what is going on in RL. Chat in virtual worlds is different. But, it is still humans conversing. Humans may feel they can get away with more in anonymous chat. But, their basic behavior and thinking does not change at login.

Nor do our solutions for these problems in virtual worlds differ from what we propose and experiment with in RL. People in games seem to be learning that the final step in the progression of language restrictions and attempts to control abuse is removal of the ‘global’ chat system. In RL we are imposing restrictions on Hate Speech just as we try to restrict it in game worlds. It doesn’t work in either place. In both places all forms of conversation are injured.

In RL it gives governments and bureaucrats control of what is said. In games it is moderators that have the last say. Bree’s take is that life is better with messy annoying chat than without it.