Canary Beck points us to an article by Auryn Beorn: Defend yourself from manipulators. It is interesting that this pops up now. A friend of mine just pointed me to The Federalist’s article by Stella Morabito titled How To Escape The Age Of Mass Delusiona day or so ago. Both of these writers are working with the presupposition that people are manipulating us. I’ll expand on that later.
Bobby and the Aversion Therapist by Robert Goldstein, on Flickr
Auryn starts off with entitlement. Auryn describes the entitlement people I have a problem with exactly as I see them. The TL:DR is give an inch and they’ll take a mile, cause you owe them.
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.
Many of us in Second Life™ run businesses and some of us also run RL businesses… ummm… that means businesses not in SL. I suppose whether a business is in SL or not, the business is real. Whatever, I came across this article on making better use of Facebook to promote your ideas, products, services, whatever…
Embryonic-3 : Mecha-Amonite II by Nebraska Oddfish, on Flickr
For bloggers in Second Life, or anywhere I guess, there is the problem of how Facebook is reacting to comments on linked-to sites. Having comments on in my blog drops my points with Facebook. They are less likely to extend my reach, or in simple words… they will show my stuff to fewer people.
As the article points out, you can have comments on your site. But, if you can encourage visitors to comment on Facebook, your reach will increase. It isn’t so much that you have comments that is the problem for Facebook. It is that Facebook responds positively to people commenting on your links on Facebook.
So, whether you are selling something or just trying to increase your popularity, there are good and bad ways to do that with social media.
Second Life™ has a valuable virtual real estate market. Yet, SL is not the only virtual world with real estate issues. ArcheAge is coming up on a new land rush and the problems of players losing existing land holdings.
lostdreams11 by Sannita Cortes, on Flickr
In SL we often hear ‘the rent is too damn high’ exclaimed. I’m one that disagrees and believes the free market gives people control of what they pay or receive and most equitably distributes land and sets prices.
Many in Second Life™ were and are pro Net Neutrality. The ideas associated with the words Net Neutrality are noble sounding but dig in and you find they are out of touch with the reality of the laws being passed and basic economics.
(image gone…) Bound III by Sacha Audeburgh, on Flickr
In America we are seeing the US State Dept. making the first rules to kill free speech on the Internet and turn it into Government Approved Speech ONLY. Of course, they have chosen an emotional issue many liberals can get behind: gun control. Is it OK to ban this type of speech? I suspect many liberals will think so. They are banning hate speech, the first step and that OK with many, now gun related speech, don’t you wonder what is next? Obviously free speech is going away, if we allow this trend to continue.
This morning I see Canary Beck is running a poll on IP-Rights and Second Life™. Add your input. The poll closes June 9th at noon SLT/PDT. That is tomorrow. Please let others know about the poll.
I found a couple of questions ambiguous and a couple of others written such that they should have offered the choice: depends. But, I’ll wait to say anything more to avoid possibly biasing the poll.
Drop by and take the poll. It is mostly an easy 3-answer multiple-choice survey. I was through it in less than 5 minutes.
