A Linden Lab Time Capsule
The passage below is reminder of how far Linden Lab has gone from their original dream of being “bigger than the web”. Self-limiting decisions such as this “adult ghetto”, banning people for “unacceptable fantasies”, and in general, moving further and further from the concept of a common carrier, and turning into something more and more like AOL in 1995… a sandboxed playground for kids and people who can’t figure out how to use anything better.
Linden Lab wrote, in December 2006:
We could never write a set of rules that would work for all people all the time, nor could we enforce them across a population that is growing so rapidly. Instead, we believe that the best way to foster communication and expression is to put power into the hands of the people by giving you better tools for local control. And that’s what we’ve been doing for several months now. [...]
Linden Lab continued:
…[W]e cannot play the role of arbitrating personal grievances or defining behavioral standards. This is particularly important as Linden Lab becomes more international. We don’t want to force a California-centric set of rules on the virtual world. Rather, we want to facilitate Residents banding together and creating their own civic centers around their unique ideals and ambitions.Linden Lab will continue to police the world for problems that threaten the stability of our technical, economic and social structures. But when it comes to deciding what behavior should be allowed in a particular place or social group, those rules and their enforcement will be decided by the people involved—those who understand the context of the situation and have a stake in its outcome. Linden Lab is carefully planning the move to this federated model, and during the transition we’ll continue to enforce the Community Standards. Note that after the transition, all of Second Life will still be required to abide by the Terms of Service, even though local community standards may vary.
Rosedale surely can’t be happy to see his dream die. The above passage was published almost one year prior to his “Bigger than the web” keynote at SLCC 07. It’s no small coincidence that many of us want to party in a place where gambling and debauchery are not hidden away for our Second Tea Party unconference in Las Vegas.
Image Credit: Brooks Elliott
March 14th, 2009 at 12:25 am
Exactly!
March 14th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
The trouble is - that dream of a social space without rules or laws exists in a world of laws and criminals. Linden Labs provides SL as a products.
LL had no choice in the gambling ban. It’s servers and HQ are on US soil. Gambling in SL was breaking the law and MANY Attourney’s General were working on a case against them.
As international law in several countries is written, child sex (even only as role play between consenting adults) was breaking the law.
Violations of intellectual property must be investigated and pursued under US law, or the entire server system can be shut dow as a remedy. This can’t be done on a community level.
MANY businesses and universities, which are the core of Linden Labs income and product offerings, have no exception policies in place regarding tolerance for nudity, even virtual.
As to community governance, LL has not made move one to explore that further, and eve attempt any implementation of that. So the Linden dream was starry eyed optimism from the start. It is totally unworkable on any real life system.
Some form of the changes coming are unescapable. LL can’t continue as a business with it’s continued international reputation as a sex pit, and with the continued derision and fear of the business community because everyone “knows” that SL is only for sex crazed looses. WE know that that is totally false - but the international press does not.
But do not confuse this post with blind apology for LL and the way they have handled these issues in SL in the past. Zoning and age verification are onerous. Given the past history of implementation of such policy changes, there’s little room for blind optimism. But the only reason and “Adult” area would be a ghetto is if the users make it one. It surely will be if the sleazy builds and sloppy looking decor of most adult entertainment places in SL are just throw together in one area. Quality builds are not such a rarity among private Islands. But the story is different on the mainland. Honestly . . . what percentage of mainland “Adult” builds have you seen that truly hold much aesthetic appeal? My point is not to get into what is good or isn’t. It’s simply that I challenge the premise that such a move automatically means a ghetto.
There are many questions to be answered yet. How will the move work? If someone who has an Adult business has friends who do not choose to age verify - do they then have to have a separate house in a un-zoned area to see them? Does an Art Galley that features an SL display of GLBT art become Adult because it mixes sexuality and art while a display of Michelangelo Buonarroti’s “David” is ok in a Mature area because that’s in Art books?
At every single turn LL has acted ham handedly and clumsily in implementing large changes. They have been late and they have been erratic when they DO act. Their approval then banning of skins for child avatars is an example. Their inexcusable gambling policy implementation ruined many innocent players, costing them thousands of real life dollars.
So I suggest that you work with others in SL and form a consensus view on how these changes should be implemented. If we speak with the clear voice of consensus and reason, then perhaps, LL will listen and we can at last see a glimpse of the utopian dream of a few years ago.
March 15th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Many compared early Second Life to a Libertarian paradise, to the extent such could be implemented on servers in a non-free country. It seems to be true. Libertarianism is a big tent philosophy with a bunch of pragmatically selected, unintegrated tenets. “Principles” are discarded just as pragmatically as they are adopted. This was why Rand was vocal about her detest for Libertarianism.
The writing was on the wall when micro parcel owners were told the governance team would enact arbitrary, undefined price caps. Ditto when advertising and land cutting policy were set. Few cared because the victims in these scenarios were almost universally detested. Come the fourth pass, everybody suddenly caes. But the principle is long since dead, and Linden Lab is used to using property use restrictions, imposed retroactively.
Second Life has grown large without any kind of a charter contract guaranteeing property, expression, or other fundamental rights. The larger it grows still, and the wider its audience, the more difficult the task of commanding an interest group of relevant size. If you want clarity and predictable governance, it may already be too late.
November 23rd, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Nothing fails like success.