Hamlet Linden: Get to Know Me!

Since we have so many new residents coming online every
day, I thought I'd introduce myself to them, and re-introduce
myself to everyone else. So here goes:

In-world, I'm Hamlet Linden, and offline, Wagner James Au
(I go by "James", in day-to-day conversation), and I'm a
game developer, screenwriter, and journalist originally from
Hawaii, now living in the California Bay Area.

In-world, my primary job is to research, interview, and write
New World Notes, a Linden Lab-sponsored blog available at
http://secondlife.blogs.com/nwn/. I also hang out
in Second Life for fun, to chat with friends and co-workers and
to see what cool creations and amazing conflicts are going
on, but always, my main goal is trying to make NWN the best
ongoing journal of Second Life society I can make it. (I also
help write the Second Life Newsletter, and other misc. Linden
projects, and occasionally will be in-world for that purpose.)

All that also means I am not the best Linden to contact about:

- technical questions or problems
- land management/purchasing issues
- griefing complaints or other community disputes
- Events (announcing, etc.)

I know the basics of the interface and building, and am glad
to provide help on those, when and if I can-- but beyond
those, I will almost always have to forward a resident's
question/request/complaint to the appropriate Linden.
That's also to protect the resident, because I don't want to
end up giving the wrong advice or information.

I answer all my IMs, but if you're sending me an Instant
Message, keep that all the above in mind. You might
instead try doing a search for "Linden", and instead
contacting a Liasion, or another staffer.

Beyond that, please IM me about anything. News tips are
*hugely* welcome, of course, and IMs sent to say "Hi" or
asking about tips on places to see/things to do, people to
meet, or inviting me to hangout are just as welcome.

So, well, Hi!

Oh man!!! I know you!!!

You're the man in the Great Red Shark with the Somoan attorney/partner-in-crime and the wicked kewl cigarette holder.

Or was that a Doonesbury cartoon I'm thinking of?!?

Nice to meet you Hamlet.

- Ace

I like whatever you wrote and I always read them.
You are the only Linden with white suit, very nice.



Good luck!


Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Andie Apollo

Hamlet is one of my favourite Lindens, and I love the NWN

I forgot to ask, why have you always wanted to say "thank you Catfart?

NWN, always a good read.

Nice to meet you Hamlet I also develope games and screenwrite, I also live in the California Bay Area ( Seaside ). What a coincedence Love NWN, read them every day, keep up the good work !!!

So a fair paraphrase might be: "Yes, my game surname is Linden but I don't bother to know much about SL despite claiming to be a game developer. I like news tips a whole bunch, so much so that I sometimes ask questions on the self-selected forums so that I don't have to actually muck about with the world. I at one point tried to commission a Hunter Thompson avatar because I keep confusing gonzo-journalism with yellow-journalism and I far prefer unsubstantiated rumor to actually cross-checking statements. Oh and I live in the California Bay, because there is only one, but I'm not provincial and the `James' thing is so someday I can realize my Fitzgerald dream and go by W. James Au"

Or did I misread you?

[etc.]

I think this is way off base. Hamlet, correct me if I have some facts wrong here. As I understand it, Hamlet is not a regular Linden employee, though he may contract with them. As such he is in the possibly one of a kind position for a Linden of not being able to do anything with your account such as use Linden powers to investigate technical issues or land problems.

"someday I can realize my Fitzgerald dream and go by W. James Au"


Side note - one of my favorite modern photographers goes by the moniker 'F. Stop Fitzgerald'

Which makes me giggle whenever I see it.

(Guess you'd have to have some experience with film to find that funny)

Rest of the posts - very funny

Siggy.

And while I'm at it - why has noone taken the name Jackson Pollack yet?

Jeeez....


Siggy.

> not being able to do anything with your account such as
> use Linden powers to investigate technical issues or land
> problems

Yep, exactly. We decided from the start that Hamlet Linden wouldn't have any God powers or access to account information, because that would skew the way I cover the news. I only write what I can find out by interviewing and reporting and being in-world, and through all the resident contacts I have. If I had God powers, that'd be like trying to be Clark Kent and Superman at the same time. Also, I'd have to spend most of my time in-world helping the residents with their questions and issues (and most times, I'm unable to) as opposed to reporting on them.

> I keep confusing gonzo-journalism with yellow-journalism
> and I far prefer unsubstantiated rumor to actually cross-
> checking statements

Those are very creative inferences, Malachi, but fairly far off. This one particular claim is a pretty serious, however, and I'm treating it seriously: are you referring to a specific story I write, and if so, which one? I take a lot of effort to cross-check my larger stories, and on the occasions that I can't or don't (usually because it's a short piece that doesn't really warrant it), every entry has a Comments section, which is totally open to residents who feel I missed or misconveyed an important detail. I welcome those. However, I can't remember you ever posting such a correction, so I'd love to know what you're specifically referring to here.

Thanks for props, everyone else. I'm really honored to be writing about you, and like I said in that LAT essay, I do feel we're on the cusp of something pretty amazing, something that you all make possible by being as wacky and amazing and fractious and inspiring as you are.

Hamlet! Is it true your final wish is that Fortinbras become the new King of Denmark? Well, we can discuss that at dinner. I've told my husband to expect company on the date we discussed and we'll have the kids to bed early. When you pull up to the Werkstatt could you be a dear and pull your VW bus around the rear? With our strict covenant and Mrs. Crabtree across the way, it's just so difficult. Well, I hope you understand. I'm sorry, um I can't recall her name, she was so sweet. I'm sorry she can't join us. These things happen I guess. And Hamlet, there's no need to bring anything this time. The dessert was delicious but I know a single man has better things to do than slave over a stove. We want to treat you this time. Until then!

~Ulrika~

I first became aware of your self-benighted status when you asked me about a highly contentious activity in my home sim, before granting you an interview I read your "notes" and found them to be amazingly slanted toward the controversial. Not wanting to fan the flames of a divisive situation I declined an interview with you for fear of prejudicial partial quoting.

Then, in this thread you took unsubstatiated information, called it a story, left it with a teaser and were manifestly wrong. It would be giving you too much credit to say you were a major contributor to the Avalon "controvery" but you did certainly turn a disgruntled loser into a cause celebre with quips about how you'll never know. A journalist would have printed a correction when it became clear that your source lied to you, but you didn't, nor did you bother to make a cursory check as to the nature of the accusations. This is yellow-journalism.

Reprinting slander with quotes around it doesn't absolve you of journalistic due dilligence, but then again, you aren't much worse than myriad other hacks out there that would prefer to re-write wire stories than do actual work.

And no, I've never been on your pages and I hope not to ever be. Nor have I any interest in the Avalon thing but for the fact that you print fallacious allegations and don't return to them. For those who wish to curry favor with Hamlet and get a good write-up, I hear he "loves to be flattered". And I may just take the concept of `news' even more seriously than you do.

It's actually Jackson Pollock. Different spelling. So I guess the question is... why isn't there a "Pollock" last name in SL?

Ulrika, that's a flattering (if somewhat obscure) offer, and if we can manage it in-world, I'd love to take you up on it. (Though I am no longer, however, a single man, and have actually been known to slave over a stove.)

> Then, in this thread you took unsubstatiated information,
> called it a story, left it with a teaser and were manifestly
> wrong.

Sorry, Malachi, you're going to have to be a lot less vague than that. What was "insubstantiated information"? What was "manifestly wrong"? The lack of specificity suggests this is more a matter of opinion. If you thought I did a bad job covering the Avalon controversy, you're fully entitled to your opinion, but general accusations of "reprinting slander" go way beyond the pale. Please tell me exactly what you're referring to, and back it up with sources, so I can look into it. Feel free to send me an e-mail, if you prefer handling this in private.

Also, looking over the forum topic I created at the time, seeking feedback,

</18/85/8736/1.html>

I notice you didn't make your concerns about the Avalon story known there; that's too bad, because if you had, I'd have been able to look into them, and if they were valid, posted a retraction or amendment *then*. I can't recall you ever contacting me in IM or e-mail about your objections either (and I revisited the story once or twice since then) so it strikes me as odd that you wait until nearly 8 months after the fact to start making some fairly heated accusations. Still, you have an objection, I'll assume there's some validity to it; so if that's the case, please give me the details.

The thing is (and I also address this to everyone reading), the signal advantage to online journalism, particularly blogs, is their immediacy and their interactivity, and the ability to correct, retract, amend stories in a way that makes the journalist directly and instantly accountable-- and the reader a collaborator in the process. So if anything I ever write strikes you the reader as wrong or incomplete, by all means, please let me know *immediately*, and I'll do what I can to address it then. (I have done that with several stories, in fact, posting corrections when they're warranted.) Or just as good, post your own insights/demurs in the entry Response section, where they're public. It's important to me that NWN be seen as credible, and that everyone who cares to give me feedback have a voice in the process, before, during, or after any particular story is published. Don't bottle it in, for God's sake-- debate, discuss, democratize the deal!

[/B]

No thanks I don't wish to do your job for you, but if you apply your weighty journalistic research acumen to the task you'll find that people came out of the woodwork to say they'd been duped (or outright lied to) by Obscuro.

So is your argument that disinterested parties ought to do your work for you? I know that if I claimed to be an "embedded journalist" in SL, that I'd pay some attention to the bloody forums. I also wouldn't conduct a forum flamewar with a Linden after my name; but we all have different standards. This is why I didn't attempt to correct you then - because I expected pretty much the same reaction as I've gotten now. Only I would have expected more decorum.

Please continue via IM if you must.

Yes it is - but it seems the you and I are probably the only 2 people that even know who he is, let alone the spelling of his name.

I thought that with the penchant for funny names that would have been snapped up.

Actually, I was trying to impress you with my creative fictional writing. I was attempting to mimic J.D. Salinger's amazing ability to write convincing casual spoken conversations, while simultaneously working in a reference to Shakespeare's Hamlet. I thought you'd like it because you're a writer. Go on, read it again.

There. Now you'll remember me for sure.

~Ulrika~

Yes, I definitely do, Ulrika, and that was dense of me to miss the Salinger bit you were going for-- props to you, you turn a phrase well.

> if you apply your weighty journalistic research acumen to
> the task you'll find that people came out of the woodwork
> to say they'd been duped (or outright lied to) by Obscuro.

Malachi, if you take the time to read this part of the story carefully, you'll see that I did that very thing, at least in part:

<http://secondlife.com/notes/2004_01_19_archive.php#20040121>

"Through the in-world grapevine, Catherine came to believe that Obscuro owned a print shop, or a publishing company. And that he wanted the island for his own commercial plans."

So yes, I also talked to other residents who repeated Catherine's claims about him, or contradicted them. I also quoted Obscuro's denials. Failing to have first-hand evidence, or a screenshot that's more reliable than a putative text log, it boiled down to a his-word-against-hers sort of deal. You have to understand that hearsay doesn't become more true from the sheer weight of the people speaking it, and it'd be irresponsible for me to act otherwise.

But here's the more important part of that section, and I suspect you missed it:

"[T]he most interesting thing to me is not whether the rumors [about what Obscuro said] were true or false, or even who spread them in the first place. What's interesting is how quickly so many jumped into the fray, when the conflict seemed to be one of profit-versus-non-profit, community project-versus-private domain. And with what moral fervor came the attacks."

This is my editorial decision on the matter: that the salient point to the claims regarding Obscuro are not whether they were true or not, but what they say about Second Life as a society. And that *is* my role-- not a "crime beat" reporter, or someone trying to run an expose determining whether this or that resident lied and misled people. It's to try and paint a broad picture of the society-- what it believes, what it values, what its culture is, and what it wants to be. Not to publicize individual griefing or abuse accusations. Especially because such disputes are likely to become an issue for Linden Lab staff to handle. Which is why I almost never write stories that involve policy disputes between residents, and when I do, as in the Jessie Wall story, they are a very small part of a much larger narrative. If you don't agree with that editorial approach or mandate, fine, but I wish you had at least read that section more carefully, and understood why I took that angle of attack.

Also, I'm still not sure what you were referring to by "unsubstatiated information" or "reprinting slander", or when "it became clear that your source lied to you", as you haven't validated those at all. I guess you misspoke?

> So is your argument that disinterested parties ought to
> do your work for you? I know that if I claimed to be
> an "embedded journalist" in SL, that I'd pay some
> attention to the bloody forums.

Again, from the story:

"After talking with Catherine, I go through the chat logs posted in the forums , which are supposed to validate her claims..."

And no, the idea is not to ask disinterested parties to do my work for me. The idea is to let *all* parties get a chance to have their say, and to have their view incorporated in the story. Especially because it is almost impossible to determine how many parties are involved in any particular controversy-- it's a fault of most media to mistakenly assume that the folks with the loudest voice represent the majority, or the only party with a stake in things. Again, that's the advantage of the Internet as a medium, and I encourage folks to take advantage of that advantage to the hilt.

So you write a soceity column, not news. That was in fact my point; I concede you that. Thanks for making your role clear.

Malachi,

I don't think Hamlet has ever claimed to be an investigative journalist.

But on the other hand, there might well be a niche for just that. Why don't you step into the breach?

I definitely welcome more reporters of all stripes in here. If someone is truly interested in being an investigative reporter, that'd be quite a challenge. Maybe they'd have to create two-three alternate account names, so they can go "undercover", take a lot of screenshots that include chat logs for "gotcha" quotes, and perhaps even do videocaptures, for the same effect.

> So you write a soceity column, not news.

Malachi, that's not what I suggested at all. A society column is gossip and tidbit reporting about socialites at upper crust functions like charity balls, weddings, theater openings and so on--NWN runs entries like that once a month, at most, usually less. (And there, I'm more interested in reporting on the fact that Second Life even *has* socialites and an upper crust, and what that suggests about the social and class dynamics going on here.) My goal is to report on individual stories that reflect broader social trends-- in this week's entries for example, "So Very Kerry", about the role of real world politics in SL, and "The Sacred and the Profane", on the role of sex and religion in SL. (Sex, religion, politics: this week, it's all *about* topics you're not supposed to talk about at social events!)

[/B]

One of the things that I find most fascinating about Hamlet's work on NWN is that he doesn't /quite/ ask the questions that I'd like to see answered... even though he alludes to them.

These questions (and topics of discussion, which I find fascinating) are the role of religion in Second Life, sexuality (and first-life affiliations) in SL... the role of SL as a political forum (and what that says about SL as a free-speech forum)... and, more than anything, how this virtual society deals with the fact that it /is/ the secondary representation of our first-life personas.

Some of the topics he's brought up have alluded to Darwinism and evolution in the formation of the societies, the concept of epimemeiology (a slight modification of 'epidemiology' related to viral ideas instead of viral proteins), reactions to them, and the concept of 'information hiding' (allowing people online to see different facets of your personality than you deal with in your everyday life -- hiding the more controversial aspects so that you can be seen and interacted with for other parts of yourself and your existence).

Hamlet isn't a 'society' writer, any more than any editor is (an editorial is a statement by the person in control of the content of the medium in place). He expresses what /has/ happened, and places it into a much larger context. (And, indeed, the much larger context has an entire branch of academia devoted to it.)

Sex, religion, politics? I predict that the topics aren't so much going to be those, as they will be the intersection of previously-held beliefs/ideas in this new, virtual world. That is, if Hamlet's previous stories are any indication.

Not really, I too know who he is.