The *real* members of SL's Top 10 Power elite are...

Taking nominations here-- each Resident can nominate from one to ten. In a couple weeks or so I'll tally up the list and post the Top 10 in NWN. If there's sufficient interest in this nomination process, like 250+ posts, I'll pitch my editors at Kotaku to run it there first.

Guidelines/Suggestions:

- If you'd like to be quoted for the article, please write a succint description of why that person deserves to be in the Top 10, and if your nomination is selected, I'll consider using it

- Consider using my own three criterion of influence, Creative Influence, Commercial Impact, and Connection Network, or judge on your own standards.

- Possible criteria: Would the world be substantially different if the Resident had never come to Second Life, and how so?

- Another possible criteria: If you wanted to rally the Residents to lobby Linden Lab to make a policy change, who would you contact, to lead it?

- Yet another possible criterion: If this Resident left Second Life for another online world, a thousand Residents would leave with them.

- One last tip: it's real easy to suggest one to nine. It's REALLY difficult to name all ten.

LET THE NOMINATIONS BEGIN!

... also, if you want to make nominations anonymously, send me a Private Message or IM me in-world at Hamlet Au. I'll repost the nominations and any write-ups you add to them (long as they're CS) in the topic with the nominator's name withheld.

Hamlet Au!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Actually, I'm starting to get nominations privately and anonymously. Here's the first one:

I want to nominate someone I think makes great contributions to Second Life:

ReallyRick Metropolitan.

Who can forget the wonderful things he did after the London Bombings. He got the cooperation of many Lindens to use land for a memorial which drew international press attention. After the events of Hurricane Katrina, ReallyRick was the first person to have a memorial and relief site up raising funds for those affected. He organized the successful "Donate Your Stipend Day" again receiving attention and interviews from the mainstream media.

He was one of those who spearheaded the effort to get the Big Easy and Biloxi fundraising sims and helped in the early planning stages once they were on the Grid.

I think this all goes to show that he certainly has been influential in changing the way people see online words as a way to raise money for charity and come together and heal after tragedy. He was the first person to incorperate real world activites with SL charitable causes.

I think the SL world would be substantially different if the Resident had never come to Second Life. He is a Mentor, a Greeter and works Live Help. He got many new residents hooked on SL to the point of them staying as permanent residents. He started organizing Mentor meetings as Jeska Linden encourage people to take the iniative to do things on their own.

Everyone who knows him says he tirelessly helps wherever he can. He was a member of the residents groups trying to affect change by organzing and meeting with the Lindens. Many of his suggestions at Community Roundtable meetings were met with approval and lead to changes in the way things were done. I think it is safe to say he has the respect of many many of the Lindens.

You mentioned "If this Resident left Second Life for another online world, a thousand Residents would leave with them." While thousands didn't leave with him, when he left to go play World of Warcraft a large number (80+) of people followed, including people such as Christiano Midnight, Eboni Khan, MeriJayne Hornpipe, Shaun Altman among others. So many Second Lifers in fact that they started their own Guild in WoW called the Feted Inner Horde which even had its own website. http://www.sluniverse.com/feted/ It was ReallyRick's posting of his adventures in the SL forums that got so many people to follow him.

As for his connection network, everyone knew ReallyRick and he knew everyone. From what I know the Lindens spoke with him often asking for opinions on what he thought about certain situations (Jeska and Robin). He was friendly with everyone and knew where to go to get something or who to talk to to find out.

I hope you know as well as I do that ReallyRick has been a force since he came to Second Life and that the change he has affected has been very beneficial for our community.

So, what you're really saying is Charles is -- in fact -- not in charge?

Thank you, Hamlet for inviting us to make nominations!

Using your criteria, I nominate myself, Jarod Godel:

Creative Influence
- My recipe for self-replicating prims has been used to crash the grid quite a few times.
- I am one of the people contributing to the Second Life Hacks book
- I was the first person to blog from within Second Life; anyone who's done it since January 18, 2004 is following a trend I set.
- I've been talking about SL and CAD/CAM since before it was cool.

Commercial Impact
- I've posted a recipe for a means of competely destroying the Second Life texture and clothing market, and nothing happened. Single-handedly, I proved the stupidity of DRM within virtual worlds as well as just how robust a marketplace with unprotected IP material can be.

Connection Network
- My theories on Second Life have been noticed by both Dave Winer (inventor of RSS) and Robert Scoble -- which does not mean I know either of them, but it has grown the "Jarod Godel" brand.
- I've been interviewed in Clickable Culture.
- I brought Khamon Fate into Second Life.

I would like to nominate Tateru Nino.

Outstanding mentor of 2006, hands down. What all she's done for Help Island, other mentors AND newbies cannot be ignored. Just ask pretty much any other mentor/helpstaffer/etc that's been there and seen her in action.

I nominate Siggy Romulus despite the fact he'll be calling the boys in NJ to pour me some cement shoes as soon as he reads this.

Why? The swimmer.

The swimmer brings to SL the ability to realistically swim in any water anywhere. I'm still baffled why the Lindens didn't include this ability in the original code. It is as profound a contribution as if someone had coded flying.

Commercially, swimming has finally made all that water on the mainland a pleasure to use. You can swim from sim to sim seeing some truely beautiful builds...something you can't do in a vehicle because of the sim crossing issues. Water parks are popping up everywhere. He made swimable prim water too for those folks who like their fun above ground.

And that doesn't count all the other incredibly cool stuff Siggy has created. Or his contributions to GNU and the creative commons. Or his irreverant and hysterical radio show. Or his contribution to the forums... both helpful and scathing.

Because whoever you name for the other nine people, they will all know Siggy and will have some incredibly cool piece of his work in their inventory.

I dominate Paolo Portocarrero with handcuffs and a bull whip

Is there any other way?

Obscuro Valkyrie - Vamp
Higbee Protagonist - Parks & Tree Guy
Cristiano - Snapzilla and Anims
Chip Midnight - Tattoos? F that! Skins!
Aimee - You may have heard of her
Nephilaine - Opened new doors in what could be done with clothing
Jade Lily - Leverage L$ for charity
Bhodi Silverman - Leverage L$ for charity (at almost the same time!)
Eggy - Did everything in beta
Fizik - First "brand" brought into SL from RL
Grimmy - The original griefer
David V. - Overt sexuality
Stroker & Green - The original genital creators I know of
Taco - OUTRAGEOUSLY OFFENDED by upskirt shots
Bub - Humanized LL
Urizenas Sklar - SL Herald
Walker Spaight - SL Herald
Cubey Terra - Aircraft!
Anshe Chung - Big Business
Vince Plunkett - AVimator

Thanks! But hey, only ten or less than ten! Winnow that puppy down dude.

Pics please...

I nominate Psyra for making some kick ass feathered avs and helping me when I was a nooblet to open boxes so they didn't go on my head

Except when I'm on top.

Barnes and I should be nominated as the most beautiful couple in SL.

I think that goes to Bub and Pony Linden.

Man they buried this puppy good... easier to post in the general thread, but I'll link it here
just to make sure it gets read and is acted upon.

Thanks - but no thanks.

Jauani Wu, Cristiano Midnight, Chip Poutine, Rez Menoptra, and Barnesworth Anubis.

While I would like to be on the list, its not my style to nominate myself.

So far the list is mostly a popularity list, it really lacks the innovators who pushed SL forward.
The person who wrote the first multi user dance machine should be nominated (it was a syncronized machine pre-1.4, it was really kind of cool in a disco kind of fassion). While it was technicaly vesable for months, nobody had done it. These machines, paved the way for new ideas for what SL could do with animations.

Xylor for his work on XyText (which is *everywhere*) and later projects

Catherine Omega - Script Wiki, which has effected all areas of scripting in SL; commercial, socialy, creativly. The wiki is a forum for the organizing and disemination of LSL script knowledge. For this alone, Cat diserves to be #1. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

Ezhar Fairlight - Another of the founders of the Script Wiki. Who has been key in it's continued success.

Kermit - Tringo; Provided a skill based game that could server as a source of income for SL users (there is no skill requirement in Bingo) and a reason for players to get together. Not to mention giving LL a great bit of press for having the game licensed.

Lusk - For making SL a furry haven. Who are responsible for atleast 10% of the SL population (figure generated by counting up the occurances of furry places in this list as compaired to total). It wasn't until Lusk started selling prefab furry av's did the furry invasion kick into gear.

Jimmy for his work with bedazzled, finaly someone who made SL look good.

I personaly don't see it as valid to nominate anyone for ground breaking work in the poseball/sex industry of SL; It existed before I joined SL, before there were custom animations in SL.

As for nominating scripters, i feel they need to give apart of them selves to the community to be deserving. To be deserving they cannot just release some really cool toy. Cool toys generaly don't push the community forwards. Take for example the Hippo (an attachment that would tell you if people around (who were also wearing a Hippo) shared similar interests), it had great potential, but never caught on. If the Hippo had been open source it would have push the scripting community forward. There would have been other cool toys in the same vain. IMHO you have to create an industry or push an industry forwards.

Aww Siggy, I so totally love you more now. You tard.

... and Lordfly Digeridoo

oh, and qDot (just so he don't smack me up).