Limiting theft by limiting creation

Uhhh.. you can't get "more general" than free-form roleplay, Yumi. That's kinda the whole point. In free-form roleplay, the rules are never "permanent". Again, that's kinda the whole point. The rules change not only with what participants are present, but what the group is currently doing. Sometimes the rules get silly, sometimes even too silly for me. In those cases, I may initiate something else which tries to rein in the silliness a bit, or I may get bored, make my polite excuses, and then take my leave.

The only "rules" that are important in free-form RP are basically that everyone have fun and share it.



You'd be surprised how many times I was off by myself simply minding my own business, playing around with scripting/building in the Isle sandbox, and a flashmob appeared around me and we all pulled out our toys and played for a while. Some of my best memories (and funniest snapshots) came from those "spontaneous" groups.

People regularly come and go from popular venues. Just because there is one group somewhere doing "their thing" and won't include you for whatever reason (it's not a crime, ya know) does not mean that another won't form from people who just showed up.



A lot of people at the Isle think I am one of the "cool people" (or so I am told), yet I don't dominate the "social scene". I can't. The "social scene" isn't made up of one group of people all doing whatever I want to do when I want to do it. There are MANY groups and subgroups, cliques and subcliques, which meet whenever and wherever, and do whatever. There's NO WAY I could POSSIBLY even be PRESENT for all of them, or even a majority of them. The same is true of all the other supposed "cool people". Yeah, I might be given a slight deference if I show up in one particular group or another, but I certainly don't get that in a majority of them, or all of them. Hell, there are groups who show up that don't know me from Adam's housedragon. There are groups where I rarely get to be anything but a spectator. I'm cool with that, because I know that I can find someone somewhere with whom to interact and have a good time, by either following their lead, or leading myself.



No, it doesn't prevent it. However, it also doesn't prevent that someone from leaving to find another group where that situation doesn't occur. They don't NEED a "formal system" to do that. I am not going to say that Bad Things™ will never happen to you in any particular social/group setting; life offers no guarantees. However, I WILL say that they will be in the minority, at least *I* have found them to be. Your Mileage May Vary, however.

Attempting to impose a "formal system" on informal social encounters is just dumb, and all it will do is ensure no one has any fun. The best and most enjoyable social encounters rarely could fit within a "container" of rule-based constraints.



I don't know that. I see the "cool kids" bumbling around all the time. I do. I'm not a "perfect social creature" by any stretch of the imagination.

It seems to me that your tone is becoming more and more about "social envy". That's a pretty bleak and dark road to walk, and anyone who does walks it of their own accord; certainly no one forces them to do so. Just because someone else has more than they do (at the moment) doesn't mean that they are flawed/worthless/uninteresting/whatever, unless that is what they wish to be. It's a self-reinforcing negative pit. You can either choose to dig deeper, or just get the hell out of it, get involved, and enjoy yourself. I will tell you that people that I see digging themselves into those pits drive other people away from them, because it is another form of drama-whoring. You're attempting to foist your own self-imposed calamity on others, expecting them to pity you and give you additional attention you don't deserve over it.

In short, "social winners" are such because they make themselves such. The same is true of "social losers". Both sets of behavior are self-reinforcing. The difference is that the social "winner" usually gives more than he takes, and the "loser" takes (or attempts to, anyway) more than he gives. The vast majority of people are actually "winners", even if only to a small degree. For most, that is good enough for them.



Umm.. because they stuck around and participated, while demonstrating they were enjoying themselves by doing and saying so? It's pretty easy to tell the difference between someone simply tolerating you, and someone actively participating/encouraging you, ya know.



Oh bullshit. Have you even tried? You make it sound so cold and sterile. Just go someplace that interests you and TRY. Don't try just once, try several times. Get a feel for the groups and give them a chance to involve you.

I also want to point out that, if your idea of "participation" is to show up and sit in the corner sulking like a potted plant, and no one bothers to involve you because your "social body language" says "leave me the hell alone", why would you (or, indeed, anyone) be surprised that they oblige? If you then leave and say "see! no one involved me!", then you're being an idiot. Worse, if someone dares to come over and try to involve you anyway, and you lash out, you deserve to not be involved. (this is all hypothetical; I am not saying "you" ARE that way here; I've known and encountered plenty who are; I've even been down that road a time or two myself).

I wouldn't suggest buying or even wearing a Dragon avatar and go around to HUMAN clubs looking for groups with which to get involved. That's just dumb. Of COURSE people are going to shun you; you're the outsider. They likely don't have anything in common with Dragons, or are even interested. Hell, if you show up in a Gor sim as a Dragon, they will ban you on sight. Seriously, this is a no-brainer here.



I know people who pay US$15 for a Daryth Dragon avatar SOLELY out of artistic appreciation. I don't know if they are in the minority or not, as I don't poll every person who buys one.

No, they aren't necessarily looking to gain more social standing because of it. I don't.

Look, it is clear you are WAY overanalyzing and overthinking the problem. You're inventing ridiculous scenarios and ludicrous circumstances which simply and practically don't exist. Yeah, I have seen them once or twice in my nearly 4 years in SL, and a handful of times all the way back to the early BBS days. TRUST ME when I say this; none of what you are conjuring is anything more than mere shadows of the reality. Stop looking for the boogums under the bed and in the closet, get out of the house once in a while, AND HAVE FUN! IF, on the off chance you find a boogum that isn't a manifestation of your own fears, move on to someone/somewhere else. That, or just ignore it. It can't have any power over you if you don't GIVE it power over you.

Seriously, it is NOWHERE near as difficult or scary as you're making it out to be.

Yumi, you're overanalyzing the problem. Stop thinking, relax, and just do it. It's not going to be easy at first, because you're just learning. Give it a chance, give it time, and it will come naturally. Stop being critical of the situation without experiencing it. Stop being critical of it at all, at least until you've made a sincere effort to try it.

After that, come back here, and talk about the issues in light of your experiences.

Until then, let's wrap it up and call it a day, k?

Conversation is.. well, ok, "general" wasn't really the word. More "generally applicable" than freeform role-play. There aren't anywhere near as many conversations that I would be simply unable/unwilling to participate in, than there are freeform role-plays, and I think that's true for other people to..



Right, but that's a rare experience. The majority never meet more than griefers in sandboxes, or are alone on their own land.



And having that knowledge is the preserve of the "cool person".



No, but after spending a few months finding a group, then bouncing back and forward between 2 or 3.. they're going to start regretting there isn't a system that just fitted them in a group instantly.



I'm not proposing solutions, I'm identifying a problem. Shock horror, the informal social system is flawed. Yes, a formal system would have disadvantages. Not having one has disadvantages too.



Actually, human psychology is so complex that you pretty much have no idea if you're forcing someone to do something or not.



Right, but that's exactly the point - if they don't deserve that attention, then they won't be able to get it in any other scenario either.



Except it isn't true. I'm reminded of the psychology experiment where they took all the social winners out of several schools and put them all together in one class. Soon, some of them had become losers, and took it hard. It's inevitable, because there's only a limited amount of social bandwidth to go around.



Maybe they only stuck around because they knew they would have nothing else to do otherwise?



Oh, I have tried, for a long while, and concluded that it's ultimately a waste of life.



Usually I show up, people are just milling and talking generically, nothing happens, and then everynoe leaves.



For you. For new folks who see that the clubs are where 80% of the green dots are, what are they going to conclude about the value of that Dragon av?



I have been doing this kind of thing for years, and I know what freeform role-play comes down to for 90% of people involved. It comes to sitting online waiting and waiting and waiting for the right people/circumstances to show up, then usually disconnecting. It's why idling is so frequent. Go onto any MUSH and usually at least half the players will have idle times of half-an-hour or more.

That's not a ferret piccie!

Now, if it was a ferret piccie depicting him in overalls with a field of pot plants in the background, it would be more funny.

Talarus, I've tried that several times, in response to advice here, and I've always had the trouble you've described. I run into a dead end because I cannot decide on the detailed aspects of the thing I'm supposed to be doing, and when I try to decide, all I can think is, "Of course I don't know what to do, I can't do anything, that's why this was a dumb idea all along."

*shrugs* I have no problems involving myself in as many free-form RPs as normal, non-RP conversations. Hell, in the venues I haunt, most "normal" non-RP conversations turn INTO free-form RPs at some point.

Maybe it is not the people, or the topic of conversation, but the venues you frequent that are a problem?



Not for me. It is the rule, rather than the exception.



Unlike you, I can't speak for the majority. All I know is the majority of people *I* encounter don't have that problem.

Again, maybe it is the venues you frequent that are a problem?



So, one can only be a "cool person" by having the knowledge and experience of being a "cool person"?

If that were true, no one could meet the prerequisites, and no one would ever be "cool". "Coolness" isn't a genetic trait, btw.

Cars aren't built moving along at 60mph, requiring everyone who wants to drive one to jump into the drivers seat as it passes by moving at that speed. EVERY ONE starts from a dead stop.



O.o You do realize how insane that sounds, right? Social groups are dynamic, but they aren't so dynamic that the default expectation is that the groups conform to the person. The person conforms to the social group, at least to a minimal degree. Otherwise, you could never have a "social group"; you'd have a bunch of individuals going on about their own individuality endlessly and showing no consideration to anybody else.

There can be no "system" that fits a social group to a person. It's just.. ridiculous. People make THEMSELVES "fit in". There is some elasticity in most groups (not all, but most) to make room for the uniqueness of a newcomer, but the group can't be expected to completely re-invent itself to fit around the newcomer in totality; that creates precisely the problem you're decrying in previous posts -- someone usurping the group and being the "center of attention".



I know, I am proposing solutions and saying that most of the problems you are identifying aren't problems at all. Sure, the informal system is flawed. It has warts and sometimes it stinks, but it is a damn sight better than the vast majority of the "formal" systems out there, unless you just HAVE to have structure and aren't happy without it. If structure is all that is important to you, then yeah, you're probably right; people like that need to stick with the known and "safe" and not venture out of their locked/bolted/shuttered lives, because they might get scared by what they find. *shrug*



No, people aren't that complex. Anyone with even the tiniest bit of empathy can tell when they are hurting/boring/insulting/angering/whatever another person. The vast majority of people aren't so intimidated by others that they are quite willing to yawn when they are bored (sometimes uncontrollably!), or leave if they are feeling annoyed by what is going on.

One CAN have "no idea" if one is ignorant of others' feelings. It can happen. Social retardation isn't a common phenomenon, but it does exist. Some people simply cannot perceive or comprehend social feedback. It happens.



Well, yah, if one doesn't deserve something, why would one expect to get it anywhere anyway? Why would that be a problem? If some people are happier being the potted plant than not being the potted plant, why should anyone want to change them? Why should anyone try? If it makes them less happy, it is hurting them, right?



Sounds like a flawed experiment to me; if you change the social structure, makeup, or social dynamics of any group, it changes. Well, duh. That's even true in normal social settings. One moment, you might be the center of attention in a group; then some people leave, others join, you all change venue, et cetera, now someone else is playing the "cool kid".

Now, if you are talking about "social ordering", that's a different concept. Humans (and, indeed, all animals) develop "pecking orders"; it's in our nature to do so when competing for limited resources in RL. In SL, there aren't any such limitations on resources (you don't need to eat, drink, sleep, reproduce, whatever), so that social dynamic is not as pronounced. In fact, many of the "weak" or "social losers" you are referring to in RL are the "strong" or "social winners" in SL. Even in RL, if you change the social / group dynamics enough, past "losers" will become "winners", and "winners" will become "losers".

That's all beside the point, though. What I was referring to is that people choose their own paths and set their own goals. If someone chooses to be a "loser", they will be. If someone chooses to be a "winner", they will be. In either case, they may not achieve their goals today, or even tomorrow, but if they continue to work at it, they WILL eventually achieve it.

Note that people can also choose "mediocrity". There's nothing wrong with that, either. Some people simply don't care who gets the spotlight, and are not bothered if they don't get it; in fact, some go out of their way to avoid it, and are quite happy to do so. It doesn't make them "social losers", either, because they are "happy" with their choice.



This is SL we are talking about here. If someone is so bored that they are willing to endure the unendurable without having something else to do in SL *OR* RL, then they are obviously enjoying it, if only by default. EVEN IF they are miserable, at least they are sitting there enjoying their misery. Yes, there are people like that. If they weren't, then they simply wouldn't continue to sit there.



OK. Then why are you arguing over it? You've already made your determination, for yourself. If *YOU* don't like it, then don't do it. Situation resolved. I've never suggested otherwise.



Yeah, sucks. I guess I am glad that doesn't happen much to me.



For me what? What part of what I said isn't clear on that issue?



I guess I must live a charmed existence, then. I can go to the Isle, the Fantasy continent, FurNation, Lost Furest, Luskwood, or any one of another thousand regions on the grid right this minute and find someone with whom to interact and have fun, be it free-form RP or something more mundane. Hell, I can go to the Welcome center in Linden Village and interact with the noobs and the griefers and have a blast. I've done it before.

Anyway, if you've tried it and concluded it is not for you, then great. I support your choice wholeheartedly. Just don't tell me that it is not possible for anyone else; I, among thousands of others, will beg to differ most strenuously.

Sounds to me like you are too hard on yourself.

Why worry about the details?

If you show up and I am around, and you can't think of ANYthing to do with me, just do something spontaneous. Don't do what anyone expects of you; that's not how to "get things started". Cars don't start themselves or drive themselves. You have to be the driver.

If you have trouble thinking of something spontaneous to do in-character, then think of what you might do if your RL person was whisked away and plopped down in front of a big blue reptiloid with wings, sharp claws, long teeth, and with smoke coming out of its nostrils. Limit yourself to reactions which don't promote further interaction, like running away screaming in terror (ie, don't do that). Sneak around behind me and kick at the tip of my tail. Poke my haunch. Ask me if I swallowed a flamethrower. Tell me how pretty my scales are and start polishing them with your fur by rubbing against me (assuming you have fur). Tell me my breath smells of rotten meat and I need a wheelbarrow of breath mints. Whatever. Use your imagination. Once the train starts rolling down the tracks, look for more ways to keep it accelerating. Look at interaction like a tree. The biggest and hardest part is the trunk. Once you get past that part, each branch you take will have more and more sub-branches for you to go down. Look for more. Make more.

Worst case, find a "RP buddy" who is a "cool kid" (in your estimation, whether she thinks she is or not), make friends, and spend some time practicing and going around together.

I'm probably making it sound a lot simpler than it is, but it really is not that hard to pick up. It only takes time and practice. In all my years of RP and group interaction, I have never found anyone who simply can't do it. I have encountered people who don't like to do it, and that's just fine, but they CAN do it, at least. They may not do it in a game/social venue, but they do it in a work or other RL venue quite handily.

Bottom line is, if you like to do it, or want to do it, then just do it. If you try, and find that you don't like doing it, then don't! Seriously; there's nothing wrong with you if you don't like it. You're not some weird freak of nature. Many people don't like it; but, then again, many people DO like it. It is up for each of us to decide, right?

Ah, I didn't mean "the number of free-form RPs that actually happen". I meant "the potential range of free-form RPs". As an example, the potential range for free-form RPs would include any number in which people were role-playing soliders, which would not interest me at all. On the other hand, a conversation about war - while maybe not my favourite topic - would at least be something I could participate i.



The venues I frequent are determined by the conversations I've had in the past. Ultimately, _everything_ is socially determined in SL, so it's kind of hard for the social system not to be the problem.



See above.



No - becoming "cool" is actually random, or at least, chaotic. It depends upon the people you happen to cross paths with, what moods they're in, what mood you're in at the time, and so on. No one's actually rolling a dice, but like the butterfly's wings that cause a tornado, there are so many factors it's effectively unpredictable.



I said, "that fitted them into a group". (Not, "that would fit a group to them".)



No, you're saying that they aren't problems for you, but I'm saying that that isn't worth thinking about because I'm talking about the whole membership of SL.



Right, but then you're saying there's some random set of people who "don't deserve attention" - surely you can see all the things I've described are problems for them. Especially since that limit can be applied to them pretty much randomly. And as for them being happy being the potted plant, how do you know? They won't tell you they're unhappy being a potted plant, because that would require them NOT to be a potted plant.



Attention, and social respect, remains a much more limited resource in SL. And this is exactly what I'm saying - SL's society _can't have_ social ordering. It has to block it, no matter how human it is. If it does have it, then the people at the bottom of the order will not want to participate (economic nonparticipation) and might even try to break your windows (content theft). And eventually they will leave, which you might say is fine, except that now the order has a new bottom, and if the cycle continues, eventually the bottom will work its way up to you..

(And yes, they do want to break it. The auhtor of Neil Life, when asked about the viewer, didn't say anything about economic advantage from stealing content: he said that he wanted to "kill SL". So where did such hate come from?)

Um.. because.. I have to guide my finger to press a key, and in order to do that, I have to have decided which key I'm going to press. I can't proceed without knowing that detail.



.. All of which come to me paying attention to, and reacting to, you. Now, I don't mind doing that. But at some point, I'll want it to happen to me, too. Where is the system that tells me that someday it will?



I did actually try that for a while, but I got tired of just following her ideas 100% of the time.

If I can throw my two cents in to the whole issue being debated between Yumi, Argent, and Talurus.....

I think the whole issue here is flamboyance. In most social groups those who are naturally flamboyant without being too far over-the-top just naturally get attention, and as social beings we respond to that. Is it fair? I'm sure it isn't, but life itself is not fair. Everybody has the same opportunity to BE flamboyant though. If you don't have it, that's not the fault of the people who do.

So I think it's best to just relax and accept life as it is, even a virtual life like Second Life. If you're not the flamboyant one don't gripe about somebody else being flamboyant, maybe take some hints about the situation developing around their flamboyance and you might find something there you can play with.

I've found that letting people be so works for me. Yes, as a DJ I do tend to often be one of the flamboyant people, I think it comes with the territory, but if I'm upstaged? Great, I welcome it, because people are still having fun!

Yumi: there are people who get a kick out of spoiling stuff. In high school, soem of them WERE were the social leaders. One guy in the year above me, his father was one of the richest men in the country, he was one of the four or five top guys in EVERY category in school. He routinely went out and "griefed" kids in earlier forms, stealing stuff, attacking them, generally being the spoiler. It wasn't because he was the underdog. It's because that's how he was brought up. His father had apperantly been the same way, and when he got into business he ran his company just like it was the big bully in the playground. He ruined two of the other "cool kids" in his class, and he's in jail right now over the kind of stuff he pulled.

NONE of which is because he wasn't "a cool kid".

You can't blame the pecking order for creating the spoilers and bullies and griefers.

Right, but this is sort of my point. If _everyone_ in a group is flamboyant, then you just get a messy conflict between them. Therefore, there's a limited percentage of people who can have that experience; and that percentage is less than 50%. And therefore, if flamboyance is needed to have a "vivid" SL, then the majority never can, and we will see the symptoms of negativity and rebellion that we do see.

I'm not concerned with whose "fault" it is; no court is ever going to act on this. It _is_ someone's "problem" and they might decide to act on it, and if the decide not to, then they have accepted that problem. And those someones include LL and the complaining creators. There are solutions to the flamboyance problem - either eliminate it (WoW), make it unnecessary (Farmville), or inject it (not done as yet, but may be possible with research).

That's because most of the rejected geeky types at the bottom probably didn't have the ability to spoil anything, precisely because they lacked any social power (and often physical ability too) or felt morally uncomfortable with doing so. That's always been the way real society keeps itself stable: someone has to be at the bottom of the order, so make it those who have the least ability to do anything about it.

In SL, the geeks are exactly the ones who _do_ have the knowledge necessary, no violence is required, the risk is relatvely minimal, and since "it's not real" people don't feel the moral discomfort. It's a human society with all the safeties off, and that's one reason why it's so fascinating.



It is not the only thing, but it is certainly something that does create them. It is also something that creates the 70% drop-out rate.

Farmville. Does. Not. Change. Anything.

Not unless it eliminates social interaction completely.

Which it might do.

But if so, then you might as well be playing Final Fantasy VIII.

I didn't say there weren't spoilers down there either. There were. And there were ones in the middle.

I was one of them for one term, because one of the cool kids was doing it and I thought it was cool, but luckily I got found out by a wonderful east-european teacher who sat on me, hard, right when I needed it. And none of it was because I was the underdog. I entirely understand the kick of breaking shit up. It's a completely separate coordinate system.

Yes it does. It used social networks to make small social groups, and thus small pecking orders, so small that the bottom just isn't too bad. When there's only 8 people in a group of "neighbours", even the 8th will still be getting gifts and farm visits (especially since giving a gift has zero cost in FV, and visiting someone's farm gives a bonus). Moreover - although a bit more negatively - it just doesn't allow enough difference between people for there really to be much in the way of anything to base a pecking order on. And, because it's tied to social networking, it's likely that most of the people involved are RL friends anyway.

Now, I agree that many social networks have dodgy revenue models, but we can't ignore the fact that this is a company which has had plenty of opportunity to research the design of social games and it is discovering ways to funnel human nature into patterns so that everyone gets some appreciation without anyone feeling they are being coerced.

Um, no it isn't. If it were, Bill Gates would be as likely to be basing his business on spyware as the Zynga guy. (Um, wait.. )

You mean you simply can't interact with anyone outside your group?

OK, it *almost* eliminates social interaction. It's *almost* like Final Fantasy VIII.

If you think that's a good idea you'll make a great Handicapper General.

You are aware of the difference between a society and an entertainment product?

Of course you don't want entertainment to hinge too heavily on social interaction. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjPFffN5JF4

Do you even understand what a coordinate system is?

Some people at that level DO get a kick out of breaking shit up. Like the guy I mentioned.

Some don't.

Being "a guy who gets a kick out of breaking things up" is orthogonal to being "at the top of the stack". You get builders and bashers all the way up and down the line.

Of course I do. Final Fantasy VIII was tremendously successful.

This is yet another coordinate system.

Well, then you should have spotted that Harrison Bergeron was about a _society_. Farmville, and SL, are _entertainment products_.

In societies, people do things like building pecking orders. In societies, they're generally necessary. In entertainment products, they aren't, and they damage the product significantly. Imagine if there was a film where a randomly selected 10% of the viewers in each theatre were required to wear blindfolds and earplugs so they couldn't see the film - that's the equvialent of what a pecking order does.

Second Life is a social entertainment product. Farmville isn't. That's the whole point of "they're SEPARATE COORDINATES". Whether something is a SOCIAL SYSTEM and an ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCT are orthogonal. One is a dimension of "how social is it", and one is "how real is it".