Opinions Needed!!! Building Communities in SL

Chocolate brownie cheesecake made with a chocolate chip cookie crust . . .

Pep ( . . . and Jameson's hot chocolate sauce poured over FTW.)

PS With white Belgian chocolate ice cream in case you're still peckish.

But if you aren't yourself you are wasting your time.... where ever you are, what ever you do

We'd better tell Sir Anthony Hopkins that then.

Pep (Or perhaps Alice Cooper?)

quoted (with no further comments )

~ a silent shout ~

Tell that to all the transgendered people in SL, or the Furries, or heck, anyone with a skin that's not the color of their RL skin. If I wear a zebra striped skin, I'm wasting my time? If I choose to be a man in SL, I'm wasting my time? If I choose to be a dragon in SL, I'm wasting my time? What a tedious existence it would be.

As a left wing feminist, I'm now curious as to who and what this group is.

Ie: You will quote this fairly, and not attempt to slander them with selective quoting or renaming, even when you disagree with them. In other words, you're not Republican or Libertarian.




- What is a "community"?

A community is both a means of inclusion and a means of exclusion. These facts will be true of -any- community. Community members usually view it as a place to meet others of like interest for social, business, or political reasons (I don't include religious because I find religion a subset of political - that's what makes it different and often hostile to faith).

- Second Life as a "Community of Communities"

Eh... SL really is, to use a popular buzzword right now, really just a web of weak-contacts. This is not a bad thing, really. The wall between SL and RL enables people to obtain a connection to communities that they cannot be a part of in RL - the distance helps bridge the gap.

- Facets of Individuality: Gender

In SL people can be fluid in their gender. In RL gender is physically set. The social pressure to be gender appropriate in RL is so strong it never occurs to most to explore the question. When they do, in RL, you often end up with a lifetime of adversity. In SL most people stick to their RL gender. Some go with the gender they identify with, and some go with another gender to play around. The wall between RL and SL allows people to find a comfort zone in all of this - both in the gender they choose, and their ability to accept the gender others have chosen.

- Facets of Individuality: Sexuality and sexual identity

Pretty similar analysis to the above. Biologically humanity should be about 80% bi, and 10% hetero, 10% homo. Different societies over history have shown us that the present modern norm of being mostly hetero is not per se any more likely to be the biological norm than any other possibility. SL lets people step away from about half of the RL social pressures (the half that is external, though maybe even less is external) as to sexual identity. That lets people find a truer self-identity. Though again, some people cross lines not out of self-expression, but to play where it is safe.

As an aside; with my own avatar, I walk around with a profile that basically says 'ravish me anytime anywhere no asking required' because SL is play for me, and I find it more silly than erotic to watch my little avatar getting it on (and I keep Xcite with open permissions just for that). SL lets me jump into a wild sexuality in a safe way - no risk of pregnancy, disease, or biologically driven emotional entanglement.

- Facets of Individuality: Ethnicities

I wrote on this elsewhere. In SL, people often work by an assumption that everyone is their ethnicity until they have a reason to dislike them, at which point they become 'some other ethnicity.' That's true in any virtual reality. What is also true is that people from disempowered minorities tend to view everyone as being from a controlling hostile ethnicity that will judge them poorly, until they have reason to like them, then they start to wonder. As a person of a rare ethnicity, this is something I often struggle against. It spills over into RL too to be frank; when you come from a disempowered ethnicity it takes work to trust people of the empowered majority, even when your rational mind tells you you can. SL lets me escape that, but not as far as I would like to - ethnic perspective comes out all too often in the innocent things people put into what they type. That is what judge Sotomayor was getting at in her comments about being a Latina btw. The Caucasians on the bench judge not as judges, but as Caucasian judges - even if they try to not be ethnic, it is who they are. No one person can be balanced - so you need variety to achieve it.


- Community self-monitoring and policing

- Community governance structures

Group ownership and place ownership are structured in SL, and in most virtual communities, as mini dictatorships. One account holds all the keys. That person can dish out some minor authority, but cannot be deposed (an exception to this is the MMO City of Heroes - where you can demote your 'guild leader' if they fail to log in for 15 days). I know of no online community that allows for a democracy - where the members vote for a leader for a duration and the old leader cannot ignore it. Within that framework, every online community is force to range from either horrid to benevolent 'great leader'. Are virtual communities, no matter how noble their goals, are, at the end of the day; forced by coding design to become cults of personality.' This is a MAJOR flaw in the coding of virtual communities.

BLASPHEMY!!!!

Everyone knows that pie > all -- especially when you fill a pie with said gooey chocolate and cheesecake!

Brown Betty: Caramel custard with meringue on top baked in the oven. Then a ultra strong black coffee after wards.

Good thing the Democrats are always so honest as in:
Bill (Depends on what the definition of "is" is) Clinton,
Barack (Twenty years in the church and I did know the preacher was a racist) Obama,
Nancy (Everyone but me is lying about interrogation techniques) Pelosi,
William ( That $90K in my freezer isn't mine) Jefferson
Tim ( It's TurboTax's fault) Geithner

Don't pretend that the democrats are any more honest than any other polictician no matter what the party.

Republicans and Democrats both like pie!

but will it be politically correct pie?

umph!!!!
You cheeeeeeeeetid
you put cake inside a pie!!!!
who can compete with that

cake with pie filling inside?

No.

good i was worried for a minute.

Pie is beyond the narrow constraints of politics, correct or incorrect.

The only incorrect pie is one that is out of reach.

Just ignore and let this one (never) die




Btw? Where is Torley?

Or over eaten.

Urp.

I didn't say honestly, I said - takes it to the level of attack the person rather than debate the issue.

But hey, I'm partisan, take it or leave it.

oh really now?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bmc5QtDnW_U

Not wherever you ...will be

i was trying to avoid using this one..but since you forced my hand!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErjP5xMTc8I&feature=related

The stench eminates equally from both sides of the aisle. Neither side is above personal attacks in place of real discussion of issues. Just look at ANY election campaign. If you believe otherwise, you truly are drinking the Kool Aid.

Wow...2nd thread i have seen you in today and you keep on delivering.

Keep it up and you may find you have a stalker.