Second Life not good enough for you?

This recent rash of committees and public discussion about the future of SL are starting to make me itchy.

At some point, SL was running just fine on it's own. The speculative self-absorbed pundits were free to discuss their grandious visions for the future of SL on their own in their own forum and elsewhere -- but this buzzing ideology that SL needs residents to decide its fate is starting to burst once again into the General forums.

Let me put it this way -- democracy is a joke. communism never worked. dictatorships undermine the needs of everyone, and when we finally had something going... people are digging into that primordial desire to group together and make big stupid decisions together.

Personally, I like to think things work fine in SL without resident "action groups" and "committees." Everyone built their stuff, scripted, textured, chilled out, partied, and had fun. The lindens continued doing their thing -- improving the product and customer experience, people got townhalls and even a freaking feature voting system.

And that's not good enough? Now a bunch of self-important "stakeholders" are pushing us into derision and politics?

We all have our ideas about what could make SL better. We have a forum for discussing those ideas. Go ahead and discuss them. It's a participatory culture here.

But what a participatory culture ISN'T is forcing other residents to obey regulations, clauses, and the like that they didn't previously agree to participate in... and no matter how open you make it, there will never be a system that will satisfy the participants of this culture.

The only rules, regulations, and what not that ARE acceptable in this participatory culture are contained in the documents we agreed to be bound to before beginning our participation in SL.

What I'm curious about is why there are people who think that isn't good enough.

I'm also curious as to why anyone would get the crazy idea that what they personally spend gives them any sort of privelage.

I guess to me -- all of this committee crap is hollow bickering that threatens to make my experience in SL a little bit more aggravating.

I just let is slide. All the pointless bitching and whining keeps people busy. It doesn't really affect me as a player. I have my lot. I have few neighbors. And soon my workshop will be safer from lag.

Granted, i do troll the forums, but that's for some fun, and to keep people on their toes. If people don't like SL, then they can go somewhere else.

I dunno. Maybe some people have higher expectations about the product and its potential than y'all do.

And maybe other people are here for the drama. Kinda like'ta bitch 'bout thangs, and/or bitch 'bout people bitchin' about thangs. Kinda like an interactive daytime soap opera, but with a slightly political flavor.

I think the second reason's huge.

My noob opinion that some folks have revenue streams and positions of relative power to protect.

I've been in SL for a week or so and it seems to me that, just like RL, SL is geared more toward business owners and content creators. Or put more directly, people with money.

If you want a nice skin, shape, clothes, etc, be prepared to play through the nose for it. And because so many things are no-transfer, I can't sell off used items to help me finance other purchases (see a slight rant on this topic below). So even as a premium (or is it primary) resident, I'm forced to either buy lindens, save for a long time or do without.

Well, most people have to "do without" in RL. Why in the heck would anybody want to "do without" in SL?

And let's talk about land prices. For the last week or so, I've been looking to buy first land, or in the alternative, relatively inexpensive land. My experience is "good luck with that". The first land parcels that have been offered aren't very nice and land anywhere decent is outrageously expensive. I saw a parcel today that was selling for $70 KL. That's nearly $250 US. So again, I'm either buying land in some snowy outpost or I'm buying lindens. Or if I'm really luck, I'll find a decent parcel of first land.

/rant

Don't even get me started about no-transfer. This is the single most stupid thing I've seen here. In RL, if I buy something, I can sell it if I'm not using it. But SL puts what I see as an arbitrary restriction on what people do with personal assets.

I understand the need for creators to protect their content. But OTOH, people who spend their money on stuff should be able to recoup some of the cost by selling those things they don't use anymore. I mean for crying out loud, I can't even GIVE a non-transferable item to someone. So it sits, in inventory, not being used.

I don't see non-transferable as anything other than a Linden approved protectionist policy. It's hardly a free market when someone can't sell stuff they bought. The kicker is that while it certainly does preserve revenue streams, removing the non-transferable protection won't kill the content creators either.

/end rant

I know this post will raise some hackles. I apologize for that, as it is not my intention. However, as someone who's new, I see things with fresh eyes. Things that longer time SL residents may take for granted as "being the way it is".

I just wanted to say a quick word about this DogSpot before you assume the motives behind no-transfer. Content creators have a choice, no-transfer or no-copy. If we make something allow transfer AND copy then it becomes public domain. Which shall it be? That depends on our customer's demands and those demands are split. Most of my old stuff allowed transfer but no-copy but I got many complaints from people who wanted to have multiple copies for different outfits. So now I allow copy but no transfer, and if somebody want's to gift another user I am happy to oblige. I rarely get complaints about this now.

I fully understand how no-copy and no-transfer work and that an item has to be one or the other to protect the item from being copied and resold. Don't assume because I'm a noob, that I haven't done my homework.

Regardless, I consider it a major problem when I have sometimes expensive items that I don't use and can't do anything with. Right now, I have a $250 body part item that I can no longer use because the skin I'm using is a photo skin and doesn't need the add on parts. I'm stuck with it.

Even that said, there's a general principle at work. SL residents should _always_ be able to sell the things they buy.

Even if that means content creators need to stock two versions (I'm not sure if that's more costly to the seller or not) or accomodate SL residents by turning off no-transfer and turning on no-copy for items they want to sell.

There is no reason why there shouldn't be a viable used market in SL.

There are some oddish reasons why this is. One is, used items don't wear and tear as they do offline, unless they're simulated to.

But, there is already quite a thriving bloom of used exchanges and sales, many yardsales on the Events. Infact, there've been quite a few exciting yardsales I've been to. Mash+Baccara used to run a great one in Purple, which I think has now been rolled into the bigger picture of their Home Depoz megastore.

When you said " Even if that means content creators need to stock two versions", I think there are some webshops that actually offer this. Gigas's SecondServer.net did this with some test items when it was last up and I was testing.

NOTRANS comes in handy for the deliberate reason if you don't want someone to sell something. I've been given items that were meant to be "for me only". So there is a use. Actually it's funny, I tend to make tons of personal copies of things (in my colors and whatnot) so I may ask a contented creator to help me set it.

Also, it's nice because users get in the habit of deleting objects after they're done with them. If they have a no-copy object, it goes in the trash, and might be lost.

I've done that a lot.

Yeah, I always thought it's a game peeps are playing.


...

Actually, that's a lie. I hope it's a game peeps are playing.

I (and other vehicle makers) sell vehicles as no-transfer because, in short, SL eats vehicles for lunch. Take a vehicle out for a spin and 10% of the time, you'll get bumped out of your seat by either a bad sim border or a malicious security script.

The solution: give customers the right to copy the vehicle. That way it never goes missing. It's a compromise, because in order to make sure that people don't buy one and give away (or sell) a billion copies, it has to be no-transfer.

I used to sell vehicles as no-copy/transfer, but too many times the vehicle would go missing. It's a choice designed to protect your purchase from loss.

For me its a tradeoff - when I decide to make something for sale I look it over see which will benefit the end user best.. and protect the creation.

Copy - or Transfer.. one or the other...

I did make things public domain a long time ago (full mod) -- The end result was folks took OFF the mods and jacked the price up.... giving them a nice little 'BARGAIN' that they could sell over ad-infinatum.

So it's Copy or Transfer...

Siggy.

As time goes on, more and more of the world economy will take place in virtual transactions spaces like SL. I'm excited about being here from the beginning to watch it unfold. Kind of like being involved with the theater in ancient Greece!

That's my stake in SL...

Sigh.

I *understand* the technical reasons for no-copy or no-transfer.

Let me be plainer.

As a new person to SL, you don't know what you want or need. Once you settle in and take stock, so to speak, you realize that you have things you bought that you aren't going to need.

But the SL resident is _stuck_ with those items, because they're all marked no-transfer.

Shouldn't there be a mechanism through which buyers can recoup some of their cost of items they no longer need?

Are there options to work with original creator to deal with this?

I have no need for commitees or representatives. If I have a suggestion for the Lindens, I'll message one, or suggest a proposal, start a vote, or send an email. I don't need to first run them by 20 friends and 40 strangers to have my ideas and opinions validated. I'm not here to play neighborhood watch, PTA or lobbyist.

As long as others make absolutely no claims to speak for me, or anyone but themselves, they can roleplay whatever they like.

Maybe you've hit the proverbial nail on the head with this one.

This is the serious issue at hand here I suppose -- are revenue streams in SL protectable by the same laws IRL that govern businesses or are they subject to the laws of SL -- namely TOS and CS?

Hmmm...

Long story short, you would prefer No Copy to No Transfer so that you can have yard sales with stuff you no longer want, correct? I have no problem with people selling their only copy of an item. I don't think many do have problems with that.

Many content creators will give you alternate permissions if you just take the time to ask them.

Wow, it's like you read my mind. I was going to get all involved in RAC and I still support the people who are in it, but mainly to combat MJW. But it all seems like a big bother.

There was another game I was involved in where people kept trying to change the game (TSO) and all their poking and prodding end up ruining a lot of the good things in the game.

I said it then and I'll say it here Game Developing by Democracy is not necessarily a good thing . Okay back then I said it was a bad thing, but I don't want to ruffle feathers here.

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.
Robert Louis Stevenson

Yeah, it's an obvious thing that gets missed a lot, I've heard the question asked tons, and hey, there's no better person to ask than... THE CREATOR! I can't generalize but on a case-by-case basis, I've had many beautiful friendships bloom in the course of asking for alt perms sets (in my case, the preferred YESMOD YESCOPY NOTRANSFER). When I was fresh off of the virtual boat I was thinking of expending time and energy to sell some of my clothes, but then I figured I could allocate that to something else. I've seen some new Residents have such a hard time unloading items for a relatively low amount of Ellz (L$) that they'd be better benefited considering other possibilities.

The things people get stuck with probably only total a few dollars - and during the time they shopped for them and used them I would imagine they had a few dollars worth of fun. Not everything needs to be rolled over as soon as someone doesn't want it anymore. We are talking about a tiny amount of money - surely it's worth spending that tiny amount to have a bit of fun.

Perhaps. But the flexibility to _do as one chooses_ with the things they buy is important.

And also remember that a few lindens to one resident may be a lot of money to another. I'd certainly welcome another couple of thousand $L in my account.

FWIW, I'm not trying to bag on content creators. I understand you want to protect your items.

I JUST LURVE A MUTUAL POLICY.

Meaning, I get good vibes off the peep who made the thing, we both agree that this is a quality product and I'm a satisfied customer. And it goes from there. I've had a few bad probs with sellers that were pigheaded and stynosed. So, not buying from them again... thankfully by far and large the vast majority of my purchases have been happy ones and I'm very much for flexibility, and thriftiness!

Lateral! Lateral!

Yes, the long-gone good old days of last Wednesday. Ah, such a fond memory. Give the people who want to play politics (from the Greek: poly meaning "many" and tics meaning "blood-sucking insects" a couple weeks and SL will be back to normal after they Lord of the Flies each other to death (not a reference to Lordfly Digeridoo who is probably very nice).

hahaha do i ever tell you that u crack me up? ^_^

Remember, if PRO is the opposite of CON, consider the opposite of PROGRESS.

and then we can wait two weeks after that, and seeee.

hehe thats sorta like Necrophilia... Necro - being dead and philia... 'filling ya'