Moving the self-governance discussion in-world...

... since after all, SL is supposed to be such a great communication platform, isn't it?

Almost two years ago, the first talks about "self-governance" have emerged in SL — on forums, on blogs, and naturally, in-world. Several experiments and models have been discussed and tried out in practice; from autocracies, to oligarchies, to company conglomerates, to plain and simple groups discussing among themselves how to plan their land, to very detailed and elaborate procedures set in place by groups that don't have land at all but still require planning and organisation... well, and even to democratically elected representatives running planned sims. While certainly most possible systems haven't been tried out yet, and some are not scalable, the issue is that many, many residents have tried any one of these models, with varying degrees of success.

"SL government" is not only about managing people in land; this is just one possible model. Also, a company is a very successful form of managing human and land resources — the best examples in SL seem all to be profitable companies doing good and fair business. Keeping an open mind about the topic, there will be a Thinkers' meeting on Wednesday, the 12th (4 PM SLT), to discuss a bit the different experiences that people have had in the past two years. What worked well? What didn't work? What limitations does SL have to hamper organised groups from planning and deciding things on their own? How can the different models exist side-by-side and learn from each other? What systems are wishful thinking and require a major redesign of SL, what can be implemented with the current set of tools?

More info on the event blurb: http://secondlife.com/events/event.php?id=246069&date=1152745200

Gee Gwyn, help me out here. Apparently my rather long experience in SL has been missing something. I've never felt a need for a government. I have, however, often wondered about the whole government thing. It sometimes seems to me to be one of those topics that we create just to keep ourselves busy. What would we do if we didn't have 'government' on our minds? Is is just one more of the many problems we create to keep us distracted from finally becoming fully aware?

I can speak only for myself, Neal, but while - as I'm something of a rational anarchist/libertarian - I find coercive government to be something of an evil, it's a matter of fact that any social grouping larger than a circle of friends, or a village is going to develop some kind of rules, be they informal agreements or simple "the strongest get their way".

This is, in effect, a sort of government. If you run a message board, and set up rules which you must administrate, this too is a sort of "government".

As SL grows larger and more emphasis is placed on multiple estates as opposed to the wholly Linden-controlled mainland - and even on the mainland, a local group keeping the peace can be preferable to ARing and waiting for a possibly-ineffectual Linden response.

It's not a matter of arguing if we'll have this, for we already do. It is true most "government" in SL takes the form of a simple landlord/tenant model, but I hardly think rejecting other arrangements out of hand is productive. Relying on the overworked Lindens isn't the answer, and if/as SL decentralizes it will cease to become an option.

The problem is conflating this necessary thing with the idea that someone serious about organizing such a group is trying to "make their own microstate" and "playing politics" and thus is just a "game". While you should be under no delusions as to what you're doing - Neufreistadt (for example) is a way to manage a sim, no more, no less - but you shouldn't be under any delusions about what you're NOT doing, either.

Ah, Neal, I think that you're misreading my post.

No, I'm sure there is no "need" of "a" government, since we, SL residents, have gone along pretty reasonably well without "a" government.

On the other hand, as many other wise residents have said, there is also not "a" community in SL. Instead, there are many communities.

Thus, there are ways for the many communities to become, slowly and over time, self-organised. Some call it "a" company, or "a" group (with a team leader), or "a" organised community, or "a" landlord with its rentees, and so on, and so on. Some even are silly enough to describe what they are doing as "a" government.

The trouble with human language is it's inadequate expression of imprecise terms

To clarify:

- many people have participated in several organised or semi-organised structures — from the many in-world "mafias", to rent land from a landlord, to establish volunteer organisations to raise funds, to get a team together to build things, well, even the SL Moderators are a group with a structure and an organisation!
- this is hardly surprising — humans are gregarious beings
- a few, of course, are "hermits" in the sense that they refuse being in touch with anyone else — they exist in SL as well

But many have come in touch with the underpinnings of "government" — the sense that you delegate your own powers (and accept a limitation upon your total liberty of doing whatever it pleases) to a structure, a group, or a person, and expect in return better planning, better organisation, more efficient use of resources, or simply better socialisation (all are possible) What made people (ie. homo sapiens) come together in the first place and discuss "I do the hunting, you keep the fire warm, while you will gather roots" is what happens in SL all the time: "I do the prims, you do the texturing, she'll do the scripts, and he will promote the event".

Aliasi put it so well. Establish rules, delegate "power", accept responsabilities, organise and plan things, and the result is "government". Or, if you prefer, "management". It's in our blood

The purpose of the discussion later is to discuss a bit what kind of experiences people have had in SL related to "management", "planning", "organisation", "delegating tasks", "establishing rules", and so forth. Depending on what you've been doing in SL, the experience can be zero, ("I keep to myself on a corner of a sandbox and talk to nobody", intermediate ("I pay my fees to the shop owner, and drop a few prims there" or "at a live music event, I type / before chatting, so not to disturbe others listening in to the streaming", or advanced ("I've worked with a group of people setting up a fund-raising event", "I set up my own SL company" or even "I've participated in an elected sim-wide government" ). Experiences are both different and similar at all these levels, and it would be nice to exchange those.

thank you both for your replies. Its nice to hear from the two of you. I've always appreciated what you both bring to SL.

I don't think I was clear about what I was trying to say. May I suggest an experiment? Stop thinking about 'goverment' or 'management' and see if you can notice what takes its place in your thoughts and in your day. And then stop thinking about that, and see what takes its place...and so on. That might lead to a clearer understanding of what I was referring to when I talked about 'awareness'. There are so many apparently intricate, wonderful, and 'necessary' things that get in the way of seeing, as the Little Prince said: "what is essential".

But perhaps this is all out of place here?

Since if I make it in by the event time, I'll be moving a couple dozen new residents in today and I can't make it...

What worked well?

- Seems Anshe is quietly and powerfully continuing to show us what works. Further exemplified by the fact that many are hostile to her, and it *still* works.


What didn't work?

- There are myriad ways to fail. Just because Joe Noob failed at method X, does that really show that a method didn't work?


What limitations does SL have to hamper organised groups from planning and deciding things on their own?

- The inherent corporate business model. Nobody's ever going to democratise the corner deli, save perhaps in rationing the use of scarce condiments. At the end of the day, people will 'vote with their feet' inside of SL and out.


How can the different models exist side-by-side and learn from each other?

- I don't think we could *prevent* people from learning from each other... especially if someone comes up with something monetarily successful, or 'delivers' in some comparably powerful way.

- To bring up a 90's term (forgive me!) there *is* such a thing as synergy. While Coke and Pepsi may be competitors, 'cola flavoured drink' wins overall; it has 'mindshare' and occupies the thoughts of millions. Side by side existence ensured.


What systems are wishful thinking and require a major redesign of SL, what can be implemented with the current set of tools?

Wishful thinking:

- Fair, lasting democracy as long as any one individual can own a sim
- Egalitarian, on-grid donation-based anything on any significant scale


Can be implemented:

- Corporate structures
- Autocratic forms of governance

Just one man's opinion.

I'm going to post here because I'm unsure of my availability for the in-world event.

Those who have sought non-autocratic "management" have expended great amounts of time and effort trying to "get around" the 'preference' for autocracy built into the way SL works. A group has one founder. A private sim has one "owner" (he/she who pays the tier bill). These people have absolute power in their group/sim under the present system.

Although the group tools upgrade promised in 1.12 isan improvement, it lacks one thing absolutely necessary to real group management: The ability to require the consent of multiple avatars in order to do something.

Presently, any officer member of a group can, for example, sell land owned by that group. How hard would it be for a sell action to trigger a vote among those with a certain group role? A certain percentage of that subgroup would have to affirm the sale, or ejection of a member, or..... before it occured.

Then you could have real collective management.

Although I've never felt the need for a government either, I can understand the attraction of designing a *system* that would impartially decide issues in dispute between people who live on the same sim.

For some unknown reason every sim where I've owned land or worked as a sim developer functioned well without a formal system like that. This includes mainland sims like Windermere, which contained First Land, and Miramare. Perhaps neighborliness is the usual state of affairs in SL, and the cases where we'd need a system to handle problems are few and far between?

Glad to see you posting again, Neal. : )

Oh, no, please, please, no!

As you say, the lack of a formal system does not equal to lack of a system.

This is, perhaps, where I don't get Neal's not getting me.

Even if you don't have a formal government, you have understandings. Unspoken agreements. Good fences making good neighbors. "That's the way we're always done it here."

It doesn't need a flag to be a "government", and humans really can't help but have it.

EDIT: It may seem odd for me to insist on these principles, but despite my own involvement in SL governance, I prefer informal arrangements... but realize the value of getting things down in writing.

Instead of residents looking to others to solve their diputes, players should get together and figure out the best ways for residents to solve disputes themselves.

The best ideas could be put up on a webpage, and could be required reading for all new players.

It would teach people self-reliance, and would be a lot simpler than trying to create courts and legal system. *shudder*

We're all residents here, though. That's the thing.

I mean, in Neufreistadt, it's not like anyone there is inherently different from any other citizen. So, in effect, our means of resolving disputes ARE residents solving disputes themselves...

BTW, transcript here: /77/14/119799/1.html#post1141682

Sure, because any concept that takes more than 30 words to express is too complicated.

Chat programs like SL reduce the bandwidth of dialogue to slightly lower than telegraph speeds. It's like 1830, only more graphical!

I've a wonderful thesis on how "bliptalk" may be altering the capacity of people to think which unfortunately this box is too small to contain. However, there are some that say we think too much as is so maybe this is a watershed event in human discourse.

That Thinkers meeting was interesting for several reasons. I got the impression that Robin is dead serious about giving residents the tools to institute resident-run government.

Periodically some governance scheme catches my eye, and I make an assessment as to whether it has the potential to be twisted into something most of us do not want: SL-wide government with some residents in authority over other residents. Not RP, but residents wielding decision-making say over other residents with respect to issues that matter to them, and enforcing decisions by means of penalties that matter to them. In my opinion the initiative Robin was bringing to our attention has significant potential to be twisted that way. The scenario would unfold as follows:

1. At this point in time the proposal seems to hinge on groups formulating sets of rules. Robin's comments suggest friendly groups agreeing to adhere to a mutual set of rules against griefers, and banning rule breakers from their combined land. However not all groups are good-neighbor groups. The prospect of power may fuel group rivalry. Even now some groups are run by ego-driven founders, some are propelled by internal drama, and some are embroiled in un-neighborly campaigns against competitors. These are the motivations that might drive rival groups to seek advantage by being first to recruit huge numbers of adherents for their own government-foundation rulesets.
   
2. As joining a government-foundation group becomes more common due to those recruiting efforts, more and more people may feel obliged to join some group just to be on the safe side. People left on the outside will feel marginalized and worried that they may be misperceived as griefers. Some will feel so uncomfortable that they will join reluctantly.
   
3. Once this pattern is clear enough to register as the sound of opportunity knocking, it wouldn't surprise me to see some unscrupulous newcomer with significant financial resources step in to bribe/intimidate people into joining their group, making it the biggest group of all. In a climate of group rivalry and reluctant membership people will have no compunction about shifting to the group that offers the most personal advantage. That big group gets bigger, and its ruleset becomes the dominant government-foundation ruleset in SL.
   

Of course none of this is fated to happen. I'm simply noting the potential for an undesirable outcome. On the positive side we could see griefers banned from huge tracts of land. We might even see some types of abuse report cases handled by residents, thus freeing up LL staff. Pallmore's suggestion for a court of resident judges appointed by LL to handle resident disputes such as land use cases was along those lines.

As long as I don't have to be part of your player run gov't, rock on.

I just don't want my gaming fun pushed in on by another player.

Jonas, You do not have to be part of any goverment. However if you visit a sim with a goverment you will have to follow their rules.

No, I have the option of leaving.

Anybody who advocates user resolution of abuse reports is either a very naive (not what I put first, but I am trying to be restrained) or totally lacking in experience of the world.

It is a guaranteed method of producing corruption.

I have been there. I have seen it. It is crap.

Traxx, I agree to your analysis, and from the transcript it has been quite clear that not only Linden Lab has given a lot of thought to this matter, but that it has been discussed for quite a while. I particularly liked the following Robin's comment:

"there certainly were anarcholibertarian roots here [...] and we have built a 'propertarian' world [...] so then what comes next, and how does it get shaped?"

I think that the discussion will be focused on the following points:

1. how will communities enforce their own rules?
   
2. how will they appeal those decisions?
   
3. how will the non-aligned residents (ie. the ones wishing to avoid to belong to any community) be viewed by the remaining ones?

From the point of view of an experiment, I find it fascinating. Imagine that 7 billion human beings were on a spacecraft, and watching an (empty) Earth from orbit. They would have access to each country's "community rules" and the way each one would answer to those three questions. And then they will choose the one that reflects their own personal beliefs best.

I can imagine a SL like that — you see the world unfolding before you log in, and have a way to pick the community you wish. With a difference: you'll be able to pick "none of the above" as an option.

Now this will mean a "reality check" for many residents: no, nobody is playing "utopia" here, we're just behaving as regular human beings. "Oh! What a surprise! I didn't sign up for reality, I want utopia!" There will be gnashing of teeth by the ones refusing to accept reality: some human beings (well, the majority of them, really) wish for a rich social experience inside a community. Still, iRL, we don't get the option of picking "no community" as our choice; but we'll have that in SL!

Now, again, I also don't "believe" that we'll have, all of a sudden, hosts of lovely communities to pick from, all of them peaceful, honest, law-abiding citizens, and full of ethical and moral responsabilities.

Rather the contrary! We'll have Traxx's scenario — people trying to game this system to their own personal advantage, lying, cheating, abusing all their "new-found powers", banning everyone from their communities except for the ones they like (or can manipulate). Imagine your worst fears, and you'll have them. Perhaps tens of thousands of communities will start like that.

This will be Phase I. Actually, not so different from "proprietarianism" today (using Robin's words): it'll be enforceable proprietarianism. "You've insulted my Superior Intelligence™! Here, I'll take L$5,000 from your account and half of your land. Now, grovel, and apologise, you clumsy idiot!"

(remember, abuse reports will partially be dealt out with local and corrupt judges — totally partial, unfair, and biased)

So, how long do you expect these communities to last?

Probably a few weeks, until the novelty wears off. The people who have been abused and cheated out of their personal land/money will very likely walk back into the "no community" tag and hope for better days.

Still, nothing like having a free market This will mean that communities will compete among themselves, but their competition will be based on reputation only. A good reputation means: more residents for a longer time. And more residents mean more power (more land, more money, mor influence)! Now this is an ambitious goal to all communities interested in being around SL for a long while.

What happens right now in SL is that you have already very long-standing communities, with their rules and internal systems of dealing with problems. This proposal would validate their existence, by bringing them new and better tools to grow, expand, and keep up a good reputation by dealing with all issues fairly.

Selador is very much against this model — and has been so for years (at least, since I followed his posts). I think that he's right if the residents have no choice — i.e. if there is a single model throughout the whole of SL, and no alternatives.

Bring those alternatives in, and they will compete among themselves to provide better and stabler systems. Sure, many people will get "burned" in this process. But the petty tyrant who abuses the whole system will very likely find himself/herself very quickly ostracised! They'll manage to "play tyrant" for weeks or months at most, until everybody in SL knows their reputation, and will spread the word quickly.

The old cliché that with great power comes great responsability will be very true for these emerging communities. I expect that from the start you'll have just a handful of serious ones, and lots of malicious tyrants trying to "squeeze in" the system. After a while, people leaving the petty tyrants will set up their own systems, as a sort of "counterpoint" to the tyrants themselves; the handful of serious communities will grow. There will be a tipping point when at some point in time people will not join any community at all that doesn't have a strong reputation — it'll be hard at the beginning, but as time goes by, the choices will be clear: people wishing for stability, justice, and peace, will have to pick carefully. And if you don't think it's worth the risk to take — you'll simply chose to be "outside the system", on the "no community" areas, and only subject to LL's sole authority.

All in all, I can't find anything wrong with the proposed system. People "escaped" to private islands to avoid griefing and visual noise. This model will allow both to be avoided on the mainland as well — at least some parts of it. There are already large parts of the mainland under reasonable "community rule" — rentals and people simply joining together with common goals — and that is happening all over the place, spontaneously. I think that both types (rental companies, themed/lifestyle'd groups) will be the first embracing this new model, and make sure they'll grow by offering the newcomers a first taste of "protection" and stability on the mainland as well (which they are doing right now at least for dealing with urban planning...).

There are still issues to be solved, like inter-community relationships ("extradiction laws"!), and the right to appeal intra-community decisions (to whom?), but all in all, I think that this system can be simply implemented in the following fashion:

1. Prerequisite: new group tools in place!
   
2. When signing in, people get a list of available communities, with links to webpages explaining how they work. A simple form with some tags should be enough, with external links to more detailed reference material.
   
3. New users come directly from the Orientation Island to a special "teleport" area inside the community — their own "Welcome Area".
   
4. Land in the community is tied to a covenant. The covenant explains how rules are applied. Nobody can sell land to anyone else who does not respect the covenant.
   
5. "Enforcement" means that special group roles (under the new model, remember!) will be able to apply sanctions if someone does not comply with the rules: removal of objects, preventing access to land parcels, expropriation (partial or total), etc. All these seem to be possible under the new group tools, which are quite powerful.
   
6. Visitors/tourists to the community will be informed about the covenant. The rules will apply to them as well while they're visiting. This will be somehow visually marked on the parcel's name, with a direct link to the rules that apply.
   
7. Abuse reports will be routed to specific roles in the group instead.

If you take a look closely at all the above, you'll see that except for the signing in mechanism, almost all the rest is already implemented! (or will be on 1.12)

I really think this whole governance thing has to just hold up a second and take a look at what we are trying to do.

From what I have gathered (will continue to look into this more closely) it appears we are attempting to group SL under one command or the command of a singular group when clearly SL is made up of individual groups with individual purposes that don’t require further grouping Some, as sated, are for commercial reasons, others are for fun, and so on to infinity. If you think about it, SL is already one community. We all work under LL's Terms Of Service (well most of us do). Second Life is already under a government and that is our TOS Agreement and the Community Standards. There is no need for another group on top of our already existing one.

"So if you *don't* want resident government, you better get organizing. If you are concerned about what it means to leave it to a handful of elites, then be prepared to recognize that only creating alternatives can mitigate the inevitability.." -Prokofy Neva

EDIT: I'm not attacking Prokofy Neva or any one individual here, I'm speaking out against whoever this "handful of elites" is and what they are trying to do, sorry for any misunderstandings that have occured.

If this happens that means we will have to conform to LL's terms and theirs. SL is a diverse community and uniting it under one group that functions to govern SL (In-World) will take away that diversity, it will make the SL experience pointless. This is a perfect example of somebody attempting to take control over something they don't own and use it to gain power. There is no leader in SL, we are our own leaders each with our own goals. We group because some people share similar goals for which we work together to achieve. Force grouping, us into one larger group that will defiantly not unite, EVER will only result in a killing of the SL experience.

Think of this wording in the quote, "handful of elites" so they already think they are better than you? Apparently they do, or somebody thinks they are. Don't be fooled by this good intentioned proposal. SL is already a community, a community of individual groups, don't kill the experience by attempting to unite SL when it is already united.

We’ve survived this long without somebody in charge of the whole thing and I’m sure we can continue to do so.

If you play the game there is no need to make any rules. By the nature of the game, the rules are already there.

You want government? Get you own land, don’t use ours. Leave the rest of us to our own sense of “government.”

Don't tread on us.

I'd never quite put it so starkly, but this is my premise also.




On a few occasions I've been asked to mediate in regard to user conflicts within my sims.

Surprisingly, *none* of these have been in regard to land issues, or even in regard to residents. Just frequent visitors (whom I value).


One instance was of astounding significance - charges of stalking, both SL and RL.

I was offered chatlogs, I had some people accusing, other people vouching for innocence... and so on and so forth.


My response:

1) I refused all chatlogs. It is against TOS for me to even look at them, as I am a private individual no better or worse than anyone else in SL.

2) I did not ban the parties in question from my sims. Two reasons:
a) Even if I had, all it would have meant is that they would be back as alts. "Devil I know -vs- Devil I don't" simple as that.
b) Who am I to judge? The parties in question (alleged stalker/stalkee) were clearly continuing to communicate with each other, and both have the tools available to cease communication just like we all do.

3) I informed all accusers that if there were charges, to file an abuse report with the Company, not me. I had well over a dozen solid hours of IM's from people making statements of all kinds - I approached Company staff in-world and simply said: here you go, tell them. I did my best to find a female Linden; due to the nature of the charges it seemed most appropriate to do so.

4) I also asked the accused not to hold land in my sims, as long as such tensions existed. Perhaps my most controversial decision, and clearly, business related.

Was I right to do this? Decide for yourselves. I've already made these decisions, and moved on.


The result:

Did the party in question get in trouble? I do not know. Guilt or innocence? I do not know. Most importantly, it's none of my business. I'm a resident of Second Life just like everyone else.

As with most things in SL, within a couple of weeks the whole thing seemed to have evaporated.

I decline all governments here, especialy those that are run by residence.

That is nice but please respect the residents of sims that want to make goverments. We have the right to decide for ourselves. If you want to opt out that is ok as well.

Ofcourse! just like I respect all the rules and religions on this planet.. Some a bit more and some less.

Now that is where you go wrong. Yes you have the right to commit yourself to a "government" but it should be "Opt in" only. If you want ppl to "Opt out" then they need to "opt in" first. Create a group and groupland and have fun! Dont force it on someone and then tell then to "Opt Out".

So I just stay with Government Linden and their TOS and you can choose whatever government you like on your closed sim/parcel.