Poll: What Is SL?

I'm not sure if we are allowed to submit polls anymore. Strife, are we? Or are they like "discussion"?

My question is how people see SL.

Caveat: Like all polls, this one isn't perfect. So I know it could be written better, but, I'm curious, so I've done it the best I can.

Since the poll options have to be short, I will expand a bit here:

Note: "Primarily" - means mainly. The main purpose, the reason why you are here. The main reason you think most people are here.

1. Primarily a 3-D world, where people live their second lives. People gather to chat in real time; wear virtual clothes; visit other places and attend events; present themselves in virtual avatars; shop for or create items of use only in their virtual second lives.

2. Primarily a collection of 3-D websites, where personally-designed avatars can gather to chat in real time; gain information, or present information for others; similar to the Internet except it is more in pictorial presentation, with people able to gather together on these individual websites, and by avatar representation, "physically" travel from one to the next.

coco

make my pie cherry...........

Thank you for the Poll Coco, this is a pretty important subject.

Since Im too lazy to type it all over again - Im pasting what I said on this topic already -
with a little edditing.

*****************************
I think if most of us were honest - we could look at how our freinds, our neighbors, our customers see second life and recognize the following -

The real internet technical / web savy type (the extreme Minority) will see the 3d World Wide Web Idea. These types are disproportionally represented on the forums. Becuase forums culture is one of those places this types often participates in.

While Majority of the Second Life User base sees it as a Virtual World / 3 chat room or a Online Game. Most are looking to "play house" live out their virtual lives, talk to freinds, go shopping, own their own house, Maybe open a shop make a little money. A much smaller proportion of these people use the forums.

I submit if anyone who thinks the 3d Internet types are the majority in SL then they arent being honest with themselves, they are out of touch, or they need to start meeting people who arent as Tech Savvy to get some perpective.

If the former catagory were the majority the SL economy would be much different. I dont need 20 pairs of shoes and 10 different little black dresses to browse a 3d Web. I wouldnt need a house or a bed. Why bother, Id just be web surfing.

Second Life is a playground.

Playground politics included.

I chose Option A...only because I don't like pie.

Vote pie. Mainly because I'm not sure between the other two. I wouldn't say it's 'primarily' either, but a hybrid of both.

The internet isn't an encyclopedia; it's a participatory medium (like any SL resi needs to be told that ) and I'm glad that's becoming much more of a reality now.

Someone (looking three posts above, I'm sure it was Colette Meiji) said in another thread that there are parties that want SL to be the basis of "Web3D", and that this is an issue for things like privacy. I actually agree with both sides there. I'd love to see the internet in general really going down this route, but that also requires a paradigm-shift in what the term 'the internet' means and how it's used. I think there's more to the Web3D idea than just a fancy interface: it enables the aforementioned participatory nature of the medium to shine through. That's going to require a shift in behaviour, of course, because the anonymity of web-identity as it stands evaporates. Not that they know things about you 'in real life' but in that your web-identity becomes a real thing.

This is the line my thinking's taking; I haven't reached the end of that line, yet.

It's definitely pie.

An inclusive concept like yours is quite a step beyond where most people are at. But I do like it as a concept.

Most of the 3d Web people seem not inclusive of the Virtual world people at all.

It's primarily a virtual polling booth.

Well, I think I'm following you up the the point of anonymity vanishing.

After all, I can go to the mall, I can go to the park, I can walk in my neighborhood - I can go anywhere and everywhere in real life and still have my anonymity.

coco

I am concerned about that as well. It seems that there is a possibility that Second life could become a place where the non techhead casual computer user will not be welcome, or at the very least, barely tolerated.

ohh were welcome - They want our money

But were poor uneducated and know not of which we speak, they will tell us what we can and cant have.

Coco - I hate to say it but your infamous friend was right about some of this stuff.

Colette -

coco

It seems to me that the analogy of 3-D environments and 2-D websites falls apart at the onset, due to the mere fact that you CAN'T walk between regular internet websites, with other people, like you can here.

I just really think they are fundamentally two very different things, by definition. I think as the years go by, we will see that. The regular internet is more like a book, forums and all notwithstanding.

A place - which is what a 3D interpretation is - is, by its fundamental structure, more like a place.

So I think the analogy from the Internet to here (or any place like here, a 3-D sort of place) just won't hold, just as you can't say that the Internet is just like books, and should comform in all ways to the norms governing books.

You can find similarities between (what is apparently known as) 2-D and 3-D internet usage, but at base, and in the long run, they are fundamentally different animals.

coco

Which is ironic when you consider that, in the web's infancy, the Virtual World idea was exactly what was predicted, and was touted as one of the major 'selling points' of the whole concept of the web itself. From that point of view, what I said about what SL could become (and yes, it probably was more about what it could become than what it is, hence not really answering the question) is really long overdue.

Coco - Anonymity was probably not the best word I could have used. I wasn't talking about anonymity vanishing in the sense that "everyone must know everything about who you are"; just in the sense of "who you are" within SL having more reality / weight / tangibility / concreteness / I-don't-know-the-word-I'm-really-looking-for. Something like that.



Well, when I said "the internet is not an encyclopedia", I think I was trying to say the opposite to that. It's an inherently participatory medium that's kind of being restricted only by the way it's used. I mean, you are right, but there's fundamentally different and there's fundamentally different. The technical backbone of the internet doesn't really allow the things you talked about, no, but the concept of the internet does. Which is why I would like to see the internet in general going the way I said

I'm curious, is there some feeling of hostility from mainly social users toward mainly technical users?

There is a feeling that SOME of the more tecnically inclined exhibit a certain condescending attitude towards the more casual users, whether real or percieved is a matter of opinion.

Certain statements that have been made are dismissive of Social types -

Things like ..


Additionally ..



When we disagree with the implimentation of the New Technologies we are called Luddite or told we are peasants sharpening our pitchforks.

Meenwhile any non-technical ideas are just ignored as idealism or uneccessary.

Only toward those who deserve it because of their arrogance, condescension, general contempt for others - and willingness to exploit others mercilessly by using their technical expertise and then blame the victims because they were not astute enough to protect themselves. Strange, isn't it?

I mean, I don't get it. why would anyone object to people like that?

Other technically accomplished people, who remember such old-fashioned, non-digital concepts as ethics and compassion, ande common civility, are widely welcomed. I know many. I wish there were more of them.

for (i=0;i<10000;i=i+1)
{
llSay(0,"u suck!";
}








Oh I'm kidding!

I believe SL is the biggest Beta scam of all time. Set up a company and beta test your product for the next ten years paving the way for the next generation of the internet, all the while charging all us suckers for the priviledge.

By the way the pixies made me say that Phil so please don't ban me

well I consider it a 3d website but that doesnt mean you can't play house on it and buy clothes etc and live a 3d life.

Oh. Well I think I have a lot of weight, reality, tangibility, and concreteness with my (in every world) name, but I see what you mean.


Not sure I follow you here. But to clarify my own comments, I don't think the internet is an encyclopedia, either. And it's not a series of books, or anything of the like.

Because - it is participatory.

Now, SL is participatory also. But it is also physically different from a collection of internet websites. In that way, I would tend to view it as a distinctive place, or even a series of places, rather than a collection of websites.

Now, I can imagine, of course, that some day the entire internet will be like this, and easily made like this. (That is, except for those people who want to stick with websites like they are now.)

But I think then it will be the REPLACEMENT of one distinct thing with another distinct thing, and thus, not the same thing, and therefore, the anologies between the two can't stand.

It is its own thing, is what I mean, and the differences between SL - and similar places - and a collection of websites are greater than the similarities, and to an even greater degree than the differences are greater than the similarities between an encyclopedia and the internet.

coco

heh I read this the other day its a summary of this kind of thinking actualy and applied to games and whatnot

basically it says

if you place two glasses of of water looking stuff in front of a thirsty kid and one contains a poison which cannot be seen and one is water and you know which is which this blame the victim type thinking or not assuming responsibility as above would imply your not suppposed to let the kid know which glass is actually water. By a lot of the logic I see here we are supposed to say nothing while knowing what glass contained the poison and we are not supposed to stop the kid from drinking it. When the kid dies its his fault and not the fault of the person who put the poison there or who was aware it existed and could have stopped it. In the real world this would be murder in this world we blame the kid..

/shrug