Wallace solicits conversation on RL identities in SL

https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2010/01/22/will-the-real-you-please-stand-up#cf

As I say in my response to his blog, there are excellent reasons to improve RL identity integration in SL. That said, to me there is a very real risk if LL just 'turns it on', so to speak.

If you respond there, Wallace - and other Lindens - will see it.
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I started to read that blog post, but it was way too long and I didn't get to the end. He has a bit to learn about 'communcations', I think.

Wallace is the Minister of Propaganda. It is pointless to debate a decision LL already made at behest of the Chinese Government and/or Mormon Church.

What we will see is LL ban membership in the content seller program unless rl identity is disclosed. This is how they plan to restrict commerce to the solution providers.

I have a lot to say on that. But they need to make up their mind. Is the blogoramaforumthingy for discussion or not? You cannot delve into that topic without "discussion."

I skipped over large portions of the unimportant crap he wrote. The gist of it shows just how out of touch LL management is with the residents.

Some smart monkey should reply with Lexie's boilerplate thread lock statement directing Wallace here for discussions.

Same here. More bullshit corporate speak, the Labs' way of telling us they are going to shove RL down our throats whether we like it or not.

If I had known SL was social networking site, I would never have joined. I thought it was pioneer 3D virtual world. Was I mistaken?

I have already dropped big clues to my RL identity (for what it's worth) to anyone driven enough to find out - or outright revealed it at times. But that was my choice. I still want a grid that is largely RL anonymous. Why do we need a Second Life if it's going to just be another version of the first? Oh well - tons of replies to the blog already said all that.


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I am fine with this.

I don't care about the content sellers program. Lots of people who make really awesome things won't care about it and care more about their privacy and RL being confidential than LL's special golden retailers program.

The "Solution Providers" will just be overpriced for any regular resident anyways.

The "Second Life Answers" area is not for discussions, it's for quick answers. That's where Lexie locks threads, redirecting to the forums for longer discussions. At present, this is the only forum area.

The Blog Discussion threads are for discussions of blog postings; discussions there are locked when the Lindens want to signal that they will not be reading the discussion any more.

From LL's point of view, I think that all that they have to do to create a new 'forum' is open up a bunch of new subsections where residents can originate blog postings, like the Linden ones in the blog. One might be called 'Society in SL'. Another might be called 'Technical' or 'New Features'. Or perhaps they'll just mirror the SLA subsections? I'm clueless.
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I worked out your clues and I know that you are called Bonzo in RL, but I'll keep it to myself

No more than they are.

Well, add me to the clueless list. I've spent way more time there, than the average SL user, and am still not clear. I did not anlyze each category, and still can't get a grip on how to see all categories on one screen....and am still not clear on which categories allow for discussion, and which do not.....

.....and even if discussion were allowed....cannot follow it in that format, as hard as I might try. Now....I have no problem following a discussion here, and contributing to a discussion here.... for days on end. (as you know)

And what is the point in trying? Why was Rime's thread closed?

I managed to wade through that blogpost finally, a lot of words and nothing of value said. from reading that, and the selected replies, we are seeing again that they are choosing a path and talking us in circles instead of just spelling it out. Once again, this could be no big deal if LL would handle it properly, but they won't. They never do.

There was no reason.

Cuz it was a discussion? And those should be over here, not over there.

OMG! Bonzo Smith from Tennessee??? Wow, that was easy.......

He's the singer from U2? That's SO cool!!!

None of those. He's a dog called Bonzo and he has a wet nose.

Sounds like Bonzo Smith to me.......

I'm about to get Huffy. (not at you, Nika)

We have discussed that topic AT GREAT LENGTH in this forum MANY TIMES. All you have to do, is type "Facebook" into your search....and pull all the discussions up. It was not a small group of people....it was a sampling from across the board, with very different viewpoints.

A couple of hours ago....there were 5 Lindens logged into this forum, at one time. They know it's here.

If by linking RL to SL, they will be requiring everyone to register with RL information for accounts.. which will never be seen by anyone else, I'm cool with. Or if they are referring to the fact that we will have one master account and can now link our alts to them, again, I'm for it.

If they're telling me that I have to link my facebook account to my SL account, they can get bent. Now, if they make it optional.. cool. Some people will want to blather on about their RL to complete strangers, but I don't.

Guys, maybe some of you should stop just skimming, and actually start reading. Comments like "It was too long, so I didn't read it, but dammit, they better not do what he's talking about!" or "I didn't read it, but he needs to learn how to communicate," are about as oxymoronic as "Keep your government hands off my medicare," or "To be a nonconformist you have to dress like us and listen to the same music as us." Some people here are just making zero sense.

I read the post (read it, not skimmed it) the day it appeared. It took about two minutes, if that, not exactly a long time. I did not get any sense at all that Wallace was talking about any impending policy decisions by LL. It struck me simply as a philosophical piece, a commentary on the evolving state of how we constitute identity within our rapidly changing social structures. It's an interesting topic.

Wallace wasn't necessarily saying LL will force people to reveal their RL identities, or even that they will or won't provide any direct options for people to do so if they choose, beyond those that already exist. All he was doing was wondering out loud whether we will one day think of our avatars the same we now think of our Facebook pages and our E-mail addresses. Are our avatars part of our identities or not? Again, it's an interesting question.

The answer of course is different for everyone right now. But one day, we may reach a point where there is a commonly accepted answer that applies to the majority of people, just as we have with the likes of Facebook, MySpace, E-mail, telephone numbers, etc.

I, for one, already have my avatar name on my business cards. I have reason to, since SL is a large part of my business. Most people aren't in that category, of course, so to some, associating RL name with avatar name would probably seem all kinds of awkward. It does to me, too, to some degree. Notice I don't make such a free association the other way around. For reasons even I don't quite understand, my comfort zone seems to be, "If you already know who I am in RL, then I welcome you to know who I am in SL. But if you only know me in SL, I'm probably not going to tell you my RL name, at least not for a good long time."

Why do I make that distinction? I'm really not sure. One day, maybe I won't. Or maybe I always will. The answer may well end up depending on what becomes the norm as time goes on.

And that's precisely what I believe Wallace was trying to say in his blog post. It was speculative social commentary, nothing more. So pack up the tin foil hats, guys. There's no conspiracy to be found here.

No doubt some people will probably freak out about what I've written here, since they'll probably just skim it for key phrases, and then pretend to themselves they know what I meant, rather than take the whole three to five minutes it would take to read all of eight paragraphs (which, by the way is exactly one paragraph longer than the "long" post that Wallace wrote). For your own sake, people, grow an attention span, will ya?

Ceera's post #155 nails it for me. Wallace really is a clueless corporate shill. He seems to assume everyone approaches online life in the same way.



Not everyone does, Wally!

When Lindens think out loud, disaster usually follws.