SL Authority / Government?

Hi:

Myself and few others have been talking about a regulating body for SL. I have been thinking about this since I've joined SL few weeks ago.

I am not talking about a people run government (not yet). That sort of body is not ready for SL at this point. However I am at this point (first step) talking about a Regulating Body to regulate certain businesses that can have negative impact on residents.

How do we know that Casinos and other gambling booths in SL are actually paying out what they claim? Who is actually going to regulate them in SL? How about those one off slot machines that you run into and burn your money? How about those camping chairs?

I am in the mist of putting together a policy document to start a regulating body. If you are interested in being part of it or to provide input, please IM me. We can also discuss here as to why we need such body in SL.

What do you think? Do we need a SL Authority to regulate certain businesses and even Linden's own policys? Do we need to regulate them so we don't see Gambling and slots machines next to your neighbourhoood? Regulate them so it does not pop up everywhere?

Yes this model will allow the body to generate revenue that can be shared with the board members.

Looking forward to a hot discussion on this.

You can make up whatever agreements or "policies" you wish. But there is nothing in the TOS making anyone else abide by them. I supposed a user created BBB equivalent would be a good idea, but I've seen others propose rules/policies/whatever for this sort of thing, but never saw anything much come to fruition. I think a BBB would be a great idea - I don't know who will get the SL businesses organized to agree to how it would work, though. Good luck.

Update: BBB=Better Business Bureau. See http://www.bbb.org for more information on them.

I want a pee

Thank you Jeremiah. The policy work is still in its infant state but the idea is to gain enough bodies to regulate certain businesses.

It is like providing businesses with a lincense to operate under our watch. That means people can trust them and go do business with them. This will only benefit those businesses that truly operate by following all the rules.

Hmm.....sounds a bit like a black list operation, if you ask me. Using this kind of procedure would have potential to be misused by other companies who do not like competition with others and would falsely accuse other companies of not following your procedures. Even if the accused companies are innocent, they may not be able to prove their innocence properly, and keep in mind that even guilty companies might plead not guilty, so there will not always be a clear line of who's right and who's wrong. Having investigations would also be troublesome and might not always be a proper solution, since there is no "physical evidence" per se, since this is a virtual world. I admire your reason for starting this, but in a virtual world, I see no place for this. Companies RARELY like being controlled by other companies, even if they are law-abiding and fair. Companies are started to make a profit, and history has shown that they do not like any outside interference.

The plan is to try to work around this sort of activities by having agents who will make a regular visit to these businesses and talk to customers. We will try our best to report the best information on businesses.

The problem is that if no one starts something like this and Linden don't regulate it with their rules and policies then who will? Will it be the Government of the countries the Avatars are from? I strongly don't recommend Lindens to get into this business because they should leave the game alone so that people can define the system.

There is a governing body already, in fact several layers.

- The Federal Government of the United States

- The State of California

- Linden Research, Inc.


... and on private land, the following:

- the covenant of the sim estate

- the will of the person with control of the land.


I ban casino gambling, camping chairs and suchlike in my sims entirely - problem solved. It's upfront, in the sim covenant and what's done is done.

I suspect you are looking for regulation on the mainland - that's a tough one. Good luck on solving your problems there; many have called for it but I have yet to see it happen.

I agree completely with Desmond.

Every time i see this suggestion come up, it always seems to translate readily from "We need a Government On Line" into "I want to be in Charge".

["Originally Posted by Homer Antler

I am not talking about a people run government (not yet). That sort of body is not ready for SL at this point. However I am at this point (first step) talking about a Regulating Body to regulate certain businesses that can have negative impact on residents.

I am in the mist of putting together a policy document to start a regulating body. If you are interested in being part of it or to provide input, please IM me. We can also discuss here as to why we need such body in SL."]

So,, He wants a regulating Body, and Obviously He wants to head it's creation and administration, OH but it can''t be "a people run government (not yet). " because quite Obviously we can't all be trusted to either Vote, or Look after ourselves so we Need Homer to do it for us.

Seeing the Truely Marvelous job Politicians are doing with the real world, I think the Only real change SL needs is an amendment in the TOS specificly designed to KEEP THEM OUT of SL.

"Politics is the Final Haven of Scoundrels and Fools"

Angel.

Most new SLers want to know why there's no government. Meanwhile people who've been around just say LL ain't gonna do poo.

Whether LL is the government or its some other entity... SL & LL will reach a blockade in the future. At some point the growth of the universe will be at a plateau because there are no fixes for major problems in SL.

Examples:

Rigged Casino Gambling
Content Stealing
Embezzlement
False Representation

The worst of the penalties for this is suspension or a bad reputation... and that's not good enough.

I dont think there needs to be a government... but there needs to be registrations and systems for approved legitimacy.

Approved Legitimacy based upon who's Model? Who Decides? Homer already said it wouldn't be the SL Citizens,, In HIS Opinion, we aren't yet ready to have a Voice in Governing ourselves A pretty Patronizing and Presumptuous suggestion by anyones Standards)
Lol,, I typed another Long response to this one, God i get going some times. Fortunately for you i deleted it. heres a short Version.

Carl Sagan once did a lecture at a University in which he stated that in roughly Ninety Billion years, the Sun would expand to consume the Earth. After the Lecture a Woman with an extremely worried look on her face came up to him and asked him to repeat the time frame. When he said Ninety Billion years, the woman relaxed with Obvious Great relief. She said to him, "Oh Good, I thought you said Nine Billion."

SL probably WILL come to a Standstill someday Like you predict, But like the Woman at Sagans Lecture,, I think you can Relax. we are doing Fine with things as they are.

Angel.

Well, my personal opinion is LL hires a indifferent entity to maintain a registrar. It definitely shouldn't be the SL citizens... but it also shouldn't be LL... both have personal interests in mind.

... I DO NOT think things are 'fine' the way they are. There is constant constant constant real issues and real problems occurring which LL overlooks, the SL residents continually bring up, but there is nothing in place to justify that SL is anything more than a game where you can get lucky making money. I think the concept of business in SL is a joke. Sure, in the ideal sense, things should be the way we all hope SL is... but it's not... it's a warm fuzzy blanket over our heads. There are countless stories about people in SL that started a full time business, and then bailed due to the ideals being false... the problem is, the people that were screwed dont have much of a voice when they bail out. Sure, some people are making livings off of SL... but the reasons business fail in SL are not legitimate reasons... they're due to stealing, glitches, bugs, errors, and no rules.

I also agree with Desmond.

In Caledon Desmond is the King and I am one of his loyal subjects......

Now the way things are going with the US Gov looking to tax virtual reality what we need to do is to crown Him and get Him (King Desmond 1) to declare sovereignty on an eminent domain basis.

Once He has done that we can usher in all the legal first life Banks and make a fortune in a tax haven.

Sorry Desmond I could not resist that one -

We call this the "MAFIA"

And so Facism comes to SL..................

What is wrong with the free market? Shunning those who break trust or commit fraud?
It seems like just like in the real world, some are not happy unless they have someone else to take care of them.

Yes, I'm sorry to be as negative as everyone else who's been in SL for any period of time, but this will never happen as a true authority. It cannot happen both without some bias by the people who run it and with LL's desire to make this an Intarnets standard. The closest thing the broader Intarnets has to governance is IANA, which does not do anything about "businesses" or socio-political standards or law. That is left up to the individual countries and states to handle, which is exactly how it's going to remain in SL.

Now, a BBB? I think that's a great idea. You might follow-up with the creators of Nota Bene. They tried to create an SL Notary system and it worked for a while. I am not sure if they are still in business, but getting with them to see what worked/didn't work would probably behoove you as you move on this project.

</2 cents>
MM

NOTE: I know there are other bodies that help with standards, but those are mostly technological standards. And yes, there are probably movements for world-wide legal bodies for the Intarnets, but I'm sure that's quite a ways off and not truly legally possible across the globe.

Yes I am suggesting that there should be a body that would provide information based on user experience for these places. So if a newbie is looking to gamble, they don't go and waste their money on a no name casino.

Interesting how this is story is twisting when someone mention government. All I am saying is that someone need to provide details to people because LL is not going to do that. Well you can see that from the last update on the whole customer support blog (charge users) and so on.

So the idea here is to create a board with people that will inspect and license these businesses to provide trusted service. It is like sticking a logo for both "privacy BBBOnline" and "Truste" on Paypal website and million other websites. When people see those logo, they trust the content of that website. So in order for business to have that they need to abide by our regulations. So not only they get this to put our name in front of their store, they also get free advertising from our business sites. We will refer customers to them because they are licensed by the SL Authority.

This SL Authority is to provide this sort of services. NOT a governing body like some of you are trying to say. We will decide how we want to appoint board members. Elected or non elected. That will follow.

Ah, Homer, you're like, TWO YEARS TOO LATE for this debate.

That said, there's already tools to do this - the key is it takes, you know, hard work and building a cohesive community, not "I WANNA BE IN CHARGE, SO DO WHAT I SAY!".

Desmond and Caledon is one example. I humbly like to point to Neufreistadt as another, although it's hardly the only one - just look at the saga of The Forest; not even Anshe Chung could keep those folks down.

What I see in the future: the concept of SL will be the new internet.... It wont be secondlife, and it wont be lindenlab. you'll explore the internet in the same way as you move about in SL though..... money, & laws will be RL now... there won't be lindens$ and all laws of the real world will apply. Each company owning their own space (just as a company currently owns a website, ftp, server, etc) will maintain standards. Filed claims, abuse, fruad, everything will go to authorities... rather than LL.

and the people in this 3D internet will sit at virtual computers reading 2D html websites, while pondering over how good it would be if their prim computers were powerful enough to run a virtual world were they didn't need regulatory bodies.


maybe

Lets amend one of your statements, "There is constant constant constant real issues and real problems occurring which LL overlooks," Would you please show me the Minutes of the LL board meetings you have attended, or the Developers meetings, or software Stratagy meetings you have Attended where this issues have been raised and Summerily Ignored? You ASSUMPTION that these problems and others are being Ignored is based upon the fact that LL hasn't Come up with a Silver Bullet for these Highly complex issues Over Night. With a Million Plus accounts, and I don't even Know the Server count right now, Issues and problems are arising every day, Some far more critical than others, and these problems and issues must be dealt with on a sort of Priorities List. Then of course there is the necessity of coming up with a solution that Won't end up being worse than the problem it solves. It's Easy to stand on the Sidelines Howling like a Tantruming Three year old "FIX-IT!! FIX-IT!! FIX-IT!!", But quite another when YOU are the one having to come up with the Fixes that won't Crash the Grid, Restrict the play of Honest Players, create a Dozen MORE exploits in exchange for the one it Fixes, Be Leagally applicable, be Technicly possible, AND please as Many of the players as humanly Possible.
Just because you aren't Privey to the process, or Change isn't happening fast enough to please you, Doesn't mean the Issues are being Ignored. Some things are Just more important than the fact some sleaze has found a way to Cheat at cards.

As to Small Businesses in SL; Something like 75% of All small Businesses fail in the first five years in Real Life. It has nothing to do with any system being broken, That's Just the way it is. In Business there are NO guarantees. Same holds true for SL. People face many of the same problems in SL keeping a small Business going as they face in RL. Ok, there are no Taxes, But there are other issues that balance out the scales (Or unbalance them depending on your point of View). In the end, some people really just don't have what it takes to generate, and operate a small business successfully, RL or SL. THAT isn't "a warm fuzzy blanket over our heads", That is the Cold Hard Reality of Business. My friend had a saying, "If you can't run with the Big Dogs, stay on the poarch".

Angel.

According to an interview with LL's Vice president of Product development, Cory Ondrejka, on Nvidia's site, a system for that is being developed for the following year, a system that LL is putting together (So all the potential politicians can relax):

nZone: Can you give away some of the future plans for Second Life--things that may not be implemented yet, but Linden Lab is working on?

CO: Well, alongside our regular, frequent updates with small features and fixes, we are targeting two major releases later this year, in the fall and before Christmas. In broad strokes, we are working on what we call "self governance," which basically means giving residents more tools to govern parts of the world themselves, such as electing local community leaders. We are also working on improved physical dynamics and support for large parties and get-togethers; improved mapping, directory search and shopping capabilities; and a redesigned, streamlined UI. Also, we've announced that we're working on a port for Macintosh OS X, with a Linux version to follow.


Here's the link to the interview:
http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_secondlife_interview.html

Linden's: a comment/follow up on that quote would be appreciated!?!



Who's running for office......

So I guess this means wait for Linden to come up with the electing tool. Good then the SL Authority will be ready to do what we intended to do.

You said politicians can relax on your comment. If Linden is going to introduced this feature then I guess you will see a lot more campaigning going on from wanna be politicians than now. What do you say for that?

Hmm...so basically, a mob? Run em out o town, boys!

Personally, I don't like casinos in my backyard, but I'm not going to damn personal freedom to death in favor of my aesthetics.

I would say the following, if you gamble at a Casino - it is a gamble, and if you're willing to take a gamble...you should educate yourself. It's not up to others to pick and choose if someone should be allowed to set up shop. It creates a system of alienation, and the ones in power have the only freedom to choose what can/can't move in. Sounds awful, and counter-intuitive to SL's policies.

I don't object to the idea, simply because it will fail.

You can't regulate people if they don't want to be regulated.

You could be a sort of mark of quality, but how can you assess quality? You can't see businesses' books or peoples' commercial scripts. What are your critieria? And you want people to give you money for this?

You have no means of assessing businesses accurately or of enforcing quality or the consistent use of the 'SL Authority' brand.

It's a very dystopian name, too.

When I first joined SL a nearby resident immediately set up a residents' group in my first land area - fair enough. He then of course proposed himself as 'president' of the group. I think the silly buggers even elected him, but I left the group immediately.

SL has so many interesting things about it and one of them is that it is a study in anarchy, in self regulation of a community (despite the elements of governance retained by LL).

If I thought your plan had even a tiny chance of success, I would oppose it heartily.

*nods in agreement*

Morwen.