TG Experience 2008

MG Experience 2009

• Time has flew by and its almost time to celebrate my 1st year on the MG. Whooooo!!!!!
• Thank you all for making my 1st year a great one!
• Bring on 2010

Thanks to my friends, fans and everybody else for following my adventures over the years. I love you all!

3rd year SL anniversary celebrations start now!

Previous Rez Days

2009

I love Second Life!

It’s been an amazing journey so far

Let the adventures continue!

Happy Halloween 2009

There is an Official LL Incident Report page on the SL website which displays the top 25 recent disciplinary actions taken by the in-world Goverance Team. Don’t forget to go to the Help menu and Choose Report Abuse to report incidents etc always!

In total I now have data which seems complete from 7th Jun 2007 up to the current time, at the moment this comes to 21, 665 published incidents.

Firstly I should point out published Incident Reports are only those AR’s which have been resolved and where a warning or suspension has been made. It doesn’t seem to cover bans or suspensions due to account issues or the other strange reasons Lindens use to suspend people.They also cover Teen Grid as well as the Main Grid.

Big fall in published incident reports at the beginning of this year.

There are 91 unique types of violations in total, the most common was Community Standard: Assault, Scripted Objects which covers 3654 incidents

Very little suprises with Public Help Islands, Sandboxes and Info-bubs dominating the list, with No Specific Region being the most common. Help Island Public hosts over 4% of all published incidents.

52% of published incidents result in a Warning, the rest in a suspension of 1 to 14 days.

There were only 2 published copyright infringement violations which resulted in a ban of 14 days (there were 17 in total across the period)

I must stress that these figures are only the Published Incident Reports, people say there are plenty of resolved AR’s which don’t make the Blotter and they certainly don’t include any bans which do occur or suspensions for other reasons (account issues, activity which triggers money laundering detection etc) so it’s difficult to draw concrete conclusions about the whole AR process from them .

Great job, interesting stats.

Now over to you, what do you think about the graph data ?

It’s just another way of saying they can beat you up, hate you, make you miserable – but in the end, they can’t take away your principals. And so, I now hereby open myself up to whatever flaming, trolling, vitriolic hatred might come my way when I make my genuine opinion here known to the world.

Not a secret, but never before openly and loudly shouted out to the Second Life enthusiast world. So, please allow me a moment to get my helmet and flame-retardant armor on and buckle my seatbelt, ‘cause here we go…

First, I’ll repeat a comment to an article I wrote and my reply. The article, in-short, can be summarized as ‘worrying about copybot and its derivatives is a waste of time‘. It is simply a sample of a discussion that was posted at Shopping Cart Disco (source).

In the source and my post was this statement:

Informant: And it’s completely safe, you can trust me on that, but yes they were all originally derived from the same people in the same place, most creators were underaged boys and made hacked viewers to sell to normal Second Life users, or so they could steal content for themselves.

To which, someone named “hiyas’ commented to my post about it with:

If i understand, Kids aren’t allowed on Second Life. I’ve Ar’d people after i’ve found out that they’re kids

This is true. This is how it always has been – especially since back when I first entered second Life back in 2006. And from then (and before) all the way through now, this ‘argument’ has been made over and over and over again.

News flash: The dead horse has been beaten to death.

I responded to “Hiyas” with this:

Unfortunately, Linden Lab allows the teen grid to wither away and rot. And along with free “basic” accounts and virtually no checks and balances whatsoever, Linden Lab has allowed a serious proliferation of underagers to enter the grid. The Second Life grid is infected with the, ([sic]: them)

Even though the population has been shouting to Linden lab [sic] to fix the problem, they never raised so much as a finger.

Now they are trying to fix the problem. The only way possible is the move the city walls inward – into the middle of the city in order to keep the unwanted out of the inner sanctum – rather than the city itself.

So now – you should be able to say ZINDRA is for adults. The rest is more or less hush-hush, wink-wink wide open.

I forgot that my comments and replies to them via Disqus (which I love, by the way and wish every blogger would use it) is set-up to also post a notice to my Twitter feed (along with notices when I update this and my other blog.)

I was surprised to see a tweet from someone (I assume) at Linden Lab in the feed called “TeenGridNews”. The tweet said:

That’s teens for you. <_<

I must humorously agree. I am not sure if the reply was in response to the reply I made on my own blog or to the comment first quoted above. But that’s neither here nor there. I rarely use Twitter directly. I use it as a notification system for those who prefer to follow me there rather than directly at my Tumblr blog – so my tweets are automated.

However, I manually sent this tweet to TeenGridNews on Twitter… (allow me to tighten my seatbelt right now)”

@teengridnews – I open myself to serious flaming here when I say *I SUPPORT* Opening the grid to teens – I hope ZINDRA allows it eventually.

There it is. I am now officially standing on the south-side of that great dividing intellectual fence, accompanied by very few against the vast majority of Second Life users. (Allow me to lower the face visor on my helmet before you start flinging the icky, nasty, stinky organic waste at me, please.)

Linden Lab is asked often about the whole Zindra plan. They are asked and it is often assumed, presumed and accused that Linden Lab’s primary plan for moving all “adult” content into that ‘inner sanctum’ behind tall walls called Zindra (Zindra is the Linden word for “Kremlin”, folks — okay, okay, just kidding!)

Linden Lab’s response is and always has been (I paraphrase, but it always comes out to) “We have no plans at this time to merge the Teen Grid with the Main Grid.”

I believe them. I also believe Linden Lab when they say the Zindra ‘segregation’ project (my words) is not designed or planned to the end of merging these grids. I believe it is simply to better organize the genre of content on the grid.

Any reasonable person with minimal common sense would agree even adults can be offended, even shocked (and often just plain tired of) the premise of much of the “adult” content and activities that go on across the grid. These are genuinely sensible people. It just gets ‘wearing-down’ seeing it all over the place after a while – and it is often in vendor displays, where those vendors are in the markets you almost always land in practically everywhere you go – the same markets that are necessary to help the parcel owners cover their tier fees..

Want to visit a role play sim? Teleport, land, rez, stare a large vendor screen with a picture of some giant sex toy staring you in the face. Sure, we just shrug it off and go looking for the entrance into the sim proper. But don’t you get tired of seeing all that stuff all the time when you aren’t even looking for it?

Let’s face it, teens are here already. Let them be for crying out loud. The only reason “underagers” are ‘forbidden’ from the ‘main grid’ is so you and I and everyone else can be allowed to play by our own nastiest, most deviant, shocking dirty little fantasies.

Linden Lab allows this. It is not a right, but a privilege. This of course brings legal ramifications into the mix with regard to access to that naughty content by legal minors. Linden Lab wants Second Life to be open – open access to all, regardless of race, religion, skin color, creed, sexual orientation and… if they can find a way …age.

I say go for it.

Not quite yet, of course. But once the content segregation is properly completed and the grid is ‘cleaned-up’ — go for it. Allow the teens into the main and kill the teen grid, which languishes like some lost, forgotten gulag.

I figure since the grid is being ‘cleaned-up’ (I mean this in a good way: the segregation of content genres) in order to make it easier to run into “adult” content only when you explicitly choose and intend to find it, then why not allow the teens in? There really is no reason not to.

So to be clear: I am not advocating opening the main grid to teens…yet. I agree, adults need to know they are surrounded by other adults. And they will, when on Zindra. As for the rest of the grid, why would it matter?

I believe the is the end to which Linden Lab is working and I support it. Uncle Philip has already stated that changes are coming and they will be uncomfortable changes, perhaps even ‘painful’ changes. But change happens. I believe allowing teens into the main eventually will be one of those “changes”.

“We have no plans at this time to merge the teen grid with the main grid”. No plans at this time. True – the plan is for a later time – after the grid has been cleaned-up. Merge the teen grid with the main grid. True – allow teens in and kill the teen grid.

The point being is that it is not a question of if, but when this will happen. And I stand on the side of the teens with regard to this scenario – provided the time is right and the grid made appropriate for it.

/me now pulls the splash cover over my entire body in preparation for the onslaught of whatever may be thrown in his direction.

art: GaBbu & Oleh; Ben SanJose; Jack and Laurie (DBCoop77)

If you are teen on the TG and turning 18 years old shortly, you will need to send a support ticket to transfer to the MG, send in your ID, LL will review your ticket, and you will be transferred on your birthday. When you arrive your groups, friends list and landmarks will be automatically removed/deleted. Your inventory transfers over with you along with your L$. It’s going to be hard leaving your friends behind and you can always keep in contact through messenger services etc.

Check out my Welcome to Second Life Flickr collection

• Happy 18th Birthday and welcome to the Main Grid.

• Make yourself at home here while you’re finding your way around the Main Grid.

Locations

Baffin – Teen Grid Transfer Station – Jade Lily
This is where our youngest Residents come to celebrate their transition to the Main Grid. Celebrate the spirit of Second Life!

Okarthel & Thurkear – Sylver Bu
furry,furries,fox,dragon,kinzart,kzk,sylver,bu,tiger,wolf,thel,avatar,av,avian,canine,feline,anthroxtacy,ax,forbidden,memories,forbiddenmemories

Groups

Teen Grid Transfers
Slowly taking over MG…one teen at a time!

TG Survivors
For all the people who, after their experience on the TG, are still up and kicking.
Also, for all the cool people who want to help them feel integrated to the MG.
Group for events and hangout, though suggestions are always welcome.
Just transferred/feel left out? Drop an IM to any of the admins to join!
(Non-commercial)

TG Transfers
A group to ease teens into the Main Grid, help them find their way upon entering mature regions, etc.

Old TG Friends
If you have ever been on TG this group is for you, Everyone in this group has at one ime been on Teen Grid. Founder Transfered Feb, 2008

Global Kids Allies
This is a group for those allied with Global Kids <www.GlobalKids.org/olp> and its work in Second Life, primarily to support the GK island in the teen grid.

Recommend Places to visit

Grendel’s Children
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Avaria%20Tor/134/134/302
Avatars, Dragon, Gryphon, Werewolf ,Animal ,Demon, Dinosaur, pets, skins and more! Creatures abound! Low priced, high quality! For Grendel !

Luskwood
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lusk/215/170/62
Since 2003, Secondlife’s oldest community. Run by furries , but NOT furry only. Anyone is welcome, as long as you’re considerate. Furry Avatars as well.

Prim Hearts
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Prim%20Hearts/11/29/28
Amusement Park in Second Life

International Spaceflight Museum
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Spaceport%20Bravo/50/81/23
Spaceport Bravo, one of SciLands member ISM’s islands, has the Vehicle Assembly Building & the Orbiter Processing Facility. The ISM is totally volunteer built and donation supported. Not a NASA activity.  BravoPort.

NCI Kuula – New Citizens Incorporated
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Kuula/55/168/29
New Player, New Resident, Newbie, Noob, Beginner, Help, Basics, Information, Info, Questions, Freebies, Free Stuff, Clothing, Sandbox, Hangout, Newsstand, Ginny Gremlin Park, Mall, Events, Tutorials, Classes, Class, Education, Learn

the Shelter
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Isabel/48/228/81
A haven for those new to SL

Here
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Here/64/83/38
Video tutorials! FREE textures! Watermelons! Come, visit, enjoy. ~*~ KEYWORDS: video tutorial tip trick game world 3d online virtual avatar screencast help machinima love sl watermelon learn education knowledge vidtut tutorial teach fun x

Greenies Home Rezzable
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Greenies%20Home%20Rezzable/128/128/2
<presented by Rezzable>  Join Us! Green the Grid!  Greenies, greenie, light wave, spac, flying saucer, disco lives, giant, megaprim, skates, avatars, fly, fun, wacky, kooky, best sim in sl, wonder of sl

Mauve Public Sandbox
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Mauve/112/112/34
SL Orientation, Building Tutorials, Help for Newbies, Classes, Free Stuff. Advertise your business on the advertising billboard. Advertising space for rent in the oldest and most popular sandbox.

Linden Village
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Kirkby/177/209/45
Explore where Linden Lab Employees Live and Meet in Second Life.  Click on the kiosk at the landing point for more information.

Dance Island
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Dance%20Island/118/101/22
LIVE DJ artists & Live music > 24h-7days  LIVE !!!!

Don’t Forget

• There’s more fun and cool places to visit on the MG…Click on Search > Showcase tab. (http://secondlife.com/showcase/)
• Visit MG Office Hours hosted by Linden Lab:  http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Office_Hours
• Click on MAP to browse through thousands of regions.
• Buy stuff on Xstreet SL: https://www.xstreetsl.com/
• Just IM me in-world for cool locations, guides or info and I’ll send them over to you to check out!
  

If I’ve missed anything out, feel free to comment and I hope this guide has been helpful for you.

Happy Second Life adventures!
Enjoy!

SL Feeds came out of testing on July 20th and now is version 1.0.  I’ll be expanding and adding more in upcoming weeks and months with exciting new SL tools and more SL RSS feeds. Do you have any feature suggestions or want your SL blog & SL website to be featured on SL Feeds portal? Please CONTACT ME, your all most welcome to submit your reviews. Feel free to comment on this post or IM me in-world even.

Thanks!

Spread the word about SL Feeds! I recommend it!

When I first arrived on the MG I was taken to the Teen Grid Transfer Station located in Baffin where Kate Linden spent time with me and invited me into many awesome SL groups and things I should know on the Main Grid. I remember saying OMG OMG OMG to myself when I looked at the Map, Events Tab and Showcase/popular landmarks because there was hundreds of regions, events and things to do. On the Teen Grid the showcase places were broken, a smaller grid and only a few events actually happened every day.

I remember being teleported over to Grasmere which is Linden Village region where I met many new friends, Lindens and SL Mentors. I was given tons of landmarks, notecards and SL guides which was really nice of them all to do that. I then went on a grand tour for a few hours visiting great places in Second Life including The Shelter, The Corn Field, AM Radio regions, Here island, Greenies SL and many more. I’m looking forward to my 3rd Rezz Day (3 years milestone) which is October 31st 2009. 164 days left until my next birthday and then that will mark my first full year on the MG. WoooT

Since December 2008 I’ve seen a high peak in traffic (visitors and new records) set my blog, flickr stream, twitter page, plurk page and even on facebook which is great. I’ve been in the news headlines alot since my transfer date and even before that. Earlier this year I created a SL feeds portal,  SL Historical Locations and my Linden Hunting sets have been very popular indeed.  Check out my SL collection for more awesome adventures in SL. This year I’ve created my own new residents guide page on my blog, created a SL Metrics page and created a ton of new SL resources on my SL Tutorial page.

 200 days is a big milestone for me!

My most interesting and favourite moments so far

• My birthday party on the MG
• 24 music I-World Festival
• Winterfaire snowball fighting and snowman contest
• Been given christmas presents
• Lindens ontop of the christmas tree 08
• Linden Bear hunting trip
• Visiting Office Hours & Eureka Tour 2009 trips
• SL Valentines Day 2009
• Dunk-a-Linden 2009
• Bunny Jam
• Volunteer Appreciation Day 2009
• SL6B adventures & Obsk Adventures
• Check out my latest pics here

I can’t wait for whatever comes next. I will continue to share helpful things with the SL community, take part in projects, mentor, explore and having fun with my friends. Thanks for reading my diary of the past 200 days and stay tuned for new blog posts.  

Fan or friend the Copybot Spotter on Plurk or follow its tweets on Twitter!

~V.

Hunter Trommler, owner of popular rental sim Haven, which had been rented at a monthly rate to Sin Kovacs, reclaimed the sim and  renamed it to Ecbatana. His plans for Ecbatana remain undisclosed.

Zombie Pye, long-time owner of Tierheim, has decided to sell the former home to FurNation TG at a negotiable price. Pye had been a highly popular avatar designer and weaponsmith until his account was hacked and a majority of his furry avatars were opensourced at full permissions. Pye says he plans to leave Second Life for good. FurNation TG has since moved to Zybez Atlas’ sim, Aegis.

- Main Grid Resident Tonk Tomcat identified his TonkTastic respirator, and sent an E-mail to the support team for removal.

- Main Grid Resident Elysium Eilde helped identify this Malinger Chair from Rustica Medieval and Castle Furniture, and it was removed from a freebie bazaar on the Teen Grid.

- Main Grid Resident Nimil Blackflag identified this Gritty Kitty hair by Noam Sprocket, who subsequently filed a removal ticket, with the help of the TGAC.

- Teen Grid Residents and TGAC members Arwyn Quandry and Vaughan Vendetta contacted Armidi after identifying several Armidi items, including boots and handbags.

These given, there is still a large amount of copybotted material that needs to be dealt with. This hair and hat, this mask, and this messenger bag are a few examples of “John Doe” items with no confirmed identification. We’re also on the lookout for anyone that recognizes these unconfirmed goggles and gas mask.

If you want to help out, new Spotters are welcome! Join the group at: http://www.flickr.com/groups/1066102@N23/pool/

– The Committee.

Vaughan Vendetta: When did you learn of Second Life?

Kaika Alter: I learned of Second Life from a friend in school. He told me that there was a very fun game were you could build anything, and meet people from all over the world. I googled the website and joined back in August of ’07.

VV: Did you register on the Teen Grid?

KA: Yes, I did.

VV: What are your feelings about transferring to the Main Grid? Any apprehension?

KA: I’m excited to see what the MG will hold in store for me, but I am also sad to leave the TG, along with many friends I have gained through-out these years.

VV: Do you know anyone on the Main Grid?

KA: Currently, I know only those whom I’ve met in TG and have also transferred there. Once I’m in the MG, I’ll go and catch up on what I’ve missed with them, from however long it’s been since last we’ve talked.

VV: Haha. Well, it’s good that you won’t be entirely alone.

VV: So, what do you like best about the Teen Grid, and what could use improvement?

KA: What I love about the Teen Grid is all hospitality in it, with most of the members having a grand time in here. If I were to change something things, I would do only minor things, because the warmth it already has is more than great for anyone who wants to be here.

VV: All right. Well, we wish you the best on the Main Grid.

KA: Thank you. I will surely miss the Teen Grid and everyone in it.

Teens transferring from the Teen Grid to the Main Grid is not a frequent occurrence, but when someone’s time come to transfers, you’ll most likely hear about it. The benefit of TSL’s small population is the resulting tight-knit community.

A few well-known TG names have transferred recently, including blogger Daniel Voyager and scripter Ryan Dayton, and quite a few more will join them later this year, including blogger Arwyn Quandry, businessman FoXxfire12 Thatcher, clothing designers Wicked Loudon and Anna Normady, and furniture designer Brooke Barmy, to name a few.

Are you transferring to the Main Grid soon? We’d love to hear your story. E-mail us at tgaction@gmail.com!

~V.

“Scouring the Grid” – A semi-consistent posting sequence concerning copybotting’s rank infiltration of our lovely Teen Grid. For #1, I present to you:

Copybotters: None the Wiser

I had just finished a discussion over copybots, copybotting, copybotees and the infamous (If not famous) copybotters, when an idea came to me. Why not do some pro P.I.-scouring in search of the best of the worst copybotted material there was to find? I knew where to find them. Wherever there’s a mass of green dots, there will be a copybot haven.

To say I found a few to my quest would be a painful understatement. I certainly found an infestation; such an infestation that almost every single avatar sitting at a bar were wearing PornStar’s Converses. Some had glowing laces, whilst others were brightly colored. My investigation lead me to a sad truth: these abused shoes have become a staple of Freebie Life on the Teen Grid. Ask anyone in a 50-meter-radius of a club or hangout for some “good shoes”; chances are you’ll get a neatly packaged box of Converses in your inventory.

This observed, I left and began searching for more copybots to inspect. What I found was both horrible and hilarious:

As you can see, he clearly left Armidi as the scarf’s name. Now, I’m no Armidi expert, but I somehow have a feeling that no LooneyGooney Waffle made such a fine scarf. And if there were, I would suggest counseling for his looney-gooney obsession over waffles. LooneyGooney’s profile showed typical signs of an alt-bot; no groups, no profile picture, no partners, interests or picks.

However, it’s not uncommon to find copybotters with ridiculous names. I’ve seen names that range from self-descriptions of cows to those who claim they’re your best friend and then some. Why copybotters chose these names is beyond me. If you’re going to erroneously claim that you’ve made something, at least give yourself a name worth repeating.

That said, there have been some pretty good names. Dangerous Grut is an example of one copybotter who states his case quite clearly.

But as for LooneyGooney? Well, he clearly needs his waffle fix.

~V.

See more copybot pictures at my Flickr stream.

• My SL Valentines 2009 set
• Recent snapshots of SL Valentines 2009
• Second Life Celebrations (G)
• Valentines in Second Life (G)
• Hugsville for Teens 2009

Send your SL Valentines Day snapshots to the SL Valentines Flickr groups TODAY!

• MG: Isle of View and Isle of ViewToo >  7-9 AM and 5-7 PM PST for Kiss-A-Linden
• TG:  Hugsville for Teens from 3-5 PM PST.
• Watch out for Cupid Linden
• Valentine’s Day Surprises

UK-born Mike Baker (SL: Rollo Kohime),  a senior lecturer in the Degree in Arts and Media programme in the School of Arts and Media at Nelson-Marlborough Institute of Technology, Nelson, NZ-Aotearoa, has had papers on his Masters project accepted for three national and international conferences in February and June.

The papers will be delivered at intercreateSCANZ Symposium, at New Plymouth, in Taranaki, New Zealand, PSI15 Performance Studies International Conference, in Zagreb, Croatia, and the SDHS Society of Dance History Scholars: Topographies: Sites, Bodies, Technologies, at Stanford University, USA. He has  also been named to an international panel to deliver/discuss the paper of Isabel de Cavadas Valverde: Envisioning virtual cartographies for corporeal interaction: dance and performance convergent applications of Second Life 3D Metaverse social environment, at the SDHS Conference at Stanford.

Baker (pictured above with wife Fiona), who has danced and worked with: BodyCartography Project, (USA/NZ) Wilhemeena Gordon, (NZ) Nancy Stark-Smith, State-of-Flux Dance Co, (Melbourne, Australia) Martin Keogh (USA) jzamal Xanitha (USA) and Catherine Chappell – Touch Compass Dance Trust (NZ), is completing a Masters in Art and Design (majoring in dance and video) with AUT University,  Auckland.

His performance-based Masters project, “Company of Strangers – Negotiating Meetings, Exchanges and Conversations in Urban Spaces”, critically explores both in the real world and Second Life the forces of indeterminacy which he maintains are responsible for the dynamics which create the personna of the ‘stranger’ in encounters between people in urban spaces. He uses interventionist dance strategies to prompt and then interrogate the formation, nature and parameters of encounters in designated public places. The experimental movement frameworks employed are informed by the discipline of Contact Improvisation Dance. The working process is documented using a range of video narrative and internet blogs.

The Second Life portion of Baker’s dance project is based on the NMIT/SLENZ island of Koru. His blog is at: http://hoststranger.blogspot.com

Better SL viewer ahead?

On the face of it the churn rate of “newbies” entering Second Life is probably unacceptable in business terms but 15 percent of those trying out Second Life for the first time, deciding to “settle” in world, to my mind, is nothing to get discouraged about.

Given similar problems to those Second Life has had over the years many five-year-old – old hat? – businesses would be pleased with the on-going, steady retention rate.

Linden Labs’ executives, Philip Rosedale and Mark Kingdon appear far from discouraged even though they would like to “triple that number,” according to an exclusive report by Ian Lamont, in The Industry Standard. (Story and transcripts http://www.thestandard.com/news/2009/01/30/exclusive-linden-lab-executives-plot-second-life-growth-interface-concerns-persist?page=0%2C0&source=nlt_daily)

Both Rosedale (pictured right) and Kingdon (pictured left) said in the Lamont interview that on-going, significant work to make the user interface less complex would have a huge impact on the retention rate of the virtual world.

Singling out search, the user interface and new user orientation as needing major improvements, to up the on-going user retention rate, Rosedale told Lamont, “We need to collapse the orientation experience on learning the interface down to a 30-minute timeframe. We’re not there yet.”

Going on to describe the current interface as “overwhelming,” Rosedale said, “The basic UI of the software also needs to change. “It has too many pixels,” he said referring to the buttons, numbers, and other data presented to users on the screen. “They’re all kind of demanding your attention — your [Linden] dollar balance, your inventory window, all the buttons on the bottom bar, chat and text that are visible in the window, that’s asking something of you, blue pop-ups that are coming up.”

Rosedale said that Second Life had moved beyond an emerging application for technology-savvy users. “There is a lot more diversity in use, demographics and behavior in Second Life today than there was, say, at the end of 2003,” he said.

Kingdon added. “There is a very compelling set of activities that virtual worlds are incredibly powerful for. They erase geographies, they allow for a type of interaction that you can’t get in the real world and they bring with them really interesting economic and business opportunities for users.”

Kingdon detailed localisation projects for countries in Europe, Asia, and South America, and cited in-world training and remote meetings as compelling activities for companies. Both he and Rosedale portrayed Second Life as a competitor to enterprise video conferencing, which they believe is unable to match Second Life’s ability to make people feel comfortable interacting with other remote users.

VW education/meetings do work

On Mark Kingdon’s case (above) for the benefits of holding real world meetings in virtual worlds Metaverse developer Caleb Booker has provided a compelling argument for the use of virtual worlds like Second Life for real world education environments and meeting spaces.( http://www.calebbooker.com/blog/2009/01/27/roi-in-virtual-worlds-1-why-webcams-fail/)

I have to agree with Wagner Au  in New World Notes (http://nwn.blogs.com/) that up until now, “the notion that the professional world should prefer meeting in the metaverse over speakerphones or web cams or other technologies seemed roughly crazy.”

He based this on the assumption that  in-world meetings put on by companies like IBM and Microsoft “were mostly limited to the early adopters already familiar with Second Life.”

However, Au goes on to say, that Booker lays out his reasoning lucidly for why the professional world should change its view through comparing being “close” to  people in an avatar sense to getting the “close-talker” feeling of  being trapped counting the other speaker’s nostril hairs, as in the Lyndon Baines Johnson picture above or a la webcam, and not being able to look away.

Suffice to say, Caleb argues cogently that Virtual space experiences work better than a webcam experience because one can maintain some “personal space”;  whatever learning mode one is in, chances are one will do fine;  and the experience fills one’s field of vision far more readily.

Read Caleb’s article: its one of the best expositions on just why education as opposed to other forms of elearning WILL work in Second Life and other virtual worlds.

Kermit for the third time..

My final word on the saga of  the believability of Kermit. Intellagirl Tully (real life Sarah Robbins) is recognised as one of the foremost researchers/educators operating in Virtual Worlds. She probably has thought more about academic identity in a non-academic world than most other people. I’m indebted to a SLED list poster for pointing me to her “enjoyable and insightful” piece for the SLCC Education Workshop in 2006 titled, ” ‘Image Slippage’: Navigating the Dichotomies of an Academic Identity in a Non-Academic Virtual World.” You can read it at: http://secondlife.intellagirl.com/SLCC-Robbins.doc

Is the writing on the SL wall?

The on-going debate inside the walls of Linden Lab and among Second Life educators and others on the benefits or not of merging the carefully policed, but poorly-patronised Teen Grid with the well-patronised adult grid, has been brought into sharper focus by MySpace’s decision to remove the profiles of about 90,000 US-registered sex offenders.

The question is not whether Second Life can survive the addition of a teenage group of possible hell-raisers (grin) but whether it can survive the imposition of more stringent controls such as proof of age, identity, location and possible background checks being placed on the general population of Second Life, things which may be required by some US regulators to ensure the safety of the teens.

Personally I’m not a proponent of the Nanny State and think this would be a step too far. I have enjoyed, for better or worse, the “anything goes, frontier” feel of Second Life – even the griefers – for the past four years and hope to continue to be surprised and astounded by the activities/art/works of my fellow residents for years to come, no matter what their real life backgrounds.

Proof of age is currently not mandatory within Second Life and is required only for specific “adult” areas – I’ve only come across one proof-of-age-barred area over many hours of exploration – but given the general in-world penchant for privacy I don’t think the introduction of mandatory proof-of-age on the general grid would be a good thing.

[Interestingly the Linden Lab ban on casinos and sexual age-play among adults has, as predicted, reportedly only served to drive these activities underground.]

The thoughts on this issue were sparked by comments made by Connecticut Attorney-General Richard Blumenthal (pictured above at an unrelated occasion, but appropriate-looking “friend”) who initiated the release of the MySpace figures which were almost double the number that News Corporation-owned MySpace officials originally announced last year. (http://preview.tinyurl.com/c62qqs)

Blumenthal said the “shocking revelation” backed up his campaign to ensure that social networking sites should be barred as “playgrounds for predators”. “

Almost 100,000 convicted sex offenders mixing with children on MySpace is absolutely appalling and totally unacceptable,” he said. “For every one of them, there may be hundreds of others using false names and ages.”

Blumenthal said the new data unmasked what he called MySpace’s “monstrously inadequate counter-measures” and noted he would continue “to fight for reforms and safeguards at MySpace and other social networking sites to protect children, including age and identification verification.

“I urge MySpace and the social networking industry to end their resistance to age and identify verification,” he said.

One wonders how long it will be before he and his fellow travelers look at virtual worlds, now that social networking and virtual worlds are coming together.

Second Life: Educators Working with Teens
http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Second_Life:_Educators_Working_with_Teens

Teen Second Life Educational Projects
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_Second_Life#Teen_Second_Life_Educational_Projects

TSL Academic Research
http://simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Second_Life_Education_Wiki#Academic_Research

Educatorsandteens — Educators working with Teens (13-17)
https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/educatorsandteens

Consent ascertainsi
https://www.ascertainsi.com/secondlife/bgConsent.asp

Teen Grid Clearance: Here’s the deal…
http://tslclear.blogspot.com/

2007: Blue and Philip Linden present on GK island about past, present, and future of TSL
http://www.holymeatballs.org/2007/03/sl_blue_and_philip_linden_pres.html

Teen Second Life Official Website
http://teen.secondlife.com/

Teen Second Life
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_Second_Life