A nation, as I learned in school (and from my Social Studies teacher brother), is a collection of individuals that share sufficient cultural traits and social goals as to be considered homogenous. I'm not sure that this could even describe many of the various groups I've seen in Second Life (SL), so I don't see how it could apply to the world in total.
Role Play (RP) communities that I frequent, such as Tamerthon, have governments because their participants agree to such as part of the game play. Non-RP communities also establish rules. As such, visitors are usually given a rules card or some other notice to behave within certain expectations. This makes a defacto government. This may work on a relatively small scale.
Consider the larger scale, though. Some values may be shared by communities of a similar nature, such as the Isle of Lesbos and Mysteria, or within the various lands used by Furries, but the differences between communities are fueled by the chaos created by failure of Linden Labs (LL) to sufficiently enforce existing rules and show that they support the decisions of individual communities to police themselves.
Chiefly, I refer to law breakers commonly referred to as "griefers." Recently a sandbox in the Wryms sims needed to be closed due to a griefer letting loose self-replicating objects. Yes, the sim owners had the tools to stop the problem. But LL would rather be able to crow about having a huge resident base than control the creation of free accounts favored by griefers for such attack or to restrict the abilities of these free accounts to be used to for ill will.
Similarly, LL merely slaps the wrists of those "regular" residents that decide to turn to griefing rather than behave as responsible adults. Instead of intelligently discussing her views or to back her claims, a visitor to a community I frequent recently attempted to cripple access to SL for several staffers of the community because she disagreed with the published rules. She created a free Alt account and used scripts published by a known griefing group to attack others. After about a half dozen Abuse Reports were filed by those affected, the Alt-avie recieved a three-day suspension before she attacked again.
Linden Labs may not have set out to be a government, nor may they wish to be one, but at this time LL is the only regulatory body. That others are seeking to displace LL from this position tells me that either there are a lot of people with nothing better to do or that there is a serious need.
Reader Comments (1)
Posted: Nov 5th 2007 10:14AM (Unverified) said
Role Play (RP) communities that I frequent, such as Tamerthon, have governments because their participants agree to such as part of the game play. Non-RP communities also establish rules. As such, visitors are usually given a rules card or some other notice to behave within certain expectations. This makes a defacto government. This may work on a relatively small scale.
Consider the larger scale, though. Some values may be shared by communities of a similar nature, such as the Isle of Lesbos and Mysteria, or within the various lands used by Furries, but the differences between communities are fueled by the chaos created by failure of Linden Labs (LL) to sufficiently enforce existing rules and show that they support the decisions of individual communities to police themselves.
Chiefly, I refer to law breakers commonly referred to as "griefers." Recently a sandbox in the Wryms sims needed to be closed due to a griefer letting loose self-replicating objects. Yes, the sim owners had the tools to stop the problem. But LL would rather be able to crow about having a huge resident base than control the creation of free accounts favored by griefers for such attack or to restrict the abilities of these free accounts to be used to for ill will.
Similarly, LL merely slaps the wrists of those "regular" residents that decide to turn to griefing rather than behave as responsible adults. Instead of intelligently discussing her views or to back her claims, a visitor to a community I frequent recently attempted to cripple access to SL for several staffers of the community because she disagreed with the published rules. She created a free Alt account and used scripts published by a known griefing group to attack others. After about a half dozen Abuse Reports were filed by those affected, the Alt-avie recieved a three-day suspension before she attacked again.
Linden Labs may not have set out to be a government, nor may they wish to be one, but at this time LL is the only regulatory body. That others are seeking to displace LL from this position tells me that either there are a lot of people with nothing better to do or that there is a serious need.