Forbes writer ignores bigger story to make insult

Akela Talamasca — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Real life, News items, Opinion, Second Life, Free-to-play, Roleplaying, Virtual worlds

In an article titled 'Second Life Deathwatch: Star Trek Reenactments', a quote is pulled from a Technology Review story about the Ginko Financial debacle, the point of which seems merely to be to imply that enjoying Star Trek reenactments somehow confers loser status to the subject.

First of all, your hobbies, the activities you enjoy, are entirely your own. It's not for anyone to stand at a distance and point a finger and laugh -- believe me, everyone does something someone else will find worth of ridicule, but so what? The things that make us happy, make us wise. Believe me, there's much more than just Star Trek in Second Life, too -- I was able to find Star Wars roleplay, Silent Hill roleplay, Final Fantasy 7 roleplay ... there aren't links for those, you just have to find them in-world by searching. But instead of celebrating 'IDIC', the writer goes for the obvious gag.

Second, is this really what Forbes considers a substantial article these days? The article linked to is a much more important document, bearing import for more than just virtual worlds. The writer missed an opportunity to say something a bit more than 'Ha ha, look at the geeks!'

Third, how is this an indicator of the 'eventual decline of Second Life'? There's one comment at the end of this post that sums it up well: 'Here's a hint, if you don't like SL then stay in RL, and leave those of us who enjoy it alone. There is nothing worse that critics who sit on the sidelines ridiculing everyone else who is having a good time.' Oh, and by the way, nothing says 'professional' better than a photo of yourself wearing a t-shirt, really. This article, if you can call it that, is nothing short of insulting, both to its subject and to its audience. You need to do better than this, Forbes.

Forbes writer ignores bigger story to make insult originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 06 Jan 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Building a better Search tool in Second Life

Akela Talamasca — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 08:30:00 EST

Filed under: Game mechanics, News items, Second Life

Finding the right thing right away is of huge importance in Second Life, as it is for the online experience in general. Residents have been stuck with a sometimes-useful Search tool for what feels like forever. According to this article, that might change soon.

One of the problems with past Search results is that they've been shown by alphabetical ranking, or by amount of traffic received. This new tool will generate results based on relevance, the way Google works. In fact, this new Search will be based on a Google product.

The caveat, however, is that for these results to be at all relevant, objects must be tagged with appropriate information. While this will initially be a pain, given the tens of thousands of objects available in SL, it will allow residents to decide for themselves the level of privacy they'd like to inhabit. Once this goes live, you can bet enterprising coders grid-wide will work on providing tools to manage this new step in SL's growth.

(Via technologyreview)

Building a better Search tool in Second Life originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 07 Nov 2007 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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