What’s in a name?

In the real world there is of course more than one Catherine Fitzpatrick - in fact, the first hit of my Google search for that name points to someone of Greenpeace Australia - and I really don’t think it’s the same person who is behind the famous Second Life persona Prokofy Neva. And that’s without expressing any preconceived notions about Neva’s political views. In Second Life there is only one Prokofy Neva - each and every one of our names is unique, even though we do have a Gwyneth Llewelyn and a Gwyneth Llewellyn these days.

Not so on Facebook, of course. Facebook doesn’t rely on the uniqueness of names, simply because names are not unique in the real world. Anyone can open a Facebook account with any name - in fact there’s more than a handful of Catherine Fitzpatricks on this community site. But, again, there’s only one Prokofy Neva. And I don’t think it’s too much of a guess to say that the Prokofy Neva on Facebook is not the Prokofy Neva we all know:

Oh yes, we are sometimes made to believe that griefing in SL is a very interesting phenomenon worth five pages in a magazine once famous and respected (and nerdy) enough to be featured in The Simpsons as one of Lisa’s reads (Homer - with typical acciddental aptness - misreads the name as ‘Weird’). So tell me what’s interesting about taking the whole business of ‘attacking the seriousness of Second Life’ off the world and into the Internet at large? That’s not griefing - that’s stalking, that’s harassment, and that’s sick. That kind of behaviour deserves that feared ride in the FBI party van. Or at least the party van of any of a host of mental institutions.

You can argue that Neva is partly responsible for such pranks - it doesn’t help to shout ‘terrorism’ at the first sight of a lolcube - but isn’t that argument dangerously close to saying that a rape victim ‘asked for it’ by the way she dressed or by being in the place she was in? Neva has the right to call it terrorism, or Communism (another favoured label of his), or Catholicism for all I care. Opinions, however overstated they are, are not invitations to stalking or griefing.

And it raises another question - who has the rights to our Second Life names? I do think that someone who’s been using the name Prokofy Neva for such a long time should have at least some rights to the name, when used in connection with Second Life. I dare say that even I have some rights to the name Laetizia Coronet, being that I have been using it since November of ‘06. But is the use of my name protected in-world? I think not - only the name Linden is, and misusing it makes one a target for disciplinary action.

Maybe the ToS can be read in such a way as to prohibit misuse of names, but I am not sure that if I come across a Prokofy Neva Porn Shop, the Lab would take action. It wouldn’t hurt to have it written in plain English somewhere in the ToS: use of the unique name of other Residents without their consent is prohibited.

Come on, Lindens. After all the protection you’ve granted yourselves it’s time you grant us some.

(Second Life, SL and Linden Lab are trademarks of Linden Research, Inc.)

We Need A Flag! (updated)

[Update, may 11th: I received the first two entries, and both of them interesting and thoughtful! Thanks for sending these in! With my own design, that makes three. Don't worry, voting will be anonymous]

Let’s face it. We never had a flag - that was a logo on a stick and it would look good outside a Linden Lab office, but it was hardly what you’d call a real flag. And now even the name of the famous logo is copyrighted, so use of it as a symbol for all of us is right out. It’s “theirs” now…

The other day I was building an airplane and airplanes often carry a national flag. Now I have a choice of flags to use, being that I am a Dutch person living in Italy. But what if I want to sell my plane? How many non-Dutch people will want to have a Dutch flag on their plane? How many different textures would I have to make?

Suppose you are building a grand square on your sim and you want everyone to feel welcome there. A grand square looks good with flags, so how many different ones are you going to stick in the ground there? Five? Ten?

And let’s not forget the many army and police roleplayers. OK, so especially toy cops are not my friends, but they could do with some uniforms with a flag insignia. It just looks good, believe me, I am not impartial to the looks of a well-cut uniform.

Therefore, we need a flag representing Second Life Residents. But I can’t do that by myself - I cannot expect to post my design here and have everyone rally behind it and adopt it as the flag for all of us. So I need your help.

What can you do? First and foremost, start designing! More on that later. Secondly, of course, link to this blog on your own blog or copy the text, spread the word, translate it in another language, get the ball rolling. And third, I need people to judge the flags, or to judge a shortlist of flags if many come in. I’ll seek out some specific people myself but I think that average Residents should be a part of the selection process. Why judges? I want to avoid the inevitable: people pushing all their friends to go vote for their flag. It’s not a popularity contest. I will make sure the vote is anonymous - no names attached to flags. Of course, judges cannot run in the competition.

The fourth thing we may want is some prize and I’ll be happy if any of you has anything on offer. This includes Linden Lab, but I want to make clear that this will be the flag of the Residents, not of the Lab. If Linden staff want to participate in any way, they can as far as I am concerned - they are Residents - but I will not actively seek any Linden support or endorsement at all. I would like to one day go to M or Philip or Robin and present our flag to them!

Now about the design. I had a whole list of personal things I wanted to say, but it’s better to keep you all open-minded. I respectfully point you to the website of Flags Of The World which is a great source for information and inspiration. Please note that all elements in a flag have a meaning - and I would think it’s a good idea to explain your flag when you send it in.

Some things however need mentioning. I don’t like timewasters, so an all grey Lag Flag is not going to the judges. Neither are flat-out copies of existing national flags. I don’t expect you to know all city-, provincial-, regional and other flags, but straight copies of country flags should be avoided. Another thing I do not accept for judging is a red flag with a white circle and a black symbol in the middle - ha, ha, it’s a faux Nazi flag. Don’t waste your time on that, or mine. And finally, any flag with a religious or political symbol, or a combination of those, can never represent all the Residents, and so is not worth the effort.

Keep in mind that your flag should represent all of us, as diverse as we are in age, background, location and culture.

Sending in a flag for this competition means that you waive all copyrights to it, should it be chosen as the winner. Anyone must be able to use it. Please send your designs to residentsflag at hotmail dot com, do NOT forget to mention your Second Life name and watch this spot for more news!

(Second Life and Linden Lab are trademarks of Linden Research, Inc.)

Shivers

These weeks, the electricity company Enel presents a TV ad with the motto l’energia che ti ascolta - energy which listens to you. One of the two or three similar clips has sent a shiver down my spine, the first time I watched it. Not because of the choice of music - I think it’s rather outrageous to use the Velvet Underground’s beautiful Sunday Morning with it’s sombre overtones in an ad - but because of the little girl appearing seven seconds after the start. You may or you may not agree with me, but to me she looks a lot like my avatar. Just compare this screenshot with the banner above my blog:

Suddenly Sunday Morning gets a whole new meaning. Watch out, the world’s behind you…

You can watch the full clip on YouTube.

Also on YouTube, the full Velvet Underground song.

ps - Ignore the WordPress idiocy of “possibly related posts”. It’s a load of crap, I didn’t ask for it, it doesn’t work and there seems to be no way to switch it off. Windows98 revisited…

Are we not the police?

We are not the police. I do not exaggerate if I say that I hear that at least once every day, coming from various sources, but always a repeat of Linden Lab policy regarding Second Life Mentors. I even repeat it myself, in group IMs, on our SLVEC island, everywhere. We are not the police. But what are we then? Why are so many of us lured into the role of virtual police, standing around populated public places and sending out ARs, sometimes seemingly for nothing more than sneezing in the wrong direction?

A while ago, Mentors at Waterhead were greeted with custom made gestures: a stressed-out voice going I’ll report you! in a tone reminiscent of the teacher on Pink Floyd’s The Wall album. Hey! You! Yes… you! Stand still laddie! Now of course you can react to that with an AR - for gesture spamming, which apparently is a reason to ban people - but it’s good to ask yourself why people go through the trouble of making such gestures in the first place. Or group titles such as Second Life Mentard. And seeing some colleagues in action I know what’s going on - they come to Waterhead or any other fairly unruly area and try to lay down the law. They do not allow any swearing, they issue warnings and threats, and they write ARs like there’s no tomorrow. I know. I was once like that, in the very beginning. And that’s what makes us Mentors such ‘beloved’ figures in the community.

Now it’s easy for me to say that with examples like our own Mia Linden of the Volunteer program it’s no wonder Mentors behave like coppers on Monday mornings. But seriously, any Mentor who wants to help new people in some places (and that’s, shall we say, our core business) is faced with a huge problem - some of the regulars in those places. In order to serve the newbies who get kicked into the infamous Welcome Area by the exit signs on Orientation and Help Islands, we need to protect them from people of ill will - be that people who deliberately give out false information or people whose “funny” racism, homophobia and foulmouthed attitude is enough to turn any but the most fanatic neonazi skinhead away from SL.

To serve and protect - surely the good folk at Linden Lab must have read that somewhere on the streets of San Francisco. Leave out one of the two and you’re left with a defunct system. What good is my serving the newbies going to do when, ten meters on, they walk into the corrupted world of fratboy pranksters like the man calling himself Ringleader (his alts go by many names - the group title is the same), whose whole existence evolves around continuously spouting horrificly vicious racist tripe in a fake British aristocrats’ accent? I serve the new Resident as best I can with the purpose of keeping him in-world and interested, only to see him enter hell two minutes later. One can only hope that he’ll TP out to a better place. I wonder how many just switch off, never to return.

On the other hand, if I am only there to protect, I am a security guard. A silent, unapproachable figure of authority - not the person to come to with your first questions. Imagine that: an empty Waterhead with five silent security guards, and the first visitor who dares say shit (before even knowing the difference between PG and Mature, mind you) gets it. I wonder how many would switch off then.

Therefore, we serve and we protect. Of course I can use other words to make it sound less like the motto of police departments all over the US, but that doesn’t diminish it’s meaning. So are we not the police?

In an ideal world, we shouldn’t be. But in places like Waterhead we are. We stand around, sometimes outnumbering the new people, and watch, and listen. And yes, we report as well - I hope we don’t all report like it’s our favourite pastime, but from me you can count on a report for racism, for violence, and for threatening or otherwise unpleasant behaviour towards others. In voice, in text chat or otherwise, I don’t care.

The regulars at Waterhead (some of them are really nice people when you talk to them, /me greets 13 Jun, Crunk Munster and Gnu Curry) tell me that the solution is to stop sending newbies to Waterhead. But are they the ones to tell Linden Lab what to do with their areas, on their turf? Should the Lab just beat a retreat and give up on a Welcome Area in one of the oldest and most pleasant areas of the Mainland, right in the middle of Linden Village? Even if - how many more areas are going to be taken over by these groups? Ahern is shaky at best, Hanja is scarcely visited by Mentors at all and I have seen some of the more notorious figures in Miramare, too. Retreating is an open ended option, of which the open end points towards Berlin itself, pardon the historical parallel.

I think the option is to stand firm and to stare down the pranksters until they beat a retreat. There are thousands of places in SL which are Mature (Waterhead isn’t), open to everyone, not frequented by freshly minted newbies (or by Mentors for that matter), with building and/or scripting enabled. For all I care they can go there and be idiots all day long. I’d happily build them some infrastructure, too, if that’s what it takes. But the Lab, and by extention it’s volunteers, should draw the line at Welcome Areas and Infohubs. They are intended for everyone and especially for new Residents, and should never be relinquished for reasons of lack of manageability.

And so, for now, we need to be police. Call it what you want to, but policing is what we do in places like Waterhead. Showing up in numbers, sporting our group titles, just to make enough of an impression to take the sharpest edges off of the irritating behaviour. I tried to make do with other comparisons, like for example emergency medical services, but after all is said and done, that’s just not the whole truth. In places like Waterhead, sometimes when the ‘right’ people are all there, we are an imperfect and virtually powerless police. Why? Because behind our backs the newbies keep dropping in, straight from Orientation. And without any people overseeing what’s going on there, they’d leave in droves.

(Second Life, SL and Linden Lab are trademarks of Linden Research, Inc. This blog was written with the intention of not infringing upon any trademark.)

M.I.A.

I discovered it too late, because Yahoo decided to drop the message from Linden Lab into the bulk folder, but there it was – disciplinary action has been taken against me. I’ll tell you what happened.

Last Saturday was one of the rare moments in the weekend that I am on Second Life. I was happily building away when someone on an IM channel said she was being flooded at Pooley. Out of couriousity I TP’d over and found myself knee deep (and more) in griefer cubes. Fine then – send an AR and get out. However, Doc Gascoigne called me at that moment for an urgent delivery of T-shirts for the new Mentors – the ones they had available read “Security” which is exactly what Mentors are not supposed to be. So I went off-world, forgot about building, and managed to make some hopefully acceptable shirts for the newly minted Mentors. Mind you, the grad party was already under way.

Back to the grid I went. I delivered the shirts to Mia Linden and got no reply. I IM’d Doc and got no reply. Thinking I had better go there myself I went over to the SL Volunteer Island complex, in the middle of which the party was in full swing. These are Mature rated islands that are furthermore off bounds to non-volunteers.

At the four sim crossing where the party was held, lag was terrible. I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t see properly, I couldn’t do anything. Four times or so I got close to Mia, but when I tried to get closer I ended up half a sim away. A very frustrating experience if you have an urgent message to deliver. And so, in my anger, I typed “Fuck this place” – or words to that effect, it had the word Fuck in it anyway – and clicked Shout. Remember, I was in a complex of Mature and furthermore private sims.

Then Mia got to me, thanking me for the shirts, and in the same breath berating me for what I just shouted across the party. That’s just typical, I thought, and I first told her that I was in a Mature sim (and I added a smiley) after which she told me she knew the guidelines very well. “You know what, Mia?” I said next. “AR me.” I knew it could cost me my Mentorship but at that time I really didn’t care anymore. She said she would, and apparently she did. Being that I am hardly ever in Second Life on weekends, I never noticed until I found that mail. I am still a Mentor – apparently one can be disciplined and maintain Mentorship.

A stressful hour, beginning with griefer cubes, a request I happily (and at the cost of 20 of my own Linden dollars for uploading) and swiftly obliged to, the insane lagginess of that party I only went to because of those damn shirts, and the non-responsiveness of people you just finished an urgent assignment for, was reason for me to say ‘fuck’.

Mia Linden does not understand this. Mia Linden never says ‘fuck’ even though she has a New York accent broader than that of Fran bloody Drescher. Mia Linden is an absolutely saintly person – and therefore hasn’t the slightest idea of how real people react to things. She would have reacted with a hearty ‘Golly!’ or an honest ‘Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!’ and that would be all – because nothing is going to knock her train of happy, positive thoughts off the rails, don’t you know.

I am still a Mentor. But I am wondering why I would be volunteering for Mia, or doing anything for her at all, for that matter. If she is so fucking saintly I am sure she can conjure up happy T-shirts for all to wear while being immersed in griefer cubes, loudmouth newbies demanding help and Waterhead regulars calling her a nigger bitch. And so she really doesn’t need me to do all that for her. Because that’s what I fucking do out there - taking shit for the Lindens. Every goddamn day.

So Mia, next time you need anything at all for your happy band of volunteers sending positive rays all over the grid, don’t come asking. You know the reply, girl. It starts with F.

(Second Life and Linden Lab are trademarks of Linden Research, Inc.)

Meanwhile, back in the real world…

From Holland comes the news that Microsoft has asked Dutch dictionary maker Van Dale, the most influential dictionary publisher in the Dutch language, to remove the verb “msn’en” ["to be on MSN or a similar chat program"] from the next edition of their dictionary.

The news came during a court case during which Microsoft sought a preliminary injunction from the judge in The Hague against the msnlock domain name, used by Unicaresoft, which markets an anti-chat program by that name.

Like the company owner and inventer of msnlock, chief editor Ton van Boon at Van Dale argues that use of the term msn’en has become widespread and it’s meaning isn’t limited to using Microsoft’s chat program. They will probably add TM behind the name in the dictionary, but will not change the definition. TM, according to the editor, has no legal value [that is, in the Netherlands]. Earlier, Google requested similar action from Van Dale over the verb “googlen” (”using an internet search engine”) and the company duly added TM. Van Boon ads that companies do not expect to win these cases, but they fight them anyway to show that they are willing to fight for their registered trademarks.

Unicaresoft, meanwhile, presented a whole list of domain names, including pornographic sites, with MSN in them, against which Microsoft has not taken action. They suspect that the company is taking action now because the program msnlock limits the use of MSN. Microsoft denies that - a spokesperson said that they have nothing against the product, and that they try to go after every misuse of their trademarks.

Anorexia in the Virtual World

Bear with me. I am not a doctor or a psychologist, and yet I want to talk anorexia nervosa - and on top of that I am about to explain things most Residents of Second Life® will already know. This can get boring…

With what we call the Appearance sliders, any Second Life user can completely shape his or her appearance in the virtual world. Large breasts, muscular arms, a big nose - anything goes and one doesn’t really need a lot of skills to be able to whip up a good looking shape.

Now I was always convinced that anorexia patients have a distorted view of how they look. They do not want to look the way they do - they look the way they do because they have a false image of themselves. The Wikipedia article linked to above confirms this: one of the symptoms mentioned is [d]isturbance in the way in which one’s body weight or shape is experienced.

Wouldn’t it be a good idea to have a patient create her own ideal female body shape in Second Life? Give her the time to make a shape which for her represents how she would like to look. Then take that shape and directly compare it to how they look in real life. Perhaps seeing pictures of the real and the virtual body side by side can help them see the truth.

As I said - I am not a doctor or a psychologist. But this thought struck me and it’s perhaps too valuable to just let linger in my brain.

Strike?

Gwyn initiated it and Rheta is keeping a list of bloggers on strike against the new copyright regulations. But although I support the cause, I choose not to strike along with the rest of them.

The Lab has infuriated me in the past. We’ve had ‘broadly offensive’ and we’ve had ‘Lolita’, we’ve had the removal of a work of art because it had nipples, and we still have age verification. All that has passed by on this blog, and none of it has been enough to make me consider a strike. Hell I’ve been lied to by Robin Linden herself and yet I am still volunteering for the same Lab she’s representing. This copyright question however amazes rather than infuriates me and so striking is not an option.

But you may have noticed that I no longer use the Hallowed Words and Abbreviations. And that won’t change unless there’s any movement in the good direction from the Lab. It may cost me readers, but that’s their loss as well as mine.

The World Is Run By Lawyers

…and lawyers are, by nature, a bunch of pussies. I’m sure they would rather call themselves ‘careful’, but then they’re lawyers. They like to play with words, it’s their thing.

Just now I heard of the first victim of age verification - a woman who cannot access her own store because the landowner has flagged the parcel as mature, or adult, or whatever the extra-mature terminology is they dreamed up for our virtual world. Now hear this, all you Lindens out there:

THIS IS INSANE.

Open Google. Click Preferences. Check ‘Do not filter my search results’. Save preferences.

On the main page, click Images. Fill in a girl’s name - any girl’s name - or the name of a young, attractive female celebrity. And I guarantee you that you will see real life full nudity and possibly hardcore pornographic material, on the first page of the image search results.

Here’s one example I found with Google after a search using the first name of my mother (sorry, mom). I cleaned it up for this blog - actually it is one of the most modest pictures from that page. And it took under five seconds to find it.

And that’s exactly how hard it is for kids. And that’s why as a parent you need to monitor your kid’s internet behaviour. Yes, it takes time away from your precious career but hey, it’s a kid, not the damn DVD player. It needs looking after. And I am not going to do that for you.

Google does not demand age verification. The sites with these pictures do not demand age verification. My ISP never asked me for age verification. The government of this or any other democratic country hasn’t set a minimum age to web access. And therefore the good people that run our virtual world have no obligation whatsoever to introduce age verification.

I don’t know what is wrong with the lawyer folk in San Francisco. Maybe they are hardcore Christian fundamentalists with an agenda to clean the Internet of all the ‘filth’ that’s to be seen. Maybe they are just not ready for the 21st century yet, and still think you can somehow shield people off from mature content. But most likely they are just a bunch of pussies.

While you’re at it, go and see what Google turns up when you search for ‘pussies’ as described above… and don’t for a minute fool yourself into believing that your kids wouldn’t ever try.

Disclaimer: if you think you own the rights to the picture above, shame on you. It’s not even a good photoshop.

All your blogs are belong to us

Feel free to upload and use as a texture. The picture of uncle Phil is one I made myself, so there can’t be many ‘issues’ there. Of course, if you use it on a blog, linking to the source is a nice gesture.