Ciaran Laval

July 7, 2015July 8, 2015

Second Life Wedding Picture Used For Motherboard Transhumanist Article

The time has come for a couple of “Second Life, yes it’s still around” blog posts. The reason for this is that despite people sounding surprised that Second Life is still around, the platform still gets cited directly and indirectly in many articles.

The above picture by Alex Bristol appeared on my Twitter stream today. The image appeared because Chuck Baggett was pointing out that the image was being used in a post about human marriage. However there’s a bit of a twist regarding the article, it’s actually a transhumanist article. Transhumanism is a train of thought devoted to improving the human condition via technology. There’s a lot more to it than that, but it delves into areas that many find troubling.

Now ideas that many find troubling are not a bad thing. We need to discuss the way technology impacts upon our lives. I personally find it interesting, but at times it does appear to be way too sci-fi for my liking. However that’s the point of the discussion.

So back to Chuck Baggett’s tweet.

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July 4, 2015July 8, 2015

What Second Life Means To Me Video Project Hits The 30 Entry Mark

Back on June 16th Xiola Linden posted a blog entry, The “What Second Life Means to Me” Video Share Project :

We’ve been having a lot of fun with no end in sight to the good times – but you can’t turn 12 without a little pride and reflection. Second Life has been going strong for a dozen wonderful years and there’s a ton of things happening to celebrate. You’ll see more to come here in the Featured News Blog – but we wanted to stop and ask – “What is the meaning of Second Life?” To you – that is! This question may sound daunting – but the truth is, tapping into what makes “SL” so special to us as individuals and communities is a really amazing exercise in retrospection and self-discovery. This is your world – so what does it mean to you?

Whether you just got started, have been onboard for the full dozen years, or fall somewhere in between – we’d love to see a glimpse of your story in the “What Second Life Means to Me” video project.

Since then people have been creating short videos and I have noticed that the playlist on YouTube has now hit the 30 mark. There are a variety of styles applied, some people share more of their real self than others, some are shot entirely inworld, some have no voice. This mix is what makes this project so interesting.

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July 3, 2015July 8, 2015

Crestwick Village In Second Life, Where You Don’t Stop Believing

Just a small town Dwarfin, living in a lonely world.

I decided to take a trip to a small working class region of Second Life by the name of Crestwick Island and I was totally blown away by its gritty beauty.

The actual parcel description states :

Crestwick Island is a small working class town situated on an Island in the middle of a beautiful bay. The streets are lined faux businesses and shops as well as parks, marsh land and other surprises including a giant hill that supports an observatory.

This is a location that works really well, although it’s a shame that the business on the streets are faux because the record store looks really funky!

The creators of this wonderful location are Ciphertazi Wandin and Isa Messioptra, who also doubles as The Mayor, although I don’t know if she was democratically elected.

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July 3, 2015July 8, 2015

Reddit – The Front Page Of The Internet, Bottom Of The Class For Community Relations

r/SecondLife looks the same as it ever was over on Reddit, but a lot of other subreddits have gone dark in a protest over the management of the site. Reddit, which turned ten in June, have upset many of their numerous users after allegedly firing the very popular Victoria Taylor. According to The Guardian article I just linked to, Reddit users are revolting over this development :

The protest is focused on the dismissal of Victoria Taylor, a former Reddit communications director who was abruptly let go on Thursday. Her role had been to co-ordinate the site’s popular Ask Me Anything series, also known as AMAs, where celebrities answer questions submitted by the Reddit community. The main AMA subforum, “IAmA”, was the first to close in protest.

Over the years, AMAs had brought in some of the site’s biggest successes, including the AMA with President Obama in 2012, and one with a man with two penises in 2014, and many had been specifically arranged and co-ordinated by Taylor. The contrast between those two events is also a nice way to sum up Reddit to someone who has not heard of the site.

Many mods are now annoyed that Reddit don’t seem to have grasped how important a role Victoria Taylor played in communications between mods and guests. They feel let down and it seems on the face of it, that the management of Reddit don’t quite grasp how much mods on subreddits appreciated Victoria Taylor, in short the mods feel they’ve been left high and dry with no forward thinking plans in place to replace Victoria Taylor.

Now there are some golden rules when your users are upset, somewhere very close to the top of the list is “Thou Shalt Not Piss Them Off Further,“, however this golden rule seems to have flown right over the head of some of the senior people at Reddit.

Alexis Ohanian, co-founder and executive chair at Reddit, responded to angry users by saying “Popcorn tastes good.” This tongue in cheek reference to internet drama backfired badly, indeed it pretty much became explosive Popcorn. He has since amended his post, it now reads :

Popcorn tastes good.
Edit: Honestly, I didn’t understand the depth of the frustration, and I really regret this comment. I’m leaving it here as a reminder not to do it again.

He deserves some credit for acknowledging that he misjudged the mood, but it’s really more of a refelction of how out of touch Reddit are with their community.

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July 2, 2015July 8, 2015

Confederate Battle Flag Items Are Being Removed From Second Life Marketplace

Hamlet Au recently blogged – Linden Lab Declines Comment on Continued Sale of Racist Confederate Flag Items in Official Second Life Store. In that post Hamlet said

I’ve e-mailed Linden Lab three times about the sale of Confederate flag items in its official Second Life Marketplace (which I blogged about last week), but have still not received any kind of reply. At this point I’m forced to conclude Linden Lab is declining to address the issue — either publicly, or in the Marketplace itself, where Confederate flag items are still quite easy to find and buy, both through searches of “Confederate” and “rebel flag”.

Whereas Linden Lab may have declined to comment, it does seem that they are taking action. In a post on SLUniverse, Second Life content creator Amigo Uriza writes :

Yesterday and today, I got all my outfits with the rebel or confederate flag delisted and deleted from the marketplace.

I always supposed that flags were never copyrighted or trademarked … that’s why I decided to used them. Actually It wasn’t me, but my deceased partner that created those “rebel” items a few years ago and I have been selling them since then. I haven’t created any other since then.

According to Linden my items have been removed for “Listings for harmful or disruptive content”. They are just outfits with a flag on the chest or the back. Nothing else. Some of them have been removed for “Post, display, or transmit Content that is obscene, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable”

First things first, Amigo admits that English is not his first language, so he may very well be unaware of the more sinister meanings behind the Confederate Battle Flag. I say this as someone who does have English as a first language and I didn’t understand how deep the negative symbolism of this banner went. I have put this down to the fact that it is widely seen on Film and TV where it’s not always in a context of racism. This is a different scenario to which people generally see the Nazi symbol, with some exceptions in Asia and even then, those of us in the west raise eyebrows when we see the symbol.

However the commentary and news stories surrounding the Confederate Battle Flag in recent days have pointed out loud and clear how much a symbol of hatred it can be. This therefore has definitely put Linden Lab in an uncomfortable position.

Amigo’s post is backed up by the fact that a search of the Second Life Marketplace no longer seems to return obvious items emblazoned with the Confederate Battle Flag.

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