{"id":813,"date":"2009-01-01T20:04:28","date_gmt":"2009-01-01T20:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/?p=813"},"modified":"2014-01-12T13:17:19","modified_gmt":"2014-01-12T13:17:19","slug":"have-virtual-investors-learned-from-the-wse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/?p=813","title":{"rendered":"Have Virtual Investors Learned From The WSE?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post was\u00a0originally\u00a0posted on Your2ndplace by Konner McDonnell and is reproduced here with permission from Konner McDonnell.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Last September, I bid farewell<\/a> to Y2P as a contributor. Embedded in my farewell article was a silent vow that, should the WSE declare insolvency or otherwise withdraw as a virtual exchange, I would return to cover the event.<\/p>\n

In his December 2008 address<\/a>,\u00a0 Luke Connell announced that his exchange would be severing all ties to Second Life and Second Life-based companies. Though the announcement provoked some applause and cries of victory from the virtual exchange cognoscente, the majority dismissed the address with an indiscernible shrug \u2013 comfortably nestled in the latter camp was yours truly.<\/p>\n

In the two month period between my announcement and Connell\u2019s, RL had whisked me away. Until two weeks ago, most of my involvement had taken place via email. When the holiday break afforded me a bit of leisure time, I sat down to make good on my promise, but the words didn\u2019t come. The distance had given me a new perspective. So I stepped back, caught up, and drew some disturbing conclusions.<\/p>\n

Where the WSE is concerned, it\u2019s gone from Second Life. Good riddance. The periods of unannounced halts, disinformation, fear mongering and revisionism -which I\u2019ve flippantly dubbed \u201cretConnelling\u201d-\u00a0 are someone else\u2019s problem.<\/p>\n

But this by no means constitutes a victory. When I think of the \u201cold investors\u201d whose money has hitherto been made unavailable to them while \u201cnew investors\u201d deposited and withdrew at will, I can only conclude that
\nthe sole winner here is Connell himself.\u00a0 But that was always the case.\u00a0 Besides, people like myself weren\u2019t trying to beat Luke Connell at a game he dominated. We were simply creating an archive. As VSTEX PR
\nDirector Samantha Goldflake likes to say, \u201cThe internet does not forget.\u201d I concur.<\/p>\n

The only real victory is one of collective action. When a few like-minded individuals band together in the name of a common interest or promoting truth, the act says as much about the thing being pursued as it does the pursuers. Here, the victory is Pyrrhic, which is often the case, but it is a victory nonetheless. Those people that cared enough to risk their own money to decry Connell\u2019s actions are themselves\u00a0 illustrative of why I continue to involve myself in the exchanges.<\/p>\n

The problem is that these individuals seem to be in the vast minority. That I didn\u2019t recognize it until now says remarkable things about the company I\u2019ve kept in SL, but it says little of my knowledge of\u00a0 the community as a whole.<\/p>\n

From a distance, I\u2019ve watched Luke\u2019s agents unapologetically abandon ship, and, like rats, scurry to bigger and better pieces of cheese. That\u2019s expected. What is surprising is how quickly they\u2019ve been embraced.<\/p>\n

Further, many of the old hands with questionable dealings and reputations have been left to their own devices. Similarly, new enterprises have been quickly accepted on exchanges based solely on the lofty goals<\/a> outlined in their prospectuses.<\/p>\n

My concerns are based on research. The information is available to everyone, that is, if they care to look. Though it may be somewhat sloppy of me to write an article, allude to problems, then suggest people do their own research, frankly, my goal has always been to supplement-not replace- individual research.<\/p>\n

Though I hope to be proven wrong down the road, I am worried that those people so eager to move beyond the WSE have ignored the pedagogical value in their haste.<\/p>\n

I still hold to belief that there is a future in the exchanges – one that will be appreciate by external regulating bodies should they impose\u00a0 regulations in the future. But as a writer who sought to champion ‘shareholder\u2019s rights,’ I\u2019m finding little in the way of self-determination and\/or due diligence. Call me an idealist, but I look\u00a0 to a day when market volatility reflects speculation\u00a0 on performance and not the probability of CEO malfeasance.<\/p>\n

Not long ago, I had a discussion with Delicious Demar about the WSE and what it meant for the future. Towards the end of that discussion we agreed that it was time to move on, attend to our respective obligations, and enjoy the thing we\u2019d sought to preserve through our individual actions.<\/p>\n

That is what I intend to do.<\/p>\n

In the last year I\u2019ve signed on with two virtual companies for an inside look and an opportunity to put my ideals to some use. Expect a writeup of my experiences towards the end of this year.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a new year is upon us. Seems a good time to broaden my horizons. We’ll see what comes of that.<\/p>\n

Happy New Year, Y2P.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post was\u00a0originally\u00a0posted on Your2ndplace by Konner McDonnell and is reproduced here with permission from Konner McDonnell. Last September, I bid farewell to Y2P as a contributor. Embedded in my farewell article was a silent vow that, should the WSE declare insolvency or otherwise withdraw as a virtual exchange, I would return to cover the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Have Virtual Investors Learned From The WSE?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[154,3,14,647],"tags":[155,156],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6rJUK-d7","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=813"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3526,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813\/revisions\/3526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sl.governormarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}