24 August, 2010

we're teaching murder not understanding now

We've reached the point of Emerald evangelicals, by the way; people so devoted to Emerald as the grid-based embodiment of viewer perfection; people so vigilant in their defense of Emerald as the One True Browser; people who will then turn on anyone not using the Holy of Absinthine Holies, and consider them a rat bastard Communist who's trying to destroy the grid....Well, look, this was a mild example that happened last night in ISC chat:
[18:14] MoonWhite Nightfire: Well... Emerald is the most powerful [in the] opinion of many. More users (at least in [the] not-noob sphere) use Emerald, then any [other] viewer. Always I saw usually 80% of people around me [using] Emerald. So, [Emerald] will NOT DIE: In one way or the [other] it will [live]. MAybe there will be a [new] dev team... maybe a trustworthy group fork it and develope a new viewer based on it. Any way, it WILL LIVE.
It's not going to get better from here. We're now dividing into camps, just like the pro-Zindra and anti-Zindra camps earlier, and it's going to get just as divisive as Emerald lurches on, on and off the grid.

(And just a note--all the corrections in Mr. Nightfire's comment? Were all issues of either rushing the statement, or dyslexia; I didn't change the meaning, just the spelling.)

When I finally argued Imprudence into logging me in today (I wanted to go to Second Life; Imprudence wanted me to go to localhost), I had difficulty moving in the sandbox from where I'd left SL.

toys,beach balls,beach,Second Life,virtual worlds,griefing,sandbox

Now I know why.

toys,beach balls,beach,Second Life,virtual worlds,griefing,sandbox

All nine of these ginormous things are owned by camila Deir, who is old enough to know better.

toys,beach balls,beach,Second Life,virtual worlds,griefing,sandbox

And there's even two off the sim entirely.

For whatever reason, the entire InWorldz grid went down, and hard today--owners of the service are still scrambling to figure out why. (Me, I'm just glad my stance against that damned Z in their name prevented me from leaping to InWorldz from SL.)

Wagner James Au on New World Notes has the audacity to suggest that if Emerald developers used their real names they wouldn't be in their current mess. There's more than a little hint/drop/thud that he's referring to the larger grid as well--that if everyone on SL used their real names, it would foster trust and community.

What an inane and utterly meritless opinion. I loathe this Facebookian equation between real names and trust. As if any business, any business on the grid, from the Labs on down, would automatically have more resident support, or even resident trust, if they always used their real names, instead of their resident names or even net handles is ludicrous from the start.

Want to use your real name on everything you do? Go work for Blizzard. Me, I'll keep Emilly, thank you. And stand and fall under that reputation. Tarnished as it is, it's mine, and people know me; most people don't know my real name, and frankly, I want to keep it that way. Ask me for my real name as a condition for playing Second Life, ever, and that's the day I leave.

And I really, really doubt I'd be the only one.

"Saying 'I notice you're a nerd' is like saying, 'Hey, I notice that you'd rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you'd rather be thoughtful than be vapid, that you believe that there are things that matter more than the arrest record of Lindsay Lohan. Why is that?' In fact, it seems to me that most contemporary insults are pretty lame. Even 'lame' is kind of lame. Saying 'You're lame' is like saying 'You walk with a limp.' Yeah, whatever, so does 50 Cent, and he's done all right for himself."
~John Green


Avatar,James Cameron,Second Life,Na'vi,copyright

More Avatar sightings at Thalia 98. Why am I even surprised?

I find it curious that on slutmonae Berhardt's blog, there are only three entries--the introduction/explanation, the Flickr page announcement, and the apology. Two are from 2008; the apology is from 2009. And there is literally nothing else.

My curious mind wonders if she has become as mute and silent in RL, as in SL, though I have no real idea how that would work.

As to how I found that blog, one of the stops on the No Strings Attached hunt is at Sin Labs. I'm still looking for the doll box there, but in the meantime, happened across a placard next to a Sphynxgirl stand--I don't know if it was specifically slutmonae (or one of her alts); I admit, I was more looking for the hunt gift than anything. But out of idle wonderment, I clicked. I read. And now I have a deep puzzlement, once again.

I doubt it's slipped anyone's mind that I am at least loosely affiliated with SL's BDSM community. To that end, though, I have to say with all honesty of heart: I don't get being that restrained. For the space of a scene, yes; for the experience or the lesson, all right. But day in and day out? No IMs. No inventory access. No notecard access. No communication. No identification, even, of other avatars, by name or chat.

And in slutmonae's case, blindfolded, so hour upon hour, day after day--unable even to see.

That twitches me. It is a large and varied world, with many people in it, and those people have a varied cornucopia of desires...but that shut off from everyone around me? That's not my fantasy, that's a fear.

But, as I said, it is a wild and weird and diverse world; obviously, slutmonae is thrilled at this development, so thrilled that she's no longer even communicating in the ways she is allowed to, off the grid. But is that a good thing?

4 comments:

Edward Pearse said...

When people start going on about how people using their real names promotes trust and happy families I just remind them that Bernie Madoff used his real name too.

Rhianon Jameson said...

And such a great name, under the circumstances! Damon Runyan couldn't have done better.

It's hard to see how knowing a handful of names of Emerald developers would have helped the situation. Would they be less likely to pull pranks? Maybe, but it's hard to see that, unless they turn out to be well-known programmers. It seems to me that knowing a real name increases trust only if the real name is trusted. I have no idea why people trusted Bernie Madoff with large sums of money. It's easier to understand why people trusted, say, Goldman Sachs with large sums of money, because Goldman's reputation went well beyond any individual employee. If the Emerald organization came into existence only recently, how would knowing who works there help?

More fundamentally, we trust LL to act as a gatekeeper against malicious code. It's in their interest to do so, and most of us lack the competence to do so ourselves. I don't need to know who the Emerald people are; if LL does in order to okay a client from them, that's their concern.

At least, that's the way things should work. :)

Sphynx Soleil said...

SL is NOT $%^& FaceCrack...

I'm with you, the day they insist upon real information for public viewing, fsk that, I am SOOO outta there...

Emilly Orr said...

In all cases, I entirely agree.

It's the height of lunacy to take world history, in local or global proportions, and extract from that the concept that people behave better if they're not anonymous. No. They don't. They really, really don't.

People don't even behave better on the net if their real names are known. So that's two falsehoods off the same concept.

And yet, it persists. Why does it persist? It's gotten so pervasive that Blizzard, as said, thought it was a nifty idea to implement widespread--until 80% of their paying userbase said, Do this, we leave. And Blizzard backed down...for the most part. (RealID is still used as a verification system on some accounts.)

Now even SL is talking about making avatar names 'optional' and allowing everyone to skate in under account names, or make up their own names. And frankly, this idea is so staggeringly bad it can't even be properly articulated to the Lindens. They're just going to have to implement it, and realize once the names start scrolling by that this really is that stupid an idea.

(On the other hand, under the restricted system, as of August 2010 we have forty-seven avatars with some variation on "vagina" as a first name, including "Vaginahat Snoodle" and "Vaginasaurus Jonesford"; we have one hundred variants using "sexii" as a name, including the infamous "SexiiBabii Clip", "sexiibiitch Back", "SexiiBlonde Ba bii", and "sexiicheerleader2012 Hotshot"; seven variants on "Hunglong", including the hysterical "HUNGLONGSHOLNG Giha"--and yes, that's how he misspelled the name; an amazing number of avatars who decided their first name should simply be "Sex"--and one Mr. {?} "masturbation Dash", born on the 15th of this month; and for the ultimate, we also have "CLITLICKER69 Sideways"...so really, people are ALREADY being idiots on the grid.)

hide away, they say, 'cos we don't want your broken parts

Yeah, so...remember that thing I was recovering from? You know, last year ? Yeah. I did it again. So this is Em Faw Down Go Boom part ...