Virtual Democracy

Writing from Atlanta, Ga.:

Eric Reuters reported on Thursday about LiveJournal’s decision to hold an election in the community at large for two seats to its advisory board:

Election winners will participate in quarterly conference calls with executives from Russian media company SUP, which owns LiveJournal, and be flown to an annual meeting in Istanbul to discuss issues relating to LiveJournal’s administration.

LiveJournal’s democratic elections of user representatives closely parallels recent elections in CCP’s EVE Online, in what may be a growing trend among new media companies with loyal but contentious user bases.

This started me thinking in my spare moments about the spread of virtual democracy. It appears to be a trend that has much support; even the Russian-owned LiveJournal is embracing the concept to a degree. As for Second Life, we have the well-known example of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators (better known as Neufreistadt), (Wikia, blog). The CDS is one of the longest ongoing projects on the Grid, with a reasonably successful representative government elected every six months, three working parties, and a good participation from many of the Residents. I featured a photo of the last swearing in of the CDS’ Representative Assembly in Contact Sheet, with the well-known Gwyneth Llewelyn administering the oaths as Dean of the Scientific Council.

Slightly less free, but still quite democratic, are the regions of the Independent State of Caledon. Government here is more by mutual consent to being governed under the benign despotism of the sims’ owner, His Excellency Desmond Shang, the “Guvnah.” Being the owner of the many regions that comprise Caledon, what happens here is basically what Des allows to happen; but he is also an easygoing and much-loved tyrant, and all his rules are embraced by the neo-Victorian Residents [1]. On a parallel might be Steelhead (Caledon wiki, newspaper), which is owned by Kattrynn Severine, but managed by three others and advised by four councilors.

These and other examples show that self-government in a virtual world is possible. The one difficulty that cannot be overcome, however, is that of the overarching dictatorship. In other words, the Host Company! Whether it’s Second Life, There, World of Warcraft or LiveJournal, someone owns the host computers that the software runs on, and they make the rules in the end. The only control we have over them is economic support, by choosing to continue or not continue our accounts with them; and if they lose enough subscribers, the servers will be shut down along with the “countries.” (So far, there has been enough support to keep the owners firmly “in power.”)

Second Life at least allows the nascent micro-nations to continue, only asking that Residents observe the policy decisions made by Linden Lab. There’s no sign that this will change in the future — but remember the truth of the situation that you live in.

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[1.] Emissaries from other sims have other ideas, but Guvnah has an ace up his sleeve in the form of the Gun Bunnies, his elite bodyguard. They have foiled at least one assassination attempt during the war with Neualtenburg.

Soylent Green is Avatars!

Writing from Atlanta, Ga.:

Junkootsuka at SL FASHION DIVA published a photo of herself in a feather dress today. But it isn’t the dress that caught my eye, although it’s a little interesting. Rather, it’s the background she chose to pose in front of.

Take a look at the green packages on the clip tree just to her right. Read them carefully….

I don’t know if we should convene a seance and get Charlton Heston in here or not….

“Out of Town” For a Few

I’ll be off Grid until sometime Monday, but I’ll try to watch the SL news.  If anything happens, you may see my take on this.

Pause for Statistical Reflection

I’m not quite up to 7,500 visits yet (7,219 according to the counter), and I wasn’t planning on shooting off any fireworks until I made 10,000 hits. But, looking at my statistics page, I thought I’d do a little brief analysis here of who’s been visiting and why.

WARNING: Ahead lie statistics, with a potentially high MEGO (Mine Eyes Glazeth Over) factor.  If you’re not into people gassing on about what’s popular and why, then move on, people.  The glazing starts after the break….

Items of Note

Gidge Uriza, who used to manage the Vicious Studios businesses such as the Hypnoz club and the Vicious Studios blog, has been exploring other pursuits lately. She models and writes for photographer Cajsa Lilliehook of MDR Photo Studio at It’s Only Fashion, an excellent SL fashion blog, and she’s doing quite a good job at it.  For instance, homage á the Indy 500 this weekend, Gidge has done a piece called “Gentlemen, Start Your Engines,” in which she describes and models a nice dress from ELATE.  Check out her pieces on the blog, as well as her modeling in her Flickr photostream!

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AM Radio’s done it again!  The master artist of the Far Away build has put together another art experience, called The Quiet.  Check this article and picture by Morris Vig of Second Arts, and then head off (in small groups!) to see it for yourself!

Torley Speaks!

Torley Linden, that is.  The Master of Watermelons and the creator of the SL catchphrase “Friendly greetings!” has a new entry on the Big Blog (the Official Linden Blog, that is), with the door wide open to questions relating to tutorial and resident learning.  Don’t bother asking him about when this or that element of the viewer will be fixed; he’s not here to answer those.  And that’s assuming you can get a question in, for the comments were at 138 when I looked at the page, and the Big Blog caps comments at 150.  However, you may find the answer to that little jewel of a question that has been nagging you about how to accomplish something.

Thanks to Ari Blackthorne.

Contact Sheet 8

Contact Sheet is an irregular column of selected photographs and portraits from Residents of Second Life. Images used in this article are used under permission of the owners via their participation in the Creative Commons license; otherwise, all rights are reserved. Click on the links as necessary to go to the required blog, Flickr or Snapzilla page. Please go to these artists’ pages in any case to leave comments, if you have an account on the appropriate service.

Suggestions are appreciated; please send descriptions and links to me by in-world IM, notecard, or E-mail to harper.ganesvoort@gmail.com.

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Chrisy Jewell knows more about Greek myths than I do, I’ll admit readily. She has a good reason — she’s Greek. Here, she has given us a piece she calls Aphrodite Tymborychos, or “Aphrodite the Gravedigger.” It seems there may have been more to the goddess of love than causing mortals to go mad with desire…. The picture seems to have been retouched just slightly to my eye, a sort of transparent “texture” layer, that gives the composition a feel reminiscent of the illustrations of N. C. Wyeth at his best.

While this, Stairs to Heaven, is not Wyeth — any of the Wyeths, who are grounded firmly in Chadds Ford School realism for the most part — but more of a mild surrealism. The first thing beyond the merits of the work that comes to mind is that photo of Salvador Dalí (done for Life, I think) painting in the air, with the swirl of water and a pair of cats flying through the foreground. (Of course, I tend to think of Dalí whenever I think of surrealism.)

Or, for pure (virtual) realism, go to Killerious Professionalis. The story says it all.

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Connie Sec decided a while back to channel her inner Jedi, and came up with Constanza Jade:

There is a slew of comments at the Flickr page, including some funny ones; go take a look by clicking on the image.

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More after the break….

A Submission for a Residents’ Flag

In case you haven’t read it already, Laetizia Coronet has opened a competition for designing a flag for the use of Residents. The quaint custom of using the “Eye-in-Hand” logo of Second Life has been thrown into question by the trademark flap, and ‘zia is asking people to send her ideas. With my own design, that should make four entries to date. But, if you’re interested in becoming the Betsy Ross of the Grid, read her article and break out your Paint Shop Pro or GIMP.

Just remember not to waste her time with ridiculous entries; she says right in the article that she won’t consider any Lag Flags (solid grey), anything even distantly smacking of a derogatory nature, and text should be kept to the barest minimum. The best flags combine a clear symbology, expressing a few key points. For instance, this is my own submission:

As I said in my submission letter to ‘zia, “The field is a rainbow gradient, symbolizing both the international/pan-ethnic nature of the Resident Community, and world with unlimited potential of Second Life — a horizon without end.

“The blue canton is charged with a Celtic knotwork, the interlacing, never-ending, multicolored spiral symbolic of the never-ending creativity exhibited by Residents.”

What do you think? Heraldically speaking, the color combination stinks, but I think we may not need to concern ourselves with that in a virtual world. Even if it doesn’t win the competition, I’ll probably use it as a personal ensign!

Inventory Time!

I haven’t been getting out much lately. The major reason is that I’ve been working on the store; when you’re building inventory, or rearranging things, or looking for the best rates for advertising, your time isn’t your own any more. RL businesspeople know that as much as successful SL business types. Today, however, I spent over two hours doing a task far too many of us scamp, to our grief –

Yes! I was cleaning Inventory!

In about every book I’ve read on Second Life, you are given a chapter on Inventory control, and you are urged most solemnly to keep a handle on your closet, so that you don’t get drowned in tons of stuff that you have no idea what it is. You’re warned that the larger the Inventory, the longer it takes to load, and you’re essentially walking around with a 500 kilo backpack on your shoulders if you don’t keep it trimmed down dramatically. And I realize these things with my librarian’s training. But I’m not as good as I should be. The Inventory swells, it gets messy, I lose stuff I’ve just bought or built, and it gets to be a headache after a while. So I make myself dig into the sucker every month or so — it should be far more often! — and trim it.

Oh; how much do I have in my own closet? After today’s session, approximately 6,100 items. Allow me to break here while all your jaws drop at the smallness.

A Tip for New Merchants

And the tip is:  before you rent your storefront in a mall or similar, look up the group and make sure the officers have been logging in recently.

“Whatcha talkin’ about?” you say?  Well, yesterday, I had discovered a mall that seemed to have a bit of traffic to it, with what seemed a reasonable rent/prim rate, and I plunked down a week’s rent on it, proceeding to set up my OnRez vendors.  After I did that, I looked up the group to request an invitation to join.  (Just like most rented houses and apartments, you need to belong to a land group to build anything in the plot you’re borrowing the rights to.)  Well, I got the listing for their group — and guess what it said under every visible line in the members box?  Last login:  “Unknown.”  Whoever were the owners of this place, it had been so long since they had logged in that the date wasn’t even listed!  I sent a forlorn request for membership, but I’m not expecting a reply any time soon.

The bad thing is that I lost money.  The good thing:  it was only about L$250 or so.  I consider it a small price to pay, but I’m passing the words to the wise on to you.  I’ll save you the money this way if you decide to open your own store.

Oh, my store?  Where is it, you say?  Well, you could click the button in the sidebar and go to OnRez; but you’ll find my little place in Creamy Dreamz.  I don’t have tons of stock in yet, but I’m gradually growing it.