secondlife is psychic

Critical quote pieces:

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[sigh] Its “Lindened” again. For those unfamiliar with the term, Lindened means an ineffective attempt to fix something which not only didn’t fix the problem but created new ones. Example: “My car will be in the shop for another week. I brought it in for a tune up but themechanic Lindened it so bad it won’t even start now.

I know you guys are really trying hard, but do you think you could just concentrate on getting SL to run properly before you unveil new “features” or do mor e”upgrades” that are actually downgrades? (SecondLifeBlog: June 6th, 2007)

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The basic trick is to make it hard to remember that Linden’s definition of Resident has nothing to do with the plain meaning of the word resident. My dictionary says a resident is a person who lives somewhere permanently or on a long term basis. Linden’s definition of Residents, however, has nothing to do with users at all — it measures signups for an avatar. – Get it? The avatar, not the user, is the resident of Second Life. (Clay Shirky, 2006)

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10 Reasons to Go Short on Second Life

3. Second Life is a benevolant dictatorship. If you were doing corporate business development in emerging markets, political stability would be a key factor in measuring the attractiveness of a potential new market. I think, if given the choice, you’d rather invest in a place with a representative government that has proven to support smooth transition of power in the past. To me, the fact that a very small group of people basically dictates what goes and what doesn’t in this market… a group of people that is not beholden to the residents by law, is a political risk. (Written by Adamo Lanza, 07 July 2004)

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I suspect Second Life is largely a “Try Me” virus, where reports of a strange and wonderful new thing draw the masses to log in and try it, but whose ability to retain anything but a fraction of those users is limited. The pattern of a Try Me virus is a rapid spread of first time users, most of whom drop out quickly, with most of the dropouts becoming immune to later use. Pointcast was a Try Me virus, as was LambdaMOO, the experiment that Second Life most closely resembles. (Posted by Clay Shirky, December 12, 2006)

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However, the second life hype still disturbs me. Every day, people are talking about a vision of the internet of the future that strikes me as wildly impractical, and therefore pretty unlikely, so maybe it’s not rational for me to fear it….. and, I swear to God, it’s a lot harder to master than the Linux Command Line. I’m serious. (Posted by blackbelt_jones , December 24, 2006 )

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But residents are still plenty worried. Andrea Miller, a Las Vegas marketing director who co-owns the Panache clothing store in Second Life, says she is concerned about her creations getting ripped off. She closed her store, which handles about 20,000 Linden dollars a day, in protest of what she believes is a lack of sufficient action by Second Life’s creators. “You believe your work will be protected,” says Miller. “But it’s just not. It’s disheartening.” …..

– Yet the notion of grassroots justice in a virtual world raises a host of serious questions: On what authority would they act? What punishments can they mete out? And to whom would they be accountable? For example, if a shopkeeper is erroneously blacklisted, can he or she hold anyone responsible for lost sales? If so, who? (by Catherine Holahan, November 21, 2006)

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I have covered and participated in online communities since 1986. I wrote the first major story in the national press about “virtual reality.” Same with the web. The web was an obvious technology because it was a) open, b) intuitive and easy to code (HTML) and c) built on the concept of hyperlinks. Second Life is “free”, but not “open”, impenetrable to code, and owned by a single corporation.

So, my guidance is this:
Second Life sucks in this user’s opinion. I will only discuss Second Life proposals inside Second Life, insuring that the other person has experienced the joys of getting a dumb name assigned to them (I am “Horace Clutterbuck” and walking around the laggiest environment I’ve seen since the days of 56K modems. I hope I eat my hat on this one, but right now, I am solidly in the camp of opinion that Second Life is Get-A-Life. If you want to have a good time online, try World of Warcraft. (David C. Churbuck, November 29th, 2006)

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The Risk API uses a complicated algorithm to identify accounts with suspicious activity and prevent them from trading Lindens or cashing out. Use of the Risk API helps us and other exchanges identify fraud before it happens.

Because of the Risk API, fraudsters are having a much more difficult time cashing out. Instead, they have turned to a new form of social griefing. They join a group & then make large Linden Dollar gifts. If you accept the gift it’s going to look like fraudulent activity and we may temporarily close your account while we investigate. If a resident wants to donate to your group, please ask them to do it in US dollars rather than Linden Dollars. That may be the only way to avoid being defrauded. (blog.secondlife.com, January 17th, 2007)