Doing academic research on Second Life. Any veterans willing to be interviewed?

[Qie Niangao]

11 hours ago, TechLawProf said:

5. What is the worst thing a person can do in SL?

9 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

#5 Why this question?

Indeed.

Edited September 27, 2023 by Qie Niangao
(quote text not the enumerated list, which renumbers to 1)

[Phil Deakins]

1 hour ago, CandyCole said:

That's what you should've just done in the first place.

Vote with your feet instead of attempting to CANCEL something YOU don't like.

Sadly, the world is riddled with individuals similar to you and it stinks.

^^ THIS ^^

[Love Zhaoying]

Is this for an article to publish for monetary gain, or for academic research?

Is the "veterans" aspect of primary or secondary concern? The mention of "veterans" seemed like an afterthought. 

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Qie Niangao said:

12 hours ago, TechLawProf said:

5. What is the worst thing a person can do in SL?

11 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

#5 Why this question?

Indeed.

Is #5 so the article can be promoted as "clickbait", or seeking bad publicity for Second Life?

[Qie Niangao]

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

Is #5 so the article can be promoted as "clickbait", or seeking bad publicity for Second Life?

That's certainly the implication. When an ordinary person could ask "what's the best thing" or "the worst thing", choosing the latter verges on sociopathic. When it's a purported researcher making that choice, I look for axes wanting ground.

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

That's certainly the implication. When an ordinary person could ask "what's the best thing" or "the worst thing", choosing the latter verges on sociopathic. When it's a purported researcher making that choice, I look for axes wanting ground.

"Competition" aspect: Until Meta and the other platforms also have child abuse, slavery RolePlay, Russian Roulette, Griefers, etc. they will never catch up with Second Life.

[diamond Marchant]

7 hours ago, CandyCole said:

Sadly, the world is riddled with individuals similar to you and it stinks.

Please refrain from ad hominem attacks. This forum is maintained by a private company who has very specific ideas on appropriate content. I suggest it is valid to discuss those rules.

I believe LL created this  forum for residents to discuss SL topics. LL has a different process for actual journalists/academics/researchers.

Edited September 27, 2023 by diamond Marchant

[Silent Mistwalker]

14 hours ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Or Star Trek Online, where again there's an optional subscription, and paying for feature unlocks, and paying for costume /race unlocks, and buying ships from $30 to over $120. And that doesn't include the super rare lootbox type ships that are traded, where people spend two or three hundred USD to get a bare bones ship, then a few hundred more buying the equipment and upgrading it, to be "competitive" in the "Damage per Second League".

You didn't mention the lifetime sub. I have two. Well worth the money spent.

[Love Zhaoying]

28 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

I believe LL created this  forum for residents to discuss SL topics. LL has a different process for actual journalists/academics/researchers.

If so, it would be great if LL would start enforcing that process - these posts are annoying and most seem fairly bogus and/or spurious, non-serious.

[Arielle Popstar]

33 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

I believe LL created this  forum for residents to discuss SL topics. LL has a different process for actual journalists/academics/researchers.

In this case the questions asked were straightforward and easily answered without having to go to an external link. None of the questions were about anything various posters have not posted about voluntarily in other contexts and it is after all just another thread within the rules of the forum policies. Posters would be faster off just answering the questions for whatever benefits may result rather than inventing justifications for why they aren't appropriate.

In the case of the forums at least, we have a choice whether to answer the questions vs the 100's if not 1000's of bots that litter the site harvesting our data without permissions.

[Carolyn Zapedzki]

1. Since 2003-Had breaks of not playing it for months at a time, but have been constant for about 7 years now
2. Not as much these days, maybe about 20 hours
3.  Cannot put a figure on that, has been a work in progress since I started
4.  I have my real pic on my profile and use my real Christian name
5.  Grief and abuse others

Edited September 27, 2023 by Carolyn Zapedzki

[diamond Marchant]

18 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Posters would be faster off just answering the questions for whatever benefits may result rather than inventing justifications for why they aren't appropriate.

The issue that concerns me is how this type of thread is moderated, not the actual content. If the OP had said, "I just joined SL and am curious about how much $ this will cost?", that seems innocuous. But if a day-one avatar presents as a researcher and appears to have poor research methodology, them some posters will question that. This can invoke moderation and lead to posts being deleted which can be perceived as unfair. This actually happened recently.

[animats]

2 hours ago, diamond Marchant said:

... If a day-one avatar presents as a researcher and appears to have poor research methodology, them some posters will question that. This can invoke moderation and lead to posts being deleted which can be perceived as unfair. This actually happened recently.

Yes, it did, although it was a grad student.

Now, if an actual professor came on here, and said "I'm Prof. NAME at UNIVERSITY, here's my university web page and publications list", they'd get a much better reception.

[Katherine Heartsong]

7 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

"Competition" aspect: Until Meta and the other platforms also have child abuse, slavery RolePlay, Russian Roulette, Griefers, etc. they will never catch up with Second Life.

Ahem ... Dogs, you forgot dogs.

As pets, people! OMG you're all such wicked people

[TechLawProf]

Sorry for my delay in responding. Because I'm a new member, I quickly hit my limit on forum comments (6 total, I believe) and had to wait for 24 hours before before I could comment further.

I really appreciate the responses thus far, including the critiques. I'm obviously new here, and I'm still learning about SL's cultural norms. I apologize for any faux pas I may have committed (and any others I'll likely commit in the future).

Folks have asked fair questions about my pedigree, my research, and my agenda. I really didn't want to draw much attention to myself (as opposed to my questions) in this thread, which is why I didn't initially disclose those details. But the questions are fair (and I can see that folks are wary because of the past behavior of researchers or journalists who have opened these kinds of threads before), so I'll answer them.

I'm a law professor at the University of Tennessee. Here's a link to my faculty profile: https://law.utk.edu/directory/nicholas-nugent/, and here are a couple of my recent publications: https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/wlr/vol98/iss2/7/, https://ctlj.colorado.edu/?p=708. Although these articles are more in the field of Internet Governance and may or may not be of interest to folks in SL. The papers are doctrinal, rather than empirical, which is standard fare for legal scholarship.

My project here is also Internet Governance-related. My purpose is to analyze the concept of digital property, inclusive of identity (aliases, avatars, etc.), goods (tokens, resources, entitlements), and realty (mostly websites). I'm interested in SL because of how much users invest into building up their avatars and acquiring digital goods. To what extent should the law treat such resources as property? (If you're interested, there's at least one case on this issue, which focused on SL assets: https://casetext.com/case/evans-v-linden-research-12).

So, my methodology here is qualitative rather than quantitative. I just want to understand how people think about their digital identities/goods and what kind of deprivation it would be if they lost them. That's why I haven't asked these questions in the form of an empirical survey in order to derive statistics or the like. Moreover, to be transparent, my research on SL will comprise only a portion of my research. The rest will be boring stuff like property theory and caselaw.

The output of this research project will be a full-length article in a legal academic journal. I'm not a journalist, and I have no intention of writing any kind of web article that would put SL users in a bad light. I'm just trying to understand the culture and the behavior, and talking directly with veteran users will provide the most direct path to that kind of information (although I will continue to explore the world myself in parallel).

Many thanks!

Nick

[Charlotte Bartlett]

51 minutes ago, TechLawProf said:

Sorry for my delay in responding. Because I'm a new member, I quickly hit my limit on forum comments (6 total, I believe) and had to wait for 24 hours before before I could comment further.

I really appreciate the responses thus far, including the critiques. I'm obviously new here, and I'm still learning about SL's cultural norms. I apologize for any faux pas I may have committed (and any others I'll likely commit in the future).

Folks have asked fair questions about my pedigree, my research, and my agenda. I really didn't want to draw much attention to myself (as opposed to my questions) in this thread, which is why I didn't initially disclose those details. But the questions are fair (and I can see that folks are wary because of the past behavior of researchers or journalists who have opened these kinds of threads before), so I'll answer them.

I'm a law professor at the University of Tennessee. Here's a link to my faculty profile: https://law.utk.edu/directory/nicholas-nugent/, and here are a couple of my recent publications: https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/wlr/vol98/iss2/7/, https://ctlj.colorado.edu/?p=708. Although these articles are more in the field of Internet Governance and may or may not be of interest to folks in SL. The papers are doctrinal, rather than empirical, which is standard fare for legal scholarship.

My project here is also Internet Governance-related. My purpose is to analyze the concept of digital property, inclusive of identity (aliases, avatars, etc.), goods (tokens, resources, entitlements), and realty (mostly websites). I'm interested in SL because of how much users invest into building up their avatars and acquiring digital goods. To what extent should the law treat such resources as property? (If you're interested, there's at least one case on this issue, which focused on SL assets: https://casetext.com/case/evans-v-linden-research-12).

So, my methodology here is qualitative rather than quantitative. I just want to understand how people think about their digital identities/goods and what kind of deprivation it would be if they lost them. That's why I haven't asked these questions in the form of an empirical survey in order to derive statistics or the like. Moreover, to be transparent, my research on SL will comprise only a portion of my research. The rest will be boring stuff like property theory and caselaw.

The output of this research project will be a full-length article in a legal academic journal. I'm not a journalist, and I have no intention of writing any kind of web article that would put SL users in a bad light. I'm just trying to understand the culture and the behavior, and talking directly with veteran users will provide the most direct path to that kind of information (although I will continue to explore the world myself in parallel).

Many thanks!

Nick

Hi Nick - always recommend starting with full disclosure as there the age old issue on forums on the internet of low effort posts wanting "something" from the community they are communicating with.

Thank you for confirming the information.    I would be happy to give some information, I will contact you offline via your profile link above.
Re the case you mention there is wider history there in addition that likely would not be appropriate to discuss on the forum of the company involved in it.

[diamond Marchant]

1 hour ago, TechLawProf said:

I just want to understand how people think about their digital identities/goods and what kind of deprivation it would be if they lost them.

Thank you for giving us more information about yourself and your project. The issue concerning losing our digital goods is of interest to me. My understanding is that years ago, Linden Lab established a policy of allowing creators to retain IP rights to their uploaded creations. However, these rights are not exclusive and LL, of course, gets full rights to everything uploaded. This perhaps means that Linden Lab (or a successor owner) could shut down Second Life but retain our creations as their property (for who knows what purpose but training an AI model comes to mind).

BTW,  when I saw the phrase "veterans" in your question "Any veterans willing to be interviewed?", my first thought was that you were seeking military veterans. Of course, you were not but that is just how I read it. New residents in Second Life are typically called "noobs" or "newbies" and the older ones sometimes refer to themselves as "oldies" or "oldbies" or something like that. Some of us feel like "crypt keepers".

Edited September 28, 2023 by diamond Marchant

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 hour ago, TechLawProf said:

Sorry for my delay in responding. Because I'm a new member, I quickly hit my limit on forum comments (6 total, I believe) and had to wait for 24 hours before before I could comment further.

I really appreciate the responses thus far, including the critiques. I'm obviously new here, and I'm still learning about SL's cultural norms. I apologize for any faux pas I may have committed (and any others I'll likely commit in the future).

Folks have asked fair questions about my pedigree, my research, and my agenda. I really didn't want to draw much attention to myself (as opposed to my questions) in this thread, which is why I didn't initially disclose those details. But the questions are fair (and I can see that folks are wary because of the past behavior of researchers or journalists who have opened these kinds of threads before), so I'll answer them.

I'm a law professor at the University of Tennessee. Here's a link to my faculty profile: https://law.utk.edu/directory/nicholas-nugent/, and here are a couple of my recent publications: https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/wlr/vol98/iss2/7/, https://ctlj.colorado.edu/?p=708. Although these articles are more in the field of Internet Governance and may or may not be of interest to folks in SL. The papers are doctrinal, rather than empirical, which is standard fare for legal scholarship.

My project here is also Internet Governance-related. My purpose is to analyze the concept of digital property, inclusive of identity (aliases, avatars, etc.), goods (tokens, resources, entitlements), and realty (mostly websites). I'm interested in SL because of how much users invest into building up their avatars and acquiring digital goods. To what extent should the law treat such resources as property? (If you're interested, there's at least one case on this issue, which focused on SL assets: https://casetext.com/case/evans-v-linden-research-12).

So, my methodology here is qualitative rather than quantitative. I just want to understand how people think about their digital identities/goods and what kind of deprivation it would be if they lost them. That's why I haven't asked these questions in the form of an empirical survey in order to derive statistics or the like. Moreover, to be transparent, my research on SL will comprise only a portion of my research. The rest will be boring stuff like property theory and caselaw.

The output of this research project will be a full-length article in a legal academic journal. I'm not a journalist, and I have no intention of writing any kind of web article that would put SL users in a bad light. I'm just trying to understand the culture and the behavior, and talking directly with veteran users will provide the most direct path to that kind of information (although I will continue to explore the world myself in parallel).

Many thanks!

Nick

Thank you! This is pretty comprehensive and reassuring, and does indeed answer most or all of the questions I posed.

In answer to your questions:

How long have you participated in Second Life?
-- Somewhat over 15 years now, but not consistently: I have been an active participant for approximately 60% of that time.

How many hours per week (on average) do you participate in SL?
-- This varies a fair amount, depending upon the time of year, but at the moment probably something in the region of 10 hours a week.

How much time have you invested in your avatar?
-- This is very difficult to quantify, as the process of working on my avatar is ongoing. More in the last 5 years (especially since I began to focus on in-world photography) than in the past generally. The answer would also depend upon your definition of "investing in your avatar": I no longer need to spend a great deal of time on customizing my mesh body and head, but I DO spend a lot of time -- as do a great many others -- on clothing and outfits.

Do you make your real identity known, or do you remain pseudonymous?
-- If by my RL identity you literally mean my RL name, there have been a few people over the years who were privy to that, but most of them are no longer active on the platform. I am "pseudonymous" to most people, but I'm fairly open about my geographical location, age, vocation, etc.

What is the worst thing a person can do in SL?
-- I am unclear what you mean by this. Is "worst" defined in terms of violations of the ToS and Community Standards, or do you mean a more general sense of "unethical"? In the former sense, as others have suggested, the one thing that LL will not tolerate (if their attention is drawn to it) is the representation of overt sexual activities involving those who are underage. It has to be pretty overt, however, for LL to take action. Ethically, the thing I find most disheartening about SL is the tendency for some to use it as a platform to indulge in their ugliest and most violent fantasies, which are frequently misogynist, racist, or homophobic. While theoretically against SL's Community Standards document, there is an awful lot of leeway afforded to people to role-play these kinds of activities and attitudes. And it's not always clear that it's actually "role play."

Please feel free to DM me or IM me in-world if you have further questions.

 

Edited September 28, 2023 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Wow. That case study . . . I'm assuming that LL made significant changes to their ToS to protect themselves against that kind of litigation subsequently.

I'd love to know the backstory about the suspensions. LL does not terminate accounts lightly.

[Love Zhaoying]

25 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

BTW,  when I saw the phrase "veterans" in your question "Any veterans willing to be interviewed?", my first thought was that you were seeking military veterans. Of course, you were not but that is just how I read it.

Me too.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, TechLawProf said:

I just want to understand how people think about their digital identities/goods and what kind of deprivation it would be if they lost them.

I think "most of us" who have had a chance to discuss and consider the topic seriously realize: Our digital "goods" are not transferable - and do not exist outside of Second Life. Second Life could go out of business any year, and just happens to have lasted 20 years so far. While "we" don't admit it, most of "us" realize that this is a form of "entertainment".

While some may claim extreme harm should we lose those "goods" gotten in Second Life, any of "us" who are firmly established in "reality" (the "Real Life" / "First Life"), know that nothing lasts forever and our "goods" are not a tangible, permanent investment.

Our relationships with other users are far more important than the "digital goods". 

[Perrie Juran]

28 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

54 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

BTW,  when I saw the phrase "veterans" in your question "Any veterans willing to be interviewed?", my first thought was that you were seeking military veterans. Of course, you were not but that is just how I read it.

Me too.

Me three.

And @TechLawProf I'd like to point our a little factoid here about these Forums that inform the answers here, why and how people answer. The average age of this Forum's participants probably exceeds forty and quite possibly fifty years old. And thank you for sharing your bone-fides.

[animats]

2 hours ago, TechLawProf said:

I'm a law professor at the University of Tennessee. Here's a link to my faculty profile: https://law.utk.edu/directory/nicholas-nugent/, and here are a couple of my recent publications: https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/wlr/vol98/iss2/7/, https://ctlj.colorado.edu/?p=708. Although these articles are more in the field of Internet Governance and may or may not be of interest to folks in SL. The papers are doctrinal, rather than empirical, which is standard fare for legal scholarship.

My project here is also Internet Governance-related. My purpose is to analyze the concept of digital property, inclusive of identity (aliases, avatars, etc.), goods (tokens, resources, entitlements), and realty (mostly websites). I'm interested in SL because of how much users invest into building up their avatars and acquiring digital goods. To what extent should the law treat such resources as property? (If you're interested, there's at least one case on this issue, which focused on SL assets: https://casetext.com/case/evans-v-linden-research-12).

OK. Now this is much more helpful. (The link to digitalcommons.law... is a dead link.)

First, some suggested reading: "Making a Metaverse that Matters", by Wagner James Au, is a recent book by someone who spent much time in Second Life. That's a good overview.

Second, the issues of digital property were at one time addressed by the Second Life Bar Association. There was a group of real-world lawyers in Second Life, and they had their own little "legal village" in Second Life, and discussed dispute resolution and property in virtual worlds.The organization, and its "legal village" of offices, is gone. Faye Blackheart, one of the officers of that organization, still has a law office in world, in the SYZM Tower in NTBI.

Third, a point I bring up now and then is that Second Life manages to operate without a huge number of "moderators". Almost everybody else in this space, such as Facebook/Meta/Horizon and Roblox, has an army of outsourced minimum wage moderator goons armed with ban hammers and qualified immunity. Second Life has a small and famously slow-responding governance department. Why does that work? (Hint: it has to do with how property rights work in Second Life.)

Feel free to contact me.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

3 minutes ago, animats said:

The link to digitalcommons.law... is a dead link.

The link needs to be truncated a bit, as it captures the parenthesis. It does work. And it's an interesting read.

https://casetext.com/case/evans-v-linden-research-12

3 minutes ago, animats said:

Why does that work?

Does it, though? Sort of . . .

Edited September 28, 2023 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Rowan Amore]

I would assume as a law professor, you read the Terms of Service before joining SL.  We all should but most probably don't.  Specifically, this part...

5.1 You or we may terminate your Account(s) at any time.

You may terminate this Agreement by closing your Account(s) at any time for any reason. Linden Lab may suspend or terminate your Account at any time for any reason. In such event, Linden Lab shall have no further obligation or liability to you under this Agreement or otherwise, and you shall be entitled to no compensation or other payment, remedy, recourse or refund.

The case you cited above was quite possibly the reason for some additions to those terms over the years.  LL is under no obligation to compensate anyone for anything and can terminate your account for any reason or no reason.  They could shut down tomorrow and we'd have no recourse since we agreed to the ToS.  Could someone take them to court again?  Sure.  You, as the lawyer, would be better able to gauge whether it would be a winnable case.

I've spent thousands of dollars over 14+ years in SL for entertainment purposes.  Would I be sad if LL closed the doors tomorrow?  Of course.  Would I feel as if I'd lost anything tangible aside from the people I've met.  No.