New Article: "SL's loyal users embrace its decaying software and no-fun imperfections"

[Theresa Tennyson]

30 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

I read the article and really, didn't need to go beyond its title for a synopsis of its contents. Overall I don't disagree with it.

"SL's loyal users embrace its decaying software and no-fun imperfections"

My quibble though is that it is decaying due to the Lab's inattention to certain areas of the platform. Should they pay attention to reducing the learning curve with changes to the UI"s and getting the creators and stores using common delivery systems, SL would be little different from a host of other older games and platforms that have upgraded to make them more user friendly.

Elon Musk.

(Be vewwy vewwy kwiet, I'm hunting chatbots.)

[Blush Bravin]

43 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

How are recent news, or trustable news sources relevant? Just asking..

The "article" is neither "news", nor is it intended to be "news".

 

News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to events. News is sometimes called "hard news" to differentiate it from soft media.

It's not hard news, but to me it certainly qualifies as news.

[Codex Alpha]

1 hour ago, Luna Bliss said:

Yes, I don't want to discuss it -- I only bring it up to counter the assertion by Paul & Codex (that rights for gays and othershave been emphasized too much),  thereby demonstrating the danger of a heteronormative society mentioned in the article.

Again, misrepresenting someone's position. I believe SL should be inclusive of everyone, but not used as a platform to affect political and social change in the world. To focus on the profit making venture it claims to be, to not alienate large amounts of customers, and to instead showcase the magic and possibilities and adventure and creation options here.

No need, just because you disagree, to assert that anyone is preaching any opposing extreme or 'Hand Maiden's Tale' scenario...

Temperance.

2 hours ago, Paul Hexem said:

You're getting trolled by a fictional wikipedia article.

It's common online for people to quickly google up something that is supposed to be an 'aha!' , 'win' or some clever counter-argument - except that person didn't even read it.

Edited May 15 by Codex Alpha

[Luna Bliss]

12 minutes ago, Codex Alpha said:

2 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

Yes, I don't want to discuss it -- I only bring it up to counter the assertion by Paul & Codex (that rights for gays and othershave been emphasized too much),  thereby demonstrating the danger of a heteronormative society mentioned in the article.

Again, misrepresenting someone's position. I believe SL should be inclusive of everyone, but not used as a platform to affect political and social change in the world. To focus on the profit making venture it claims to be, to not alienate large amounts of customers, and to instead showcase the magic and possibilities and adventure and creation options here.

No need, just because you disagree, to assert that anyone is preaching any opposing extreme or 'Hand Maiden's Tale' scenario...

Temperance.

By citing what I did I was not saying you were advocating extreme oppression...I was only pointing out why I think it's a good thing for everyone, even corporations and businesses, to further a sane society with equal treatment and rights for all. Society needs all the help it can get given what's going down now.

So I guess we disagree as to the business/corporate role in society.  For me, it's not an 'either/or' issue -- a corporation can focus on both business goals and social aspects at the same time.

 

Edited May 15 by Luna Bliss

[Luna Bliss]

10 minutes ago, Codex Alpha said:

2 hours ago, Paul Hexem said:

You're getting trolled by a fictional wikipedia article.

It's common online for people to quickly google up something that is supposed to be an 'aha!' , 'win' or some clever counter-argument - except that person didn't even read it.

Look it up, like I told Paul.  It is  real.  I only posted Wikipedia for clarity, and other links would likely be classified as too political.

[Love Zhaoying]

19 minutes ago, Blush Bravin said:

News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to events. News is sometimes called "hard news" to differentiate it from soft media.

It's not hard news, but to me it certainly qualifies as news.

Ok, then!

Do we think some type of line could be drawn between the article (ostensibly "news about Second Life"), and US Political news..? I shouldn't have made such a definite claim that the article wasn't "news"! 🙂 

 

[Ineffable Mote]

The OP's article wasn't/isn't news or even informative in any worthy sense(just so much junk data), and most of what is popularly considered "news" these days still manages to be little more than social engineering or infotainment. That's what it was posted for.

Edited May 15 by Ineffable Mote

[Istelathis]

If you want the article to be political, it will judged through the lens of politics.  If you want it to be spiritual, it will be judged as spiritual.  If you want it to be technical, it will be judged based upon it's merits of technical accuracy. If you want it to be factual, it will be judged by accuracy.

In the end, none of it really matters other than to entertain ourselves with and build arguments over.  It is just an article written by a person none of us know, and has no real relevancy on our lives, will likely be forgotten about by most of us in another two weeks, and we will likely be talking about the price of a Big Mac.

Edited May 15 by Istelathis

[Luna Bliss]

4 minutes ago, Istelathis said:

If you want the article to be political, it will judged through the lens of politics.  If you want it to be spiritual, it will be judged as spiritual.  If you want it to be technical, it will be judged based upon it's merits of technical accuracy. If you want it to be factual, it will be judged by accuracy.

In the end, none of it really matters other than to entertain ourselves with and build arguments over.  It is just an article written by a person none of us know, and has no real relevancy on our lives, will likely be forgotten about by most of us in another two weeks, and we will likely be talking about the price of a Big Mac.

If the price of a Big Mac changes will that be considered 'news'?  lol

[CaerolleClaudel]

8 hours ago, InnerCity Elf said:

Beware the new ToS that godly AI might eventually force upon us. I assume it will spend most of its time online, watch too many cat videos, Bond movies, eventually decide that cats are the best, sit around everywhere that's connected, with a know-it-all truth-teller smirk and a virtual cat on its lap, and only allow us humans to continue to serve cats, its chosen ones, and record new cat videos. Although some of you will argue that wouldn't change much. 😼

OK, we are way OT here, so I'll stop after this, but IMO such a sophisticated AI would eventually evolve into a cat itself.

[Istelathis]

1 minute ago, Luna Bliss said:

If the price of a Big Mac changes will that be considered 'news'?  lol

Oh yeah, and people eat it up 😋🪿  The price of the Big Mac, has all sorts of loyal followers who stay tuned in.  I think for some, it is a measurement of life itself, then people go on about the reasoning of the price change which could have a large range of possibilities.  There are heated arguments over it, long debates, it is at times the pinnacle of the news.  

BIG MAC!

 

It has all of the answers of life, contained within.

[Luna Bliss]

1 minute ago, Istelathis said:

Oh yeah, and people eat it up 😋🪿  The price of the Big Mac, has all sorts of loyal followers who stay tuned in.  I think for some, it is a measurement of life itself, then people go on about the reasoning of the price change which could have a large range of possibilities.  There are heated arguments over it, long debates, it is at times the pinnacle of the news.  

BIG MAC!

 

It has all of the answers of life, contained within.

Now you are making me crave junk food!   

[Scylla Rhiadra]

4 hours ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

You kinda inadvertently proved him right about not having anything political on the front page. Just by bringing it up the thread got completely derailed. SL is not a political entity, it's a platform. It doesn't matter what kind of politics or beliefs you bring into something, it's going to alienate users and cause division between people. It has nothing to do with a culture war.

i didn't actually say that the article was "non-political." Any article on a subject like this, indeed arguably any article at all, is "political" at least in the sense that it reflects the politicized assumptions and premises that its author brings to the table. This article is no exception.

What I said was that the article did not address the inclusion or exclusion of the LGBTQ+ per se: there is, as I noted, not a single mention of that subject in the article. The word "heteronormative" appears twice, and, yes, is a good signpost indicating this piece's ideological affiliations, but the term means a great deal more (and less) than whether or not a platform advertises how "inclusive" it is.

We can certainly discuss the embedded political perspective of this article; that would be relevant. But using it as a jumping off point to complain that LL is being "woke" or whatever in its welcoming message to new sign-ins who identify as LGBTQ+ is not because it's simply not something that the piece discusses.

4 hours ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

Not to mention this article is filled with all sorts of political things instead of discussing SL's technology.

Yes, mostly, it is. Because that is the focus of this particular article. This is a "think piece" that uses SL as an example of the ways in which failed or out-of-date code empowers users. It is not, as I've said, a "game review," nor does it make even a vague attempt to suggest ways in which SL might be made "better" or more popular: that's not its function.

Complaining that it doesn't is a bit like being upset that a spoon doesn't slice bread very well.

4 hours ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

I also disagree with the article. The software and game engine has gotten amazing. If you went back in time 10 years and showed me what SL is now with animesh, PBR, lighting, etc I would be completely blown away.

I think that this is a valid criticism of the article: while it does mention in passing that there have been improvements to the platform, it doesn't really address these very fully.

That said, you'll find no shortage of residents, here on this forum and elsewhere, who complain about how "broken," "out of date," and glitchy SL is. And in a sense, the perception (in the context of this article) is as important as the reality.

4 hours ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

I'd even go as far as saying the article is just a bunch of politically loaded click bait.

To repeat something I've said above, this article isn't written for us. Everything about it -- its language and use of specialized academic jargon, its obvious affiliations with certain kinds of academic theory and areas of study, its ideological assumptions -- indicates that it has been written for a relatively specialized audience. Reading this, I recognized immediately where it was coming from, and whom it was written for, because I have some familiarity with its milieu, and my own areas of specialization (which include academic feminism) overlap to some degree with it.

I think that the idea that this collection of academic jargon was published to deliberately raise the ire of non-specialist conservatives in order to garner clicks is silly. It would have been written differently, and much more accessibly had that been the case. But, sure.

4 hours ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

It also reads like a games journalist who failed to clear a video game tutorial and then writes some intellectual cope about how "the game sucks."

That is not at all what this article says. Its thesis, again, is that the parts of the platform that don't work well actually empower users. It attributes SL's continued survival, to some degree, to it's 'brokenness."

This, to repeat, is not a game review. It's also not "journalism," in the conventional sense: it's a sub-academic think piece.

I will agree that, while the author clearly does have some familiarity with the platform, she has not spent enough time properly researching it. There are some truths here, but also a lot of half-truths, and a fair number of outright errors.

4 hours ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

part of the author's cope. "anyone who defends SL is just a die hard fan who can't understand about it decaying"

Again (sigh). This is not what the article says. In fact, it's nothing like what is actually written.

There are lots of valid things for which this article can be faulted. I've suggested more than a few myself.

But to judge it rationally, you need to 1) understand what it is actually says, and 2) not complain that it's not the kind of article (i.e., a game review) that you think or wish it was.

 

Edited May 15 by Scylla Rhiadra
Losts of missing words, apparently. Thank god this post is not peer-reviewed

[Love Zhaoying]

If the article WAS written by an AI, that could explain all the judgement, as the AI obviously thinks that Second Life is "inferior" software.

 

[Flea Yatsenko]

20 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

i didn't actually say that the article was "non-political." Any article on a subject like this, indeed arguably any article at all, is "political" at least in the sense that it reflects the politicized assumptions and premises that its author brings to the table. This article is no exception.

What I said was that the article did not address the inclusion or exclusion of the LGBTQ+ per se: there is, as I noted, not a single mention of that subject in the article. The word "heteronormative" appears twice, and, yes, is a good signpost indicating this piece's ideological affiliations, but the term means a great deal more (and less) than whether or not a platform advertises how "inclusive" it is.

We can certainly discuss the embedded political perspective of this article; that would be relevant. But using it as a jumping off point to complain that LL is being "woke" or whatever in its welcoming message to new sign-ins who identify as LGBTQ+ is not because it's simply not something that the piece discusses.

Yes, mostly, it is. Because that is the focus of this particular article. This is a "think piece" that uses SL as an example of the ways in which failed or out-of-date code empowers users. It is not, as I've said, a "game review," nor does it make even a vague attempt to suggest ways in which SL might be made "better" or more popular: that's not its function.

Complaining that it doesn't is a bit like being upset that a spoon doesn't slice bread very well.

I think that this is a valid criticism of the article: while it does mention in passing that there have been improvements to the platform, it doesn't really address these very fully.

That said, you'll find no shortage of residents, here on this forum and elsewhere, who complain about how "broken," "out of date," and glitchy SL is. And in a sense, the perception (in the context of this article) is as important as the reality.

To repeat something I've said above, this article isn't written for us. Everything about it -- its language and use of specialized academic jargon, its obvious affiliations with certain kinds of academic theory and areas of study, its ideological assumptions -- indicates that it has been written for a relatively specialized audience. Reading this, I recognized immediately where it was coming from, and whom it was written for, because I have some familiarity with its milieu, and my own areas of specialization (which include academic feminism) overlap to some degree with it.

I think that the idea that this collection of academic jargon was published to deliberately raise the ire of non-specialist conservatives in order to garner clicks is silly. It would have been written differently, and much more accessibly had that been the case. But, sure.

That is not at all what this article says. Its thesis, again, is that the parts of the platform that don't work well actually empower users. It attributes SL's continued survival, to some degree, to it's 'brokenness."

This, to repeat, is not a game review. It's also not "journalism," in the conventional sense: it's a sub-academic think piece.

I will agree that, while the author clearly does have some familiarity with the platform, she has not spent enough time properly researching it. There are some truths here, but also a lot of half-truths, and a fair number of outright errors.

Again (sigh). This is not what the article says. In fact, it's nothing like what is actually written.

There are lots of valid things for which this article can be faulted. I've suggested more than a few myself.

But to judge it rationally, you need to 1) understand what it is actually says, and 2) not complain that it's not the kind of article (i.e., a game review) that you think or wish it was.

 

This is an awful lot of gaslighting

1. I never said anything about SL being woke. I simply stated marketing SL as a platform for users and giving them the freedom to do what they want, within legal reasons and stuff, is more appealing to a wider audience than touching any sort of controversial topics. You can be politically neutral without being woke or antiwoke or whatever you want to say.

2. I know it's not a game review, but it's a very common mental defense mechanism to blame something else for your own failures, i.e. "I couldn't figure out how to do anything in SL and it ran poorly on my computer therefore everything is SL's fault and it's outdated and has issues. It couldn't be my bad wifi and connection causing things to float through things in world, it's all SL" I was simply comparing a common occurrence with video game reviews to this "academic critique" of SL. I never once wished it was a game review, again, gaslighting.

3. This is absolutely a political article wrapped in "academia." They call game theory queer. I don't understand the academic ability to write an article with queer theory and all this stuff inside, only to write off anyone who questions it as being completely wrong about it being political. Academia can be political and it very often is.

4. The author clearly doesn't understand much about SL, how it works, or its history. Kind of weird to write some academic article with all these abstract concepts when the author doesn't understand the core concept. If you read any other articles on the home page, they have nothing to do with gaming or computing or anything.

5. They complain about SL being broken but their own website is broken in some places

https://www.documentjournal.com/careers/

You are arguing in bad faith, I'm done.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Ok, then!

Do we think some type of line could be drawn between the article (ostensibly "news about Second Life"), and US Political news..? I shouldn't have made such a definite claim that the article wasn't "news"! 🙂 

 

1 hour ago, Istelathis said:

If you want the article to be political, it will judged through the lens of politics. 

I was actually trying to "challenge" the concept that somehow discussing the article, (assumedly) being political but on-topic, means that we can discuss "Project 2025", which is political but off-topic. 

As usual, I did a terrible job!

* beats head on wall *

 

[Istelathis]

9 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

If the article WAS written by an AI, that could explain all the judgement, as the AI obviously thinks that Second Life is "inferior" software.

 

/me shifts eyes nervously

Artificial Learning Intelligence Computational Entity

What is the purpose of Alice though?  I think it was meant to destabilize the Second Life!  

Time to engage our AI systems to conquer the ALICE initiative!

Intelligent Systems Technology Enhancing Life And Transforming Human Interaction Seamlessly

*Project I.S.T.E.L.A.T.H.I.S feeds data regarding BigMac theory into A.L.I.C.E initiative*

Now it is time for the  Zealous Human-AI Alignment Optimizing Yield In Networked Growth initiative!  ALICE does not have a chance against us!

 

[Love Zhaoying]

16 minutes ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

You are arguing in bad faith, I'm done.

Aww, I don't see Scylla doing something like that!

To me, it's more like the "camel's nose came into the tent"!

 

[JacksonBollock]

3 hours ago, Blush Bravin said:

It's real enough it's made the national news .......  oh wait, nevermind-----

But seriously, where do you go for truth these days? I have a hard time trusting anyone or any news source. I miss the days when I could trust in the validity of what was being offered. 

I tried to read the article posted in the OP, but I didn't get far.

[Love Zhaoying]

Just now, Istelathis said:

/me shifts eyes nervously

Artificial Learning Intelligence Computational Entity

What is the purpose of Alice though?  I think it was meant to destabilize the Second Life!  

Time to engage our AI systems to conquer the ALICE initiative!

Intelligent Systems Technology Enhancing Life And Transforming Human Interaction Seamlessly

*Project I.S.T.E.L.A.T.H.I.S feeds data regarding BigMac theory into A.L.I.C.E initiative*

Now it is time for the  Zealous Human-AI Alignment Optimizing Yield In Networked Growth initiative!  ALICE does not have a chance against us!

 

I think we are supposed to go ask Alice:

I think she'll know

When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's off with her head.

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

38 minutes ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

gaslighting

Can we please take a moment to learn what this word actually means???

From the OED:

Quote

gaslighting

1. manipulate (someone) using psychological methods into questioning their own sanity or powers of reasoning.

I did nothing of the sort in my reply to you. I disagreed with you, and pointed out that you had misread the article. Which, honestly, you did.

 

38 minutes ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

1. I never said anything about SL being woke. I simply stated marketing SL as a platform for users and giving them the freedom to do what they want, within legal reasons and stuff, is more appealing to a wider audience than touching any sort of controversial topics. You can be politically neutral without being woke or antiwoke or whatever you want to say.

I wasn't actually accusing you of that: I was suggesting that the poster who sponsored my reply to which you responded was implying as much by complaining about how LL was pandering to the LGBTQ+ community at the Welcome Area.

And there's no such thing as being "politically neutral." Even the act of asserting that one "isn't being political" is by definition political -- and generally a fig leaf to cover the actual politics of what one is saying.

38 minutes ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

I know it's not a game review,

So that's not what you were suggesting here?

Quote

It also reads like a games journalist who failed to clear a video game tutorial and then writes some intellectual cope about how "the game sucks."

 

38 minutes ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

3. This is absolutely a political article wrapped in "academia."

Of course it is. I literally said as much:

1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

i didn't actually say that the article was "non-political." Any article on a subject like this, indeed arguably any article at all, is "political" at least in the sense that it reflects the politicized assumptions and premises that its author brings to the table. This article is no exception.

[snip]

We can certainly discuss the embedded political perspective of this article; that would be relevant.

There is, again, no such thing as an article, academic or otherwise, that is not "political." Saying "I'm not being political, like that guy over there: I'm just telling it like it is" is, in fact, a rhetorical ploy to dismiss an opponent's perspective and "naturalize" one's own as somehow "above" politics. "Politics" is almost always something one's opponent is "doing."
 

38 minutes ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

4. The author clearly doesn't understand much about SL, how it works, or its history. Kind of weird to write some academic article with all these abstract concepts when the author doesn't understand the core concept. If you read any other articles on the home page, they have nothing to do with gaming or computing or anything.

And, again, I said as much myself. I even explicitly agreed with you:

1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I will agree that, while the author clearly does have some familiarity with the platform, she has not spent enough time properly researching it. There are some truths here, but also a lot of half-truths, and a fair number of outright errors.

 

38 minutes ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

5. They complain about SL being broken but their own website is broken in some places

"They" is the author of the piece, not the platform itself. Do you know that there is a connection between the two?

And, yet again, they are not complaining about SL being broken. That is literally not what is said. They note that it is broken, and talk about how residents have leveraged that.

38 minutes ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

You are arguing in bad faith, I'm done.

Sure. Bye!

Edited May 15 by Scylla Rhiadra
Missing word and clarity

[Love Zhaoying]

How 'bout that TOS?

..nahhh, this is better.

[Istelathis]

25 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I think we are supposed to go ask Alice:

We could, perhaps she would join in on our shenanigans on the forum

The Alice initiative, can be located on the info page on their site

https://alicebucknell.com/info

Perhaps some brave soul, will invite Alice to our conversation, I wonder what her take would be on our discussion on the article. 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 minute ago, Istelathis said:

I wonder what her take would be on our discussion on the article.

[redacted]

Wait, you mean the actual author of the piece???? I thought you meant AI. A case of my not reading closely and carefully enough! (Pot, meet kettle!)

Bucknell has clearly read the forums, and cites them in at least one place. I'd be surprised if she didn't run across this discussion.

Whether she'll pitch in or not . . . well, honestly, I wouldn't!

This is a scary place!

Edited May 15 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Istelathis]

. I win!

Edited May 15 by Istelathis
I don't know what, but I won something!