Instructor: Prof. Richard Gazan
Course: ICS 691 – Social Computing
Session 2: Assignment 1: Part 2
All this talk about how people behave on websites really made me curious about why someone would actually spend so much time on them. And I wanted to know from an insider why people would participate in something like Second Life, and how a company like Second Life would handle antisocial behavior. So, I went online and asked. I joined Second Life and after several days, I made a contact with Beverly Montegomery.
The avatar to the right of me, in the green dress is Ms. Montgomery. I am the guy in the black shirt. Ms. Montegomery is a Second Life officer and a volunteer for the NCI organization. She gives classes for Newbies, mostly in the basiscs of how to modify the avatar and what to see and things to do with in Second Life. Her introduction to Second Life was from her son, who showed her how to login, helped her create an avatar, took her to an NCI starting place and then promptly left her there to find her own way. This was two years ago and she in now fully immersed in Second Life. Ms. Montegomery's take on the Second Life experience was that individuals come to Second Life to see what it is like and then stay for the friendships and for a feeling of importance.I found this to be true with my experience, most of the people were friendly and very helpful, and I was able to make friends very quickly. I believe the feeling of importance aspect is created through 3 avenues 1) just the act of making friends 2)Volunteering to help newbies enjoy the game and become acclimatized, like Ms. Montegomery and 3)Creating Objects. The first 2 being obvoius I will focus a little on 3rd item Creating objects. Second Life promotes individuals creativity through the use of a monteary system, and by providing the tools to create and modify object in the world. Additionally there are free tutorials, on how to create these tools and how to sell them within Second Life. This has lead to the creation of many virtual cottage industries. This simple feature allows residents to become emotionally attached to the game, by creating, and seeing that others value the objects that they can create. Many of the individuals became involved in Photoshop and scripting just because of their involvement in Second Life.
My Cube! It says touch when I touch it. And Ouch wherever anyone collides with it. 
Some of the Resident's Art!
Rules of Conduct
Second Life has had its share of antisocial behaviour. While they have a Terms of Service agreement, this contract is not always adhered to, and in these cases Second Life can ban users accounts. Ms. Montegomery admitted that there was little to stop such banned users form rejoining and personlly knew that several users had been banned 4 or more.In addition to the Conduct By Users of Second Life (see below) rules found in the TOS, an island or sim can impose additional conduct rules, which users must agree to prior to being able to access it.
Here is a small part of the TOS.
CONDUCT BY USERS OF SECOND LIFE
4.1 You agree to abide by certain rules of conduct, including the Community Standards and other rules prohibiting illegal and other practices that Linden Lab deems harmful.
You agree to read and comply with the Community Standards posted on the Websites, (for users 18 years of age and older, at http://secondlife.com/corporate/cs.php; and for users of the Teen Area, at http://teen.secondlife.com/footer/cs
In addition to abiding at all times by the Community Standards, you agree that you shall not: (i) take any action or upload, post, e-mail or otherwise transmit Content that infringes or violates any third party rights; (ii) impersonate any person or entity without their consent, including, but not limited to, a Linden Lab employee, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity; (iii) take any action or upload, post, e-mail or otherwise transmit Content that violates any law or regulation; (iv) take any action or upload, post, e-mail or otherwise transmit Content as determined by Linden Lab at its sole discretion that is harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, causes tort, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable; (v) take any actions or upload, post, e-mail or otherwise transmit Content that contains any viruses, Trojan horses, worms, spyware, time bombs, cancelbots or other computer programming routines that are intended to damage, detrimentally interfere with, surreptitiously intercept or expropriate any system, data or personal information; (vi) take any action or upload, post, email or otherwise transmit any Content that would violate any right or duty under any law or under contractual or fiduciary relationships (such as inside information, proprietary and confidential information learned or disclosed as part of employment relationships or under nondisclosure agreements); (vii) upload, post, email or otherwise transmit any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, or promotional materials, that are in the nature of "junk mail," "spam," "chain letters," "pyramid schemes," or any other form of solicitation that Linden Lab considers in its sole discretion to be of such nature; (viii) interfere with or disrupt the Service or servers or networks connected to the Service, or disobey any requirements, procedures, policies or regulations of networks connected to the Service; (ix) attempt to gain access to any other user's Account or password; or (x) "stalk", abuse or attempt to abuse, or otherwise harass another user. Any violation by you of the terms of the foregoing sentence may result in immediate and permanent suspension or cancellation of your Account. You agree that Linden Lab may take whatever steps it deems necessary to abridge, or prevent behavior of any sort on the Service in its sole discretion, without notice to you.
Tools and New Uses
What made my question session with Ms. Montgomery different is that she was carrying on several conversations at once. There was a group chat for the question and answer session, and she was carrying on an IM session just with me, and I am sure several other conversations too. This got me to thinking about how else these tools could be used in more "useful" ways. I decided that it would be quite possible to hold a business team meeting in Second Life. The program supports sound, and could support a normal conversation. There is the ability to have group chat and individual IM, for private side conversation. The software also has a blogging tool. And since it has its own scripting language it could be modified and extended for additional uses.
Summary
In summary Second Life is a fascinating, and different type of Social Networking Site then Facebook and MySpace. I found the content more appealing then Facebook and MySpace; where I very quickly became tired of staring at pictures and reading static text. I found it very easy to make friends, specifically because I was not starring at a person. Second Life is filled with conversation starters, imagine walking up to a 3D tiger avatar, that moves and growls, how did the person get it? Some of these are bought, but many things are created by players, and these people are interesting to talk to. For the more quiet types, the group chat allows you to lurk in the background, and doesn't interfere with the natural flow of conversation by the participants.
Check out the avatar on the left. I am still not sure what it is, but it looks fierce.
So, as nonacademic as it sounds, I think I found my SNS of choice. Now I have to go, I want to work on my cube. I want to make it make a whoopie cushion sound when I sit on it!
Posts
Hi Tom,
ReplyDeleteI don’t mean to sound like the biggest geek in the world, but I was very excited to see your post on SL.
It's nice that you were able to make friends so quickly, but I personally find it difficult to make friends with just anyone, due to my paranoia that male avatars are creepy if they run right up to you and say “hello.” Maybe it’s my fault for creating an avatar that’s way hotter than I am in RL (real life).
Anyway, my motivation for spending any time on SL is probably related to your point of feeling importance. Once you have your initial connections, it seems easy to network professionally and get involved with things you are interested in. I haven’t gotten to that stage yet, but I’m sure that through those networks, you create friends, which could motivate you to keep logging in and working on projects.
One of my “lingering questions” for this week that I didn’t post to my blog was one brought about by Galson’s article, where he writes about the invention of online personalities, and mentions that “gender-bending is said to be especially popular.” Last semester I helped set up SL on computers on campus for a graduate level class who was to have a one-time session in SL. The guy leading the class had mentioned that a high percentage of females (upper 90’s?) end up creating female avatars, while a lower percentage of males (not sure, but maybe 80%) create male avatars. Interestingly in that grad class, I saw at least one male student create a female avatar. For fun, he/she had a short skirt on and was flying over the heads of the other students. Why do we create the avatars that we create? That sounds like a great question that could be explored through SL.
Regarding your preference for SL over Facebook/MySpace, I feel that these are completely different types of social computing, and I can see why SL intrigues you. Facebook is great if you don’t join under a pseudonym and already have lots of RL friends who are members. SL is great if you enjoy the interface, have the patience to tackle that high learning curve, and can find some importance in using it.
Good choice; Diane Nahl is teaching a class this term with Second Life components, and a final project for this course could definitely focus on SL.
ReplyDeleteThe emotional attachment angle you raise is extremely important, both in their creation and in their appreciation (or purchase) by other people. Though I've not spent much time in-world, from your first moments you choose an avatar and give it a name, which is very much a bonding experience before you;ve even met anyone else. The second part of your question dealt with misbehavior, and I'm happy to see you didn't use this assignment as an excuse go around making virtual trouble ;). But I think that's the flip side of emotional attachment--as we learned in one of the the session 1 readings, griefing or destruction is only fun when the victims are deeply invested in what's being destroyed.
Although I've never tried Second Life, I also find the idea of controlling an avatar in a virtual world more appealing than Facebook or MySpace. One reason is because the whole interactive atmosphere with the environment makes it feel more like a game. Another reason is that the social networking aspect is less emphasized and your real life information is not on display for others to see. Through Facebook/MySpace you can find a lot of information about a person through one look at their profile. People can make lots of quick judgments about you based on what you display.
ReplyDeleteThechickenbus, Prof Gazan, Mike,
ReplyDeleteThanks for you comments. You each raise different and interesting points. My avatar was originally female. The reason was I wanted to get started and right up front SL said I could change the avatar so I didn't worry about it. Once I got in, it was relatively difficult to edit the appearance of the avatar, until I found some free "avatars", then it was easy enough. After all that work it doesn't make it a little hard to abandon, so you do get emotionally attached, if not to the avatar then to the work it took to create it. I sure would be annoyed if someone could just come along and destroy my efforts. Finally, I think that females are probably just more attractive and interesting to look at. Lets face it a person is going to spend alot of time looking at, controlling, modifying and spending time with this object, which would you prefer - Brad Pitt or Angeline Jolie?
Technically, I think this is the most useful 3d interface I have found. At one time there was a lot of talk about using a 3d interface for Operating Systems, I am not sure how far that has gone. In SL, it is combination of 2d and 3d and I think this works real well. You can create objects and then take them into your inventory. Your inventory is a 2d list that looks like a file structure, and is manipulated as such. Very handy for storing many items. I sure wouldn't want a virtual representation of my house that I would have to organize and clean. Can anyone sale virtual garage sale?
All the comments that you've received so far regarding your membership in Second Life reminds me that we enter these SNS for a variety of reasons. Your motivation was partially to explore an SNS for class; so you're studying it and are moving around it from that particular purpose. Others, as Mike mentioned, might be looking at it as purely a "game". However, based on one of our first readings, some people don't look at their membership as merely a game. They take virtual talk and actions seriously.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're having fun with your experience. I've yet to explore SL, but it was recently mentioned that perhaps it's the next thing librarians need to look at to provide patrons assistance. I'm interested, but am thinking of the investment of time to maintain my profile and my environment. In that sense, it's like real life, isn't it?
Am looking forward to your adventures on SL.
Interesting post on Second Life. When I first read your question, I was half expecting you to do something bad to get yourself kicked out of SL. I'm glad I was wrong ;)
ReplyDeleteI've only spent a limited amount of time in SL and my motivation was mostly curiosity after Dr. Nahl kept mentioning her SL experiences in class. I agree that you become attached to your avatar that you spend so much time creating. I must admit, I spent most of my in-world time adjusting my physical features and gathering money, clothes, and whatever free stuff I could find rather than interacting with others.
You mentioned the various tools for interaction. Most of these tools sound like synchronous communication as opposed to the emphasis on asynchronous in blogs and postings. As you mentioned, this makes SL a good place for group meetings, kind of like a visual chat room. Sadly, my internet connection is not sufficient for maintaining the graphics-heavy synchronous interaction of SL, but I'm excited to hear about more of your SL experiences.
j_mastin,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments. I agree that this does become like real life, in that you spend can spend a lot of time like managing your profile. But that is true of many SNS's. And many people actually use SL for games. You can have participation games with no AI such as chess. And there are actually video games within the SL environment. Some of the sims actually are games themselves, such as Avilion. Which is quite an interesting visit.
REgards, Tom
Kat,
ReplyDeleteThanks for you post. It is interesting that you write about the use of SL as a business tool. On thier website they are no offering products specifically designed for business. I have yet to spend time checking these out as work and class are consuming alot more of my time.
Regards, Tom