Anonymity is not dead. It’s still very much alive. I’ve had very little change in my SL since voice was introduced and I don’t anticipate much of a change going forward.

Anony Mouse

Anonymity is not dead. It’s still very much alive. I’ve had very little change in my SL since voice was introduced and I don’t anticipate much of a change going forward.

Anony Mouse

Anonymity is not dead. It’s still very much alive. I’ve had very little change in my SL since voice was introduced and I don’t anticipate much of a change going forward.

Anony Mouse

I have met a number of people on Second Life that after getting to know them have Autism or Asbergers syndrome, and some that are deaf. You would never know it interacting with them, but once you find this out form them, they are quick to point out that this is one medium that does not have them feel isolated and segregated from the population at large. (And of course some have no issues with telling you, and some others are more circumspect). Not knowing much about these conditions, I cannot comment other than to say that I believe them when they speak of isolation in RL but not in SL.

With the greater “openness” and growing “augmentationist” movement – beyond the “ASL” queries – I cannot help but think that technologies like Voice and other ways of projecting “your real self” into this medium will leave quite a few people behind – or at least relegated into “ghettoes” with no way of bridging this gap in the case of autistic and deaf people when confronted with Voice technologies. Aside from hanging “I am Deaf” or using a very artificial sounding synthetic voice – they have little choice in the matter and they will be singled out by their RL condition in a way that does not exist currenlty.

To me this is the real crime – moreso than the inconvenience of maintaining anonymity in a culture that will no longer tolerate it. One strength of SL has been the great sense of inclusion – and as SL grows up – and changes, this inclusion seems set to diminish.

Bromo Ivory

I have met a number of people on Second Life that after getting to know them have Autism or Asbergers syndrome, and some that are deaf. You would never know it interacting with them, but once you find this out form them, they are quick to point out that this is one medium that does not have them feel isolated and segregated from the population at large. (And of course some have no issues with telling you, and some others are more circumspect). Not knowing much about these conditions, I cannot comment other than to say that I believe them when they speak of isolation in RL but not in SL.

With the greater “openness” and growing “augmentationist” movement – beyond the “ASL” queries – I cannot help but think that technologies like Voice and other ways of projecting “your real self” into this medium will leave quite a few people behind – or at least relegated into “ghettoes” with no way of bridging this gap in the case of autistic and deaf people when confronted with Voice technologies. Aside from hanging “I am Deaf” or using a very artificial sounding synthetic voice – they have little choice in the matter and they will be singled out by their RL condition in a way that does not exist currenlty.

To me this is the real crime – moreso than the inconvenience of maintaining anonymity in a culture that will no longer tolerate it. One strength of SL has been the great sense of inclusion – and as SL grows up – and changes, this inclusion seems set to diminish.

Bromo Ivory

I have met a number of people on Second Life that after getting to know them have Autism or Asbergers syndrome, and some that are deaf. You would never know it interacting with them, but once you find this out form them, they are quick to point out that this is one medium that does not have them feel isolated and segregated from the population at large. (And of course some have no issues with telling you, and some others are more circumspect). Not knowing much about these conditions, I cannot comment other than to say that I believe them when they speak of isolation in RL but not in SL.

With the greater “openness” and growing “augmentationist” movement – beyond the “ASL” queries – I cannot help but think that technologies like Voice and other ways of projecting “your real self” into this medium will leave quite a few people behind – or at least relegated into “ghettoes” with no way of bridging this gap in the case of autistic and deaf people when confronted with Voice technologies. Aside from hanging “I am Deaf” or using a very artificial sounding synthetic voice – they have little choice in the matter and they will be singled out by their RL condition in a way that does not exist currenlty.

To me this is the real crime – moreso than the inconvenience of maintaining anonymity in a culture that will no longer tolerate it. One strength of SL has been the great sense of inclusion – and as SL grows up – and changes, this inclusion seems set to diminish.

Bromo Ivory

Society wants to protect itself from both anonymity and pseudonymity. [...] Pseudonymity is different type of problem.

I’d love to hear more about that different type of problem, Dandellion Can you elaborate?

I think you might just have hit gold… we always talk about how everybody is anonymous in SL, but they aren’t really, are they? In fact, they are just pseudonymous — clearly identified all the time, without any doubts at whom we’re talking to, but… we just don’t have their ID card available

I’d be very interested in reading about the separation of anonymity and pseudonymity… what problems are common to both, and what are unique and different.

Society wants to protect itself from both anonymity and pseudonymity. [...] Pseudonymity is different type of problem.

I’d love to hear more about that different type of problem, Dandellion Can you elaborate?

I think you might just have hit gold… we always talk about how everybody is anonymous in SL, but they aren’t really, are they? In fact, they are just pseudonymous — clearly identified all the time, without any doubts at whom we’re talking to, but… we just don’t have their ID card available

I’d be very interested in reading about the separation of anonymity and pseudonymity… what problems are common to both, and what are unique and different.

Society wants to protect itself from both anonymity and pseudonymity. [...] Pseudonymity is different type of problem.

I’d love to hear more about that different type of problem, Dandellion Can you elaborate?

I think you might just have hit gold… we always talk about how everybody is anonymous in SL, but they aren’t really, are they? In fact, they are just pseudonymous — clearly identified all the time, without any doubts at whom we’re talking to, but… we just don’t have their ID card available

I’d be very interested in reading about the separation of anonymity and pseudonymity… what problems are common to both, and what are unique and different.

At this moment i will separate my human part from my avatar, just to skip the possibility of confusion. I use dandellion as a nick-name since mid-nineties. Having that in mind it is not much of a surprise that I am, at least while typing, heavily identified with it. It is the first choice whenever I register somewhere on the net. It is on most of my e-mail addresses, even those I use for business. And I was very happy (in those early days) about how internet is developing, that one is not forced to use name and surname written in the ID for more or less official purposes like business e-mail is.

But, though I am identified as dandellion on many places (by myself and other people) I had to learn that my internet presence is not the same on all the places I visit. Like in RL we talk differently to different people. Dandellion types different when typing in SL than in forums where most of people knows me in RL. We do (or at least should) have in mind with who we talk and what is the context. But, blogs are tricky medium, they are very personal writing like to a close friend but they are red by complete strangers.

Like what happened with your sarcasm: some people got it correctly and everything was ok, while Hiro and myself completely misunderstood you. It happens all the time. It is lack of intimacy with the writer, lack of context, and it all happens in the media where time runs really fast, we read very fast, often with skipping lines and having no previous knowledge of the author.

And this story goes straight to second life and problem of anonymity (or, better, pseudonymity). Society wants to protect itself from both anonymity and pseudonymity. Anonymity gives opportunity to fraud, to exchange child-porn, to do something that is not to be done, for something that is forbidden either by law or at least by customs. Pseudonymity is different type of problem.

This train of thought took me on the other side of verification and why are we in such a need of RL data in the metaverse: http://metaverse.acidzen.org/2007/first-contact-and-the-real-life-data