Building Communities
The fun bit of creating these communities is that people come to “their” buildings. Thus, Szerewp Loon is not only building a theatre on Polska Republika; he’s also setting up a place where people will come to see performances — thus generating events to attract new visitors. Ayumi Cassini also built her own project, a library in the island, and she reports that lots of visitors come, bring their own books, and actually stay there to read! Why? It’s the feeling of “belonging”. You can read a book in the comfort of your own home, but it’s so much more fun if you are in a place with other fellow book-readers, and can share thoughts about the book you’re reading. After all, this is one of the major reasons why people go to RL libraries to pick up a book and stay there to read!
And sometimes people come up with totally unpredictable ideas and concepts that were never planned by the original creators — like an Atlantis Temple under the sea of Polska Republika (I won’t tell you where it is, it’s more fun to find it on your own!). This was clearly the result of creativity put to the vote!
So this is another community that learned an important lesson: get people together; allow them to build things together, and they will feel that’s their “home”; but give them the power to decide how buildings should look like — empower them democratically! — and they will be very reluctant to abandon “their” community. They feel “in charge” if they have some control over their environment.
But this is not the only alternative.
Non-building democratic communities
Probably the oldest (and more documented!) democratic project which does not have its own territory is the Metaverse Republic (MR). After about two years (!) of heavy discussion, the project is slowly coming to its first release. Their concept is radically different. The Metaverse Republic does not “own” a territory at all. Instead, through a software system, they allow banning of avatars from all parcels that join the MR. But this is an extreme measure! Before the banning actually occurs, there is a very complex judicial procedure to follow, where, in all transparency, the alleged infringer of the MR’s laws is fairly judged in a trial. If they’re found guilty — and we’re talking about RL lawyers and legal counsellors that hold court, so this is not an arbitrary process! — their avatar name will be added to the banning list, and all parcels of the MR will ultimately block access to that particular avatar. Griefing can thus be dealt with very quickly and efficiently, and it will affect hundreds or thousands of parcels.
The MR has no “contiguous territory” but is scattered all across the grid, both on the mainland and on private islands. Participation is naturally opt-in, and every resident who places the MR device on their land automatically becomes a citizen with a vote, being able to elect their Members of Parliament. These will establish the laws of the Metaverse Republic, in duly transcripted sessions which should be publicly available. And what kind of laws might those be? Well, the major issue is, of course, griefing, and all sorts of abuse, like frauds and dubious business practices. The latter is not covered by Linden Lab’s ToS at all; and griefers aren’t always caught. Also, the Abuse Report system is not transparent — you have no idea who is accusing whom and what the results have been, or how Linden Lab judged someone to be a griefer and someone else just to be a nuisance. There are no procedures and no publicly available decisions. It all seems arbitrary, and people like Prokofy Neva have demanded for years a more fair and transparent system.
The Metaverse Republic is the answer to all the above issues. It gives “protection” to every member of the MR by allowing them to exchange their absolute freedom (they have to comply with the MR’s Constitution and Code of Laws, of course; but remember that anyone can get elected to Parliament and democratically change them!) for a measure of enforcement that actually works well.
Of course, to be totally successful, the Metaverse Republic ought to operate grid-wide; and this is what a new group, the SL Democratic Movement, proposes to do.
Let’s be honest, in my four years in Second Life, I have seen these groups come and go. All talk about “revolution” and an utopian “direct democracy” model for running the whole of Second Life. All also assume that Linden Lab is willing to grant some users the power to decide over all others — and that if a big enough number of residents promote their group (over the alternatives), Linden Lab will have no option but to yield. No wonder, though, that these tend to quickly come and go — and they often scorn the attempts at “local governance” as being inefficient (since their jurisdiction is so limited) and not serious (since they never grow enough to become significant).
The SL Democratic Movement has at least done their homework well. I’m attaching the full text of their press release below, for you to understand what they are about. Their purpose is simple: the residents of Second Life (unlike other virtual worlds) are, in fact, at the centre of the stage — since they (and not Linden Lab) create content, communities, and give added value to the overall environment. An empty Second Life is worthless. It only became significant because residents built it. However, Linden Lab acts as a tyrannical (albeit benevolent…) dictator, disallowing all participation of the residents in the decision process. This is what they purpose to change — dramatically. They know what the results are supposed to be — Terms of Service that are negotiated between residents and Linden Lab, not unilaterally imposed by Linden Lab upon their residents — but the way towards democratic participation is not clear, not even in their FAQ. What is clear, however, is that they would welcome a model similar to what was done by EVE Online, but where all Residents can participate in the decision processes, not just the “chosen few”.
I leave you with the full text of their press release:
August ’08
SLDM Press Release
-The SL Democratic Movement calls for LL to balance the ToS and governance of SL-
Throughout history, human being and its technology have always been in an intricate two-way relationship, changing our concepts of being and reality along the way. With the creation of Cyberspace we even made ourselves a new plane of existence, a new being. With usercreated, immersive 3D virtual worlds like Second Life being the pinnacle in that field at the moment.
Despite the fact the Second Life world is entirely created by its users, by its residents, the grid operator Linden Lab uses a totalitarian control and governance model which is all too common with providers across cyberspace.
The fact this world is being created by its residents and the intricate interdependency relation stemming from this between Linden Lab and the residents, should be cause and basis for establishing a novel relationship between provider and user, that truly acknowledges the residents’ investments and existence, essential for the creation and sustaining of the Second Life world.
What is needed is a revolutionary change! A change that is needed to create together the possibility of a democratic Second Life, and in extension Metaverse and Cyberspace, that will respect the civil rights of its users.
Therefor, the SL Democratic Movement calls for Linden Lab to balance the Terms of Service and governance of the Second Life world:
We demand that future contract changes will be negotiated.
Accordingly, we demand change of the pretext of the Terms of Service regarding change of contract to enable this.
We demand a meaningful socio-political dialog between Linden Lab and the SL community and a public, transparent, non hierarchical structure with meaningful voting procedures and a possibility of referenda to enable this.
We demand the abolishment of articles 2.6 and 3.2.b and similar statements in the Terms of Service.
A profound change in these articles will make room for the full acknowledgment of you and your investments and for protection against arbitrary banning and deletion and in effect towards rights of due process and fair “trial”. Accordingly, the abuse report system should be changed towards these goals.
We want Linden Lab to actively further and intensify its open source plans and efforts, towards open sourcing the server code and a truly open grid.
These changes need the support of the SL community to become reality! We, SL Residents, need to start acknowledge our rights first! Join the revolution today and start agitating for a better world!
SL Democratic Movement’s campaign for democratic reform of the rule of Second Life has been underway for several months, and is motivated both by tensions between Linden Lab and their customers in Second Life and instances of mismanagement of the service as well as by a deep-seated philosophical conviction that users of Second Life ought to be acknowledged with their participation in the world both by right and necessity.
SL Democratic Movement is a non-profit organization advocating self-rule, transparent and fair governance, resident rights and democracy within the virtual world of Second Life.
-SLDM is not affiliated with Linden Lab or Linden Research, Inc. Second Life® and Linden Lab® are registered trademarks of Linden Research, Inc.-
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Gwyn, your post is uber annoying, because you start out talking about the mainland, and slip into talking about “democratic” communities that are all run not on the mainland, but on private islands.
You also perform a terribly sleight of hand claiming that they are all so wonderfully “democratic”. First of all, the “democratic” ownership is a basic fiction overlaid over the raw fact that only one person can own an island and pay the tier on it. The tier bill goes…where? Not to “the Confederation of Democratic Simulators” elected officials, or any “group” but…one person. That person pays tier. Everyone pays tier to that person to compensate them. They serve their democracy at the pleasure of this hidden autocrat. Oh, sure, that person would never, ever, ever, etc. think of screwing the community but…unfortunately, in the illustrious history of the CDS predecessor, there is a case where a founding autocrat wanted to take back their buildings from the community, and the community then banning that person, Ulrika Zugzwang.
If you really had the democratic — and socialist! — ideals you claim, why, you’d do what we do on the mainland, which is to make groups where people share tier. To be perfect about it, you’d have your members all put in 1024 or 4096 worth of tier. It wouldn’t be so terribly efficient and cheap at one level, but it would also create a great deal more solid democracy for real, and less dependence on the possible whim of that one island tier-payer. You’d also get the 10 percent bonus to use. I never understood why you didn’t buy a mainland sim or two and do that and have a range of members from 512 even to half a sim.
I think it’s very interesting that the Poles set up a republic so quickly. Shows you how fast you can get things done when you aren’t hobbled by socialist ideologies, which I’m willing to bet dollars to donuts they weren’t. They had an unabashed concept to have stores to pay the costs, apparently. Oh, not that the CDS doesn’t have something like that, I realize, but…they have caps, and controls, and clearances — and they behave like the bureaucratic socialist government that they are!
Why on earth you’re fanning Ashcroft these days is also totally beyond me. None of his solutions have ever been proven to be really democratic in deed, in the liberal sense, as they all involved making him the magistrate and controlling other people’s land.
As for the caliphate, any group promoting the concept of the Caliphate, a religious autocratic unitary government based on the primacy of one religion that is imposed over a territory, cannot be calling themselves democratic. There is a fashion now to call “democratic” anything with a plebiscite. But democracies that hold their last election merely to install a Caliphate aren’t worthy of the name. Democracy includes within it the concept of protection of minorities, dissenters, and the system itself, to enable the people to vote out of office those who destroy its values.
Each time you talk about rental communities, you speak of them with scorn as being run by mere benevolent (or sleasy) dictators — as if back of your operation isn’t one tier-payer who can confiscate all the land at a mouse-click! But groups like Ravenglass Rentals, even if run by the “tyrant” who pays most of the tier, actually run under the rule of law — the lease, which binds the owner as much as the tenants. I also have tenants contributing tier for a discount or rent-free living as well. The land preserve has a dozen people contributing a lot of the tier, and also cash donations to cover tier in that group or other open lands I make available from Ravenglass.
It’s amazing to me how much people do contribute freely to such projects, and I marvel that there aren’t more of them. I’ve always thought that much more could be done to encourage premium accounts and have newbies take the 512 and join a newbies group that would help them initially with housing and skills. I try to do that to some extent with my 2 communities but I wonder why this isn’t widespread. I guess because it’s simply hard organizing and maintaining groups especially when you are constantly thwarted in your efforts to zone by the Lindens unzoning and playing to ad farmers.
Gwyn, thank you for the exellent article, and the mention of the Metaverse Republic. For anyone interested in participating in the Metaverse Republic, visit our website at http://www.metaverserepublic.org , visit our headquarters in-world at the Tabula Rasa sim, or IM me (constitutioanl team), Colleen Kesey (management team) or Chase Marellan (technical team).
As to “totalitarianism”, do not confuse dictatorship with totalitarianism: totalitarianism involves the state having total control over every aspect of citizens’ lives, whereas dictatorship simply refers to non-democratic government. To the extent that Linden Lab is a government at all, it could be called a “dictatorship”, but is certainly not “totalitarian”: as Desmond points out all too frequently, a service provider can never really be totalitarian because its customers can, wheras the citizens of a state cannot, simply stop using its service. Linden Lab is no more or less democratic than any commercial organisation. There are many reasons why non-provider based governance such as that on which I am working in the Metaverse Republic is highly desirable (not least because a commerical organisation cannot sensibly resolve disputes between its customers), but there is no dichotomy between, on the one hand, user-created governane, and, on the other, control by the service provider. It is particularly significant in this respect that the service provider is only changing its policy towards mainland: private estates are to remain as unregulated as ever.
Gwyneth, thanks for including our press release within this article. Much appreciated.
However, we do feel the need to comment:
We want to make clear that our group is NOT after “running the whole of Second Life”, nor does the SL Democratic Movement(SLDM) seek to “operate grid-wide”. Although we do focuss on the governing of Second Life as a whole, currently solely done by Linden Lab, what we want is create a basis for empowerment and protection of the individual (communities) regarding LL’s control throughout SL. We focus on LL’s ToS for that, which is in that regard grid-wide, but not in anyway a proposal for a specific grid-wide parliamentary or otherwise institutional structure.
We dont fit into the category of groups that “..assume [that] Linden Lab is willing to grant some users the power to decide over all others..”.
Besides that LL will likely grant some users ‘political power’ sooner than they will grant it universally, we have always opposed an elitist, “representative” model where some users would decide for all.
“…and they often scorn the attempts at “local governance” as being inefficient (since their jurisdiction is so limited) and not serious (since they never grow enough to become significant).”
SLDM is also not part of the “they” here. As said, we want to change the ToS to empower and protect the individual user as well as individual communities and stimulate and support decentralisation of governance generally. Our group also has been developing software and proposals for changes of (SL) group structure to stimulate local, democratic governance.
But we hold the idea that the layer of ‘global’ governance, that of LL control over SL, should also be democratized and incorporate resident rights and representation, indeed due to the very nature of the SL world and its creation. LL’s ToS is where everyone is subject to, including the local democratic communities like CDS or the ‘federal’ Metaverse Republic layer. This does not render these governance structures inefficient or meaningless at all. Only we think the reasons for the existence of these resident goverance attempts and structures, should be extrapolated towards LL and SL.
Gwyn, you use “top down” to classify SLDM’s campaign, whilst the campaign and our views are essentially bottom up, including our (lack of) view of what global SL Resident Governance should necessarily look like. This is implicit in the direct democratic ideal we hold.
We need mass popular support (which includes articulation of this support by the people themselves) for the idea of change we hold for the ‘revolution’ to become real, justified and viable. This is not “waiting for Linden Lab”, but would be a bottom up forcing of change. If anyone is waiting for Linden Lab to grant protection and empowerment for the individual user of SL, it is not SLDM, but rather groups like CDS and Metaverse Republic or perhaps they are happy with the status quo, with how LL controls and governs the virtual world that they build. In any case, the different kinds of governance sketched in your article, from local, to federal, to global, can and need to exist and develop simultaniously.
SL Democratic Movement
http://sl-dm.co.uk/
SLDM HQs: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Kaskitayo/234/188/52
Gwyneth, that’s a really interesting post!
Gwyneth,
Thanks for your very interesting thoughts regarding self-governance issues in the Metaverse. Especially thank you for the mention of the Polska Republika (Polish Republic).
I hope this was not your last visit
You’re right, Gwyneth, to emphasize the difference between local self-government and government of the entire Second-Life Grid. The local democratic experiments are of course more fruitful, partly because anything new has to start on a small scale before it can grow, and partly because democracy itself just works best on a small scale.
Existing local democracies in SL differ widely among themselves. Some are open communities, in that virtually anyone from Second Life can join, such as CDS and Al Andalus. Others are closed or “gated” communities, such as Cedar Island, where potential members must submit to a selection process, or Polska Republika, where members must apparently speak Polish.
There are also different formulas for land ownership, such as ownership of the sim by one person (the Polish Queen), private ownership of plots by individual members, or collective ownership. As a member of CDS I differ with Prok’s assessment of CDS ownership. The one avatar that officially “owns” the CDS sims from the point of view of Linden Lab is a mere token. CDS has in fact a cross between individual ownership, since all citizens must buy at least one plot to vote, and collective ownership, since the public spaces and other accumulated assets are owned by the group rather than being owned by any individual.
As for grid-wide self-government, however, the groups you mentioned have neither the capacity nor the ambition to bring that about. Ashcroft’s Metaverse Republic is, by his own admission, nothing more than a set of “tools” to be made available to existing local governments, to help them implement local law enforcement. And the SL Democratic Movement is more of a political party than an attempt to create a government. They advocate resident rights from a leftist point of view, but as you note their views are only shared by a tiny minority, and I think they are sensible enough to realize this themselves. When they say that LL control over SL should be democratized and should incorporate resident rights and representation, this comes across as a plank in their theoretical platform, rather than as practical, believable project.
There are also various other marginal groups working on setting up some kind of grid-wide government, but they all seem to have missed the basic point. Anyone who is serious about this idea should just look at how such things happen in the real world. The pattern is very standard: it starts by the calling of some sort of parliament or constituent assembly, with representatives elected on a geographical basis from the different regions of the country. The assembled representatives then start a big talk-fest, from which something eventually emerges, which in some cases may be a national constitution, although many different outcomes are also conceivable. Ashcroft’s idea of writing a constitution first and calling a parliament later puts the cart before the horse, and to that extent is in fact undemocratic. To set up a grid-wide self-government you must organize a general election BEFORE anyone can make any decisions at all. But my comment is already long enough. Anyone interested in more discussion of this subject can find several long posts I devoted to it on my blog.
Although it has been some time since this topic was last commented, I just noticed Danton’s post, and wanted to make two brief comments.
Firstly, I think that Danton confuses the Metaverse Republic with the Local Government Study group when he writes about us simply creating tools for local governments: the Metaverse Republic will be a governance system in its own right.
Secondly, the suggestion of having a parliament before having a constitution makes little sense, since there must be a constitution that regulates the procedures and the powers of the parliament for any such parliament to be workable. What we do have, however, is a dedicated Constitutional Team (which anybody can observe and apply to join: the information on how to do so is set out on our public website) charged with drafting the constitution. Unlike a more conventional terratorial government, people can choose whether to subscribe to the Metaverse Republic, and thus whether or not the constitution has effect will depend on whether enough people like the idea to subscribe. In that sense, it is more, rather than less, democratic than existing terratorial governments, few, if any, of which (save for federations of existing states, which each had their own existing complete governance systems that had not, for the most part, themselves come about in that manner) have come about in the way that Danton describes.