Building Communities

August 7, 2008 - in Homepage, SL Society by: Gwyneth Llewelyn
7 Comments

Roads to Self-Governance

So we see here three different models to empower Residents to self-govern their affairs. The first — used by the CDS, Cedar Island, and the Polska Republika, among (probably) several others — are grassroots attempt to define a territory within Second Life, establish a jurisdiction over that territory, and democratically allow residents in that territory to define their own rules and procedures. They all lean on a crucial issue: Second Life is about people, but it’s also about building together — in the primmy sense of the word. So these “local governments” are not merely forum or blog posts, where people vaguely discuss democratic governance in abstract terms (a lot of micronations are only forum-based, for instance). They’re based on virtual land, as defined by Linden Lab. There is a physical aspect to the local governance (even if it’s… virtual). People feel at “home” at places they helped to build, but, more than that, where they had participation at the decision level on what and how to build.

Their most serious disadvantage is that they’re broken, scattered, and not unified. They’re independent attempts to establish “home rule” on a tiny, tiny part of the huge grid. They also grow much too slowly, compared to the rest of Second Life — democracy requires participation, discussion, and compromise, and all that takes time. They are solid and tend to outlast their founders, creators, or original designers — that’s the beauty of democracy: rotativity. Dictatorships — even the most benevolent ones! — rarely outlast their charismatic founders. In the accelerated timespan of Second Life, what this means is that any non-democratic organisation in SL is only able to survive as long as the island owners remain faithful to SL and their land. On average, these communities last from 6 months to 2 years. But introduce an element of democratic participation, and very quickly they become long-lived — outlasting the original founders, as new leaders are voted into power, or new residents add their views and ideas about how the land should look like by discussing and voting upon suggestions.

Ashcroft Burnham’s Metaverse Republic is more ambitious. It is a “meta-republic” in the sense that it can bind all these isolated local governments under a far-reaching superstructure — not unlike a “federal system” on top of local rules. In fact, the Metaverse Republic is not incompatible with “local laws”. Thus, a community can still apply those rules locally, and basically don’t worry about the far-reaching Metaverse Republic for most of the cases. But, say, if a griefer is caught locally, they can push the issue to the “federal court”, and the same griefer will be banned across several communities (if found guilty, of course). Since the MR is not tied to land ownership directly — just very indirectly, in the sense that all parcels will be tied into their software system that handles the automatic banning — it does not, by itself, “build” a community. That is best left to the “local governments”. So this is pretty much like one of the many UN-based world-wide organisations, where different countries agree to abide by international law, but are sovereign and independent in their own jurisdictions. The need to deal at the upper levels is only needed when “international” conflict (i.e., across communities) arises.

By being opt-in and resident-run, the Metaverse Republic will never encompass all the Grid. At best it will tie together lots of small local communities, and a larger number of independent landowners, that see an advantage in having a strong judiciary (staffed by RL professionals) that can deal fairly and justly with all kinds of abuses that Linden Lab doesn’t care about (namely, all business-related issues). It’s success will be measured by how many people are willing to exchange a bit of their absolute freedom to have an extra level of protection and enforcement, run by legal experts.

And the third option, of course, is a top-down approach, where a group of residents engage in “revolution” and “demand” that Linden Lab complies with their requests. This is, however, the hardest way (quoting from the SLDM’s FAQ on the question if this approach is realistic: “That question has been raised before every big revolution in history.”). SLDM relies too much on the idea that they can successful engage a significant number of residents to a strike, or tier down, or simply move to another virtual world as a form of protest. In my experience, the “large numbers paradigm” always works against these kinds of movements (i.e. even if a hundred thousand residents actively protest and leave SL, in just a week, Second Life will recover those lost residents again), although it’s also true that the SL Democratic Movement does not need to reach all 14 million users, not even the 1.2 million active users. To seriously “hurt” Linden Lab, they only need to capture the soul and will of about hundred thousand residents — the ones that pay tier, create content, and in general maintain this virtual world as an attractive destination for the other millions of casual users. Hundred thousand residents is, however, still a huge number to “conquer” for a cause. Looking at things like the Public JIRA, the forums, or the comments on several blogs (from the official LL blog to many others), it’s clear that the number of actively engaged residents is tiny — a few thousands. And Linden Lab does know that very well. The “silent majority” never registers in their radar.

Perhaps after four years — and having seen the SL population grow a thousandfold in that period — I’m a bit more realistic and not such an optimist. There is, indeed, space for local governance, and never have I seen so many projects popping up where the local authority of a landowner is shared by a group of people that run whole regions together, often with democratic participation and/or election. These are starting to appear all over the place, with more or less success, with more or less “democracy” (even Caledon, which is an excellent example of a long-lasting autocracy, has an “advisor council” to Desmond). Most landowning groups — some of them spanning dozens or hundreds of islands — also have an “inner circle” of trusted people which take decisions together, and sometimes these people are pooled from the most dynamic and loyal tenants. What seemed so remote in 2004 — local, home rule — now spontaneously pops up here and there, as more and more communities understand that the landowner cannot impose their totalitarian will upon their tenants, specially if there are alternatives where power is shared. For now, however, these experiments in local governance are still quite limited in scope, and grow slowly; but they tend to live long and outlast the alternatives.

The first step towards a “more democratic” Second Life is, in my opinion, not a top-down approach, but rather something more akin to Ashcroft’s own plans: a way to tie together several disconnected communities (which will have their own local rules) and bring them together just because they share similar goals: namely, that residents should have a word to say when decisions are enacted that will affect their own (virtual) lives. And that word should be binding; that requires at least some form of democratic participation where residents get a vote. How far this can go, I have no idea; I do think, however, that “revolution” will not come mostly due to a lack of interest. People are very comfortable with Linden Lab’s totalitarian rule — and the ones that are not, have long left Second Life, or, perhaps, came back and reluctantly accepted that they can have fun under a totalitarian regime, too. Although the implications of that are too scary for me to think about, it’s what we’ve seen so far. Except for a very small, teeny tiny, vocal minority, the vast majority of the Second Life residents are content to remain silent and enjoy themselves in spite of everything. I believe that this is what gives Linden Lab a very strong position when “negotiating” with residents about “more power to the people”. The majority of the “people” don’t want power at all, they want stability, peace, and fun. Polarising the silent majority to join a cause which they see little point in pursuing will be a very hard task.

In the mean time, I’ll be eagerly looking at the many communities that are leading by example. They aren’t waiting for Linden Lab, or much less for residents to acquire a civic, political conscience. Instead, they get together, roll up their virtual sleeves, and build their own regions, under democratic home rule. They might always remain the exception — the low voice of the tiny minority — but they will grow, very slowly, patiently, and for a long, long time.

They are the true community builders — where the community actually builds something together, beyond fair words.

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http://secondthoughts.typepad.com Prokofy Neva

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.
http://www.metaverserepublic.org Ashcroft Burnham

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.
Pingback: Letter to Linden Lab Re: Mainland Policies - Fleep’s Deep Thoughts
http://sl-dm.co.uk/ SLDM

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
Silmaure W

Gwyneth, that’s a really interesting post!
http://metaverselaw.blogspot.com/ Lincoln Beck

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
http://dantonsideways.blogspot.com Danton Sideways

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.
http://www.metaverserepublic.org Ashcroft Burnham

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.