Does Second Life Really Have a "Community"?

In the very chatty conversation over Friday's post, "The Second Life Community Should Lead the New Virtual Reality Wave, Not Follow It" sirhc deSantis makes an interesting and provocative point:

These continual references to the 'Second Life Community' rankle me. With my 9th rez day at the end of this year I have yet to stumble over this mythical beast. Been involved in communities (plural) over the years made up of people with shared interests (of many kinds) but never met this all encompassing one.

As the word is mostly used as marketing speak to mean 'people who buy/use our stuff we want to make feel involved in a more or less touchy feely way so they buy/use more stuff and act as an unpaid evangelical force' I may be a trifle jaded.

The only thing users of SL have in common is that they use SL. Does that make it a 'community'? In the same way as a FaceBook 'community'?

Fair couple of closing questions. As I've noted before, less than 30,000 people typically attend Second Life's annual birthday celebration, which leads me to conclude that there are few SLers who have a deep affinity with SL as a unified virtual community, and more who are just interested in going to their favorite nightclub or roleplaying sim or whatever sub-community they're affiliated with.

In a follow-up comment to his post that started my Friday post, Maxwell Graf makes a good defense of the community concept:

Even though each of us has had a different SL than everyone else, there are things we all deal with and have come to understand beyond just which button to press. We have shared a lot of things. It is similar in some ways to being a veteran of the military or the phrase "New Yorker." If you have lived in the city, you understand things about it and city life that Bob from Des Moines will never get. You would understand that you really know next to nobody in the city, yet there are 20 million people there who feel like a community of New Yorkers. Tell them you are from Albany and you will understand the difference directly.

That sounds right: Especially because New Yorkers who live in, say, Greenwich Village, often dismiss people from an outer borough like Queens as not being "real New Yorkers". Just as some SL fashionistas can be indifferent to SL vampire roleplayers, and so on - yet are all still part of the same community (however loosely defined).

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Comments

[Eddi Haskell]

I think there is a Second Life Community, or collection of sub-communities (LGBT, Fashion Design, Japanese-speaking Second Lifers for example are all distinct groups of users). I do not think that the lack of attendance at annual birthday celebrations can be used as evidence that such a community does not exist because they are so boring to many to attend -- with no central themes, design elements, or cohesive messaging. I do think that certain events such as Fantasyfest, Burn2, Second Pride, and a multitude of fashion events are good examples of community in Second Life.

[Max Graf]

Once upon a time, an elephant came to a village. Having no idea what an elephant was, five blind men from the province decided to go to the village and investigate the beast.

"Hey, the elephant is like a pillar," said the man who touched his leg.
"It is like a snake," said the man touching the trunk.
"No, it is a rope," said the man holding the tail.
"A spear," said the man feeling the tusk.
"...Like a fan," said the one touching the ear."

A wise man heard the ensuing argument. He went to them and explained, "All of you are right. Each of you knows a different thing because you touch different parts of the elephant."

[Max Graf]

and hey Eddi! LTNC

[zz bottom]

:)

[Estelle Pienaar]

It's very interesting to see the discussions about the nature of "community", "presence", "self-representation" etc. returning with the second wave of VR.
Here is a totally different thought: We - the Second Life community - are used to experience every place of our platform with the same set of rules, possibilities and user interface. If we compare that to the web, its like Facebook would have been invented instead of the world wide web. And if we insist on the continuity of presence in the 3dweb, it's as if in this parralel world the www is finally created but "oldbie" facebook users are refusing to use it. Because these other websites are not built in the "continuity" of their facebook experience? I am convinced that LL wants to dissolve the continuum of "world", "single avatar", "same set of tools", "same ui" with project Sansar. How ready is the Second Life Community to deal with that?

[Chantal]

Second Life is a community because there is a certain culture present which can be found mostly with the older residents. You will not find this with the newer users with last name Resident.

That old community culture which has kept the platform intact for more than a decade has been established by the older Lindens before Kingdon came.

There is a community of creative people, artists and designers and people with entrepreneurial skills who formed and shaped the world as the old Lindens intended. These people are also the ones who covered for Linden Lab their long series of fuck-ups over the years and made Second Life to be an interesting tourist attraction.

Now that Ebbe Altberg wants to be a big boy that entire eco system may come down in the next couple of years.

Perhaps a bit like the internet at first which was a place for creative people and builders until web 2.0 came with idiotic wordpress blogs, template garbage sites and dumb services such as instagram and facebook. Instead of learning HTML code on the web people sit back and watch youtube videos of cats on a skateboard.

[Estelle Pienaar]

@ Chantal: I have not experienced any difference between SL users with the last name Resident and others. Talking down on other people makes one feel so much superior, doesn't it?

[Littlewing]

It's a community of community's..'many do not see
themselves as part of a larger community due to past,hate,intolerance or damn near persecution of the lives people lead in smaller tolerant communities.
++
Mainland would be what can be seen as parent community in the Link... but with linden lab working to kill off the mainlands then it would be none.

[Littlewing]

@ Eddi Haskell

"Japanese-speaking Second Lifers"

The ones left might be able to speak Japanese but they will not be from japan.

hundreds of Japanese communities are shutting down and moving out as per a huge meeting in January they had.
++
Same as it ever was the entire Arab community is gone,Russian/E.Europeans embargoed by U.S Government sanctions.
When they closed the exchanges overnight would not let thousands of Latin residents to spend money so Brazil & South America gone.
++
I will say this..i hold these words true & self evident that Second Life will not die from Linden Lab roadmaps or Project Sansar but from a lack of diversity in all the communities in the next few years.

[Littlewing]

@Estelle Pienaar
++
Project Sansar to me will be a world were we are mostly alienated from each other and communities much more paranoid of each other.
++
Its designed to allow you to live all your deepest darkest fantasies with zero moral obligation and to help enrich any online gaming addiction you might have.
+
Its a new crack to smoke getting high & addicted from.

[Littlewing]

@Chantal

"Instead of learning HTML code on the web people sit back and watch youtube videos of cats on a skateboard."
++
Youtube is only weeks away from going pay-per-view
@ $10 a month membership..will youtube survive the the greed grab? that's the next question

[Chantal]

@Estelle Pienaar

While many people with the name Resident are normal friendly people many of them are tourists looking for cheap entertainment. The older generation of residents can be described more as residents who did invest and had a bigger connection with the platform compared to the tourists you have today. This is not about feeling superior it's just like that.

@Littlewing

Youtube will charge 10$ per month for ad free videos. The service remains as it is now.

[Chantal]

@Estelle Pienaar

While many people with the name Resident are normal friendly people many of them are tourists looking for cheap entertainment. The older generation of residents can be described more as residents who did invest and had a bigger connection with the platform compared to the tourists you have today. This is not about feeling superior it's just like that.

@Littlewing

Youtube will charge 10$ per month for ad free videos. The service remains as it is now.

[Littlewing]

@ Chantal

Sorry i must disagree.. it will not be such a passive change that everyone will shrug $10 dollars no big deal..' that's $120 dollars a year..

That's not the case as Youtube a few weeks back took a page out of the old linden playbook regarding in terms of service that basically took creators rights away & claimed ownership.
++
Already 15 channels i watch are gone due to the channel creator not wanting to get treated like a monkey.
++
Content will suffer as well as a decline in new channels..just like SL people are dmca others like mad to try to get the biggest piece of pie
++
I have been an active member of Second Life for over 3 days now. this entitles me to know everything about everything with a comment for everything regarding everything under penalty of perjury so help me someones else s god. -_-

[Jay Jay]

well I have a paper on the subject
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-F86z8zSK5AbWMzbVlvSlJvb00/edit

[namegoesrighthere]

New residents have no last names. The last names didn't foster so many groupings, tribes or cohorts. They meant very little to people, though maybe intended as a prompt to aid expression and force someone into taking on a permanent conversation peice.

"Did you choose Fermi due to your science background?"

"Oh, wasn't that the famous artist? Are all SL last names from famous people? I suspect they are anyway."

I am not sure anyone noticed they where of famous people. So, failed and people got to change their name as more frequently and forget account names.

Funny. The whole of SL is full of some thought out attempts to foster happenings and conversation, many used it but it didn't really build to much and then generations came about. Almost like a way of experimenting with the community, SL itself a huge study for a future Virtual World.

With Phillips recent chat on Gamasutra, some efforts to make a new world being evident they are more hands off on building a community FOR people we are seeing that, yes, there isn't really much of a huge SL community.

I think that when people speak of creative types, that is maybe the group he speaks to. Some will laugh, you are telling them they have talent and can build CG elsewhere but they actually do it as a job elsewhere and then came to SL lol. Not many famous ones, but I have seen a few that did work on games in some way and many more who are artists elsewhere first. But, he is pointing out something important in what he says. His experience tells of people who discovered a creative side here, and he feels as if they need to step out into the world at beyond the walled garden and maybe even bring a few people back with them. Not a bad idea, and as some see all others as their brothers and even your living room layout that you made yourself is essentially a creative effort than maybe share that elsewhere, if you are talented.

Just semantics I feel, people not thinking hard enough about where the other is coming from.

[irihapeti]

i just want to pick up on the thought (as a discussion point) that we are SLers in the sense that New Yorkers are New Yorkers. That while within New York there are many diverse groups and strains, when step out of New York then we are recognisable to ourselfs and those we meet in our journey as New Yorkers (or texans or spaniards or whichever)

from this the thinking can follow: Can take the person out of New York but cant take the New York out of the person

am not sure this is a always good thought in every which way

is a eventuality tho when we are just accepting of that and dont consider ourself/position in a new world

while we are shaped by our environment (meaning the SL environment) I think that when we migrate to new worlds/environments we need be self-examining of ourself in the new

basically if we are to succeed in the new worlds then is best to go bush (go native). Going native is pretty easy when there is already a large existing population in the new to us world, to go native with. Is more difficult when there isnt

+

is RL migratory history that shows us what can happen when the migrants dont go native. We bring the old and supplant the new of the new world with the old. The old things we are comfortable with

example

introducing rabbits, then introducing stoats to control the rabbits. Not seeing that the stoats are not only going to control the rabbits but will also decimate the native animals. Which we in our thoughts to be comfortable, dont see any value to us in those animals until the decimation has taken hold

other examples are cutting down native trees and replacing them with trees from our old homelands. etc

+

can wonder what do these RL examples things have to with a virtual world?

i think that it goes back to the thought: Can take the New Yorker out of New York but they will always be a New Yorker

basically being raised in New York doesnt have to define us for evermore

we can be from New York/SL (or wherever) and we will always remember, honour and treasure this bc is our heritage and history. Form/join a SL Remembrance Society even (same like we sometimes do as migrants in the RL), but the new world is not New York. Is not SL. Is its own place

and I think we do best when we just embrace the new worlds as they come, as they are, and as we find them. We adapt to them, instead of adapting them to ourself and our own ways. Meaning that I think is best to go bush. go native, if we are to prosper and not have the new world(s) chew us up and we are perished

[zz bottom]

Quoting:
hundreds of Japanese communities are shutting down and moving out as per a huge meeting in January they had.
++
Same as it ever was the entire Arab community is gone,Russian/E.Europeans embargoed by U.S Government sanctions.
When they closed the exchanges overnight would not let thousands of Latin residents to spend money so Brazil & South America gone.
Unquote.
Fearing this is true as new open sim grids are surging mainly for those communities.

[zz bottom]

Quoting:
hundreds of Japanese communities are shutting down and moving out as per a huge meeting in January they had.
++
Same as it ever was the entire Arab community is gone,Russian/E.Europeans embargoed by U.S Government sanctions.
When they closed the exchanges overnight would not let thousands of Latin residents to spend money so Brazil & South America gone.
Unquote.
Fearing this is true as new open sim grids are surging mainly for those communities.

[Littlebird]

@ zz bottom

Come on ZZ no one is going to buy into open sim again it's still in alpha after 8 yrs running around in circles
++
Lost its developers + sim on a stick no more updates..not even a windows launcher
++
Its perfect for you hobbyist that want to run your own servers,deal with showstopping bugs,and deal with developers who offer very little support with little up to the date documentation.
++

Right now you got the big head know it all's in open sim angry someone is trying to get 3rd party export permissions turned on for content

'How dare creators try to protect their content!!
'How dare creators try to add limits to what can be done with the creations they made!!
'How dare anyone try to add limits to what we the free communist thinking souls can do with other peoples things on the hypergrid!! how dare they!!!

[Lisa]

I think the overall impression is that Linden Lab sucks balls like there is no tomorrow and people want or are looking for another place because they are fed up with Linden Lab and their crap.

And Second Life as a whole is going to suffer from all this which is a shame. The platform is fine the company isn't and now that there is newer and better tech available and plenty of companies want to get in on the VR boom and invest in development the Second Life community will be presented with a whole range of options where to settle.

Either people will stay in Second Life or choose one of the many other viable alternatives.

[irihapeti]

Lisa wrote: "Either people will stay in Second Life or choose one of the many other viable alternatives"

or people will choose both

choosing boths, multiples of boths often, is what we do in our RL with all kinds of things with our leisure/discretionary time and money