October 10, 2007 -
So there wasn't a naked avatar on hand to greet Newt Gingrich during his Second Life appearance? More's the pity...
When GamePolitics covered Newt's foray into the metaverse a couple of weeks back, we relied in part on a story from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution which said:
Gingrich’s figure was immediately approached by a lovely young digital lady, who arrived moments before her clothes did
But apparently Newt had hired some virtual bouncers.
This morning, GP's inbox contained an e-mail from "Stormy" of the Metaverse Mod Squad, a company which describes itself as providing "Virtual World, message board, and chat room moderating services to corporations with online communities."
Stormy maintains there was no naked female avatar:
Metaverse Mod Squad, provided moderation and security services for the [Newt] event... Contrary to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution report cited by you, there was no censorship of digital protesters and the Speaker was never approached by a lovely naked avatar. In fact, protesters were permitted to shout their colorful comments for all to hear, and the scantily clad lady - while lovely - was fully dressed nearly an hour before the event.
GP: We're glad to make the correction about the naked - or not - avatar. However, MMM's contention that there was no censorship of protesters is a matter of perspective. In their own press release the group cites warning a protester to limit the size of a sign. Also, protesters were apparently herded into their own "special" area.
Comments
--Stormy Westmoreland, Communications Director, Metaverse Mod Squad
/b
What the fuck is wrong with these people? ITS A GAME! Its not like Newt Gingrich's avatar is gonna get assassinated.
You ever notice something though - that those in power start to get immensely paranoid as they gain more power?
It's pretty much a 'proven' fact, although I've never seen a study on it. But I'd ask people to name just one 'person of power' who's not ultra paranoid.
Is it possibly a mental illness? Meaning - if that's the case, they are no longer fit to serve, correct?
They kinda look like skin colored silly putty for a second or two.
'Last time I checked, this entire country was a Free Speech Zone.'
October 10th, 2007 at 9:04 am
Virtual Bouncers?
What the fuck is wrong with these people? ITS A GAME! Its not like Newt Gingrich’s avatar is gonna get assassinated. "
No, but I can certainly see why he would not want to be assaulted by flying penises.
http://gamepolitics.com/2006/12/21/second-life-event-interrupted-by-flyi...
My friend In Kenzo was there as sort of an unwilling protester. She relates on my blog that she felt that there was no effort to really dialogue with those who had differing views, which led to all the "shouting" that resulted from the protest side. Read her comments and the response from the sim hosts here:
http://www.rikomatic.com/blog/2007/09/is-the-new-newt.html
Off topic, but I was just thinking...
Your imagination is actually a reality, in fact, even on a fast connection that happens. I think it's like this, it loads your avatar's base, then layers on your addons.
I have to wonder - what, exactly, does a "virtual bouncer" do? If they're not employees of the game company, they have very limited (IE, close to none) ability to prevent disruptions. What power or authority do they have to be able to call themselves bouncers? How do they prevent disruptions?
So the "virtual bouncers" were probably charged with ensuring that the visitors did not run any offensive or disruptive scripts.
SL is not a standard MMOG, where you play by there rules. Really it could be argued that there are no rules there. And no game. It's more like an 3d chat area for programmers to create their own scripts / programs.
(Note: I do not use SL myself, so this is just what I understand about it. If any little bit is incorrect, I'm sure SL's furry deziens will be by soon to point it out. Loudly.)
Actually, you're pretty much right. A land owner can decide what a person can do where on their land.
Also,while it may not be a game per say, there are battle areas where people design their own games. Life bars, guns that fire projectiles, funs tuff.
1. Thanks for printing the correction. Even mainstream media get caught up in passing off more lurid versions of the truth, which everyone picks up and runs with. There was enough time between when the avatar in the bikini put on her new outfit and the speaker showed up that I don't think lag was at play. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution probably picked up the mistake from CNN's report that used black bars over the bikini to imply that the avatar was nude, cutting it in with pictures of Gingrich at the podium (when in fact, the shot of the avatar clearly shows that Gingrich wasn't there yet).
2. People didn't show up to play a game, they showed up to participate in a workshop styled after and concurrent with a real world event. There were attendees from multiple political parties, and it was interactive in that Gingrich took a long set of questions from the attendees and answered every one of them. This could have been easily disrupted in an environment like Second Life without some sort of monitoring and assistance such as that provided by the Metaverse Mod Squad.
3. The protesters were in a large area directly behind the seating for the workshop. They were going to be holding signs, and we felt that having an area where they could rezz them without blocking the view from the seats made sense for everyone. At least one had the sense to make a sign large enough to be scene from the cameras and screenshots. There was one point where one of the signs was growing large enough to eclipse the virtual sun, and its creator was asked to hold off on doing that. It was still big enough to be seen by cameras and by the speaker.
4. Gingrich answered every question that was IMmed to the moderator. None of the questions came from the protesters. That probably makes it easier for them to claim they were left out of the dialog. Any questions from the protesters would have been put immediately into the queue and answered by the speaker. One of my favorite pieces of graffiti is "SHOUT SLOGANS! IGNORE COMPLEXITY!". There were plenty of slogans shouted, but I would have appreciated at least one question or comment from the protesters.
5. SL Capitol Hill is not one of the newer regions hosted on a faster computer, and while most events there use both of its 2 simulators, this one was held on just one of the 2 sims so that the speaker could appear on the steps. This limited the total number of attendees that could be there, and that attendance then needed to be allocated among the organizers, the Capitol staff, the Mod Squad, the workshop attendees, other interested avatars, and the protesters. When we met with the protesters before the event, we talked about this reality and estimated that about 10% of the allocation would go to them. The event was "closed" in that you needed to be on an access list, but "open" in that anyone who asked for an invitation before the event started (as well as some, including protesters) were added after the event. I think there may have been 1 or 2 avatar requests that may have fallen through the cracks after the event started.
6. Why does this kind of event make sense? Rather than having 50 isolated people watching an event on video and chatting in a chat room, the virtual world makes people that they've actually been some "where" together at the same time and the same place. It isn't a mass venue - yet - though these events do get amplified via YouTube, etc.