Talk:Second Life/Archive 5

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tech info

The section "Recent improvements" has a bullet point "improved communication" which is pretty vague. Does that mean client-to-server or player-to-player communication? The previous unsigned comment was made by User:Kraw Night 04:25, October 31, 2006

heh. That's a good point :-D, even I don't know which communication related feature it's referring to :-D
Documenting the changelog history probably isn't the responsibility of the article, but a feature table might be- e.g. dates in a column in the table when the feature was added/removed/disabled
Signpostmarv 04:30, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I believe it means "object to object" communication via scripts. It may also mean that they have reduced the lag that results from having too many "listen" scripts in one area. Or any number of technical things that are completely transparent to the users.

Vandalism?

I noticed the article is protected from vandalism and so I go looking in the history to see what was vandalised. I can find no instances vandalism anywhere near the point that the article was protected. Are people just going around protecting pages without warrant? 24.254.141.93 22:42, 31 October 2006 (UTC)Lucy(Unregistered reader)

Typo?

It looks to me like the section that discusses currency and the exchange rates between L$ and US$ mistaken says, in the last line, that exchange rates over L$289 would result in a LOSS on investment. Shouldn't this read GAIN?

Suzobr 13:34, 1 November 2006 (UTC)Suzobr

Probably :-D The point of that blurb was to illustrate the levels of currency exchange at which users earning the L$500, L$400 and L$300 weekly stipends would have to sell their yearly balance in order to recoup their premium subscription.
It's quite probable I messed the maths/english up.
Signpostmarv 10:08, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
It all depends on which side of the exchange you're looking at. If the number of L$ to a unit of real world currency goes up, the value of the $L in relation to real world currency goes down. However, you get more L$ per real world currency in that instance. If the number of L$ goes down in relation to real world currency, you need to pay more real world currency to get the same amount of L$. Lastly, if the number of L$ goes down in relation to real world currency, you get more real world currency for your L$. The result is that if you're only concerned with buying L$, then you want the the number of L$ to real world currency to go up. If you're concerned with cashing out your L$ for real world currency, you want the ratio to go down. In short, it's basic economics. 24.254.141.93 22:46, 2 November 2006 (UTC)Lucy
I'm thinking that if/when the content of the article gets broken out into seperate articles, that a table be created showing the various tiers of Premium account Stipend (L$500, L$400, L$300, any lower future tiers added), the 3 price plans (monthly, quarterly, yearly), and the exchange rate required to break even and have a credit on your US$ account balance with Linden Lab so your premium account fee does not get debited from whatever payment method you have provided.
Signpostmarv 14:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Also, so as to avoid too many minor updates to the proposed main economy article- Economy of Second Life, that the table be done on a separate article, and included in the economy article with the {{ }} syntax.
This should allow the table to reflect the closing exchange rates without spamming up the history log of the main article.
Signpostmarv 14:43, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

1 million residents

Why do we need to know precisely when they hit it? I don't care if it was at 8AM or 9AM. Can't we just write the date or something? This is superficial. --Ysangkok 21:31, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Right now, it's important. It happened in recent history, people might be looking for that particular bit of information. I think it should be dropped in a month or two, though. Kalemika 14:17, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
It is the most accurate information provided by Linden Labs. There is no need to dilute it further.
Whether or not you care about the accuracy of the information is irrelevant, as an encyclopedic reference, the more finely grained the data, the better.
Signpostmarv 15:08, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm newly registered, so I can't make changes. The page is locked anyway (not sure why). I'd like to point out that "1 million residents" is misleading. There are one million accounts, as many people (such as myself) have more than one account, so strictly speaking it should say "1 million accounts". Seanfitz64 11:49, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
It is not misleading, it is the terminology used by the company to refer to both an account and an account holder. Resident (Second_Life)
Signpostmarv 14:30, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Definitions

What is a prim?

Prim, an abbreviation of Primitive- Basic shape used with the solid body modelling interface used to create objects in Second Life.
Signpostmarv 13:24, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Virtual reality communities category

I'm working to clear out the Category:Virtual reality communities of all MMOGs and MMORPGs. If this is an MMOG (which it is based on claims within the article), this does not need to also be in the virtual reality parent category. --- RockMFR 13:53, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

The basic interpretation of WP:DR does not mean re-do the questionable edit then make a talk page discussion, it means leave it be until consensus is reached.
You are making claims that the article claims to be a Massively Multiplayer Online Game. Please cite them here. If no citations are provided within a reasonable time (3 days- a week at most), your edit will be reverted, and it would be advisable not to re make your edit (WP:3RR), nor change it to stripping out the MMOG category until sufficient discussion from interested parties has taken place and a consensus has been reached whether or not (in the context of the wikipedia at least) Second Life is primiarily resides under Category:Virtual reality communities or Category:Massively multiplayer online games.
Signpostmarv 16:04, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
revert made.
Signpostmarv 07:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
see Talk:Second Life#Categorisation of Second Life
Signpostmarv 03:24, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Add a language

Add a catalan language on this site of Second Life in the wiki. Is ca:Second Life

This is done. | Mr. Darcy talk 17:51, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Economy section expansion request

I placed an {{expand-section}} tag on the economy question because it doesn't answer a major question: what is the nature of the economic activity in the game? In other words, how are people making real-life money in SL? I'm not requesting a how-to, but I think stating that there is an economy without descriptions of its nature is insufficient. | Mr. Darcy talk 22:57, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Adding Teen Grid Residents to the Second Life article.

See Talk:Resident (Second Life)#Teen Grid Residents.

Signpostmarv 14:49, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Categorisation of Second Life

As stated previously, Talk:Second Life#Virtual reality communities category, RockMFR was given fair warning to provide citations that the article claimed that Second Life was an MMOG.

Since the citations were not given, as per my statements in that thread, I am inviting all interesting parties to come to a consensus on the topic of is Second Life a Virtual reality community, an MMOG or "Other"'.

As a pre-emptive statement, this discusion is with regards to the wikipedia ONLY- this is not a philisophical discussion intended to be the be-all and end-all of genre definitions.

This will be a case of looking up the definition of a genre category, and applying your interpretation to your decision.

Signpostmarv 07:43, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I have no objection to marking this as a "virtual reality community," especially as its main competitors (ActiveWorlds and There) are both listed in the same category. | Mr. Darcy talk 14:26, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
One could argue that Second Life is no longer a community- due to it's size- and indeed, many have. But within the confines of the wikipedia, Second Life does not fit the definition of MMOG:
A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) is a type of computer game that enables hundreds or thousands of players to simultaneously interact in a game world they are connected to via the Internet. See also list of MMOGs.
  1. It is rather difficult for hundreds or thousands of players to simultaneously interact- with the exception of the group chat and conference system, at most only 100 users- 30 on average can interact on a per-region basis.
  2. Second Life is not a game, and therefore to refer to it as a game world is incorrect.
This category is for online communities in which users can walk around in 2D or 3D.
  1. Putting aside that this definition is rather, umm, "limited", the users can walk around in 3D.
  2. Smaller communities do exist within the size of the general population- generally focussing around a particular group, region or estate.
Since
  • Second Life does not fit the definition of an MMOG
  • It is a virtual world that enables the online interaction of many many sub-communities
  • The wikipedia does not have a category purely for the listing of Virtual Environments
it would be more accurate to say that Second Life belonged under the Category:Virtual reality communities
Signpostmarv 21:13, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
As the Game element in SL is much less exposed than the community element I would go with VRC. IvarSnaaijer 21:43, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Categories changed.
Signpostmarv 03:23, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

inuse- will be taking a bit longer

Thanks to the over-sensitive keys on this keyboard, I just lost all the edits I was making >_<

I'll be making a series of smaller updates per section, rather than attempting to do a monolithic update and risk losing the data again.

Grrr.

Signpostmarv 22:36, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

done converting references.
Signpostmarv 03:19, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:SIZE: Breaking sections out into their own articles

I'm going to start by running through each level-1 section, give it's filesize (as reported by Notepad++ divided by 1024 to get kilobytes then rounded to 1 decimal place), and my reasoning for why each section should/should not be given it's own article.

Although probably not in keeping with the style of discussion threads, I'm thinking it would be easier if responses relevant to each section were made directly underneath the section, as opposed to the bottom of the comment, purely because this topic is so extensive that it would make it hard to keep track of comment threads if they were all house at the bottom.

Signpostmarv 14:46, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

comment:
If there is no significant opposition (e.g. compelling arguments opposing one or more change), or other suggestions proposed for possible articles and article names by December 8 2006, I aim to have all migration work as described below completed by December 16, 2006.
I believe this to be sufficient time (two weeks) for any discussion regarding support, opposition and alternatives to the changes proposed below.
Signpostmarv 22:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Sections of main article

Second Life#Second Life as the Metaverse

  • Size: 0.9 kilobytes
  • Content: Directly relates to Second Life the platform.
  • Breakout ?: No. Too short, too relevant to the platform itself.
    • Comment - I can't see any way to breakout this sort of content. Metamagician3000 13:11, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Second Life#Pricing

  • Size: 3.6 kiloytes
  • Content: Directly relates to Second Life the service.
  • Breakout ?: No. Although of a fair size, it is too relevant to the service offered by Linden Lab. However, the overal size of the section could be reduced as I'll explain later.
Comment I agree that anything directly related to the service or product (such as pricing) should remain in this article, whereas items related to the SL metaverse are better breakout candidates. | Mr. Darcy talk 15:12, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I know it'll be a pain, but for the sake of completeness (e.g. so the re-arrangement of articles and content can't later be contended), could you add your opinion to each point please ?
Signpostmarv 15:28, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Second Life#Residents

Second Life#Recent improvements

  • Size: 0.6 kilobytes
  • Content: Directly relates to Second Life the client/server software
  • Breakout ?: No. Too short, too relevant. However, it is too short. Will explain other ideas later.

Second Life#Open standards

  • Size: 3.1 kilobytes
  • Content: Relates to the technology the client and server are currently/will be built upon.
  • Breakout ?: No. Too relevant to the technology Second Life runs on.

Second Life#Economy

  • Size: 2.9 kilobytes
  • Content: Relates to the emergent behaviours of the users of the platform, and a rather complex topic.
  • Breakout ?: Yes. As Mr. Darcy noted, this section is sorely in need of expansion, and the complexity of the topic likely deems it to have it's own article. As suggested previously, I'm thinking this section be moved to Economy of Second Life, and marked with the {{Econ-stub}}
  • Action Taken: Moved to Economy of Second Life

Second Life#Land sales system

Second Life#Land Ownership should probably get moved to Real estate (Second Life) along with Second Life#Land sales system.
Signpostmarv 16:00, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Second Life#Teen Second Life

  • Size: 3.9 kilobytes
  • Content: Relates to the slightly modified, duplicate service aimed at teenagers
  • Breakout ?: Yes. Reduce to summary, then breakout to Teen Second Life. Also, I suggest following the WP:WSS/P guidelines to propose {{SecondLife-stub}} so that Teen Second Life could be marked more appropriately than using {{Cvg-stub}}.
    • Action taken - I've broken out this material into a Teen Second Life article and cut this article back accordingly. Metamagician3000 04:58, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Second Life#Businesses and Organizations in Second Life

Second Life#Live Music

  • Size: 1.5 kilobytes
  • Content: Relates to the emergent behaviours of the users of the platform, and the technology of the client that allows the behaviour to occur.
  • Breakout ?: Possibly. Summarise and move to Resident (Second Life) or Live music (Second Life) marked with {{music-stub}}. An alternative will be discussed later.
If Live music (Second Life) is created, a #REDIRECT should be created in Live Music (Second Life), and either a disambiguation page for Live music or edit to Concert should be made.
I'm leaning towards disambiguation page, because live music does not necessarily mean a concert performance.
Signpostmarv 15:05, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Second Life#Issues and criticisms

  • Size: 0.9 kilobytes
  • Content: Relates to issues surrounding the platform, service and emergent behaviours of the users of the platform.
  • Breakout ?: No. The reverse in fact. This will be discussed later.

Second Life#Trivia

  • Size: 1.1 kilobytes
  • Content: Relates to the platform, service and behaviours.
  • Breakout ?: No. Too small- however, any trivia relating to a broken out section should be moved to the appropriate article.

Second_Life#Competitors

  • Size: 0.2 kilobytes
  • Content: Relates to the platform.
  • Breakout ?: No. Too relevant.

Second Life#Screenshots

  • Size: 0.7 kilobytes
  • Content: Relates to the service and emergent behaviours of the users and external entities.
  • Breakout ?: Sort of. Will be discussed later.
  • Action - I've included a basic shot of an avatar. This will at least convey an idea of the degree of realism we're talking about. Maybe some shots depicting activities or such things as editing appearance or editing objects would be useful. Metamagician3000 14:19, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Re-organisation of existing or proposed articles

As previously discussed, the breaking out of Second Life issues and criticisms was an unintentional POV fork.

Here I will propose where the content of the article be reorganised in relation to the above discussion on breaking out of articles, although since the article is already quite categorised, it will be a short one.

Second Life issues and criticisms#Economy

Since this relates to the Economy of Second Life, and an article has been proposed for this topic, it makes sense to move this section to Economy of Second Life.

Second Life issues and criticisms#Land

As with Economy, it makes sense for this section to Real estate (Second Life).

Second Life issues and criticisms#Content

As with Economy and Land, these topics relate to a specific aspect of Second Life. Where to move it will be discussed later.

Second Life issues and criticisms#Unverified users

Since this relates directly to the service offered by Linden Lab, this should be brought back into the main article.

Second Life issues and criticisms#Favoritism

Not entirely sure how to describe why, but this section should probably moved back into the main article, or Resident (Second Life).

Second Life issues and criticisms#Linden Lab lawsuit

Since this relates to legal action against Linden Lab, this should be moved to Linden Lab.

Second Life issues and criticisms#Mac OS X client

Since this relates directly to a version of the Second Life client, this should be moved back into the main article.

Second Life issues and criticisms#Customer Security

Since this relates directly to the service offered by Linden Lab, this should be moved back into the main article. However, because it also relates to the company themselves, it also holds a small amount of weight to be moved into Linden Lab, but I'm leaning towards Second Life.

Resident (Second Life)

As there are two grids- the Main Grid and the Teen Grid, each with their own separate population, there may be a need in the future to have Teen Grid Residents listed in their own article- Resident (Teen Second Life), although currently I do not believe it warrants breaking out- however, if it does, it would need to use the {{SecondLife-stub}} I mentioned earlier.

Businesses and Organizations in Second Life

As with Resident (Second Life), there is a minor need for a clarification of which grid each entity exists upon, and as with Resident (Teen Second Life), Businesses and Organizations in Teen Second Life would need to be marked with {{SecondLife-stub}}. For now though, it should probably be sufficient to setup a #REDIRECT to Businesses and Organizations in Second Life#Teen Second Life- if only just for Global Kids to be listed correctly (since, as far as I am aware, they are not active on the Main Grid).

Further Ideas as mentioned earlier

Economy of Second Life

Recent Improvements

As I mentioned earlier, this section is too short. A summary of the archived release notes found on the SL History Wiki[1] should replace this section, and the section should then be retitled appropriately- something along the lines of Development of the Second Life platform with sub-sections for Client and Server.

User-generated content (Second Life)

SL-centric user-generated content not created in Second Life

If Podcasting and Journalism do not belong in User-generated content (Second Life), it might be an idea to categorise Businesses and Organizations in Second Life by type rather than alphabetically alone.

comment- Journalism (Second Life) is another suggestion.
Signpostmarv 07:54, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Second Life is not a game

Linden Labs does not refer to it as a game on its website and I think this page does a good job at not refering to it as a game, but rather as a virtual reality. The previous unsigned comment was made 10:55, November 26, 2006 by Cwlq

Only the uninformed, the ignorant and the closed-minded refer to it as a game. Which more often than not tends to be game journalists, and people who've never used SL before. I tend to use the following argument:
  1. SL is not a game because it has no goals other than those you make yourself
  2. "Real Life" has the same situation- it has no goals other than those you make yourself, and is not considered by most (yes I know that's a weasel word) to be a game
  3. Since most people do not refer to Real Life as a game (at least when taking it seriously), you cannot refer to SL as a game
Thanks for catching those game references in the article Cwlq, I wasn't looking for them when I was running the conversion.
Signpostmarv 14:29, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
It does fit the Wikipedia definition for game though. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.104.157.222 (talk) 00:02, 22 December 2006 (UTC).
Actually, within the quoted definitions given by Crawford, it would count as a toy, not a game. I don't see any specific definitions on that page under which SL could properly be classified as a game. It hasn't been written in, but I suspect "computer toy" would be the most precise classification that could be made under the naming conventions used there. Rhialto 03:35, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually, believe it or not, it is a game. Linden Labs and fans of such can make speeches all they want about the nature of Second Life, but it is in fact a game. Most of the activities revolve around fun or the enjoyment of others. Like HagermonBot explained it does not only the wikipedia definition for a game, but also lexicographically. I would like to use - Second Life is a Virtual World game set in an environment to imitate the socio-economic model of real life.
As with many games there are end users who take the game more seriously than others. In other games, players play to make money, for pure fun, for role-playing experience, and any number of reasons.
I would like to say the elitism in the above comments is pretty bad (I have read the SL forums, played SL, and have enjoyed it somewhat). And that should be an indication that perhaps the "Second Life is NOT a game" motif is too POV-oriented for this article. I would suggest a more open-ended article - keep the Second Life as a "Virtual World Game", keep the game box, and add to the "Issues and Criticism" section the notion that Linden Labs is trying to create more than a game. In fact, I'm going to change the article now to reflect that. --75.60.187.165 15:20, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and I've duly taken out your changes which are POV and contrary to consensus. Metamagician3000 23:53, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

So a consensus majority rules even though it is wrong and goes against the very definition of a word? I think not. Second Life is a game until successfully proven otherwise. --75.60.187.165
That is not for you to decide. File a request for comment if you think the rest of us are wrong, or else persuade us. Fact is, it is not described as a game and is not written about as a game by sources such as newspapers. It is an online virtual world which can be used for many purposes. Your claim that it is a game, which no one else is agreeing to yet, seems to be based on your own original research and viewpoint. Metamagician3000 11:08, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
  1. The result of the discussion in Talk:Second Life#Categorisation of Second Life was that SL does not meet the definition of an MMOG.
  2. Linden Lab (Babbage and Cory Linden) explicitly state that Second Life is a platform, not a game in their presentation at Lang.NET 2006.[5]
    1. Their argument is that IDEs and Operating Systems are not games, but games can be made with them and are made to run on them.
    2. Second Life is not a game, but games can be made on them- Tringo is a prime example of this.
    3. Since LSL2 has XML-RPC & HTTP communications support, you could conceivably write a game engine in LSL2, and play it on the web (and vice-versa, writing an engine in PHP/Perl/C, sticking it on the web and playing it in SL), or on a separate executable. If you really wanted to.
Signpostmarv 12:36, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I appreciate the consideration undertaken these past few weeks. It is however very confusing when Virtual World and even SL related articles make use of "game" when describing SecondLife. That fit with the definition that I have always thought of Second Life after playing with it. Adding more to the confusion is that game is a loose definition, even more so on wikipedia, and many of SL and other games (or game-like activities) match those definitions.
I look at the majority of Second Life end users as those participating in SL for entertainment purposes. SL acts as a toy, however one should be careful not to criticize "toys" as amateur, unprofessional, or outside the realm of business. Quite the contrary toys and professional games make up much of entertainment around the World. Although it's not quite a toy either. Probably it is best considered a social game wherein the dynamic of social interaction can be played by users to simulate a world much like our own (with limitations).
Please also note that the majority of what was just mentioned above have no relation to "games". LSL is a scripting language and games also may contain languages for example. The only meat of the argument boils down to what the creators of SL signify in their own presentation/research.
In the end I'd like to thank you for consideration, but still must insist that there is much controversy and confusion by not remaining consistent in using "game" with Second Life. --75.49.17.189 23:37, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
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