Local Government Study Group - Recently Updated Pages

Transcript of Meeting May 6, 2007

davidorban — Sun, 13 May 2007 01:35:32 CDT

Davidorban Agnon: I would like to welcome the Local Government Study Group on Vulcano!
Davidorban Agnon: We are now starting the meeting
Davidorban Agnon: Please everybody take your seats (or not)
Davidorban Agnon: except the last rows as those need loudspeakers which we are not using today
Davidorban Agnon: As Ashcroft, founder of LGSG
Davidorban Agnon: asked if it was possible to host the meeting of the group here
Davidorban Agnon: I immediately and gladly said yes, as Vulcano
Davidorban Agnon: is itself an experiment in community building,
Davidorban Agnon: , and experimentation.
Davidorban Agnon: The future of online worlds will depend on their
Davidorban Agnon: ability to show unique value to those inhabiting
Davidorban Agnon: them, and the work of groups like LGSG is very
Davidorban Agnon: important in shaping the evolutionary paths that
Davidorban Agnon: are going to be taken.
Davidorban Agnon: Thank you again for coming here!
Davidorban Agnon: Ashcroft, you have the floor. :)
Ashcroft Burnham: Thank you very much, David :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Before we start the substantive part of the meeting...
Ashcroft Burnham: ...I need to get off this box, hold on a moment.
Ashcroft Burnham: That's better.
Ashcroft Burnham: As I was saying...
Ashcroft Burnham: ...before we start the substantive part of this meeting...
Ashcroft Burnham: ...I'd like to extend my thanks to Davidorban Aragon for very kindly hosting this meeting of the Local Government Study Group in his excellent auditorium here on Volcano.
Ashcroft Burnham: A big round of applause, everybody, for Davidorban :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: :-D
Ashcroft Burnham: :-D
Ashcroft Burnham: :-D
Ashcroft Burnham: :-D
Ashcroft Burnham: :-D
Ashcroft Burnham: :-D
Ashcroft Burnham: :-D
Davidorban Agnon: Thanks! :) VUlcano welcomes you all
Ashcroft Burnham: (It's :-D everybody...)
Dreamingen Writer: /applause
Ashcroft Burnham: "/clap"
Mondrian Lykin: /clap
Ashcroft Burnham: Anyway, thank you all very much for coming this Mayday bank holiday week-end...
Ashcroft Burnham: ...I hope that I'm not disturbing too many of your holiday plans :-)
Soul4sale Ferraris: (we don't get one of those in the States :-(
Ashcroft Burnham: To-day, we're discussing the second draft tools proposals for the Local Government Study Group.
Mondrian Lykin puts down the surf board
Dreamingen Writer: re you from the states?
Ashcroft Burnham: A brief reminder for those who aren't familliar, the Local Government Study Group is a group to make proposals for governance tools to be implemented in SecondLife, and try to persuade Linden Lab to implement them.
Astrophysicist McCallister: Sorry, still rezzin
Ashcroft Burnham: We have so far produiced two drafts of the tools proposals, and I'm hoping that we'll make a third sometime soon.
Ashcroft Burnham: At the last meeting, we were very lucky to be joined by Robin Linden, who seemed interested in our project.
Ashcroft Burnham: The format of the discussion to-day is that we'll go through the comments on the tools proposals that people have sent in in advance, then go onto any further comments that anybody here has.
Ashcroft Burnham: Before we do that, though, can everybody touch the flipchart to get an agenda, the tools proposals, and the various comments? :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: I'll give you all a minute or so to do that...
Ashcroft Burnham: BRB
Davidorban Agnon: (There have been last minute changes
Davidorban Agnon: even if you had a previous version, please take it again)
Ashcroft Burnham: Right, I hope that you all have the paperwork that you need now :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: We'll now move onto the first set of comments by Pelanor Eldrich.
Davidorban Agnon: Thank you Ashcroft
Davidorban Agnon: I see that Pelanor has not been able to attend in person this evening
Ashcroft Burnham: Unfortunately, Pelanor can't be with us to-day, but he has left his tools ideas for us to discuss :-)
Davidorban Agnon: Is there somebody that would like to start commenting the suggestions?
Ashcroft Burnham: I'll hand you back over to Davidorban, who will chair the discussion on Pelanor's ideas. I'll say a few words on my thoughts on the matter in a moment.
Ashcroft Burnham: Over to you, Davidorban :-)
Davidorban Agnon: Ok
Davidorban Agnon: Thanks Ash for the introduction
Davidorban Agnon: Please all take a reading of Pelanor's
Davidorban Agnon: notes if you haven't already done so
Davidorban Agnon: as you see they deal with the trustworthiness
Davidorban Agnon: of the transaction datasets and digitally signed transactions for vcommerce in SL
Davidorban Agnon: If you would like to start commenting, please stand up, and I will call you by name on stage
Davidorban Agnon: Ash, you and I are never shy
Ashcroft Burnham: For the third draft of the LGSG tools proposals, I plan to split the tools into different sections, with Pelanor's suggestions in the "ancillary" section :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: There may be some refinements in detail needed (I'm not fully sure exactly what no. 2 means), but the overall idea, I think is good, and so, it seems, does everyone else :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: And welcome back Davidorban :-)
Mondrian Lykin: if I might, I think they're a little more than ancillary, in many senses they're necessary
Davidorban Agnon: thanks
Davidorban Agnon: :)
Davidorban Agnon: I haven't had the chance to hear
Ashcroft Burnham: Davidorban will now introduce the next commentor's comments, and then Kirsty herself, who is here, can say some words about them, too :-)
Davidorban Agnon: the comments unfortunately
Davidorban Agnon: but Ash,
Davidorban Agnon: if you don't mind
Davidorban Agnon: I would like to say two words
Davidorban Agnon: is that ok?
Davidorban Agnon: about Pelanor's ideas
Ashcroft Burnham: Ahh, about Pelanor Eldrich's tools? Yes, go ahead :-)
Davidorban Agnon: thanks
Davidorban Agnon: The issue of dependable datasets is very important of course
Davidorban Agnon: and as long as we are talking about a single grid
Davidorban Agnon: run all by LL it ties into the entire issue of LL being trustworthy itself or not
Davidorban Agnon: there have been issues of sever inventory loss
Davidorban Agnon: where the standard reply from LL of reading the TOS
Davidorban Agnon: since all residents are here at their own risk
Davidorban Agnon: didn't feel very enlightened
Davidorban Agnon: that is why being able to acccess the datasets
Davidorban Agnon: is also important in my opinion
Davidorban Agnon: but LL won't accept the liability going with it
Davidorban Agnon: since they do not have the capacity of running a lossless grid
Davidorban Agnon: and they would not be able to recover from all mistakes
Davidorban Agnon: that is why it is more important to document accurately
Davidorban Agnon: those elements
Davidorban Agnon: where the documentation can be the basis of a recovery
Davidorban Agnon: based on a good faith action by the part of a vendor
Davidorban Agnon: towards a customers
Davidorban Agnon: lost purchase
Davidorban Agnon: .
Davidorban Agnon: I hope this makes at least a little sense with respect to the previous comments!
Davidorban Agnon: :)
Ashcroft Burnham: Thank you Davidorban :-)
Davidorban Agnon: would you like to come on stage
Davidorban Agnon: Now Kristy,
Davidorban Agnon: and illustrate your proposals
Davidorban Agnon: ?
Davidorban Agnon: Thanks!
Davidorban Agnon: Please welcome Kristy!
Davidorban Agnon: :D
Ashcroft Burnham: :-D
Ashcroft Burnham: :-D
Ashcroft Burnham: :-D
Kristy Laval: so. i'd like to comments on the two of my documents
Kristy Laval: starting with the one that you received earlier
Kristy Laval: the second was only sent to ash late today. so my appologies if you have not read it (it is in the flipchart anyway, please grab it)
Kristy Laval: so.
Kristy Laval: not entering in to every of my notes. i thing an important topic in the second roposal is the ability to have several level of governements
Kristy Laval: + we should also think of homeless residents
Kristy Laval: as this is majort difference between sl/rl
Kristy Laval: here in sl, being homeless is not as a probleme as in rl. but being homless should not mean that sl residents have no governement to protect them
Kristy Laval: therefore, that is one of my points. the governance tools should also take into account those homeless sl residents
Kristy Laval: another comment on the second draft is that the governement should not be put in place of changing witjout notice the tax level that it wants to collect
Kristy Laval: as for the rest of my comments on the not. i welcome your questions but i waont enter here into details of each
Kristy Laval: as for my second paper
Davidorban Agnon: Thank you Kristy!
Ashcroft Burnham: :-D
Davidorban Agnon: Please go ahead with your other comments
Davidorban Agnon: on the second paper
Ashcroft Burnham: Can we have comments on the first before we move to the second? There's a lot to take in on the first :-
Ashcroft Burnham: :-)
Davidorban Agnon: Ye Ash
Davidorban Agnon: let's do it like this
Davidorban Agnon: do you agree Kristy?
Kristy Laval: this paper describes my view on tools that should be built using what we currently have at hand in SL
Kristy Laval: ok. go on
Kristy Laval listens
Davidorban Agnon: Let's take comments and questions now on your first set
Davidorban Agnon: So let's do it differently now
Davidorban Agnon: no need to stand up
Davidorban Agnon: just ask your question
Davidorban Agnon: or say your comment in the public chat line
Davidorban Agnon: :)
Mondrian Lykin: may I?
Davidorban Agnon: Please!
Mondrian Lykin: ok
Mondrian Lykin: I agree on the need of establishing which kind of government is one linked to, especially when it comes to disputes
Mondrian Lykin: but on the other hand, there willl always be an amount of people who are not linked to any government because as we said, this is all on a volountary basis
Mondrian Lykin: so I think we should find another way to "link" people to government, if they don't chose one themselves
Mondrian Lykin: so yes, people can chose gov't even if not linked by owning land in a specific region
Mondrian Lykin: but if they don't, how would we solve this? I am adding on Kristy's 1st point
Ashcroft Burnham: May I say a word about landless residents, government, citizens, non-citizens, and powers? :-)
Mondrian Lykin: please :P
Davidorban Agnon: Yes, Ash
Davidorban Agnon: Thanks for your comments Mondrian
Mondrian Lykin: :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Kirsty raises an important point; that is that governments, in order to be useful, have to be able to deal with all Sl residents, not just those who own land.
Ashcroft Burnham: There are two sorts of ways in which a government can deal with that under the tools that I propose.
Ashcroft Burnham: Firstly, there is the notion of the liquid escrow.
Ashcroft Burnham: Under that model, a person could become a citizen of a government by depositing with that government a sum of money in Linden dollars as an escrow, which the government could forfeit as an enforcement measure.
Ashcroft Burnham: However, to make the forfieture of the sum a meaningful penalty, the person in question should be able to *use* the deposited amount whilst it is deposited.
Ashcroft Burnham: I won't go into all the technicalities, but that actually works out as the exact functional equivalent of just giving the government the power to take away L$x (where x is the amount of the escrow, which can be configured) at its discretion.
Ashcroft Burnham: That is an alternative to the land escrow system, whereby a person who owns land can become a citizen of a government by putting her or his land under the control of a government, which could, in certain configurations of government, ultimately forfiet that land.
Ashcroft Burnham: Those two forms of escrow forfieture are examples of enforcement against citizens.
Ashcroft Burnham: However, governments also need to have some (albeit more limited) enforcement powers against non-citizens: after all, real-world governments can enforce their laws against foreigners as well as natives :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Two possibilities arise.
Ashcroft Burnham: Firstly, a citizen of government X could be sanctioned by government X for breaking a law/rule/norm of government Y, in pursuance of an agreement between government X and Y that they will enforce each others' norms.
Ashcroft Burnham: So, the escrow forfieture enforcement powers could be used against non-citizens in those circumstnaces.
Ashcroft Burnham: For people who are not citizens of *any* government, or any government with an agreement, there is the simple remedy of banishment, which is an enforcement measure against all persons :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Banishment can be made more effective by being reciprocated through multiple governments.
Ashcroft Burnham: That's how the tools as designed deal with the landless and non-citizens :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: And I think that it's time for some other people's comments now... :-)
Davidorban Agnon: Thank Ash
Ashcroft Burnham: BRB
Davidorban Agnon: Other comments from the audience?
Davidorban Agnon: Just a little one from me..
Davidorban Agnon: it is interesting to note how technical the issues that Ash raises are
Davidorban Agnon: and that it will be very important to find the language
Davidorban Agnon: that talks to all residents
Mondrian Lykin: what do you mean by "language"?
Davidorban Agnon: including those 99% and more who don't participate actively in the government
Davidorban Agnon: Kristy, please
Davidorban Agnon: do you want to reply to Ash as well?
Kristy Laval: ash. thank you for clarifying
Kristy Laval: and indeed escrow is probably the good way to make enforcement to non-land owners
Kristy Laval: my was was also (if not mainly) that gov are not only ment to make enforcement against citizens,
Kristy Laval: but should also defend them when it is needed
Kristy Laval: lets take an obvious example
Davidorban Agnon: :)
Kristy Laval: say all governements are elected and defent land owners
Kristy Laval: there might have a bias to favour land owners overs non-land owners
Kristy Laval: if non-land owner do not have the opportunity to pick a governament to defend them. there will be no gov X sttling woth gov Y in cases
Kristy Laval: a land-owner is inconflict with a non-land owner.
Kristy Laval: thus, my coment that the tools to be created should be able to take care of those residents
Davidorban Agnon: Thanks for this reply
Bru Yang: ehm.... question
Davidorban Agnon: Please Bru!
Bru Yang: I'm sorry if it sounds quite provocative but...
Davidorban Agnon: :)
Davidorban Agnon: No problem
Bru Yang: 1) Why would I want to be part of a government?
Davidorban Agnon: Ash, Kristy?
Davidorban Agnon: Who wants to take that?
Ashcroft Burnham: Ahh, Bru, that sort of issue was dealt with comprehensively at the last two meetings :-) This is a meeting to discuss the details of the tools...
Davidorban Agnon: (I have my own views too)
Bru Yang: oh sorry
Davidorban Agnon: Do you mind to give Bru just a short answer?
Davidorban Agnon: there's got to be one
Bru Yang: ok, I'll look for minutes of the previous
Mondrian Lykin: Bru: http://lgsg.wetpaint.com
Ashcroft Burnham: (See http://lgsg.wetpaint.com for more information on the last two meetings, including transcripts. Also have a look at "Benefits of governments in virutal worlds" linked on that page) :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: (The short answer is to refer to that document :-) )
Davidorban Agnon: (not valid)
Bru Yang: fabulous: just in case it hasn't been touched as a topic previously....
Ashcroft Burnham: :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: What's not valid, Davidorban - the link?
Davidorban Agnon: Bru, you have a question no 2 as well=
Bru Yang: 2) What if I'm a homeless / independent (not part of any government) ? I shouldn't be disadvataged
Davidorban Agnon: ?
Davidorban Agnon: Ash, your short answer :)
Ashcroft Burnham: (Sorry everyone: lag. Oops...
Ashcroft Burnham: )
Ashcroft Burnham: There's a sense in which those two questions conflict, Bru :-)
Davidorban Agnon: Ash, Kristy? Do you want to answer Bru's second question?
Ashcroft Burnham: On the one hand, you're asking, "what are the advantages of bieng in a governent?"; and on the other, you're asking, "why should there be disadvantages of not being in a government?" :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: I think that Kirsty wants to say something on this topic, too :-)
Bru Yang: :)
Ashcroft Burnham: So, I'll sit down, lag allowing...
Kristy Laval: i think people should be free
Kristy Laval: actually, they are quite free in sl
Kristy Laval: and if anyone would not think any kind of gov could help him in SL. they should not be forced to pick one
Kristy Laval: so if people are indeed disadvantaged by having no gov. that would be their choice
Kristy Laval: so, to me that is not a problem. nobody can help people against their will.
Davidorban Agnon: Bru
Ashcroft Burnham: Well said :-)
Davidorban Agnon: I think that it is a simple question of definition
Dreamingen Writer: May I ask a question?
Bru Yang: right, I'm just worried if we're going to propose tools that are going to create a divide among people who are part of an institution and people who want to stay out of it
Davidorban Agnon: the entity that helps residents is what we call government
Davidorban Agnon: Yes Bru
Davidorban Agnon: you are right
Davidorban Agnon: so much so that previous
Davidorban Agnon: meetings of LGSG
Davidorban Agnon: were disrupted
Davidorban Agnon: by anarchists who
Davidorban Agnon: don't even want to let people think about these
Davidorban Agnon: developments
Bru Yang: I see
Davidorban Agnon: !
Ashcroft Burnham: (We have proper security now :-) )
Davidorban Agnon: (so much for the freedom of others!)
Davidorban Agnon: :)
Davidorban Agnon: But just a little provocative note
Davidorban Agnon: from my own view
Davidorban Agnon: which is almost always evolutionary
Davidorban Agnon: I want multiple governments to compete
Davidorban Agnon: to be able and 'defend' my interests
Davidorban Agnon: and I want to be able and play them off against each other
Davidorban Agnon: that is the evolutionary pressure
Davidorban Agnon: whcih SL has as an advantage against RL
Davidorban Agnon: we have a totally frictionless base
Davidorban Agnon: for citizenship
Davidorban Agnon: with potentially zero lock in.
Davidorban Agnon: We have one last question
Davidorban Agnon: and then we will go to the second paper by Kristy
Davidorban Agnon: Dream
Davidorban Agnon: you wanted to ask something
Dreamingen Writer: I wanted to know if there is a process for forgiveness?
Davidorban Agnon: Ash?
Dreamingen Writer: I do not want to get off topic
Ashcroft Burnham: I shan't stand up, since it'll take me five minutes to sit down again with the lag :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: However, to answer Dream's question, the tools are designed to be as flexible as possible.
Dreamingen Writer: thank you
Ashcroft Burnham: If a particular government decided to build forgiveness into its structures and norms, it would be perfectly free to do so :-)
Theater Chair: llStopAnimation: Script trying to stop animations but agent not found
Bru hairdo halo v2: All Go
Ashcroft Burnham: Have a look at the tools proopsals, Dream, and see for yourself how flexible that they are :-)
Davidorban Agnon: Kristy
Kristy Laval: yes
Davidorban Agnon: please go ahead with your second paper
Kristy Laval: thanks david
Kristy Laval: my second paper is not much about what tool we need to be put in place by linden, but is rather
Kristy Laval: about what we should do in the mean time
Kristy Laval: as slightly off-topic (but not much), i will try to be brief
Kristy Laval: one tool that is at the moment thought of in order to provide some power to decision taken is a grid wide ban list
Kristy Laval: which is something minimalist but which has theh advantage of being somehow feasible without LL
Kristy Laval: my point of view, is rather close to david's when he says gov needs to compete inSL
Kristy Laval: in order to take "market shares"
Kristy Laval: and i think even for simplistic tools such as grid wide ban list, we should have that in mind too
Kristy Laval: my document describes what I think is one way to introduce some sort of competition between multiple gov into baning lists
Kristy Laval: and also taking into account the scaling population and comunities present in SL
Lisandra Beck: hi, may I?
Kristy Laval: I do feel that taking into account teh growth of the population, as well as the diversity of the complains
Kristy Laval: will be hardly manageable though a signgle ban list
Kristy Laval: so, if you share my interest, i invite you to read my paper (trusted web of decision bodies) and send me your comments
Kristy Laval: thank you
Alphonsine Lemmon: Thank you for the explanation, sorry to side track a bit.
Davidorban Agnon: Very good!
Davidorban Agnon: Thanks Kristy
Ashcroft Burnham: :-D
Davidorban Agnon: :D
Davidorban Agnon: I now suggest, unless there are specific questions about this second one as well
Davidorban Agnon: that we move to the next point
Davidorban Agnon: So please let's have anonymous come to the podium and speak!
Davidorban Agnon: Ash
Davidorban Agnon: ?
Davidorban Agnon: Why didn't anonymous come?
Ashcroft Burnham: LOL!
Ashcroft Burnham: Hold on, let me change the slide...
Davidorban Agnon: He never shows Up
Davidorban Agnon: We should ban him from the group!
Davidorban Agnon: Maybe with a grid-wide trusted thingy
Davidorban Agnon: huh?
Davidorban Agnon: :)
Davidorban Agnon: (that was a joke to spice things up alittle, thank you)
Ashcroft Burnham: Thank you, Kirsty :-) There are a lot of detailed ideas there, and, although it hasn't been possible to look at them all in detail to-day, it was worthwhile having them aired for public comment.
Ashcroft Burnham: And thank you, David, for the wit ;-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Now, no. 4, anonymous.
Ashcroft Burnham: Obviously, anonymous isn't here...
Ashcroft Burnham: Actually, it's sort of my fault that he/she doesn't have a name: I forgot who sent me the notecard when I was compliing this.
Ashcroft Burnham: I think that it might have been James Seraph.
Ashcroft Burnham: Anyway, I'll hand back over to David to field questions or comments on Anonymous's ideas :-)
Davidorban Agnon: oops
Davidorban Agnon: that was quick
Davidorban Agnon: :)
Davidorban Agnon: So please, if you had the chance to read this proposal/comment
Davidorban Agnon: this is the right time to add your views
Davidorban Agnon: or ask questions about them
Davidorban Agnon: of course
Davidorban Agnon: it will be more of a conversation about it
Davidorban Agnon: since we won't have the author replying
Davidorban Agnon: at least today
Davidorban Agnon: Let's give a minute to everybody to look at the document
Ashcroft Burnham: BRB
Davidorban Agnon: Ok
Davidorban Agnon: Comments?
Davidorban Agnon: QUestions?
Davidorban Agnon: Additions to the anonymous note?
Davidorban Agnon: Let me add my view then
Davidorban Agnon: since some of the issues here are of nomenclature and definitions
Davidorban Agnon: I think that they are on topic
Davidorban Agnon: It is unlikely that we will be able and cover
Davidorban Agnon: all our needs for signifiers
Davidorban Agnon: with existing words
Davidorban Agnon: we will have definitions whose proper single word identification
Davidorban Agnon: must be a neologism
Davidorban Agnon: I would be worried if it were not so
Davidorban Agnon: since that would mean that the patform for politics
Davidorban Agnon: and policies is not fertile enough
Davidorban Agnon: since all the existing words suffice to describe the phenomena
Davidorban Agnon: within.
Davidorban Agnon: I am sure that this is not so
Davidorban Agnon: and we should hurry up and adopt new words as quickly as we can
Davidorban Agnon: to open the creativity as well to bring new meaning to what we do.
Davidorban Agnon: The best, and rather appropriate source for this of course is SF
Davidorban Agnon: :)
Ashcroft Burnham: SourceForge?
Davidorban Agnon: Other remarks or comments?
Davidorban Agnon: Ash: Science Fiction
Davidorban Agnon: :)
Ashcroft Burnham: Ahh :-)
Davidorban Agnon: Bru? More provocative question?
Davidorban Agnon: s
Ashcroft Burnham: I have a brief comment on Anonymous's comments, but I'll go after everybody else...
Dreamingen Writer: for those not wanted to be invovled in a form of state, is there a bill or rights for them?
Ashcroft Burnham: Shall I answer that?
Davidorban Agnon: Ash, yes please
Ashcroft Burnham: Dream, bills of rights and other legal documents can only exist (and have any force) within the structure of a state of some sort.
Ashcroft Burnham: If there was no state (or some sort of government or metagovernment) attached to the bill of rights, who would enforce it? Who would adjudicate on it? How would it be decided what to put in it in the first place? :-)
Dreamingen Writer: i see said the blind man as he took out his hammer and saw
Ashcroft Burnham: :-)
Davidorban Agnon: Thanks for your question Dream
Davidorban Agnon: Ash, to you then.
Davidorban Agnon: other questions, or comments on the last paper?
Ashcroft Burnham: It seems not...
Ashcroft Burnham: My response to Anonymous's comments is rather brief :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: With the first two, I agree (althoguh I'd be very interested to see what neologisms that Davidorban can come up with :-) )
Ashcroft Burnham: For the third, I think that the voting (and general perameters as to who can reply "no" to a ping) should be configurable :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: And now onto no. 5 :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Any other tool ideas.
Davidorban Agnon: Well,
Ashcroft Burnham: Please note that this is not the point at which to make miscellaeous comments about the existing tool ideas: that is what item no. 6 is about :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Item no. 5 is for anybody here who has any *extra* tool ideas that they think would be good to go onto the list for the third draft.
Davidorban Agnon: Ash, do we have tools about prim allocation?
Ashcroft Burnham: I'll had back to Davidorban to field suggestions :-)
Davidorban Agnon: If not I would not mind telling LGSG about what we are playing with here in VUlcano
Davidorban Agnon: hi Malachi, please have a seat in the audience
Davidorban Agnon: :)
Ashcroft Burnham: Let's see if there are questions first :-)
Malachi Mulligan: ok david
Ashcroft Burnham: Anybody? Any other tool ideas? :-)
Bru Yang: no, prim allocation is my priority too :D
Davidorban Agnon: Yes, Ash, mine was a new tool idea! :)
Ashcroft Burnham: Go on, then :-)
Davidorban Agnon: ok
Davidorban Agnon: Vulcano is an island
Davidorban Agnon: where as the residents know
Davidorban Agnon: and I mean just any SL resident who comes by
Davidorban Agnon: and chats with others already here
Davidorban Agnon: ,
Davidorban Agnon: anybody can build
Davidorban Agnon: there are no restrictions in place
Davidorban Agnon: for where
Davidorban Agnon: how much
Davidorban Agnon: with or without scripts
Davidorban Agnon: etc
Davidorban Agnon: the single rather generic indication is
Davidorban Agnon: use your best judgement
Davidorban Agnon: and common sense
Davidorban Agnon: .
Davidorban Agnon: This leads of course to a lot of chatter
Davidorban Agnon: and a quick filling up of the prim limits
Davidorban Agnon: on the sim
Davidorban Agnon: what we are trying to find
Davidorban Agnon: is a new set of dynamic resource allocation algorithms
Davidorban Agnon: that would be configurable by the state
Davidorban Agnon: and would shape how a memebr would be able to use the resources
Davidorban Agnon: let me give you an example
Davidorban Agnon: we want newcomers to feel welcome
Davidorban Agnon: so we let them build
Davidorban Agnon: but of course the unexperienced will build a lot of wooden cubes
Davidorban Agnon: or even worse
Davidorban Agnon: litter the landscape with pink flamigoes
Davidorban Agnon: :)
Davidorban Agnon: what we are discussing actively about here
Davidorban Agnon: is autonomous robots
Davidorban Agnon: that identify the creators of objects
Davidorban Agnon: and talk to them
Davidorban Agnon: to educate them
Davidorban Agnon: and maintain a positive direction in the evolution of the spirit of the land
Davidorban Agnon: the way these would be implemented are parametric
Davidorban Agnon: and could be adapted to different needs
Davidorban Agnon: of different governments/states
Davidorban Agnon: robots that act without talking in more authoritarian ones
Davidorban Agnon: time limits
Davidorban Agnon: etc.
Davidorban Agnon: there are a lot of variables to consider
Davidorban Agnon: dialog
Davidorban Agnon: and this would become potentially a new tab in the about land
Davidorban Agnon: .
Davidorban Agnon: over.
Davidorban Agnon: :)
Bru Yang: just one addition
Ashcroft Burnham: Thank you very much, David :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Please put that in notecard form so that I can add it to the draft no. 3 :-)
Davidorban Agnon: Ok
Davidorban Agnon: Other suggestions for new tools of government?
Ashcroft Burnham: Anyone...?
Davidorban Agnon: Ok
Davidorban Agnon: Let's move on to 6
Davidorban Agnon: Dream?
Dreamingen Writer: no it is okay
Dreamingen Writer: thank you
Davidorban Agnon: it looked you were about to say something! :)
Davidorban Agnon: ok
Davidorban Agnon: then comments on existing tools
Ashcroft Burnham: Any miscellaneous comments, anyone?
Ashcroft Burnham: If you've been bursting to say something about the tools for the whole meeting, but haven't found a convenient spot in the conversation, now's the time :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Well, it seems that the tools were more uncontroversial than we thought ;-)
Ashcroft Burnham: While you're all thinking of things to say, can I just let you all know about another project that you might all be interested in.
Ashcroft Burnham: Some of you know about it already, and are involved in it.
Ashcroft Burnham: Kristy alluded to it earlier :-)
Davidorban Agnon: Yes, Ash, please do
Ashcroft Burnham: It's called the Justice List, and it's a project to created a distributed banishment list based on the judgments of a court, backed with a democratically elected Parliament.
Ashcroft Burnham: Kirsty's idea is to make the technical aspect of the system allow for multiple distributed ban lists, but we're starting with the one for now, and we can see whether there is interest to take it further :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: If anybody's interested in helping to manage, administer or design aspects of the system, do IM me :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Now, does anybody have anything miscellaneous to say?
Ashcroft Burnham: (I think, alas, that we're clashing with a Thinkers meeting about account verification, which might explain the slightly lower turnout than usual...)
Dreamingen Writer: Is banning the only tool we have?
Ashcroft Burnham: It's all that we have at present, which is why the LGSG exists: to persuade LL to create more :-)
Dreamingen Writer: there is no form of rehabilitation?
Ashcroft Burnham: Well, now, we can't have a software tool for rehabilitation, lovely as it'd be to have a "rehabilitate" option on each avatar's pie menu :-)
Dreamingen Writer: haha
Dreamingen Writer: thank you
Ashcroft Burnham: Individual governments would be free to set up their own rehabilitaiton schemes, of course.
Dreamingen Writer: right
Ashcroft Burnham: But, of course, rehabilitation can only work for somebody who's willing to be rehabilitated. A coercive option is still needed :-)
Dreamingen Writer: i c
Davidorban Agnon: Thanks Dream
Davidorban Agnon: and Ash for your answers
Ashcroft Burnham: You're very welcome :-)
Dreamingen Writer: thank you
Ashcroft Burnham: I should say, if anybody here is not already a memeber of the Local Government Study Group, but is interested in discussing local government further, then do join :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: It's open enrolment, and membership is free :_)
Ashcroft Burnham: You'll get notices of forthcoming meetings...
Dreamingen Writer: who will settle disputes between states?
Mondrian Lykin: George W. Bush
Mondrian Lykin: lol
Ashcroft Burnham: The answer depends on what kinds of disputes that there are :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: For example, the tools that I have posited include the possibility of having federal systems.
Ashcroft Burnham: So, between two states of a federation, a federal authority would adjudicate.
Ashcroft Burnham: In other cases, it'd be down to diplomats :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: There's nothing stopping people, of course, creating a United Virtual Nations, or something similar :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: That'd be a very good development if it happened.
Dreamingen Writer: right that is where I was going
Davidorban Agnon: One issue
Davidorban Agnon: that I think we have to keep in mind
Ashcroft Burnham: I'm not sure that that idea can be built into the tools specifically, though, unless you have an idea?
Davidorban Agnon: at all stages of preparation
Davidorban Agnon: is that there will be multiple grids
Davidorban Agnon: and that they will interoperate
Dreamingen Writer: unless it reserves some power for a SLUN?
Ashcroft Burnham: Ahh, yes, I notice that we have a beta tester for open SecondLife wmongst us to-day... :-)
Davidorban Agnon: so there will be the need of many other structures
Davidorban Agnon: and interfaces
Ashcroft Burnham: Hmm, or at least, we did earlier on :-)
Davidorban Agnon: with new roles
Davidorban Agnon: You mean Opensource?
Davidorban Agnon: He is running his own Server!
Ashcroft Burnham: Yes :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Yes, I saw the screenshot.
Ashcroft Burnham: Very impressive :-)
Davidorban Agnon: So I am sure that the need of further degrees of political innovation is right there...
Ashcroft Burnham: David - do you have any ideas about what, if any, tools would be needed to manage that?
Dreamingen Writer: thank you, I must leave
Dreamingen Writer takes a humble bow
Davidorban Agnon: thanks for your active participation Dream
Ashcroft Burnham: Thank you, Dream, for your contribution :-)
Davidorban Agnon: see you next time
Davidorban Agnon: and welcome to Vulcano
Ashcroft Burnham: Well, it seems like everybody likes the tools the way that they are, more or less :-)
Davidorban Agnon: Heh
Davidorban Agnon: :)
Ashcroft Burnham: Thank you everybody for coming along, and for contributing your ideas :-)
Davidorban Agnon: We don't have Prokofy
Davidorban Agnon: othewise there would have been more dissent!
Davidorban Agnon: Right?
Ashcroft Burnham: LOL! He'd express dissent at anything ;-)
Davidorban Agnon: :)
Ashcroft Burnham: If you want somebody to disagree with any reasonable idea, Prokofy's your man! ;-)
Davidorban Agnon: Thank you very much for attending today's meeting
Ashcroft Burnham: Anyway, that aside...
Davidorban Agnon: and thanks to LGSG for choosing Vulcano as a venuw
Davidorban Agnon: e
Davidorban Agnon: You are welcome to stand up
Davidorban Agnon: and stay here
Davidorban Agnon: or just outside
Davidorban Agnon: at the shade of our red oak
Ashcroft Burnham: Thank you very much, David, for hosting the meeting, and providing us with such a fine venue :-)
Davidorban Agnon: for an informal chat
Davidorban Agnon: and of course
Ashcroft Burnham: A round of applause, everybody, for David :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: :-D
Ashcroft Burnham: :-D
Ashcroft Burnham: :-D
Davidorban Agnon: please do visit Vulcano before you leave
Davidorban Agnon: :D
Ashcroft Burnham: Transcripts will be posted to the Wiki shortly.
Davidorban Agnon: Thanks Ash!

Home

mondrianlykin — Fri, 11 May 2007 12:30:32 CDT

Introduction

The Local Government Study Group is a group in the virtual world Second Life dedicated to the promotion of tools to facilitate local governance by those who inhabit that virtual world.

The Group aims to discuss the benefits of local governance, and to develop and refine detailed proposals for sophisticated governance tools to put before Second Life developers Linden Lab, in the hope of persuading them to adopt them. The potential benefits of virtual world government of the sort best achievable through governance tools include the prorogation of the rule of law and democracy, effective enforcement of rules, and the promotion of a healthy and stable commercial economy by such means as effective contract and intellectual property enforcement and dispute resolution. Details of the latest tools proposals and benefits of local governance arrangements can be found on the pages linked to the left, along with transcripts of past meetings.

Anybody interested in promoting local governance in Second Life is encouraged to join the Local Government Study Group within SecondLife, and attend some of our meetings. Notice of the meetings will be posted here and as notices in the group.

Anybody interested in contributing to this wiki should contact Mondrain Lykin, who is in charge of the wiki.

Next meeting

Details on the next meeting will follow.

Agenda for meeting on the 6th of May

ashcroftburnham — Sat, 05 May 2007 10:11:56 CDT

Local Government Study Group
Local Governance Tools, second draft

6th of May 2007, 12.30pm SLT
Volcano

Agenda

1. Introduction

2. Comments by Pelanor Eldrich

3. ?Comments by Kirsty Laval

4. Comments by anonymous

5. Any other tool ideas

6. Open discussion

Form of the meeting

The meeting will be run in much the same way as previous meetings. I will make a brief introduction, and then we will move on to discussing each person's comments in turn. To ensure that the meeting is progressed expeditiously, and that everyone gets a fair say, a chair appointed for the meeting will select from those who indicate via IM that they wish to talk to either make a brief statement (the chair will set the time to ensure that all have a fair say), or ask a question to either the original proposer of the comments (if present) or a person who has made a subsequent statement, or some combination of the two, whereupon that person will have a specific time in which to answer.

Agenda item no. 5 covers any tools proposals not mentioned in the latest draft. Anybody intending to attend the meeting can send me a notecard in advance with an item to add to no. 5, and items may also be added on the day. Notecards with such additional items will be distributed in advance of the meeting.

Item no. 6 will be an informal open discussion, where those who have not had a chance to have their say earlier might do so, and further questions can be posed.

Please note that this will not be a meeting to discuss the benefits of local governance in general: there have already been two meetings on that topic. This will be a meeting to discuss the detailed tools proposals.

Those engaging in disruptive or abusive conduct will be banned. Everyone is entitled to a fair say, but should not use that opportunity to make personal comments, nor attempt to deny others a fair say. Security will be on hand to ban griefers or those who disrupt the meeting. Healthy debate, however, is welcomed.

Legal Systems: Common Law vs Civil Law

Kristy.Laval — Tue, 01 May 2007 13:15:35 CDT

If you are unaware of the differences between Common Law and Civil Law systems, like me you will be interested to read these articles on Wikipedia.

And for those who might just want a summary, here is an abstract from Wikipedia :

"Thus, the difference between civil law and common law lies not just in the mere fact of codification, but in the methodological approach to codes and statutes. In civil law countries, legislation is seen as the primary source of law. By default, courts thus base their judgments on the provisions of codes and statutes, from which solutions in particular cases are to be derived. Courts thus have to reason extensively on the basis of general rules and principles of the code, often drawing analogies from statutory provisions to fill lacunae and to achieve coherence. By contrast, in the common law system, cases are the primary source of law, while statutes are only seen as incursions into the common law and thus interpreted narrowly."

I hope this helps non legalese aware folks to understand about the two different systems.

Devolution of abuse reporting and parallelism

ashcroftburnham — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 15:23:53 CDT

A commentary

Introduction
Recently, Linden Lab, creator of SecondLife, announced a change of policy with respect to abuse reporting, introducing what it termed, "Estate level governance", and in so doing, made some substantial reconceptualisations of certain aspects of SecondLife, with potentially important implications for local governance.

The change
Traditionally, all those who use SecondLife have been bound by two separate but linked standards: the Terms of Service, the general legal agreement between all users of SecondLife and Linden Lab, which serves much the same function as the terms of service of, for example, an ISP or web hosting provider, and the Community Standards, a document prescribing generally acceptable behaviour within SecondLife. Those standards were both enforced by Linden Lab, with such sanctions as warnings, or temporary or permanent banishments from SecondLife as a whole, and policed by individual users filing abuse reports, using a dedicated tool in the software client to do so. The abuse reports would be sent straight to Linden Lab, who would consider what, if any, action to take in respect of them.

The new model that is going to be introduced soon (the date for its introduction has not yet been announced, although the scheme has been piloted since January) is that, on private island estates only, the owners of those private islands will have the option of receiving at least some categories of abuse reports themselves, and dealing with them themselves. (Wisely, Linden Lab will retain certain sorts of abuse reports, including reports of suspected underage people and password fraud). There will also be the chance for owners of private island estates to pay for as yet unspecified premium Linden-based abuse reporting system. Also promised are as yet unspecified further governance tools.

The reconceptualisation
It is quite clear from the responses to the official announcement that the change is designed to be part of a reconceptualisation of SecondLife as a whole: the term "SecondLife" will, it seems, apply just to the mainland (where hitherto it described the whole virtual world, including software and protocol), and the whole of what is now called "SecondLife" will be called "the grid" (a term previously reserved for specific sets of connected estates, such as the main grid, the teen grid, and the beta grid). Whether exactly this renaming will stick remains to be seen (what will Linden Lab call the software if the term "SecondLife" is reserved for just the mainland(s)?), but the substantial change of policy is one of exercising a fundamentally different level of control over private islands (which are now to be known as "estates", presumably in contemplation of the prospect of whole private continents) as distinct from the mainland, a move earlier hinted at by Robin Linden during the most recent meeting of the LGSG.

This appears to be a firm resolution to the tension that hitherto existed, at least in theory, between SecondLife as a single virtual community (Philip Rosedale/Linden is known for saying that he was intending to create a whole country), and as an abstract technological platform for virtual worlds in general; in other words, is SecondLife a virtual world equivalent of one huge website (a wiki, perhaps), or the whole web? The answer now appears to be, eventually at least, both. The mainland(s) will be a single (sort of) community, governed by the community standards as well as the terms of service, in which Linden Lab will decide (and enforce) the way in which people should behave (as moderators on a web forum would), and the wider grid, consisting of private islands, will be a network in a technical, but not necessarily a social, sense, on which those individuals (or, hopefully, one day, individuals and groups) who rent servers from Linden Lab (or, eventually, anyone) to run private islands, or even, perhaps, private continents, will have near total freedom to decide what, if any, behavioural standards to apply to their regions, and how, if at all, to enforce those standards. It might well be that the Community Standards themselves will one day apply only to the mainland and those private estates whose owners choose voluntarily to adopt them, only the Terms of Service being generally applicable.

The implications for local governance
Putting aside for a moment the very promising, albeit somewhat vague, announcements that Linden Lab is working on further, as yet unspecified, governance tools, the implications for local government in SecondLife (or "the grid", or whatever is now the appropriate term) are mixed: on the one hand, the move is positive, in that it shows that Linden Lab are, in respect at least of private estates, firmly committed to devolving control to local regions, and giving localities the power to set and deal with their own standards of behaviour. The next important development would be to allow group control of private estates to give real choice and flexibility in self-governance. On the other hand, however, the mainland/private estates split implies that Linden Lab might believe that no governance tools at all ought be implemented on the mainland.

That would be of some considerable concern, since there is substantial demand (and need) for governance tools, of a voluntary, opt-in nature, throughout the grid, both on the mainland and private estates: Linden Lab is not, for example, ever going to make itself responsible for enforcing covenants or in-world contracts or preventing land blight: it simply does not have the judicial resources to tackle such conceptually complicated disputes. Nonetheless, those disputes are very real, and just as real (if not more so) on the mainland as elsewhere. A substantial number of people want a proper way of securing a formal resolution to those disputes, and it would be a terrible waste of an opportunity if those means were only made available to those on private estates. It would greatly impoverish the SecondLife experience if only some regions had even the technical wherewithal to set up means to resolve such disputes.

The relevance of parallelism
In reality, there is no inherent conflict between, on the one hand, a virtual continent, or series of continents, over which Linden Lab retain a substantial degree of control over standards of behaviour, as distinct to private estates over which it retains no such control, and, on the other hand, tools for effective local governance throughout both sorts of region. The key to the compatibility is in normative parallelism.

The principle of normative parallelism in this context is simply this: it is easily possible for two separate normative systems to exist in parallel in the same domain. So, for domain X, normative system A might impose duties P and Q, normative system B might impose duties Q and R, and normative system C might impose duty S, each with its own, independent, means of enforcement, without necessarily creating any conflict. With one exception, the same is true of all kinds of normative relations, including rights, liabilities, privileges, etc. The one exception is that a conflict would arise if any normative system purported to mandate that which another normative system prohibited.

A good practical example of parallelism is sport. A person who engages in, say, football (or "soccer" as those from the States call it) is bound by (at least) two normative systems in parallel: (1) the rules of soccer; and (2) the law of the land of whichever legal jurisdiction the football match is taking place in. The two do not conflict: they live happily side by side. The rules of soccer prohibit handling the ball, whereas national law permits it (but does not mandate it). So, handling the ball during a soccer game might result in being sent off (the soccer game's means of enforcing its norms), but would not result in a criminal conviction and sentence (the national law's means of enforcing its norms). Both the rules of soccer and national law prohibit physically beating another player during a match: such conduct would likely result both in being sent off and a criminal conviction and penalty. The national law, but not the rules of soccer, prohibit stealing another player's wallet from the changing room: such conduct by a player would not result in, say, a free kick or a change of the score, but would result (if detected) in a criminal conviction and sentence.

There is no conflict between the two normative systems: those who play football are not doing anything wrong merely because the rules of the game do not prohibit, for example, theft (there is no duty upon those devising their own normative systems independently to prohibit everything already prohibited by any other given applicable normative system), nor are those norms that exist only in soccer unenforceable through want of status in national law (it would be absurd to imagine somebody suing somebody for handling the ball), nor is the football referee improperly meddling in national legal affairs by sending off the player who beats another player during the course of a game. Another interesting point to note is that soccer is played in many countries in which different legal systems prevail, yet the rules of soccer remain unchanged in all of them. What would create a conflict is if a sport encouraged or required of its participators, for example, that they assault innocent members of the public: then there would be a conflict between the two normative systems, and, in that case, the superior normative system, that of national law, would prevail and rightly prohibit taking part in that particular sport at all.

That analysis, I think, fully answers those critics of local governance who claim that it is not possible or desirable merely because a given system of local governance might not replicate exactly any given national legal system (or, alternatively, private international law), or that, absent enforcement in national courts, it is worthless: the rules made by local governments in SecondLife would be just as lawful, and just as enforceable, as the rules of soccer.

The relevance of the analysis of parallelism to the recent Linden Lab announcement about abuse reporting,and the reconceptualisation of SecondLife, is that there is nothing intrinsically incompatible between a mainland in which one normative system (the Linden Lab community standards) applies, and having individual local governments apply and enforce their own normative standards in that same domain in parallel.

Just like the game of soccer and the national law, the two normative standards would have different, albeit occasionally overlapping, functions: local rules might prohibit, for example, contravening a covenant, whereas the Community Standards do not (the equivalent of handling the ball); local rules might also prohibit general griefing, also prohibited by the Community Standards, but have a different enforcement mechanism (the equivalent of the foul that is also a battery/assault); and local rules might be silent on unauthorised disclosure, that is prohibited by the Community Standards (the equivalent of the theft from the locker room).

So, whilst private estate owners perhaps need even more tools than mainland landowners to deal with their private estates, mainland landowners too need tools that they do not presently have to form themselves into governments, with the flexibility to assign different powers amongst different members of the group without having a residual sovereign with absolute power, and the power to enforce effectively all of its decisions, in order that local normative systems, running in parallel to the Community Standards, can grow up and serve the very real needs outlined in the discussion on benefits of local government in virtual worlds. The tools that I propose are, I should suggest, just what are needed to achieve those important aims.

Ashcroft Burnham
25th of April 2007

LGSG Proposed Tools - 2nd Draft

mondrianlykin — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 07:58:04 CDT

Following feedback on the first draft of my governance tools proposals, I reproduce here my second draft for any further comments.

Local Government Study Group – second draft of proposals for governance tools

1.A new group-like abstraction called a “government” (query whether this is the best name; consider “state”) that anybody should be able to create for a fee (perhaps a higher fee than the group fees – maybe L$1,000?) should be encoded.

2.Each government should have a dataset accessible through a dialogue box a little like that for groups, including:
(a)the name of the government;
(b)a short description of the government type (e.g., “democracy” or “monarchy”);
(c)a graphic for a flag, emblem, coat of arms, or the like;
(d)a music URL for a national anthem;
(e)a large text box for a constitution;
(f)a smaller text box for a brief description of the aims and basic principles of the government;
(g)details as to the land and citizens; and
(h)details as to how the decision-making powers (see below) are distributed.

3.Any given parcel of land should be allied to either one specific government or no government. When it is allied to one specific government, the name of the government should appear in the “About>Land” box. When allied to no government, the word “anarchy” (or, perhaps, “ungoverned” or “none”) should appear in the “government” section thereof.

4.Any estate owner of an island or parcel of land in anarchy should be able to choose to place that land under the control of any given extant government.

5.If an entire mainland sim falls under the control of one government, the full set of estate tools available to private island owners should be available to that government.

6.The relationship between the government and landowner should be thought of in the same way as the relationship between a real-life government and people with freeholds of land in that state.

7.Governments should be able to set software-encoded rules on secession of land from those governments. Those rules should be either (1) allow always; or (2) allow only with consent of X persons, where X persons are public officials of the government.

8.Governments should not be able to change the rules on secession of any given piece of land from “allow always” to “allow only with consent” without the consent of the owner of that piece of land.

9.The buying and selling of existing parcels/sims should not by itself change the government to which they are allied.

10.All land should start as under the control of no government, and only be placed under the control of any given government by a specific landowner.

11.Linden Lab should not favour any given government over any other, nor give any given government powers that other governments cannot obtain.

12.There should be very prominent confirmation dialogues when for the joining of any given piece of land to any given government, explaining the consequences, and highlighting especially clearly if one is joining a non-scedeable government.

13. All abuse reports (save of certain types that Linden Lab wishes to reserve to itself, such as, for example, reports about password theft and about activities (such as the creation of self replicating objects) that might injuriously impact the whole grid or substantial parts of it) should be directed to governments, rather than to Linden Lab.

14.Abuse reports made through the menu would be directed towards the government on whose land the person making the report is currently standing. There should be a checkbox option to send the report to LL instead, requiring the user in such a case to specify which of the specific types of abuse that LL has decided it ought to retain control over reporting is being complained of.

15.There should be a new means of abuse reporting, by right-clicking an avatar and selecting “report abuse...” from the pie menu. This should give a third possible destination for an abuse report, that is any given government of which that avatar is a citizen. It should be possible to send the same abuse reports to multiple permissible destinations by selecting multiple checkboxes, i.e., reporting the same conduct to LL, the government on whose land the abuse occurred, and the suspect's home government.

16.Where the land on which the abuse report is made is ungoverned (“in anarchy”?), no abuse report except to LL (and only on the restricted grounds), or the avatar's own government(s), if any, should be possible.

17.The only exception should be on Governor Linden held land, where LL should continue to handle all general griefing abuse reports for the foreseeable future.

18.The powers of a given government should be able to vary depending on a dialogue box configuration by whatever person or group first forms the government. At minimum, all governments should be able to banish any non-citizen of that government from all land held under that government for an indefinite period. Additional configurable powers should include:
(a)the power to ban citizens from land in the jurisdiction of that government;
(b)the power to requisition land that is in the jurisdiction of that government, with or without banishing the landowner;
(c)the power to levy a tax on citizens of that government (which could be configured to be capped at a certain level per unit of land or per citizen, and configurable to be at different rates for different citizens/groups to give tax breaks for non-profit organisations, etc.);
(d)the power to give any given avatar negative reputation points that appear on that avatar's profile, but *only to citizens of that government*;
(e)the power to set automated banishments for exceeding a stipulated number of negative reputation points, either until manually revoked, or for a stipulated period;
(f)the power to enable people to become citizens, not just by owning an estate in the sim (or, in the case of a private island, being either the estate owner or a holder of a parcel), but by putting up a liquid escrow (explained below), and to foreclose on that liquid escrow; and
(g)the power to make treaties with other governments and join federations, confederations and commonwealths.

19.A liquid escrow is a system whereby an avatar enters into a software-encoded arrangement with a government to give it the power to fine that avatar up to a stipulated amount (whether all at once or incrementally), in return for citizenship of that government.

20.A government should be able to remove up to the amount stipulated in the liquid escrow from a citizen's or former citizen's Linden dollar balance without any the avatar whose balance it is having any further say in the matter.

21.Where an avatar leaves the jurisdiction of a government, configurable rules should stipulate whether the escrow is automatically forfeit, or, if it is not, the time period within which the government can still forfeit any of the escrow.

22.When an escrow is forfeit from an avatar with a Linden dollar balance of an amount less than the amount forfeit, the Linden dollar balance should display on that avatar's account as a negative amount. Any money paid into that avatar's account should go straight to paying off the rest of the escrow forfeit until the account is fully settled.

23.With taxes, each time that a tax payment is due (there should probably be a maximum frequency of a week), the citizen should be presented with a dialogue box, giving the citizen a choice of either paying the tax, or relinquishing citizenship, although a citizen should be able to set it such that the tax is paid automatically, although that should be reversible at any time).

24.Whether or not a government has any of the above stipulated additional powers should, once initially set, not be able to be changed without the individual consent of all landowning citizens or, if the government was initially so configured, all citizens, whether landowning or not.

25.It should be possible to set up a government and configure it in a sandbox state, without allowing anybody to join as citizens, until it is ready. In that state, any decision should be able to be undone by the person who founded it.

26.Each government should have a set of configurable offices of state (such as “king” or “prime minister” or “treasurer” or “policeman” or “member of parliament”), each with configurable (and preferably scriptable) subsets of the government's power.

27.It should also be possible to have citizen-wide elections at specified intervals. The voting system should be scriptable, but, for those who cannot script, a number of popular voting models should be built ready-made into the system.

28. For example, it should be possible to set up a government so that the text in the “Constitution” dialogue box can be changed to a specified alternative wording only if a certain proportion of people who hold a certain configured rank vote in favour of it. Another example: it should be configurable so that people can only be banished if a certain proportion of set of people (a jury) stipulated by a holder of a particular public office (a court administrator) vote in a particular way on a specified question put to them by another stipulated office holder (a judge). Simpler, more despotic systems, should be possible, too.

29.It should be possible to restrict scripted functions (such as holding office or voting) to avatars that have been verified (perhaps by a third party identity verification agency) as being unique, and not an alternate account of any other verified avatar.

30.There should be a number of pre-configured systems of government available for those who do not have the skills to script one from scratch, and it should be possible to trade government configurations.

31.Governments that have the power to enter treaties should be able to do so so as to share powers on banishments, forfeiture of liquid escrows and negative reputation points, giving each government the power to banish citizens and/or non-citizens from the area controlled by both governments, give negative reputation points that are visible to citizens of both governments, etc. The exercise of such powers should be configurable in the same way as the other powers, so that it can be set up so that (for example) a referendum is required before such a thing is entered into.

32.It should be possible to have nested hierarchical structures of governments (i.e., permitting one or more governments to be members of other governments) to permit federal and related structures. Secession rules should be the same as with landowners to governments. The power to enter into federations etc. should work in the same way as the power to enter into treaties. When a government becomes a member of another government, there should be a configurable set of options as to which of the two levels of government have what power in relation to the citizens/land of the joining government. Once agreed upon by those who have been configured to have the power to do so in both the joining and joined governments, that should not be able to be changed (aside from unilateral secession, if permitted) without authority of all those who have the power to make decisions of that sort in both levels of government.

33.Governments should be able to have their own Linden dollar accounts. All taxes and forfeitures of liquid escrows should be paid into this account. Dealing with the account should be possible only in accordance with the configured powers to do so, as with all other configured powers.

34.Where any piece of land under government control has no owner (which is the state in which it will be if it is effectively a public space owned by the government), any tier due on that land should be payable out of the government treasury. A failure to pay the tier should have the same effect as regards a government as it now does as regards any private landowner: the land should return to Governor Linden control, and be automatically seceded.

35.Where any landowner in the government fails to pay tier, however, the land should not return to Governor Linden control unless the government itself subsequently fails to pay tier.

36.A government should be able to abandon any land not owned by any citizen at any time.

37.If any government ceases to exist, all its owned land should revert to an ungoverned state, and all its unowned land to Governor Linden.
38.An avatar should be able to be a citizen of any number of governments.

39.It should be possible for objects to be owned by governments in the same way as they can currently be owned by groups.

40.Lists of and statistics about governments should be available on the SecondLife website.

41.Any citizen of any government should be able to send a ping to that government.

42.A government should be able to be configured as to which avatars are authorised to respond to pings.

43.A ping should cause a dialogue box to appear for avatars who are so authorised, explaining that a ping has been sent, and enquiring as to whether they still wish the government to continue to operate. The message should have three options: “yes”, “no”, and “ignore”.

44.If “ignore” is selected, the dialogue box should go away, but anybody duly authorised should be able to make the choice later by going to the general government dialogue.

45.If anybody responds “no”, or no response at all is received within 30 days, the government should become inactive, resetting to the sandbox state, losing all citizens, and reverting all land to ungoverned (if owned) or Governor Linden (if not owned by anything other than the government).

46.Governments should be configurable such that some avatars can be authorised to answer “yes” or “ignore”, but not “no” to a ping.

47.Once one ping has been sent, it should not be possible to send another ping to that same government until 14 days have elapsed after somebody acknowledged it with a “yes” response.

Benefits of local governance in virtual worlds

ashcroftburnham — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:45:43 CDT

Contents

The importance of locality: choice, market forces and open sourcing
Griefing, due process and security
Contract enforcement, IP and commerce
Financial services regulation
Land enforcement
Group organisation and asset sharing
Self-regulation discourages external regulation
Social experimentation and publicity
The relevance of identity verification

The importance of locality: choice, market forces and open sourcing

Government has been a perennially controversial issue for virtual worlds. A seizable number of those who wish to participate in virtual worlds do not want to have imposed on them by the creators of that virtual world, and without them having any choice in the matter, a system of government that restricts their behaviour on pain of sanctions executed in that virtual world: people fear, perhaps understandably, that the powers of such a universal government, once divorced from the market forces that drives the original creator to make any interventions minimal and at least passably fair, would be likely to be used either capriciously or for illegitimate financial gain.

The corollary of that, however, is that there are a substantial number of governance functions, whose nature and importance are addressed below, which need, in order to be performed effectively, frequent and carefully discriminating human intervention, of the sort that is beyond the practical capability of the organisation behind the virtual world's technology to resource effectively as the virtual world expands rapidly. If the only choices are between universal resident government or no resident government, a virtual world finds itself either missing important governance functions, or under the control of those who might act irresponsibly or maliciously, both of which are singularly unsatisfactory states of affairs.

A system of local governance, however, where specific territories (made up of sets of units of virtual land), and perhaps even specific sets of citizens defined other than by territory, are governed, to a greater or lesser extent, by governments specific to those territories, has none of those drawbacks. Governance functions can effectively be crowdsourced to residents without giving any set of people the universal powers of the sort that can enable abuses of those powers. A system where those who, as virtual landowners, control particular geographical regions can decide for themselves, either at the time of purchase if the land is already governed, or after purchase if it is not, what, if any user-run government (including one that the landowner may choose to create for her or himself) should exercise the valuable governance functions described below in relation to that territory is a system that enables competition and market forces to act as an important check against potential abuses of governmental power, and simultaneously to promote the emergence of the best governments, in accordance with the usual rules of crowdsourcing, whereby the best quickly becomes the most popular.

Additionally, local governance prevents a state of affairs that can arise in a universal governance model in which individual virtual landowners, the paying customers of the technology providers, consider themselves, by forces beyond their control, to have been done out of the freedom of action on their own virtual land which constituted the motivation for the purchase of that land in the first place. Furthermore, unlike a universal model, local governance provides an environment in which the benefits of government per se are market-tested, since governments would not merely be competing for popularity among existing or putative landowners with other governments, but with the absence of government, which ought to be the default position for all new land, and all existing land immediately after the implementation of governance tools. Given the diversity of purposes for which people use virtual worlds, it is highly likely that different levels of governance, including in many cases the absence of governance, will turn out to be appropriate for different functions. For example, a large corporation buying a series of islands as a showcase for its products or services might want a system whereby misbehaviour on its lands can be punished by banishment without it having to do any of the hard work, but where it retains ultimate control; a commercial landlord might want a full-fledged system of civil law, including contract and covenant enforcement to entice serious businesses and consumers at once; a group of aspiring businesspeople and artisans wishing to start their own community and share resources might want a democratically elected local council; and an individual who wants an island for creating whimsical artistic follies might want no government at all. Some landowners might want to run their own governments; some might want to participate in governments of territories larger than their individual landholdings; and some might want others to do all the governance hard work for them. Only in a model of local governance are all such things simultaneously possible.

Furthermore, there will always be great controversy over which means of running and structuring a government are best; the only effective way of preventing such controversies from causing damaging conflicts is to permit multiple models of government to emerge simultaneously, such that people can choose to be a part of whatever government structure most closely aligns with her or his own views on how governments ought to be run. People will be infinitely more productive when the conflicts about how government ought to be run are between different governments (which creates healthy competition), rather than within the same government (which creates stultifying in-fighting and destructive acrimony).

Finally, if the architecture of the virtual world becomes open-sourced, then no form of governance other than local governance is practicable. If the creator of the virtual world becomes in effect like those who invented the technology behind the internet, and the virtual world, like the world wide web, becomes a platform, then the governance of activities in virtual worlds can ultimately be determined only by those who run the servers upon which the virtual world operates. Centralisation of control is impossible. The operators of devolved servers might well, of course, wish to let them on a commercial basis, and let their lessors choose how, if at all, and by whom their virtual land is to be governed, but universalisation of control is not possible. If a virtual world is to become open-sourced, then the governance tools need to be built into the basic code, and have time to bed in and become used, long before the server source code is released, in order to enable the practice of local governments to become well established before the control of the source code is fragmented.

Ultimately, a system of local governments is a system where government becomes a useful and valued additional feature of the virtual world about which residents of that virtual world have choice, rather than a source of conflict and suspicion, and is the only practical system of governance in an open-sourced environment.

Griefing, due process and security

One of the important features of local governance in a virtual world is dealing both effectively and fairly with those users of the virtual world who, through their behaviour, make the use of the virtual world around them by other users substantially less pleasant than it ought to be. Such conduct is colloquially known as “griefing”, and its perpetrators “griefers”. Some acts of griefing affect the entire virtual world (such as attempts to hack into its database servers, or compromise password security), and such acts ought always be dealt with by the creator and/or maintainer of the virtual world itself, partly because such people have the most effective means to do so, and partly because such people have a strong interest in doing so. Most griefing, however, occurs on a smaller scale, creating substantial, albeit usually relatively short-lived, annoyance to those around the griefer. It is griefing of this kind that is a problem best suited to be solved by local governments.

Responses to griefing need to be both effective in preventing occurrence or recurrence of the misconduct, and steadfastly fair to those who find themselves accused of being griefers themselves. That is no easy task: the number of instances of griefing multiplied by the amount of work required fairly to investigate and adjudicate upon both sides of the story in each case is considerable. Not only does such a task require time and effort: it requires skill, and a sound temperament. The organisation that creates and/or operates a virtual world is not, at least when the virtual world in question reaches an appreciable size, likely to have anywhere near the resources available necessary to deal with such issues.

Local governments, however, can distribute the workload effectively by localising investigation, adjudication and enforcement. The resource-motive comes from the desire of those with an interest in the success of the government in question, whether directly or indirectly, to ensure that both griefing and false or unfounded accusations of griefing are properly controlled within their jurisdiction. Because the system of local governance creates the potential significant competition between governments, those local governments that most fairly and effectively deal with griefing will tend to be amongst the most successful, and will tend to control the greatest proportion of territories. The efficiency with which information can be communicated over electronic media makes discovering true instances, and debunking false claims of instances, of the capricious or otherwise unfair imposition of sanctions easy. There is already a large and growing contingent of people seriously interested in the operation of law in virtual worlds, so the pool from which skilled adjudicators (and, no doubt, in time, advocates) can be drawn is large and growing.

Enforcement, although localised, can be effective: banishing those found guilty of wrongdoing from the territory that a government controls prevents the wrongdoing recurring on that territory for the duration of the banishment, and, in so far as the person in question derives enjoyment from visiting the place in question, can prove an effective deterrence. The preventative and deterrent effect can be multiplied when various governments have reciprocal banishment agreements with each other, or are part of a federation in which, once a person is banished from one state of the federation, one is banned from all. The importance of due process not forgotten, however, it is important to note that a government that associates itself by treaty with a government known for capricious or unfair banishments is likely to acquire such a reputation itself, and risk losing substantial popularity and therefore control as a result thereof. Market forces always act in the background to prevent undue caprice.

Contract enforcement, IP and commerce

Once considered merely an idle game, virtual worlds are now a hotbed of virtual commerce, with substantial sums of money, with real life value, traded every day. The trade in virtual goods can be lucrative for those particularly skilled at producing what is in great demand, and the lure of being able to earn money by doing something that feels like playing a computer game is powerful for many.

The commercial success of virtual worlds is not, however, without its problems. Wherever there is money to be made, there are those who seek to line their pockets with little work by defrauding others. Furthermore, since virtual goods are, by their very nature, intangible, a myriad disputes about intellectual property violations arise every day, from the mundane, involving low-value items made only in the virtual world, to the very serious, involving the improper use of real life intellectual property such as trademarks, and everything in between.

The difficulty faced by many virtual entrepreneurs is that, because the value of goods and services in virtual worlds is so much less than their real-world equivalent (although economies of scale often mean that the overall profits from such activity can nonetheless be considerable), because virtual worlds are inherently international in nature, and because it is an important feature of virtual worlds for many that their real life identity not be imparted to anybody who knows them only through the virtual world, resolving commercial disputes that, in real life, would relatively easily be solved by a stiff letter from a lawyer, or, eventually, litigation, becomes vastly cost-inefficient. If people make a contract with each other in a virtual world, knowing only each other's avatar names, the contract is not performed, and one side accuses the other of breaking it, that party has, in practical terms, no redress: he or she will almost certainly not be able to find the counterparty to a contract, let alone find that person's local court, and be able to instruct a lawyer who knows what the law is there, even assuming that the intractable problem of which law applies can sensibly be resolved (agreements with the provider of the virtual world service that disputes are to be resolved according to the law local to the virtual world provider do not govern (and, in many jurisdictions, could not even if they tried) what law should govern disputes between two or more independent people).

Such a difficulty is, fortunately for the success of virtual worlds, not as serious as it would be if it arose in a real-life country because virtual worlds have technological means of making many sorts of transactions difficult or impossible to exploit: virtual items can be set so that they automatically dispatch themselves once the seller has been paid the correct amount of money, and so forth. Furthermore, the ability to communicate effectively through electronic means makes it easy to disseminate information about those who deliberately and obviously defraud others. With such means, simple and straightforward transactions (usually of the nature of the sale/purchase of virtual goods) can be carried out in a virtual world with a considerable degree of confidence, even absent human-intervention based enforcement mechanisms.

However, any attempt to engage in more sophisticated transactions, for example, contracts of employment, or construction contracts, or contracts for all manner of services, meets with the often impenetrable problem that, if one cannot be sure that the person with whom one is entering into the agreement is trustworthy, the agreement is worth no more than the paper that it is not written on. Although undoubtedly some people can and do build relationships of trust, either by revealing their real-life identity and transacting in real-life currencies, or by having amassed a formidable reputation of trustworthiness over a significant period of time, having to go to such lengths in order to engage in what would in real life be considered positively prosaic transactions makes the economy substantially less efficient than it could be. Furthermore, although obvious frauds (such as scripted items that take money but refuse to dispense the objects that they purportedly sell) can easily be foiled, at least in part, by mere communication, complicated contractual disputes in which both parties, apparently plausibly to an uninitiated outside observer, claim to be in the right, are not susceptible to such simplistic means of resolution.

If, however, a system (or, more accurately, a series of systems) of civil justice, run by those who inhabit the virtual world, rather than by those who create it, with all of the advantages of the local model of governance described above, were to come into existence, then such problems could be greatly diminished: it would be easy for governments to establish rules as to whose law applied in what circumstances (which, in any event, would be limited in practice by their powers of enforcement and likely desire not to waste resources attempting to resolve disputes that have no bearing on their citizens, those whose continued support would be necessary for their continued success), in-world legal systems could operate effectively, using the powers of enforcement described above, without knowing the people's real-life identities, and would be subject to the same deflated pricing that applies to the rest of the virtual world, removing the issue of expense non-proportionality.

The same applies to intellectual property disputes: these most intractable of problems could be diminished non-trivially if those who were found by official adjudicators of specific governments to have violated others' IP rights could, ultimately, be banished from the territory controlled by those governments, and such enforcement would come at a cost far less than the equivalent action in a real-life court. Even larger-scale disputes, involving intellectual property outside the virtual world, could be resolved by combined approach of litigation in in-world courts to provide a speedy, cheap immediate interim remedy against the perpetrator, with the threat (or actuality) of real-life litigation if that proves inadequate. Large corporations may realise that all but the most professional or persistent of, for example, trademark infringers, can be deterred by the threat, or actuality, of being banished from wherever it is they own their virtual land or do their virtual business, which option would be considerably cheaper than litigating in real-world courts where it proves effective.

Financial services regulation

As with the enforcement of contracts, the design, institution and enforcement of regulations pertaining to financial service institutions operating solely within virtual worlds is a task that can only practically be compassed by local governments. Although, unlike their real life counterparts, governments in virtual worlds, especially open-sourced ones, cannot stop financial institutions buying their own fresh land, unbeholden to any government, and conducting their unregulated financial business there, governments can at least publicise an approved list of financial service operators who do operate within the rules, adjudicate effectively any disputes about whether they have broken any of the rules, and prevent those who operate outside the rules from operating within that government's territory, or even banish those who run such institutions from their territories.

Such uses of government are of potentially considerable interest given the recent concern that has arisen about a number of banks who operate only in the virtual world. However, if one pauses to consider the possibility that real-life banking corporations may one day want to open banks in virtual worlds, too, answering the otherwise intractable problem of to which, if any, set of real-life national regulations that such accounts should be subject, it will become apparent that the issue extends beyond concerned about the fiscal prudence (or legitimacy) shoestring amateur organisations.

Land enforcement

Virtual land is the most basic of commodities in a virtual world, and, as virtual worlds have proved in their operation, disputes over land have the potential to cause substantial acrimony and wasted economic effort and potential. Disputes can arise about intrusive objects or buildings on neighbouring land, resource utilisation where neighbouring lands share resources, such as a limited number of people able to access a region, or about the purchase and sale of land.

Although, in many respects, disputes relating to land can be resolved in a similar fashion to disputes relating to contracts, intellectual property or alleged griefing, an additional element of complexity arises in the local government model because the jurisdiction of a local government is tied to a particular virtual-geographical territory. Disputes within that territory could readily be resolved, but disputes between landowners in different governments, or even between different governments, might pose greater problems.

However, such potential for difficulty must be put in perspective. Firstly, it is inherently no greater than the problems that can arise between landowners in the absence of government. Secondly, economic factors have a good chance of maximising the number of disputes of this nature that can effectively be resolved.

The economic pressures that have a good chance of resulting in local governments having a good success rate in solving land disputes arise from the premise that units of land that share a government with all or most other units of land with which resource and other such disputes are likely to arise are likely, for that reason, to be more valuable than units of land that do not so share, because there is a substantial advantage to potential purchasers of land in having potential disputes resolved effectively. That will, in turn, create an economic incentive for governments and owners of land to cause land to be configured such that it maximises dispute resolution possibilities.

Within land controlled by a single government, planning rules (as prescriptive or open-ended as market forces demand) could help to prevent land blight, and an equivalent of what is in some real-life common law jurisdictions called the tort of nuisance could deal with residual disputes about the effect of allegedly undesirable activities upon neighbouring landowers. Such capacity for dispute resolution has, in turn, the potential to create communities and landscapes of sorts not previously seen in virtual worlds: something between the unrelentingly eclectic (and often downright clashing) and the starkly uniform (of the sort that results from the entire design being created or overseen by one person, or a small group of people).

Group organisation and asset sharing

Many people in virtual worlds like to go it alone, but many others desire to engage in group activity. Much of that group activity requires shared, group land, but, in a system whereby any unit of land can only be owned by either a single individual, or all members of a group equally, many desirable configurations are impossible. A group, for example, that wants to set itself up as a community of producers of goods with a certain theme, and also let small residences that share that theme to outsiders, needs a system in which the overall control of land is centralised (to ensure that the theme is maintained, for example), but where individual plots of land can be individually controlled to a considerable extent by individual owners thereof. A local government could enable such groups effectively to form local councils to oversee the management of their land, whilst enabling the individual members of that group to retain substantial personal control over their individual parcels of land.

Similarly, where land is sold by the creator of the virtual world (or, when open-sourced, by its server vendors) only in bulk units corresponding. for example, to whole servers, which are substantially beyond the price range of most, many people might be motivated to form groups to buy a part of a new such unit of virtual land, on the understanding that the whole unit will be run in a particular way. Without relying on specific trustworthy individuals, capable of handling large quantities of money on behalf of other people both honestly and diligently, such an arrangement is impossible without local government. The ability of such arrangements to emerge has the potential to increase demand for virtual land, as the number of permutations of use possibilities increase: such arrangements would undoubtedly have the capability to make purchases of new land substantially less uncertain than they might otherwise be. For this head of benefit, flexibility is key.

Self-regulation discourages external regulation

Many are concerned at the future possibility of real-life governments making virtual worlds far less pleasant places by over-regulating them. However, it is a far harder to claim that something needs regulating if it already regulates itself in an efficient, systematic and professional way than if it is wholly unregulated. Given the potential for a system of local governments, through the market forces of crowd-sourcing and competition, to produce high-quality, professional systems of law, there is a good chance that the existence of systems of local government will help to dissuade real-life governments from overly restricting desirable activity within virtual worlds.

Furthermore, there has recently been discussion of whether virtual assets ought to be taxed, not just when they are converted into real assets, but in their status as virtual assets, too. Such a highly undesirable step could potentially be shown to be even more absurd than it now appears by pointing out that there are already governments in virtual worlds, which would be the appropriate destination for any tax revenue generated solely in virtual worlds, and that what, if any, tax to charge on such assets should be a matter for those governments.

Social experimentation and publicity

Whilst the functions of social experimentation and publicity are necessarily ancillary functions of local governments, they are certainly not trivial functions. A virtual world that can claim to have proven a hitherto untested system of government either successful or unsuccessful, or that can demonstrate, with the extreme swiftness and efficiency possible only in virtual worlds, what aspects of governments are more or less effective at, for example, improving efficiency or preventing abuses of powers, can not only greatly add to human learning on social organisation, but generate substantial publicity for itself in so doing.

A virtual world so socially and economically advanced that it can claim to be host to a slew of serious, well-organised, efficient governments, staffed in many cases by people with real-life expertise in the areas of governance in question is a virtual world that is so far ahead of any virtual world of which that is not true that it would, in all probability, make it substantially harder for a potential competitor to catch up without first doing the same itself.

Furthermore, the personnel needed to staff governments and their attendant institutions creates a whole new class of potential consumers, both for those who sell virtual land, and for those who sell virtual goods, attracting those to the virtual world who might otherwise be uninterested in such frolics. People (who might in real life be impoverished, either by being students or living in poorer countries) could earn virtual salaries working in virtual government posts, and either spend that money on virtual goods, or use it to go a little way towards working themselves out of poverty, or paying for their tuition.

Ultimately, a virtual world that can claim to be, not just a land in which a few people have interesting buildings, but a world, in the truest sense of the term, with a set of independent but often interconnected nations, is a far richer experience for all of its users than one that is not.

The relevance of identity verification

A potential problem arises in relation to many aspects of virtual worlds, but local governance in particular, relating to the ease by which individuals can register multiple accounts such that it is never possible to tell whether any given person is the alter ego of any other given person (other than oneself). Amongst other local government-related problems, it can lead to voter fraud (single real-life people can use multiple accounts to vote many times), the ineffectiveness of banishment (those banished may create new accounts to return to places from which they were banished) and a false appearance of checks and balances within a government that, in reality, is run by a single person or a very few people, posing as a great many more people. Fortunately, that problem has an elegant and ingenious solution.

A third-party identity verification company can create a system of avatar verification, whereby it is possible to show, with a high degree of conclusiveness, that any one verified avatar is not an alternate account of any other verified avatar. The system would work in the following manner: any avatar wishing to become verified would pay a small fee (the equivalent of several US dollars) to the identity verification company, and provide that company with some clear proof of that person's real-life identity. The person would then, using her or his in-world avatar, and using scripted objects in-world, prove to the company that a specific avatar is controlled by that real-life person by, for example, entering a pass-code generated on proof of real-life identity into an in-world kiosk. The third-party company would never release the real-life identity of the avatar in question to anybody, at least without the person's permission, but would class that avatar as a “verified” avatar by entering the avatar name in question into a database of verified avatars, accessible in XML format by scripted objects in the world, or perhaps even directly accessible through the client software. That real-life person would then be unable to register any other avatar name as verified. There is already an organisation in existence with both the wherewithal and inclination to do just this.

If governments prevented non-verified avatars from, for example, voting, or holding certain government posts, then the potential abuses caused by alternate accounts could be much diminished, if not eliminated entirely.

Update: Linden Lab has recently confirmed that it is planning to introduce its own identity verification system into SecondLife.

Transcript of Meeting April 15, 2007

GwynethLlewelyn — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 06:30:50 CDT

Gwyneth Llewelyn: hi :)
Soul4sale Ferraris: well, if it isn't THE Gwyneth Llewelyn
Soul4sale Ferraris: nice to put a face with a bookmark
Gwyneth Llewelyn: lol
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hi there, Soul4sale,
Gwyneth Llewelyn: and you have the advantage on me, I'm afraid I don't remember if we've met before?
Soul4sale Ferraris: we haven't. i just lurk on your blog. haven't been in world long, and you got me up to speed on a lot of issues
Gwyneth Llewelyn: awww
Gwyneth Llewelyn: well, I'm glad you think that the blog is helpful for *something* hehe
Soul4sale Ferraris: if you want to feel more symmetrical, you can find some of my stuff at www.metaversemessenger.com
Soul4sale Ferraris: i'm a RL local gov reporter, and i get to cut loose in here
Gwyneth Llewelyn: sorry... finishing up some unrelated things while waiting :)
Soul4sale Ferraris: no need to aopologize
Gwyneth Llewelyn: and I didn't know you wrote for the M2, lol
Soul4sale Ferraris: i'm drinking a beer and playing nintendo.
Ashcroft Burnham: Ahh, hello, Gwyn :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: I was just posting a message on a Linux help forum :-)
Soul4sale Ferraris: you a penguin, ashcroft?
Ashcroft Burnham: No. I'm a lion.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hehe nice, Ash
Gwyneth Llewelyn: and LOL
Ashcroft Burnham: Gwyn, might I be able to rez an object here? I need to use a flipchart...
Gwyneth Llewelyn: oh... hmm
Gwyneth Llewelyn: do you have a slot free for a group?
Ashcroft Burnham: Yes :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: All right :D
Gwyneth Llewelyn: ok... see if it works...
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: The flipchart owner can:
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: * Drop a notecard to the flipchart
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: * '/1empty' - empty the flipchart
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: * '/1show' - raise the flipchart by 4
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: * '/1hide' - lower the flipchart by 4
Ashcroft Burnham: :-D
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hopefully it does!
Gwyneth Llewelyn: You might need to set it to group too
Soul4sale Ferraris: i'm having flashbacks of watching county planners trying to set up tripods b4 a planning commission meeting
Kristy Laval: hi ash
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hehe Soul :)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: and hi Kristy!
Ashcroft Burnham: Hello, Kirsty :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Do take a seat. I'm just setting up your flipchart...
Kristy Laval: i am pleased to meet you
Kristy Laval: hi gwyneth, ash did speek to me of you
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Hopefully only bad things :)
Kristy Laval: is there any good thing to mention?
Kristy Laval: lol
Kristy Laval: yes, good things
Gwyneth Llewelyn: I'm pretty sure that none whatsoever :)
Deanfred Brandeis: Nice getup, Soul4sale.
Soul4sale Ferraris: thank you very much. i had a lot of help
Deanfred Brandeis: brb
Gwyneth Llewelyn: 1 minute ;)
Ashcroft Burnham: (Still setting up slides...)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hehe :D
Gwyneth Llewelyn watches
Deanfred Brandeis: Hi, everybody.
Soul4sale Ferraris: howdy
Deanfred Brandeis: wow, lots of packet loss in here
Ashcroft Burnham: Hello everybody :-) Welcome to the meeting. Thank you all for coming along.
Ashcroft Burnham: Please wait a moment whilst I finish getting everything set up, and then we'll be ready :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: ;)
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda II to Kristy Laval
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Packet loss? hmmm
Gwyneth Llewelyn: I'm 6000 km away, and have 0% ;)
Deanfred Brandeis: just spikes occasionally
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Which is actually rare
Soul4sale Ferraris: i'm spiking, but i have a wireless connection
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Aaah ok
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Kristy Laval
Gwyneth Llewelyn: yes, there seem to be a few spikes now and then hmm
Gwyneth Llewelyn is also on wireless though
Ashcroft Burnham: Hello everyone: do take a seat.
Ashcroft Burnham: Sorry for the delay: it seems that group notices are down...
Gwyneth Llewelyn: They are? :-P
xyryx Simca: Try group notices again?..I just recd a notice from a different group
Deanfred Brandeis: Who is the meeting chair, BTW?
Ashcroft Burnham: Hello everybody who's just joined us... do take a seat :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: yes, hi all :)
Ashcroft Burnham: I'll wait for the stragglers then start in a minute or two...
Ashcroft Burnham shouts: To the people outside: do come in! The meeting is inside the building. All are welcome :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Hello everybody who is coming for the LGSG meeting! The auditorium is on the Eastern side of the sim, on the SE island.
Ashcroft Burnham: Aha, thank you for the parcel message, Gwyn. I didn't know that people could do that...
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hehe apparently they never kicked me out as Estate Manager here
Ashcroft Burnham: ;-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn makes a mental note to ask to be kicked out ;)
Little Gray: heh lucky you .. oh but for I could run scripts ... alas .. woe is me.
xyryx Simca: heheh! welcome!
Gwyneth Llewelyn: :)
Little Gray: i thought the meeting was at 5:00 am .. this something else?
Ashcroft Burnham: Little Gray: no, the meeting was always at 12.30PM :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Hello everybody, and welcome to the third meeting of the Local Government Study Group, and the second meeting of the LGSG on the subject of the benefits of local government.
Ashcroft Burnham: Touch the flipchart behind me, everyone, to get (1) an agenda of to-day's meeting; and (2) a detailed document with some background information.
Little Gray: oh .. yeah i was confused with the trade name law meeting
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda II to Angel Fluffy
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda II to Deanfred Brandeis
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda II to Elwood Abernathy
Gwyneth Llewelyn: :)
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda II to James Bringholf
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda II to Stu Source
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda II to xyryx Simca
Ashcroft Burnham: We are very honoured to-day to have Gwyneth Llewelyn here, a leading SecondLife blogger and general luminary, who will be chairing the discussions.
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to James Bringholf
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Deanfred Brandeis
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda II to Lem Skall
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda II to Gwyneth Llewelyn
Flipchart v3 - LGSG gave you Benefits meeting agenda II.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: I'll try lol
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda II to Little Gray
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Little Gray
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Gwyneth Llewelyn
Flipchart v3 - LGSG gave you Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hmm spammy :)
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Lem Skall
Ashcroft Burnham: But before we start with the main discussions...
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Elwood Abernathy
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda II to Ralph Radius
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Ralph Radius
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda II to Sarastro Zauberflote
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Stu Source
Ashcroft Burnham: ...I'd like to say a word of thanks both to Gwyneth here and to the good people at Sunbelt software for, respectively, organising the meeting, and allowing it to take place on thier island.
Ashcroft Burnham: So, a round of applause, everybody, for Gwyneth and the Sunbelt Software people :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: :-D
Ashcroft Burnham: :-D
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to RED Barnes
Gwyneth Llewelyn: oh my, no applause at all
Ashcroft Burnham: (It's "/clap")
Ashcroft Burnham: :-)
Conover's SuperSmooth Flight-Helper 3.0a whispers: Max-Velocity now set to 30 M/s.
Conover's SuperSmooth Flight-Helper 3.0a whispers: Commands: /flyhelp to get documentation.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Nooo I mean
Little Gray: /clap
Soul4sale Ferraris: /clap
Gwyneth Llewelyn: You should only thank Stu for allowing us to meet here
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda II to RED Barnes
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to xyryx Simca
Stu Source: You are more than welcome all.
Ashcroft Burnham: Now, Gwyneth, I'll hand over to you and we can start the substantive part of the discussion :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: well I'm not sure if everybody attended the previous meetings
Gwyneth Llewelyn: I, for one, didn't ;)
James Bringholf: Nor I
Gwyneth Llewelyn: So I'm wildly guessing that you, Ash, have some nice slides to give us some framework for the discussion today
Ashcroft Burnham: Well, indeed :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Before I get started on to-day's topics, just a brief reminder of what we covered last time, for those who weren't here.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Why don't we start with those? Most of you have already found out,
Ashcroft Burnham: For those who were - it never hurts to have a refresher :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: that by touching the slideshow display you get some nice texts from Ash :)
Gwyneth Llewelyn nods and hands the floor to Ash
Ashcroft Burnham: This, as the title of the meeting might suggest, is the second of two parts of a meeting series covering the benefits of local governance.
Ashcroft Burnham: As some of you may know, I have also devised some detailed tools proposals, which are now in their second edition. The meeting to-day is not for discussing those: that'll be for another day.
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda II to Madeleine Fitzgerald
Gwyneth Llewelyn *nods*
Ashcroft Burnham: The last meeting that we had, we discused local versus universal government, and why local government is generally preferable to a single universal government.
Ashcroft Burnham: We discussed griefing and security, and how local governments can help to bring both security to the griefed, and fairness to alleged griefers.
Ashcroft Burnham: We talked about contracts, IP and other commercial benefits of a legal system, and how local governments could help to provide the sort of stability necessary for sophisticated commerce to thrive.
Ashcroft Burnham: And we discussed the relevance of local government to land, and how it could help resolve (both in advance and after the event) disputes about land.
Selkit Diller gave you Letter shooter rev.2.
Ashcroft Burnham: The meeting to-day will focus on the undiscussed topics: group organisation and asset sharing, self-regulation and external regulation, social experimentation and publicity and identity verification.
Ashcroft Burnham: We'll discuss those first, because they haven't been discussed yet.
Ashcroft Burnham: There will, however, be time to discuss the topics from the last meeting again at the end, for any of you who did not attend, or anyone who did attend, but only thought of something to say afterwards :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hehe
Ashcroft Burnham: ...and I've just realised that I forgot to upload the slide for agenda item no. 4...
Conover's SuperSmooth Flight-Helper 3.0a whispers: Max-Velocity now set to 30 M/s.
Conover's SuperSmooth Flight-Helper 3.0a whispers: Commands: /flyhelp to get documentation.
Ashcroft Burnham: Back to you, Gwyneth, for any questions on the organisation of the meeting before we get to the first new substantive topic :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: uh oh
Gwyneth Llewelyn: lol
Gwyneth Llewelyn: I'd say, after you present your slides
Gwyneth Llewelyn: on each topic
Gwyneth Llewelyn: we'll have a round of open discussion
Gwyneth Llewelyn: I'm not sure if we should use the silly "Thinker's soapbox"
Gwyneth Llewelyn: to get people register to speak
Gwyneth Llewelyn: have them on for 2 minutes
Ashcroft Burnham: Regulated open discussion - that worked well last time. Whoever wants to ask a question or make a point can come and sit on the stage :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: and close if after a few people have talked?
Gwyneth Llewelyn: ok
Gwyneth Llewelyn: In that case,
Gwyneth Llewelyn: we have a chair left,
Gwyneth Llewelyn: IM me if you wish to talk for 2 minutes ;)
Little Gray: kk
Ashcroft Burnham: Thank you Gwyneth :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: And I think it's best if you, Ashcroft, introduce each topic
Gwyneth Llewelyn: and then we discuss a bit,
Ashcroft Burnham: Very well :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: then you go to the next one
Ashcroft Burnham: On that subject...
Gwyneth Llewelyn: and we discuss again
Gwyneth Llewelyn: and open the floor at the end. Does that make sense? :)
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda II to Ashcroft Burnham
Ashcroft Burnham: Topic no. 4: group organisation and asset sharing.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ok, beginning at the end :D
Ashcroft Burnham: We discussed last time what might be considered the primary benefits of local governance.
Ashcroft Burnham: To-day's topics are perhaps less obvious benefits, but they are not wholly unimportant ones.
Sarastro Zauberflote: Could I ask a short question?
Ashcroft Burnham: Group organisation and asset sharing is one of the less obvious benefits of local government tools, but one that is capable of bringing a great deal of benefit to SecondLife
Ashcroft Burnham: (At the end, Sarastro :-) )
Ashcroft Burnham: If you have a look at the second item in the flipchart, you'll see that I've outlined in a little bit of detail some of the ways in which local governance tools can help with group organisation and asset sharing.
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda II to Pelanor Eldrich
Ashcroft Burnham: I'll give an example here.
Selkit Diller gave you Paper plane rev 2.
Ashcroft Burnham: Suppose that a group of, say, ten or twenty people want to start some or other joint enterprise in SecondLife.
Ashcroft Burnham: Suppose that that joint enterprise needs land.
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Pelanor Eldrich
Ashcroft Burnham: Now, under the current group tools, they can make a group and buy some land between them.
Ashcroft Burnham: However, that is limiting in the following respect:
Moon Adamant accepted your inventory offer.
Ashcroft Burnham: the individual members of the group have a particular degree of control (or not) over *all* group land.
Ashcroft Burnham: So, there is no room for a group that wants to have overall control of a large piece of land, but let individual members of the group have full parcel priviledges over subdivisions of that land.
Ashcroft Burnham: That *is* possible using a private island estate, but there can only ever be a single owner of a private island estate.
Ashcroft Burnham: Now, if one has a *very* trustworthy person in the group who can act as owner, then that can work.
Ashcroft Burnham: But, in many cases, people might be understandably uneasy about trusting a single person with thousands of US dollars' worth of land.
matika Wombat accepted your inventory offer.
Ashcroft Burnham: What is needed is a system whereby, either on the mainland, or on private island estates, groups can establish institutions that have overall control of land on which individuals have parcel powers over subdivisions of it.
Ashcroft Burnham: A system whereby a local government can have power over land and where individuals can own that land under that government is just such a system.
Ashcroft Burnham: (The details of how it all works are a matter for a detailed look at the tools, which is for another day).
Gwyneth Llewelyn: :)
Ashcroft Burnham: I hope that I've given some idea, at least, of the benefits of this sort.
Ashcroft Burnham: I'll had over to Gwyneth now to field questions on the subject before we move on.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: thank you Ash :)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ok, I have Sarastro on the list to go first....
Gwyneth Llewelyn: anyone else, please IM me separately
Gwyneth Llewelyn: And Sarastro, you've got the floor... or the chair :)
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Sarastro Zauberflote: Sorry it is to laggy for the chair-. i´m old, but I try to stand for one wuestion
Sarastro Zauberflote: question
Ashcroft Burnham: ;-)
Sarastro Zauberflote: I heard that a local government has benefits- but I don´t see a reason for them- we have a ggod Law in RL- and that counts in Sl. Nothing else. Where do you see the problem witrh the SL law?
Ashcroft Burnham: I'm not sure that I follow the question...
Ashcroft Burnham: (Hold on...)
Sarastro Zauberflote: I want to know- where you see the problems which make you think governements are neccessary
Ashcroft Burnham: (Sorry for the delay)
Ashcroft Burnham: As I was about to say before I ahd to hand out a landmark...
Ashcroft Burnham: ...the premises of the question are contradictory :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: If any X has benefits, those benefits are necessarily reasons to have X.
Sarastro Zauberflote: I don´t see the benefits
Ashcroft Burnham: The overall answer "what are the reasons for X?" is met by saying "X has these benefits over not X".
Sarastro Zauberflote: I onlyx see problems
Mondrian Lykin: oh hey Robin
Ashcroft Burnham: And welcome, Robin :-)
Robin Linden: ooops sorry no wonder it wouldn't work
Gwyneth Llewelyn waves at Robin
Gwyneth Llewelyn: So hmm Ash
Mondrian Lykin: eheh right :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: will you recap the benefits for Sarastro?
Ashcroft Burnham: Sarastro, the benefits are clearly set out in the notecard in that flipchart: we're discussing them one by one :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hehe yes
Robin Linden: something bad just happened. sorry to disrupt things
Sarastro Zauberflote: Thsat would be nice
Angel Fluffy waves to everyone who has joined recently. He's on the phone so he can't talk much, but he's reading :)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Aww robin ? you're most welcome here, and you're not really disrupting :)
Ashcroft Burnham: Ahh, I'm afraid that that would involve recapping the entire previous meeting, and the entire meeting that we're about to have :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Oh I meant just in this issue
Gwyneth Llewelyn: So Sarastro ? you see, there is a slight limitation on Group land
Gwyneth Llewelyn: there is no easy way that a *group* of people,
Gwyneth Llewelyn: can together decide how to assign other members specific roles
Gwyneth Llewelyn: *one* person can do it ? the Group owner
Pelanor Eldrich: Sarastro, if I lend you $L 10000, without mainland collerateral, how can I ever make sure you pay me back? Answer: local gov't with enforceable contracts.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: but to have something that works ? and has some sort of democratic participation,
SL Exchange Magic Box white: SL Exchange - Delivered item Beginners' Guide to Second Life Notecard Dispenser.
Sarastro Zauberflote: I don´t agree
Selkit Diller gave you Paper plane.
Mondrian Lykin: we need some arguments then :)
Sarastro Zauberflote: I only see problems with this "democrstic participation". we have the law - that is enough - makjing a new law is not neccessary
Selkit Diller gave you Paper plane.
James Bringholf: Which law?
Robin Linden: Gwyn is the problem a lack of tools or a lack of consensus?
Sarastro Zauberflote: The RL law
Ashcroft Burnham: Sastro, the short answer to your original question is that that's the purpose of this entire pair of meetings, of which this is the second :-) Somebody asked that question at the very first meeting, to discuss the tools, so I drafted the notecard and set up this series of meetings. If you see a problem with the specific arguments that I've given in the notecard, or in the presentation to-day, then I'd be very interested to hear them, but saying in general "I don't see any benefits" when there's a notecard full of benefits doesn't get us terribly far...
Moon Adamant accepted your inventory offer.
James Bringholf: Which jurisdiction, Sarastro?
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ok ok
Gwyneth Llewelyn: perhaps some order please...
Ashcroft Burnham: BRB
Sarastro Zauberflote: Sorry - i did not know anything about the cards, when you invited me aome minutes ago :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Sarastro, in some cases, we're talking about the way on how to "enforce" some things inside SL, regarding the tools that we've got. In other cases, we are, indeed, talking about "new laws".
Selkit Diller gave you Scanning Alien.
Mondrian Lykin: Robin: lack of tools, in my opinion. Consensus would follow
Gwyneth Llewelyn: All right
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Deanfred has asked to be next
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Please take the chair, Deanfred :)
Deanfred Brandeis: Concerning this particular benefit, I don't see how these problems couldn't more appropriately be solved by LL (or others when the server is open sourced) developing tools to allow land-owners to grant very find-grained access controls on their land.
Ashcroft Burnham: Well, indeed, if that was the only benefit of local government, that would be a valid point.
Ashcroft Burnham: Oops, you haven't finished - sorry :-)
Moon Adamant accepted your inventory offer.
Deanfred Brandeis: It seems that the benefits of local government should really be the ones that cannot be solved with SL tools already.
Deanfred Brandeis: np
Ashcroft Burnham: Well, indeed.
Ashcroft Burnham: But the tools that I propose (they are set out in detail, and will be discussed at a forthcoming tools meeting) will in fact tend to have these and other benefits.
Deanfred Brandeis: I agree that such controls don't already exist, but with an open-sourced server coming into view, we may see features like this easier to get included.
Ashcroft Burnham: The point of this discussion is not to list the problems that only local governance can solve, but all the benefits of local government tools.
Ashcroft Burnham: There *are* a number of benefits that only local government can bring: those were the "primary" benefits that we discussed at the last meeting.
Ashcroft Burnham: These benefits that we're discussing to-day are the ancillary benefits: benefits that are incidental to local government tools.
Ashcroft Burnham: They are, however, capable of being quite potent benefits.
Ashcroft Burnham: Given that there is a need for (1) local governance tools of some description; and (2) better goup land controls of some description, there is a reason to prefer any set of tools that integrates both functions.
Robin Linden: If I could point out also, local controls are the only long term option in our view. So it behooves us to figure out the best way to support them.
Ashcroft Burnham: The tools that I propose do indeed so integrate :-)
Deanfred Brandeis: Sure. This could definitely benefit people. Only I think land-owners--at least initially--will be very hesitant about giving up ownership of their land to *anyone* else, even a government, to provide these benefits. I think most see control as having greater value than enforcement of finer-grained group controls.
Ashcroft Burnham: Indeed, Robin :-)
Deanfred Brandeis: Robin, how so?
Deanfred Brandeis: I mean, why is that a long-term problem?
Ashcroft Burnham: Ahh, Deanfred, that's why the tools that I propose have a range of different kinds of government, some of which enable landowners to give up less control than others :-)
Pelanor Eldrich: Surely Deanfred, this is purely opt-in for landowners and tenants. The default is the status quo.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Long-term, LL will have as little intervention in "SL as we know it" as it is possible :D
Deanfred Brandeis: Pelanor, certainly, but I'm only arguing it seems more solvable with technology than government.
Ashcroft Burnham: But, Deanfred, your second question assumes that only existing landowners will benefit from local governance. The issue of group administration and asset sharing shows that part of the point is that groups of people who do not already own land might want to come together and buy land between them: land that might not ever have been bought otherwise.
Deanfred Brandeis: Gwyneth, policy-wise, perhaps, but with the technology itself?
Deanfred Brandeis: Ash: possibly, yes
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Deanfred: possibly both ;) Who knows? :)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ok hmm
Ashcroft Burnham: In those circumstances, the issue of what control that "landowners" have over their land is not as clear cut as you earlier suggested :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: I don't have anyone else on the list for speaking,
Ashcroft Burnham: But,a nyway, the tools allow a range of possibilities.
Pelanor Eldrich: Right Deanfred, the tools proposed are gov't form agnostic. You can easily build a totalitarian regime with them, it's up to you.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: if someone else wants to have their 2 minutes, please let me know
Ashcroft Burnham gets the next slide ready
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Or else, we'll move to Ash's next point.
Deanfred Brandeis: Ash: There is a clear distinction, I hope, between government owning land and land being under the jurisdiction of a government.
Robin Linden: In my view the problem isn't governance, it's enforcement of whatever rules the landowner chooses to put in place.
Sarastro Zauberflote: I have a nother question please
Robin Linden: And I'd love to see a more creative solution than banning as a means of enforcement.
Ashcroft Burnham: (Robin, hmm, I think that that's the same thing, isn't it? :-) )
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ok, Sarastro, let's have Robin finishing her comment, and then you again.
Deanfred Brandeis: Robin: fine-grained access controls
Ashcroft Burnham: Aha - Robin, look at the liquid escrow proposal :-)
Robin Linden: sorry...
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Sarastro?
Sarastro Zauberflote: Yes -. thanks. Could you tell me of waht tools you are talking?
Gwyneth Llewelyn: oooh
Gwyneth Llewelyn: I think there will be a whole meeting for those :)
Angel Fluffy: Robin: like the ability to block particle emissions by no-pay-info-on-file avs (thus defeating much of the griefer attack problem)... or a per-region checkbox to disable self-replication (llGiveInventory recursive...) - that way artificial life projects could work but regions without legit self-replicating scripts could protect themselves.
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda II to Lance Foil
Ashcroft Burnham: Indeed, Gwyn :-)
Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Lance Foil
Ashcroft Burnham: Several meetings... :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ok, Sarastro, do you mind if we go towards the next item for today? If I remember correctly, Ash has indeed made a long post with several suggestions on the tools
Gwyneth Llewelyn: ... while Ash continues to the next step, is that fine?
Gwyneth Llewelyn: which I'll try to search for :)
Ashcroft Burnham: (I've already given it to him).
Gwyneth Llewelyn: aww
Gwyneth Llewelyn: you're the efficient one!
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ok, next point then.
Ashcroft Burnham: This next topic is relatively short :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: As I said earlier, we're discussing to-day some of the more peripheral benefits of local governance.
Ashcroft Burnham: This is perhaps the most peripheral of all.
Deanfred Brandeis: (not at all; very important!)
Ashcroft Burnham: It's a little speculative, even, but it's worthwhile nonetheless.
Deanfred Brandeis: :)
Ashcroft Burnham: The point, in a nutshell, is that, if we in SecondLife organise ourselves to provide effecitve internal governance and regulation, enforce our own contracts, our own IP rights, make our own financial services regulation systesms based on local laws created by local governments created from the ground up by residents, then there'll be far less incentive for external governemnt organisations to see in SecondLife, and other virtual worlds, a vast sprawling anarchy just waiting to be regulated by it.
Ashcroft Burnham: And I daresay that everybody, or nearly everybody, perhaps, Sarastro ;-), would agree that we'd be better off with homespun regulation than government-imposed regulation.
Pelanor Eldrich: Ashcroft's 2nd draft of tools can also be found here: http://www.talksecondlife.com/second-life-law/970-governance-tools-proposals-second-draft.html
Ashcroft Burnham: We can't be sure that creating governments will have that effect, of course, but if what potential regulators see is a system already well regulated, then their motivation to intervene might at least be somewhat less urgent :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Over to Gwyneth again :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: I would just add something (ie. putting myself on the queue for speaking)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: :)
Ashcroft Burnham: :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Well, remember the international nature of SL.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: I'm not sure that I'd like to have, say, China legislating on what Canadians should do in Sl :)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: or are +allowed to do.
Sarastro Zauberflote: I would
Gwyneth Llewelyn: (wb Robin)
Ashcroft Burnham: Gwyn makes another good point :-)
Robin Linden: thanks Gwyn
Lance Foil: What is they are in their own land?
Mondrian Lykin: well, norms must have some kind of background
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Yes... on the other hand, the Internet has a rather good reputation of "self-organisation on a global scale", ie. getting international organisations starting from grassroot movements,
Ashcroft Burnham: (Just like the LGSG :-) )
Gwyneth Llewelyn: (yes Ash)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: and then, nationally, "negotiating" to have them integrated into national law
Lance Foil: It should be like RL laws, go abroad and obey their laws
Gwyneth Llewelyn: A good example: in spite of everything, China *has* to abide by the ICANN to be connected to the Internet :)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Well, Lance, the problem here is that the international scope of SL (like the Internet) is not very clearly limited
Ashcroft Burnham: Indeed. We, the users of SecondLife, should be at the forefront of setting our norms, rather than allowing others to set them for us :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Aye. Self-determination, home rule, etc
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Nice words used in the past :)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Why shouldn't they apply to us as well?
Ashcroft Burnham: But where "home" is defined in a virtual sense.. :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: And sorry, I'm talking too much already ? anyone would comment on this next?
Pelanor Eldrich: Sure
Deanfred Brandeis: I say keep RL government out of here. That is all. :)
Lance Foil: Its like Medieval England really, people rule their indipendant Sims, but the lands could be connected through something bigger
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ok, Pelanor, you've got the floor :)
Sarastro Zauberflote: ?????? Keep RL law out??? How that?
Pelanor Eldrich: In order to have a micropayment interantional service economy, you need local self-gov't.
Gwyneth Llewelyn (will comment on that after Pel's finished)
Pelanor Eldrich: LL has no business interest in enforcing contracts and judging petty squabbles.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: uh-huh
Pelanor Eldrich: Any transaction valued at less than $1000USD is not worth the effort to retain lawyers and have an international jurisdiction case. Which would, also, by the way, unmask RL identities.
Pelanor Eldrich: So we have to do it ourselves, or we can forget about the bulk of the SL service economy which requires enforceable contracts.
Pelanor Eldrich: (done)
Ashcroft Burnham: :-) Not strictly on this topic, but that does answer Sarastro's point very well :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: True :)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: to Sarastroi &
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Deanfred,
Gwyneth Llewelyn: we don't live in a legal vacuum
Gwyneth Llewelyn: so we can't say "RL laws do not apply it"
Deanfred Brandeis: I'd like to clarify if I may.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: *here
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Sure ? please.
Deanfred Brandeis: As I said to Satastro in IM: My point is only that while we are all subject to laws in our own RL jurisdictions, I'd prefer it if RL governments were not interested in regulating SL directly.
Gwyneth Llewelyn *nods*
xyryx Simca: As a preliminary step to the introduction of any form of local government, it would be useful to have a forum or group set up for each sim. An opt-out communication tool. This would give residents if there are indeed any problems that might benefit from escalation to some form of local govt.
Ashcroft Burnham: Yes, Deanfred, that's the point exactly :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Or better: *when* they decide to do the regulation (which they will, even if takes 30 years ;) ), they should "get a hand" from the existing, local 'authorities' that have well-planned structures in place,
Ashcroft Burnham: xyryx: that's a tools issue, really, rather than a general benefits issue. I'll drop you a notecard with the details of my tools proposals on them and you can have a look at those, and tell me what you think at the next tools meeting.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: and work together with them at another scale.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: This is exactly what happened with the Internet.
Robin Linden: Do you think that the mainland should have a different philosophy or set of tools than the island estates?
Gwyneth Llewelyn: We had "grassroot" organisations working ? democratically even ? far before the first country ever established a single law 'regulating' the Internet
Ashcroft Burnham: Robin: I don't think that it should have a different set of local governance tools.
Deanfred Brandeis: Robin: It seems necessary, doesn't it? Someone is paying RL money for the entire sim.
Gwyneth Llewelyn doesn't think so, either
Ashcroft Burnham: The benefits of local governance shouldn't be confined just to the private islands.
Ashcroft Burnham: There might be some scope for, for example, a "Governor Linden" government for all the protected land.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Aaah Deanfred ? again, an issue of "tools" ? a private island could, technically speaking, be co-owned :) It just doesn't work like that right now.
Ashcroft Burnham: I hadn't thought of how that'd work exactly.
Robin Linden: I ask because I think it's far more difficult to bring groups together for local controls on the mainland due to parcel level ownership
Ashcroft Burnham: There might also be scope for, perhaps, local governments either just on private estates or on sims of which they have the entire ownership having extra tools than others.
Robin Linden: We may find that there are groups with similar beliefs who want to share a means of governance, but which don't control contiguous areas
Deanfred Brandeis: Gwyn: Sure. I'm just saying that someone who's paying for an entire sim may want (and deserve) more control over what jurisdictions his lands may be under.
Robin Linden: is that at all a consideration?
Deanfred Brandeis: Mutual jurisdiction under non-contiguous geography is assumed, I think. :)
Ashcroft Burnham: Well, Robin, I don't know how much that you've looked at the tools proposals, nor how well those proposals integrate with the current technology employed in SL, but the design idea of local governments was very much that they need not control only contiguous areas of land.
Ashcroft Burnham: They were specifically designed to be able to work on discontiguous areas, too :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Oh ? of course, Deanfred ? I believe that Ashcroft already pointed out that the idea is not "remove control" to landowners, but rather to give all types of "owners" different ways of controlling their land. Ie. landowners having a sim might opt for a non-democratic, tyrannical, autocratic system if that's what they think will work best for their tenants :)
Ashcroft Burnham: Indeed, Gwyn :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Not a "one-size-fits-all" model, but a finer degree of "tuning" :)
Robin Linden: Thanks Ashcroft. I hope I'll have more time with them this week.
Ralph Radius: The ability to TP lessens the need for territories to be contiguous. Not the same as in RL.
Ashcroft Burnham: Choice is the backbone of the tools proposals that I have drafted...
Ashcroft Burnham: Excellent :-)
Deanfred Brandeis: Gwyn: Except that in the case of island owners, the line between sim owner and land owner is blurred a bit. On mainland, the sim owner is LL no matter how much land I own in that sim.
Ashcroft Burnham: Indeed, Ralph :-)
Pelanor Eldrich: Robin, the acid test is getting local gov't to work on the mainland. I'll be giving that a shot with existing tools on 1/4 sim if I can.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: True, Dean.
Ashcroft Burnham: Deanfred, even that might be worth considering changing :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn *nods* & agrees
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ok hmm
Robin Linden: Can I sketch a scenario?
Ashcroft Burnham: Please do :-)
Deanfred Brandeis: Ash: heh, maybe
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Sure ? let's hear Robin, and then move on :)(
Robin Linden: Let's say in 24-36 months that the mainland is "Second Life" and the experience is designed and behavioral standards set by LL
Robin Linden: There are some islands associated to this, but the vast majority are increasingly autonomous, housed on the Second Life Grid, but not subject to LL community standards.
Robin Linden: I think this is where we will find ourselves, so building tools for two separate constituents has to be part of anything we contemplate.
Ashcroft Burnham: That's an interesting picture of the future, Robin :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: However, what I'd like to make clear about the tools that I propose is that they're designed to be able to work even under a system where Linden Lab sets the community standards.
Deanfred Brandeis: Robin: Or we just assume that LL will assert further control over the mainland under (sounds like increasingly stringent) TOS.
Ashcroft Burnham: They're flexible: they can work in a fully autonomous open-sourced environemnt, or in an environment in which the world creator (LL) exercises some residual control.
Ashcroft Burnham: Now, assuming that, in the future picture painted by Robin, the degree of control exercised by LL over the mainland does not substantially increase, then there would still be room for, and a need for, the toolset that I propose.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: mm hmm
Ashcroft Burnham: The details, of course, are another matter: there might well be room for *extra* powers of governments on private island estates.
Deanfred Brandeis: Ash: again, unless you know something I don't, an "open source server" does not necessarily imply an open source, interconnected grid.
Ralph Radius: Right Ashcroft
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ok... let's wrap it up on this point,
Pelanor Eldrich: Robin I would build the tools for the mainland and as close a copy as possbile for the private islands, realizing that the private islands will become open sourced servers not under governance of LL. At that point extra "island" tools will become available as the open source community develops them. They could (or could not) then find their way back into the LL Mainland.
Ashcroft Burnham: But one very important principle is that local government, with proper enforcement mechanisms, is not at all incompatible with simultaneous control of general behavioural standards by LL (the two systems can run in paralell), and ought not be denied to the mainland.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: (lots of things to think about!.... hehe)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Should we tackle the next item? :)
Ashcroft Burnham: Indeed.
Ashcroft Burnham: Let me find my slide..
Ashcroft Burnham: Rats. forgot to upload no. 6. Hold on...
Gwyneth Llewelyn: lol
Ralph Radius: We are taking about general tools for governance. They sould be able to most anywhere.
Ashcroft Burnham: Aha, now this is a fun one :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Social experimentation and publicity.
Mondrian Lykin: (is anybody logging this?)
Ashcroft Burnham: Again, the details are all in the notecard, so I'll give an outline, and open the floor to discussion again.
Deanfred Brandeis: I am mostly.
Mondrian Lykin: Ralph: great
Ralph Radius: I am.
Ashcroft Burnham: The development of local goverments in a virtual world is, more or less, unprecedented.
Ashcroft Burnham: It creates numerous opportunities for what is, in effect, fascinating social experimentation.
Deanfred Brandeis: to see socialism tried again? :P
Ashcroft Burnham: Forms of government unheard of in the first life, or varients of existing forms, could be tested, and perhaps found to be more effective than their first-life counterparts.
Sarastro Zauberflote: Oha oha
Ashcroft Burnham: Just imagine what sort of publicity that SecondLife would get if in it was invented a form of government entirely novel and from which first life governments actually learnt something :-)
Ralph Radius: I:-)
Sarastro Zauberflote: You mean waht you say?
Ashcroft Burnham: That is, perhaps, a little speculative to go so far.
Sarastro Zauberflote: A little???
Ashcroft Burnham: However, the mere fact of virtual world governments emerging would itself be a fascinating social experiment.
Ashcroft Burnham: The real-world media has *already* become interested in SecondLife legal systems.
Ashcroft Burnham: I was interviewed myself on BBC Radio 4 last year about the subject.
Deanfred Brandeis: Considering real life is not at stake, forms of government completely contradictory to RL are possible.
Ralph Radius: Any group would be free to give it a shot.
Sarastro Zauberflote: We need a good anforcement - very fast - not a social experimant
Ashcroft Burnham: I came here in the first place after reading an article on the subject in the New Scientsist magazine.
Ashcroft Burnham: An article on the subject has recently been published in the Americal Bar Associaiton Journal.
Mondrian Lykin: yes, well, governements already learnt something from the Internet, so maybe it's not so speculative
Ashcroft Burnham: Indeed, Mondrain :-)
Sarastro Zauberflote: Oha - i don´t agree
Mondrian Lykin: Sarastro: really? :D
Ashcroft Burnham: If that is the media response to intial, tentative attempts at virtual world legal systems, such as the 2005 SecondLife Superior Court, just imagine the potential reaction to serious, lasting systems :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Professor David Post has written on the subject, too.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Could we listen perhaps to Sarastro's issues on this point? :)
Ashcroft Burnham: He believes that virtual worlds such as SecondLife need to, and eventually will, develop their own internal legal systems.
Sarastro Zauberflote: Well - thank you
Mondrian Lykin: Ashcroft: he's the man! :D
Gwyneth Llewelyn is very interested in understanding what exactly you disagree with
Ashcroft Burnham: It would be a fascinating source of academic research, too :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: And over to Gwyn...
Ashcroft Burnham: :-)
Deanfred Brandeis: Sarastro isn't interested in the secondary benefits of local SL governments.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hehe, Sarastro just raised a disagreement with this notion, I'd like to know why.
Sarastro Zauberflote: Well - may I say one thing?
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Please do!
Sarastro Zauberflote: Well - we have - or want to have- lot´s of nations here
Sarastro Zauberflote: And they all have their own system and law
Sarastro Zauberflote: And it is nearly not possible to combine it in RL
Sarastro Zauberflote: And it wpon´t be possible here
Sarastro Zauberflote: And it is a work for the beste lawyers - not for us- we must create a basis for business.
Sarastro Zauberflote: And that can´t be a basis, which has strange basises to RL. The Crossover will be much harder than
Mondrian Lykin: one of Ashcroft's points was to have lawyers, judges and other proved law specialists to work on this
Sarastro Zauberflote: I need the intenational law here. And that stoill exists.
Mondrian Lykin: not the man of the street
Ashcroft Burnham: Sastro, that isn't really on topic, I'm afraid :-) We're dealing with the secondary benefits, and social experimentation in particular...
Sarastro Zauberflote: That´s the same for me
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ok hmm
Deanfred Brandeis wants a turtlocracy.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: I'd have a lot to comment on that, on a personal base, but I'll skip it,
Ashcroft Burnham: LOL!
Gwyneth Llewelyn: and Ash ? shall you move on to the next point? :)
Ashcroft Burnham: Yes, certainly :-)
Ashcroft Burnham already made sure that slide no. 7 was uploaded...
Gwyneth Llewelyn: haha
Ashcroft Burnham: Ahh, yes, identity verification :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: oooh
Mondrian Lykin: identity verification is a technical issue though, mostly
Ashcroft Burnham: Striclty, not a benefit in itself, but an issue that needs to be resolved ancillary to local government.
Ashcroft Burnham: I'll be brief on this one.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: A hot topic these days :D
Robin Linden: We have some major changes coming to identity authentication
Deanfred Brandeis: w00t! @ Robin
Ashcroft Burnham: If there are going to be local governments, especially democratic ones, people need to make sure that each actual human only, for example, holds one office at a time, and can vote only once.
Ashcroft Burnham: If people can create unlimited alts, that will be difficult to enforce.
Ashcroft Burnham: As Robin just said, LL are going to introduce some identity verification changes, although I don't think that the details have been announced yet.
Robin Linden: one idea is that you will only be able to authenticate one account.
Robin Linden: so you'd have to pick one, and the rest become less viable
Ashcroft Burnham: However, what is *really* needed for local government to work is a system of verified avatars, in which the system guarantees that each verified avatar is not an alt of any other verified avatar.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: That would be a very good start!
Ralph Radius: :-)
Robin Linden: exactly Ashcroft. You'd only be able to have one authenticated avatar
Ashcroft Burnham: (By requiring proof of RL identity, which will be kept secret, to the identity provider).
Ashcroft Burnham: Aha, it seems like the LL system will suffice :-) Excellent :-)
Robin Linden: :D
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Wonderful news :)
Deanfred Brandeis: yea!
Gwyneth Llewelyn checks off one tool out of Ash's incredibly long list ;)
Ashcroft Burnham: What I was going to say was that an outside provider was interested in doing it (and, in theory, it could work without integration into the software, albeit less well), but perhaps there's no need to go into that now :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: "done" :)
Ashcroft Burnham: Anyway, given that, I don't think that there's much to add on this topic: over to Gwyneth for questions :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn would add that in any case this would always require a third party
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Well... any questions? I assume that most would be targetted to Robin, though ;)
Sarastro Zauberflote: it is not possible to control the numbers of accounts one has. Therefore it makes no sense for me to discuss it
Ashcroft Burnham: I was thinking the same, although I could answer questions on the importance of identity verification to local government...
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Sarastro ? imagine the following scenario.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: You can provide a third party with your RL data
Gwyneth Llewelyn: And they'd emit a certification based on that.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: And one avatar is tagged to that certification ("digital signature")
Gwyneth Llewelyn: In-world, you're still anonymous.
Ralph Radius: Having only one authenticated alt would help but maybe not solve all the problems. What if I pay friends to authenticate their alts and then turn them over to me?
Mondrian Lykin: Ralph: as Gwyn said, there will always be a third party involved
Ralph Radius: ?
Deanfred Brandeis: See "Ender's Game" for potential abuses of unauthenticated identities. :)
Sarastro Zauberflote: Ms Llewelyn- do you really think the users would do that? Most of them are not able to write their own names- where are you in? In SL?
Gwyneth Llewelyn: That's what happens iRL when you use your friend's or mother's credit card, Ralph :) One solution is getting a PIN number for additional validation. And if a friend of yours gives you access to all data ? identity theft becomes easy, right? You'd have access to their logins, passwords, money, holdings, everything ? all in THEIR name... and THEY would be liable for any crimes you commit.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: That would be a very, very silly thing to do :)
Ashcroft Burnham: Very good suggestion, Gwyn :-)
Mondrian Lykin: the idea would be something like: the authenticated avatar can then authenticate with the 3rd party tool, using its data, and then he'd have access to the LG tools
Ralph Radius: Once I have an alt's password you own it.
Mondrian Lykin: if I undertsood right
Ralph Radius: You control it. :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Well Sarastro ? on the Internet, I don't give people access to my PayPal account.
Ashcroft Burnham: Mondrain, the idea would be that local governments would be configurable to allow different levels of access to authenticated and non-authenticated avatars :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: And something techie like that, Mondrian.
Pelanor Eldrich: Thanks Robin, the identification/anonymity issue has been a thorn in the side of the CDS experiment. The alt problem makes democratic voting difficult. We're happy you're addressing the problem.
Mondrian Lykin: yes, ok, multiveled
Ralph Radius: Good points Gwyneth but I'm not sure that solves all the problems.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Well ? identity theft *is* a problem iRL
Sarastro Zauberflote: Well - we don´t have to slve the problems of 2020. We have Problems now. And you are discussing a system for the ahole world - with China, India, USA- and us in "old Europe" -lets see, how to solve the problems we have now-. Linden has the tzask to do-he is forced by the law to do that - and we cannot waot for governmants and tools
Ashcroft Burnham: Indeed :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Yes, absolutely!
Ashcroft Burnham: /nod
Gwyneth Llewelyn: however, it's much less widespread than the media likes to have us believe in.
Ralph Radius: When you control an alt all you control is that alts money, etc. Also many certified owners might have no interest in SL at all.
Deanfred Brandeis: Funnelling money to an authenticated alt that you control isn't difficult.
Ashcroft Burnham: Sarastro, there is indeed a place for interim governance arrangements before LL implement governance tools :-) However, we're not discussing those to-day: we're discussing the secondary benefits of the tools :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ralph, you're thinking about the "free alts"
Gwyneth Llewelyn: I'm thinking about the credit-card (or Paypal) validated alts
Ralph Radius: I could meet a guy on the street and get him to certify. Then his alt is mine and I can vote for it as I wish.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: I'd say, if someone uses a credit card to create an alt, and then gives the password to a "friend"
Robin Linden: Gwyn the plan we're working on eliminates payment info as a means of verification
Gwyneth Llewelyn: well... that's acting very irresponsibly
Robin Linden: I should say replaces it
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Aaah ok.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: All right.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Well, it'll still be identity theft
Sarastro Zauberflote: Miss Llewelyn -. in Europe credit dards are of no woth - only a few people have them
Ralph Radius: VoAs the stakes go up so will the incentives to cheat. The stakes will go up as the $ rises.
Ashcroft Burnham: Sarastro, I live in Europe, and I have a credit card :-) Lots of people have them.
Ashcroft Burnham: Gwyn is from Portugal... ;-)
Mondrian Lykin: Sarastro: in 2007 almost everybody has one
Gwyneth Llewelyn: yes, as a percentage of the overall population, you're right Sarastro.
Mondrian Lykin: even 18 yo
Gwyneth Llewelyn: And yes, lol, that's true.
Sarastro Zauberflote: They are of no use in Europe- and I don´t agree Mr Burnham
Mondrian Lykin: at least, almost everyone who uses Internet
Gwyneth Llewelyn: But sure ? there are definitely other ways of proving your identity to a third party.
Deanfred Brandeis: no use to ppl who use the internet?
Robin Linden: Hmmm. I was just in Europe and I only used a credit card. It was easier than it is in the US!
Sarastro Zauberflote: You are making the second step before the first
Robin Linden: Can't use a cc in a taxi in the US, for example.
Robin Linden: And I did in both Germany and UK.
Ashcroft Burnham: Goodness.
Robin Linden: That's as an aside...
Sarastro Zauberflote: No Ms Linden- I can telol you later.
Ashcroft Burnham: Note to self: if ever visiting the US, take plenty of cash :-)
Mondrian Lykin: ahah
Ralph Radius: You need a way of making it risky for a verified user to to hand over an alt. Do Linden's methods do that.
Mondrian Lykin: only for taxis!
Ashcroft Burnham: LOL!
Mondrian Lykin: Ralph: I wouldn't make things so complicted on that side
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ok. I think this deserves a separate meeting one of these days :)
Ralph Radius: I should be very afraid to give my verified alt away even if I never intend to go back to Second life.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: So hmm
Mondrian Lykin: I would make things complicated in the authentication process needed to level up in the LG tools usage
Pelanor Eldrich: Some US taxis take cc. I once paid $112 for a cab from SF to San Mateo by cc.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Should we go ahead? At least i think it was clear,
Gwyneth Llewelyn: that identity verification of some sort is important for local enforcement
Robin Linden: I think it would be foolish, because you are tying your RL identity to a SL account, and you can only do it with one account.
Ashcroft Burnham: Indeed :-)
Sarastro Zauberflote: We have better ways to identify people - for example post ident. But do you really want to force a man in afghanistan to make post ident?
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ok ? let's go to the next item :)
Pelanor Eldrich: That'll teach me to miss the last Caltrain...
Ashcroft Burnham: And the next item is...
Ashcroft Burnham: Any other benefits :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hehe
Robin Linden: I have to go. Thanks for a good discussion...
Gwyneth Llewelyn: thank you for coming, Robin, and sharing the news :)
Ralph Radius: Bye Robin.
Ashcroft Burnham: This one is where I don't do much talking: I'll leave it for anyone else here to see if they can think of any other benefits that local government might bring :-)
Pelanor Eldrich: Bye Robin
Mondrian Lykin: good BYE goodbye GOODBYE byebye Robin!
Ashcroft Burnham: And thank you very much for coming :-)
Deanfred Brandeis: a) Government leaders who are fat, ugly, and sitting at home in underwear become sexy.
Robin Linden: cya
Gwyneth Llewelyn: ok, please, let's use the same method,
Ashcroft Burnham: LOL!
Gwyneth Llewelyn: IM me if you wish to have a few minutes of the floor.
Mondrian Lykin: my god I never heard the sound accompanying this gesture
Pelanor Eldrich: I resemble that remark.
Mondrian Lykin: cya
Ashcroft Burnham: LOL!
Deanfred Brandeis: heh
Mondrian Lykin: ok, I'll use cya
Mondrian Lykin: :D
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Soooo
Gwyneth Llewelyn: anyone? :)
Deanfred Brandeis: Ash: Lots of other potential benefits, but too numerous, really.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Deanfred, let's hear some!
Ashcroft Burnham: Your favourite three? :-)
Deanfred Brandeis: banning ad parcels :)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: a good one, yes.
Ashcroft Burnham: Aha, that was covered by "land" last time :-) Dealing with land disputes.
Deanfred Brandeis: Enforcing reasonable land rules that LL tools don't/can't do.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Aye, better urban planning, zoned regions
Deanfred Brandeis: ah
Ashcroft Burnham: For those who want them :-)
Deanfred Brandeis: So all my ideas are old, besides fat naked guys being sexy.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: LOL
Ashcroft Burnham: LOL!
Pelanor Eldrich: YEAH BABY!!!
Ashcroft Burnham: Well, that'll definitely go on the next agenda ;-)
Deanfred Brandeis: hehe
Deanfred Brandeis: or fat naked women for that matter
Gwyneth Llewelyn: also... on top of arbitration, comes commerce (with enforceable law) ? and consumers get better defended
Ashcroft Burnham: Pelanor? Angel? Gray? Gwyn? Mondrain? Any other benefits? :-)_
Sarastro Zauberflote: How? Ms Llewelyn?
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Well Sarastro,
Gwyneth Llewelyn: the major issue of commerce in SL was pointed out by Pelanor a bit ago:
Deanfred Brandeis: the ability to determine your own level of sadism by becoming a brutal dictator?
Gwyneth Llewelyn: if I have a contract for a few L$
Ashcroft Burnham: LOL!
Sarastro Zauberflote: How will you make trade more secure? I have tried to create a system- but I don´t need a government for thstz
Little Gray: .. sorry .. im still stumbling over 'sexy fat guy'
Gwyneth Llewelyn: and someone defaults on payment (or provides a fraudulent service)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: how can I sue them iRL?
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Is it worth it? For a few L$?
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Now, local government, with enforcement mechanisms,
Gwyneth Llewelyn: can provide arbitration and mediation mechanisms
Gwyneth Llewelyn: whatever they might look like
Gwyneth Llewelyn: This means that contracts become enforceable as well.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: And that consumers can appeal to an organisation if they have been defrauded
Deanfred Brandeis: without free alts to hide behind, I agree, Gwyn :)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: As you all know ? LL's abuse report system does not handle commerce fraud
Ashcroft Burnham: :-)
Pelanor Eldrich: Sarastro: We have such a simple ecnonomy, I can buy a chair for x, or maybe put something on SL exchange. How do I properly contract in world for a mortgage, for a loan, for a complex build, for anything even remotely sophisticated like bonds, stocks, credit? You can't without enforcable contracts backed by local gov't enforcement. The whole financial sector requires it.
Ashcroft Burnham: Absoutely!
Ashcroft Burnham: Pelanor makes a very important point.
Pelanor Eldrich: You'll see, if Ginko ever takes the money and runs people will be *begging* for local gov't fiscal regulation.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Yes, so the economy will complexify, Pelanor :)
Ashcroft Burnham: We have very *simple* commerce right now, because only simple transactions are enforcalbe with the simple tools.
Sarastro Zauberflote: I don´t agree Mr Eldirch
Deanfred Brandeis: I'd love to be able to stick some L$ in a bank for business reasons (guarantee rental refunds, e.g.) and be sure that it's not a scammer.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: (ie. instead of building casinos, you'll be buying futures on stock exchanges that transact casino shares ;) ) hehe
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Good point, Deanfred
Ashcroft Burnham: With more sophisticated tools, one can have far more sophisticated governance, and make far more sophistacted transactions enforcable, allowing for a far more sophisticated economy.
Ashcroft Burnham: Virtual reinsurance, anyone? :-)
Mondrian Lykin: I am even thinking of the possibilty of the land owner of the land I have my office in throwing me out because he broke up with his gf and he's angry with the world
Gwyneth Llewelyn: I'd say, this might become "SL Economy 2.0" :) Far bigger than what we had so far.
Deanfred Brandeis: That waterfront insurance sure is high.
Ashcroft Burnham: LOL! We don't want that, Mondrain :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Indeed, Gwyn :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Yes, but Mondrain has a point ? this is what happens *now*
Sarastro Zauberflote: Well I don´t want to become a dictator Mr. Brandeis- but you say it is important to have a government to make the trsde more secure. O don´t agree to that.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: What would be the alternative, Sarastro?
Ashcroft Burnham: Quite, Gwyn :-)
Sarastro Zauberflote: I can tell you , if you give me 3 minutes
Deanfred Brandeis: Sarastro, that was a joke.
Mondrian Lykin: Sarastro, the market can *not* solve everything
Pelanor Eldrich: Please, call me Pel, Mr. Eldrich is my virtual father.
Mondrian Lykin: that's why there are laws RL
Ashcroft Burnham: LOL!
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ok, I'd like to have Sarastro 3 minutes on the floor, please.
Mondrian Lykin: ok
Mondrian Lykin: where are the darts?
Mondrian Lykin: :D
Ashcroft Burnham: Um, I don't think that she meant literally...
Sarastro Zauberflote: Thank you-
Deanfred Brandeis: LOL
Sarastro Zauberflote: First thing- we cant malke rools or tools witrhout obaying the RL-law- and there are many of RL-laws
Sarastro Zauberflote: And we can´t deal without obaying the RL law
Deanfred Brandeis is away.
Sarastro Zauberflote: and therfor it´s very simple, I think. We give the people the chance to make RL-contracts without loosing their anonymity here.
Mondrian Lykin: Sarastro: authentication is done on Linden Labs servers
Mondrian Lykin: you won't go around with your RL nametag on your head
Sarastro Zauberflote: They have to tell us, who they are, and the contracts are made in one office.and we offer them, to collect the money in Rl- if aomeone would not pay his contracts
Sarastro Zauberflote: Yes- but Linden won´t give this autentification to others
Mondrian Lykin: Linden will use the fact they have this new authenticaion tools for something
Mondrian Lykin: I don't think they like coding stuff "just because"
Deanfred Brandeis: Sarastro: Are you saying that this is really the only reason you see to have anything resembling a government in SL?
Mondrian Lykin: so I guess they're thinking of expanding their abuse tools
Gwyneth Llewelyn: I'd only comment the following ? that kind of thinking makes sense for business in the several thousand US$ (or ?) range
Gwyneth Llewelyn: But... these are using RL law anyway!
Sarastro Zauberflote: Sorry - if i wright and read - it´s heavy for a german
Gwyneth Llewelyn: (unless they're insane, lol)
Ashcroft Burnham: Gwyn has a good point, and so does Deanfred.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: What about the micropayments, though? Small transactions average L$20 or so, according to LL's statistics.
Deanfred Brandeis: If I understand him, he's saying that he wants the ability to enforce anonymous SL contracts in RL without losing anonymity (unless, of course, you sue).
Sarastro Zauberflote: I see another reason that is a danger weith governements here in SL-
Ashcroft Burnham: There are *far* more things that local governments can - and need to - do than contract enforcement.
Ashcroft Burnham: And even in contract enforcement, they have the capability to be *far* more efficient than using RL courts.
Pelanor Eldrich: Sarastro, what is happening is what you are describing. The electric sheep company, and other large content providers contract for services using RL law, RL names and RL contracts for amounts greater than $1000USD.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Exactly. Specially if we're talking about small-scale transactions
Deanfred Brandeis: I agree. I'd like a respected and fair judge with jurisdiction to get me the L$200 I paid for that crappy car back.
Gwyneth Llewelyn was just going to type what Pelanor just said. They are indeed.
Sarastro Zauberflote: I don´t agree, that they are mor efficent than RL-copurts
Sarastro Zauberflote: courts
Ashcroft Burnham: Why not?
Gwyneth Llewelyn seconds Ashcroft's question.
Mondrian Lykin: "efficiency" has never been a topica attribute of RL courts
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Also, Sarastro, remember ? we're talking international law here.
Ashcroft Burnham: LOL!
Mondrian Lykin: *topical
Ashcroft Burnham: Which is less efficient than national law :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Exactly.
Deanfred Brandeis: I'm not sure that I would find "efficiency" to be a positive attribute of government in general anyway.
Sarastro Zauberflote: But where is the difficuklty, to do the same with small deals?
Mondrian Lykin: Deanfred: well, that's questionable
Mondrian Lykin: but anyway ;-)
Pelanor Eldrich: Well, let's be fair to Sarastro. We know how ugly and inefficient RL national and international law is. SL specific law is fairly untried.
Ashcroft Burnham: That's incoherent: for any goal that is worth acheiving, it is necessarily better to acheive it efficiently than inefficiently.
Mondrian Lykin agrees
Deanfred Brandeis: Ashcroft: No. Not if efficiency comes at the price of something of greater value.
Pelanor Eldrich: Oh, Sarastro here the problem with small deals:
Gwyneth Llewelyn: So hmm, in Portugal, if I sue someone for breaching a contract, I can expect 10 years for that to be settled in court, unless I'm talking about a multi-million Euros contract. Now suppose that I'm suing someone for a L$250 hair that was never delivered to me, from someone who lives in Indonesia... how long would that take, and how much would I need to pay?
Pelanor Eldrich: I loan you $1000USD in $L, you sign a contract and never pay me back. No collateral.
Deanfred Brandeis: An efficient government can become very efficient at doing injustice and slaughter, for example.
Mondrian Lykin: Deanfred: "efficiency" is a composite attribute
Ashcroft Burnham: Deanfred: I don't think that Sarastro was identifying a specific alternative detriment to balance against efficiency of governments in general.
Pelanor Eldrich: Am I going to spend $50000 litigating a case with lawyers in 2 countries to get back my $1000 after 2 years. Hell no!
Sarastro Zauberflote: ?????? inefficient??ß the national and international law???? More efficient than a new system - I think
Deanfred Brandeis: Ash: I was responding to you, not Sarastro, though. :)
Ashcroft Burnham: Deanfred, then the goal (slaughter) is not worth pursuing :-)
Sarastro Zauberflote: You are talking about laws only for western states - but we have more here
Ashcroft Burnham: Sarastro - how?
Deanfred Brandeis: Ash: Not to an irrational dictator.
Ashcroft Burnham: Sarastro - I have never talked about laws just for Western states.
Pelanor Eldrich: It's a matter of cost, not just efficiency.
Mondrian Lykin: Sarastro, how could you even think that a specifically designed system would be less efficient of an adapeted system?
Ashcroft Burnham: The laws will be *for* anyone.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Perhaps then the question should be differently worded ? how many people are willing to pay thousands of US$ for an efficient, out-of-SL system, to deal with a micropayment?
Mondrian Lykin: it doesn't make any sense
Ashcroft Burnham: And the tools will allow any kind of law.
Deanfred Brandeis: Gwyn: Yes, for me, it's a matter of cost.
Pelanor Eldrich: Right Gwyn. This is what there are so few people willing to lend $L to a non-premium account. Everyone takes the money and runs.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Yes, I'm sure that there are ways to increase what you spend in legal costs, to get switfter justice. But ? is it worth it?
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Exactly, pel
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ok
Pelanor Eldrich: *why
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Shoulkd we wrap up? :)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: We've been talking for 2 hours now :D
Sarastro Zauberflote: Mr Lyinkiung- I think so, because THe adepted system has the syme problems internationally . than this system
Deanfred Brandeis: Yes, I need to eat.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hehe me too
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ash, I believe that was your last slide?
Ashcroft Burnham: Aha, no, because governments would be administered within SecondLife just for SecondLife :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: No it wasn't :-)
Little Gray: wait .. i thought we were going to have an open discussion at agenda item 10
Ashcroft Burnham: No. 9...
Little Gray: er .. as long as we aren't wrapping up ..
Deanfred Brandeis lets his mind wander to ensuring that turtles will rule his land.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Just on that other topic, Little :)
Ashcroft Burnham: Again, this one doesn't need much talking from me, since I did that last time. If anyone has any comments on the matters raised at the last meeting that weren't discussed last time (or even that were), then now's the time :-)
Deanfred Brandeis: I got nothing only 'cause I'm so hungry.
Pelanor Eldrich: Sarastro we all want to work within RL law. However RL law has not really addressed the matter of virtually property and taxation of virtual world profits. The area is quite new with fewer than 30 legal papers published and *very few* cases as national precedent.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ok Pel, let's stay on item 9. please :)
Pelanor Eldrich: sry
Gwyneth Llewelyn: ;)
Oceane Beauchamp: Well if i may add sth to the discussion, then i would like to point at the security problems immanent in the current password protected settings of your account. That's what made me think twice about adding CC information there, but did it at last. You can make way better authorities and identification, but this issue remains a problem.
Sarastro Zauberflote: Pel- that´s right. but I think one casn´t solve it by a new system
Ashcroft Burnham: Aha, that's more an issue for LL than the LGSG, I think :-)
Pelanor Eldrich: reading previous meeting transcript.
Ashcroft Burnham: Sarastro: what's stopping us?
Mondrian Lykin: Ocean: we I guess it's more.... what Ash said :D
Mondrian Lykin: *well
Sarastro Zauberflote: We have other actual problems I think, than to solve the international law problems of RL
Deanfred Brandeis: Ash: I do think it's also interesting that this may be the first time that truly competing governments has been tried.
Ashcroft Burnham: Deanfred: indeed :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: I think we jumped point 9 entirely, directly into 10? :)
Ashcroft Burnham: That is very interesting.
Ashcroft Burnham: All part of the social experimentation thing...
Deanfred Brandeis: true
Ashcroft Burnham: Anything from the previous meeting, anyone? :-)
Deanfred Brandeis: Ayn Rand would be very mad at me. :)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: ;)
Ashcroft Burnham: I'll take that as a "no", then... :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ok, point 10.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: :D
Deanfred Brandeis: The previous meeting was awesome. I was not there.
Ashcroft Burnham: Well, thank you everybody for coming :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Deanfred: I'm sure that there was no causal connexion implied there :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: In a moment, we'll open it up to general open discussion.
Sarastro Zauberflote: Thank you very much
Ashcroft Burnham: But before we do, one or two words.
Deanfred Brandeis: Ashcroft: You wanna take this outside? :)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ok, Little is the first to have asked for the floor for a bit...
Ashcroft Burnham: ;-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: So let's hear Little for a bit, please!
Little Gray: thank you
Little Gray: I have concerns that multiple governments, unbound to a single resident run authority, will not adequately address our needs for resident to resident dispute reslution mechanisms.
Little Gray: I'm not going to stand on a soapbox and bring these issues up now. I would, however, like to comment on a few matters raised today.
Little Gray: I don't believe its possible to escape external government regulation. The present iteration of SL is a CA business subject to state and federal laws. Governments created in SL are fictitious .. game governments ... and will always be subbordinate to RL laws and governmental regulation.
Little Gray: A SL government is essentially an 'unincorporated association'. I doubt residents would license their governments in RL in compliance with applicable regulations concerning business entites and unincorporate associations. They wouldn't have the power to enforce contracts in RL. Generally only legal parties to a contract can enforce the contract.
Little Gray: For all practical purposes, a SL government is a non-legal entity. If residents have a dispute with another resident, they are going to rely on RL laws and principles to interpret whatever contractual rights might be created by their local government(s).
Little Gray: Any government restricting an AV's contract rights with LL could face serious liability. Governments would need to be legal entities in order for teir to be any accountablity for injuries caused by a government.
Little Gray: Presently, any RL litigation between residents would most likely necessitate the involvement of LL, at least to the extent necessary to ascertain the RL identity of the other party. Perhaps government tools could avoid this necessity.
Little Gray: So how do we make it easier for residents to resolve resident to resident disputes fairly for residents who cannot afford to bring their claims in RL courts?
Ashcroft Burnham: Finished? :-)
Little Gray: Government tools need to recognize that RL laws are applicable to resident to resident disputes, even if the amount in controversy doesn't justify RL litigation. They need to focus on clarifying and facilitating the application of RL principles to resident disputes. E.G. 'contracting tools' to facilitate private agrements between residents, identify validation, exectuion tools to make contracts legally enforceable according to RL terms and principles, etc.
Little Gray: All governments are not created equal; some will be more capable than others. Should they all have the same level of enforcement? Would LL apreciate dealing with multiple different governments?
Little Gray: sorry .. for that .. yeah .. sorta .. nope not really but that's all i wrote, Ash
Ashcroft Burnham: Ahh, right.
Ashcroft Burnham: :-)
Deanfred Brandeis: how many chapters?
Ashcroft Burnham: Now, let me deal with each of those one by one.
Ashcroft Burnham: Hold on...
Gwyneth Llewelyn: pfft let's hear Little, please.
Sarastro Zauberflote: I agree
Ashcroft Burnham: I think, Gray, that you're slightly misunderstanding the ultimate goal of local governments here.
Sarastro Zauberflote: Mr Gray
Ashcroft Burnham: The point is not to supplant RL government, but to supplement it.
Little Gray: I really think Sarastro is right
Ashcroft Burnham: Of course we can't disapply RL law by making our own, but we can discourage extra regulation.
Little Gray: and I would very much like to hear if Robin has thorughts on dealing with one resident run govt. versus many
Sarastro Zauberflote: If I only could speak english so well
Ashcroft Burnham: SL governments are not "fictitious" any more than SL businesses are fictitious.
Ashcroft Burnham: SL governments are institutions that enforce SL-created rules by SL enforcement mechanisms.
Sarastro Zauberflote: Ohhh -
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Dein Englisch ist aber nun wirklich gut, Sarastro ;)
Ashcroft Burnham: They do not purport to tell people what their FL legal rights or duties are, nor do they purport to interact with FL enforcement mechanisms.
Sarastro Zauberflote: You could have helped me :-))
Gwyneth Llewelyn: (I only read your profile now, Sarastro!)
Ashcroft Burnham: They are designed to be systems whereby communities in SL can form that have their own rules, as to contracts and virtual land and intellectual property, and enforce those rules, without having, in every instance, to rely on what is for virtual worlds the vastly expensive and unpredictable route of enforcing the uncertain RL legal rights that arise in relation to virtual goods, etc.
Sarastro Zauberflote: It´s from my Translater :-(((
Deanfred Brandeis: Didn't we also discuss at a previous meeting the idea of SL governments being similar to agreements between parties to settle disputes in mediation (SL govt) instead of RL court?
Ashcroft Burnham: It is useful to have mechanisms whereby, if people break community-created rules in SL communities, then they can face SL-specific punishments.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: I'd also add something to Little's objections, if I may...
Little Gray: fire away honey
Gwyneth Llewelyn: after Ashcroft is finished, though :)
There is no suitable surface to sit on, try another spot.
Ashcroft Burnham: There is nothing to stop communities of essentially international groups of people, many of whom may not want to reveal their first-life nationality, from settling their disputes according to rules and principles developed exclusively in those virtual communities.
Deanfred Brandeis is away again.
Ashcroft Burnham: Being bound to follow RL law does not mean that alternative systems cannot run in paralell to it.
Sarastro Zauberflote: Idon´t agree
Ashcroft Burnham: For example, sports clubs have their own rules, and their own enforcement mechanisms, although all participants must obey the national law.
Ashcroft Burnham: There is no reason that a similar principle cannot apply to SL.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: ah, good argument!
Ashcroft Burnham: The idea of a single government versus multiple governments was discussed at the last meeting.
Gwyneth Llewelyn is not really typing, just SL thinks I am
Ashcroft Burnham: A detailed explanation of the benefits is in the notecard on benefits, that you can get when you click on the flipchart :-)
Sarastro Zauberflote: The sports clubs are onkly allowed to make riüules in the borders of national ruels. and they are only allowed in a special way
Sarastro Zauberflote: But we have no national law- e have 150 national laws here
Ashcroft Burnham: Sarastro, the "special way" is rather broad, and "within the boundaries" of the national rules means a system that is not inherently illegal, not a system that is identical to national law :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: The important point about RL law is that anybody may set up their own rule-governed system provided that it does not itself do anything illegal.
Mondrian Lykin: Sarastro: there are already criteria to establish what kind of national law must be applied
Mondrian Lykin: it's RL criteria and we don't need to complement that
Ashcroft Burnham: There is no law in any country that I've ever heard of requiring rule-goverend systems of all sorts to be idenitcal to national laws :-)
Sarastro Zauberflote: I´m a memeber of an international Club which has ony´ly a few laws - and they are enought for over 2 Million brothers i the world
Ashcroft Burnham: There's really nothing about, for example, banning people from land if they are adjudged by a SL-based court to have broken a contract that's prohibited by national law.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: I would probably try to underline some of the ideas that Ashcroft has presented.
Ashcroft Burnham: Indeed, I find it highly improbable that any national law would have anything at all to say about whether people are banned from SL land or not.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Although we have no precedent for anything like SL,
Gwyneth Llewelyn: we have the Internet as an example.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Also an international community.
Ashcroft Burnham: As for LL "dealing with" one government as opposed to many, really, I can't see how LL will have to do much "dealing with" governments at all :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: When it started, it was bound to one country... well, two really, TCP/IP was developed in the UK
Gwyneth Llewelyn: (and without it the 'net wouldn't work hehe)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: But soon grew over all national borders.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Some things were (some still are!) very net-specific.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Examples: IP addresses
Gwyneth Llewelyn: DNS, to an extent
Gwyneth Llewelyn: USENET news, which these days are less used
Gwyneth Llewelyn: But definitely: all the protocols that regulate how the Internet works.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Now... we don't use the word "government"
Mondrian Lykin: Gwyneth, can I point out an essential difference?
Gwyneth Llewelyn: for the entities that "regulate" all those things
Mondrian Lykin: not to interrupt you, but I guess it's important
Pelanor Eldrich: Little Grey: I don't see LL ever dealing on a day to day basis with any resident run gov't whatsoever, be it 150 of them or a single SL wide one.
Mondrian Lykin: no money was involved back then
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Sure ? go ahead.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: oooh really? LOL
Mondrian Lykin: SL has already money involved, that changes things a lot
Gwyneth Llewelyn: so the DARPANET was made with what? ;)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Of course money was involved. Tax-payers money ;)
Mondrian Lykin: well
Mondrian Lykin: the USERS weren't there to earn money
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Well Mondrian, the same applied to SL in 2003 :)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: But... we evolved.
Mondrian Lykin: but we'ew in 2007
Pelanor Eldrich: In those days there were very strong acceptible use policies forbidding, for example, selling via USENET
Mondrian Lykin: *we're
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Actually, we evolved *much faster*.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Very true, Pelanor.
Pelanor Eldrich: I'm preweb.
Pelanor Eldrich: ;)
Mondrian Lykin: it's not comparable though
Deanfred Brandeis: perhaps appropriate: Would LL need to get involved in assuring enforcement on non-citizens who commit "crimes" in another jurisdiction?
Ashcroft Burnham: Indeed: because money is involved it is *far more* important to have properly enforcable rules, and serious justice mechanisms.
Mondrian Lykin: in my opinion at least
Ashcroft Burnham: Deanfred: the tools address that issue :-)
Pelanor Eldrich: Ah, Dean interesting questoin.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Also, there were lots of issues if your traffic to a commercial 'site' (before the Web days!) went through the US State-sponsored Internet... but well, that's digressing
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Well, guys, forget LL
Pelanor Eldrich: No, LL wants no part of that whatsoever.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Exactly as Pel said.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: LL wants to be out of it ? completely
Deanfred Brandeis: Also, Sarastro: There's nothing to say that some local SL governments wouldn't have only two laws.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: And that will happen much sooner than we think :)
Ashcroft Burnham: Indeed, Deanfred :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Not if we think that it'll happen sooner than we think :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hehe
Pelanor Eldrich: So it'll be like RL. You have supranational bodies, like commonwealths or the UN, you have diplomats and you have bilateral agreements on extradition and law enforcement. Like Tranis Banklink list sharing.
Ashcroft Burnham: Indeed, *can* we think that something will happen sooner than we think - or only sooner than we used to think?
Little Gray: so, forgive the analogy, but, if each ISP were involved with regulating what their customers can do, wouldn't that undermine universal laws concerning free speech, and privacy?
Gwyneth Llewelyn: LOL!
Deanfred Brandeis: LOL
Gwyneth Llewelyn: ok, ok, let me rephrase that. Any attempt to make LL be part of any mediation system in SL,
Gwyneth Llewelyn: will ultimately fail.
Ashcroft Burnham: No, since no law that I know of give anybody an obligation to transmit data that they don't want to transmit :-)
Deanfred Brandeis: technically speaking, free speech is not guaranteed on any private property
Ashcroft Burnham: If A doesn't have to transmit any data at all, how can A be forced to transmit any given subset of data?
Pelanor Eldrich: I'll say it in American: LL wants *nothing whatsofuckingever* to do with dispute resolution that doesn't involve their ToS or the RL law enforcement agencies.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: So we can call these entities "governments", but they're much more closer to "regulation authorities" with local scope ? user associations, with their own internal rulings
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Exactly like that, Pelanor ? loud and clear, for all to understand :)
Ashcroft Burnham: Free speech is about prohibiting the government from prohibiting it, not about the government forcing everybody to give everybody as many opportunitiues to say as many thigns in as many ways as possible :-)
Little Gray: Deanfred, can you clarify that? I thoughty I had a right to say what I want on my own property.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: aaah Ashcroft ? I should use that quote on my signature!
Gwyneth Llewelyn: But hmm Little
Deanfred Brandeis: Little Gray: You do, but not on someone else's.
Ashcroft Burnham: LOL Which bit, Gwyn? ;-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: the issue here is not "forcing" people to be part of an association,
Gwyneth Llewelyn: in fact, the right NOT to be part of ANY association is on the UN Declaration of Human Rights :)
Pelanor Eldrich: Frankly, it doesn't like AR and the FBI, but they are necessary evils. You see their is no financial gain to be had for LL to adjudicate disputes.
Ashcroft Burnham: Gray: my right to property entails that I can prohibit you saying things on my land that I don't want you to say, by throwing you off my land if you say them :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ash: "Free speech is about prohibiting the government from prohibiting it, not about the government forcing everybody to give everybody as many opportunitiues to say as many thigns in as many ways as possible". Most people get that completely wrong ;)
Ashcroft Burnham: I'm glad that you like that :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: I love it, it's exactly the way I feel ? but we digress again
Deanfred Brandeis: very libertarian of you all :)
Ashcroft Burnham: LOL!
Gwyneth Llewelyn: So there are several things here at stake:
Gwyneth Llewelyn: 1) People should not be *forced* to use a system
Gwyneth Llewelyn: no matter how good it is
Gwyneth Llewelyn: ie. this will be strictly opt-out
Deanfred Brandeis: opt-in rather?
Ashcroft Burnham: Opt-in, actually, according to the tools that I've drafted :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Indeed :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Obviously ? for people wishing to participate in the "next stage" of a self-regulated SL, this will mean "opting in"
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hehe yes sorry
Gwyneth Llewelyn: indeed
Gwyneth Llewelyn: so by default you're on "anarchy level", and without LL to even defend your (very few) rights
Mondrian Lykin: when we have time I would like to make a proposal on tools we could use to carry on with the project
Mondrian Lykin: other than these great meetings
Ashcroft Burnham: I'd love to hear them, Mondrain :-)
Pelanor Eldrich: Sure!
Gwyneth Llewelyn: 2) is the issue about the boundary between SL law and RL law
Little Gray: well .. in SL, im in favor of California laws applying to provide residents access to another residents commericial property for the purpose of engaging in free speech .. there is not way to effectively communicate to a patron's business (to tell them that what the business is doing is illegal or wrong, or other lawful purposes).
Gwyneth Llewelyn: SL law = regulations made by associations of users together, that self-enforce them among a group,
Ashcroft Burnham: (And the fact that that boundary is vertical, not horizontal)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: aided by tools allowing that kind of enforcement.
Mondrian Lykin: ok, tell me when you're done with this discussion :-)
Deanfred Brandeis: Can we at least call it "ungoverned"? :)
Ashcroft Burnham: Gray: you don't happen to be a lawyer practising in California, do you? ;-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hehe ok Dean :)
Little Gray: I would challenge any government that tried to take that right away from me as being unconstitutional
Pelanor Eldrich: I don't know, maybe Grey and the RL US lawyers have a clearer picture, but the SL/RL legal boundary is a bit unclear to me.
Ashcroft Burnham: Gray: you'd be the one who'd chosen to join that government in the first place :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: It's no different than if you rented a RL shop in a mall owned by somebody else who only allowed, for example, shops selling food.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: 3) is simply to have enough established "local authorities" that they are made part of the grander organisations, set up at national or international level, that will one day regulate the way SL works
Ashcroft Burnham: Is *that* unconstitutional?
Gwyneth Llewelyn: like it happened on the Internet. Governments *still* talk to the ICANN :)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: or IANA, or IETF...
Ashcroft Burnham: And would it be constitutional for the government to prohibit people setting up such malls with such rules in yoru country, whose constitution protects the right to property?
Little Gray: if i were part of such a government, it would still be my duty to advocate for AV's rights under applicable laws.
Pelanor Eldrich: Here's a specific case I had in mind. Say I open an E*Trade brokerage account in RL and I took buy and sell orders in SL for $L which I then cash out. Am I breaking the law? I would be if the whole transaction was in RL without the series 7 financial credentials. What about offering investment advice in world, what about healthcare advice, what about legal advice. Aha....
Deanfred Brandeis: I would argue that it's law enforcement's job to prosecute a company for illegal acts, not to provide free speech on that company's property to out their allegedly illegal acts.
Gwyneth Llewelyn likes Dean's approach :)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Well Pel
Gwyneth Llewelyn: You know what I've been reading today? US Gambling Laws :)
Little Gray: well .. we don't have law enforcement at the moment .. free speech is the only way to acheive positve social change here in SL .. that right should not be undermined .. it should be embraced.
Pelanor Eldrich: Oh, fun for you Gwyn. :)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Fortunately I'm not a lawyer and pretty ignorant about it,
Ashcroft Burnham: I'm not advocating undermining free speech :-)
Deanfred Brandeis: Little Gray: Not at the price of private property rights.
Ashcroft Burnham: I'm advocating local governance tools.
Mondrian Lykin: Although free speech is not speech without consequence (quote)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: but from a layperson's point of view, 31% of the resident population have to be put in jail :)
Deanfred Brandeis: Gwyneth: That's probably accurate b/c the US laws on gambling are fucking stupid.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Well... that's not for me to say,
Little Gray: they can't put me in jail here in SL .. im an alien .. they have no jurisdiction
Ashcroft Burnham: Gambling is a mug's game. :-)
Deanfred Brandeis: Gambling is stupid, but making it illegal is more stupid.
Ashcroft Burnham: Well, no. But people can ban you, alien or not :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Indeed, Deanfred. But we digress, I think...
Mondrian Lykin: ok guys
Mondrian Lykin: can I have your attention for 2 minutes?
Gwyneth Llewelyn: but it seems that some things are pretty much "impossible" to do in SL, as long as LL's HQ'ed in California :)
Ashcroft Burnham listens to Mondrain.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Seriously, I don't understand how they got away with it :)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Sure ? Mondrain, the floor is yours!
Deanfred Brandeis attaches the floor to Mondrian's left arm.
Little Gray: lol Gwen
Mondrian Lykin: I was discussing previously with Ash the idea of a f-up of this discussions in a more proper collaborative tool to sketch out a collective draft of everything
Mondrian Lykin: giving the time and the chance to each to give their ideas
Ashcroft Burnham: f-up? We don't want any of those...
Mondrian Lykin: I found 2 possible suitable tools: 1) a wiki 2) a project management software
Ashcroft Burnham: I tend to favour the wiki...
Mondrian Lykin: follow up
Ashcroft Burnham: Ahh :-)
Mondrian Lykin: :D
Deanfred Brandeis: wikis are easy
Mondrian Lykin: yes
Ashcroft Burnham: That abbreviated phrase can tend to mean something else...
Moon Adamant accepted your inventory offer.
Mondrian Lykin: they are
Mondrian Lykin: www.wetpaint.com is a good platform
Deanfred Brandeis: Ash: Indeed. What was the intended meaning?
Ashcroft Burnham: Any views, anyone, on wiki versus project management software?
Deanfred Brandeis: actually, I'd prefer a forum
Mondrian Lykin: www.basecamp.com is the proj man sw
Ashcroft Burnham: Mondrain - would you like to set one up for us there?
Ashcroft Burnham: I'll put you on the "LGSG publicity" status :-)
Mondrian Lykin: Deanfred: a forum is a little dispersive
Pelanor Eldrich: follow up. Everything is so effed-up around here. :)
Mondrian Lykin: I think we have to produce a document
Ashcroft Burnham: LOL!
Ashcroft Burnham: We've already produced quite a number :-)
Mondrian Lykin: not a discussion, we can discuss on SL
Ashcroft Burnham: What sort, then? :-)
Deanfred Brandeis: Mondrian, perhaps, except these meetings are pretty short to have a full discussion and debate.
Little Gray: if your gong to do a forum, then put each proposed tool in a seperate post and set it up so users can vote for or against each proposal
Mondrian Lykin: well, we can do both
Mondrian Lykin: and see which one is more suitable
Mondrian Lykin: I will set up the wiki and the forum
Ashcroft Burnham: Well, we need a Wiki with all the information on it: an official source of information, with meeting transcripts and tools proposals, etc.
Deanfred Brandeis: If we want true crowd-sourcing, let's put up the tool proposals on a wiki, though. :P
Ashcroft Burnham: That's separate to a discussion forum.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: :)
Mondrian Lykin: ok
Ralph Radius: I have a quick statement I wanted to make about Gwyneth?s solution to the problem of selling validated alts. t
Ashcroft Burnham: The idea is that people meet in-world to discuss, and send notecards in advance with their ideas.
Deanfred Brandeis: Ash: Yes, but that's very rigid.
Mondrian Lykin: lgsg.wetpaint.gomc?
Ashcroft Burnham: Rigid can have benefits... :-)
Mondrian Lykin: ehm
Ashcroft Burnham: What's the .gomc?
Mondrian Lykin: lgsg.wetpaint.com ?
Ashcroft Burnham: Ah :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Yes, that'd work...
Ashcroft Burnham: Is it free?
Mondrian Lykin: nothing, I was drinking and writing with one hand
Ashcroft Burnham: LOL!
Mondrian Lykin: :D
Deanfred Brandeis: Ash: Sure, except for ad hoc debate. :)
Pelanor Eldrich: Damn it Grey, that is one ugly motherfucking avatar!
Ashcroft Burnham: Is WetPaint free?
Ashcroft Burnham: We're having that now, aren't we? :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: There are always open discussion sessions.
Pelanor Eldrich: And I mean that with the utmost respect.
Ashcroft Burnham: But if people want to do things in more depth, notecards are the way to go :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: LOL!
Gwyneth Llewelyn *shakes head*
Deanfred Brandeis: Ash: Sure, except by the end of meeting for two hours, I'm hungry. :)
Ashcroft Burnham: Ahh, then, tip: bring food :-D
Ashcroft Burnham: ROTFL!
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hehe :)
Pelanor Eldrich: YEAH BABY!!!
Gwyneth Llewelyn is hungry toooooooo
Ashcroft Burnham: Ohh dear, the battle of the noises...
Gwyneth Llewelyn: But Ralph had a solution to present, i think?
Pelanor Eldrich: ****A WOMAN!!!!!!!!!!****
Ralph Radius: I have a quick statement I wanted to make about Gwyneth?s solution to the problem of selling validated alts
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Pel ? hush, dear!
Pelanor Eldrich: **^^YOU'RE MY Type BaBY!!^^**
Pelanor Eldrich: sry
Ralph Radius: The buyer of a verified alt would have access to the seller?s powers over that alt and to the seller?s private data. For example, if I had control of your alt in your name, I could take out some loans in SL. And the RL police would come after you when I defaulted.
Ralph Radius: Connecting each alt to its validated owner?s RL data would make selling the alt even more dangerous. Lots of details to be worked out but the principle is correct and vary powerful.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Yes, exactly ? identity theft.
Gwyneth Llewelyn *nods*
Ashcroft Burnham: :-)
Ralph Radius: Good solution!
Ashcroft Burnham: So, Mondrain, do you want to be our Wikimaster? :-)
Mondrian Lykin: sure
Mondrian Lykin: actually I just set that up
Mondrian Lykin: :D
Deanfred Brandeis griefs it.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ralph, actually, I think that this system will work, because iRL, there are not SO many cases of identity theft as the media wishes us to believe.
Ralph Radius: It will work.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: ie. only very, very silly people will "Give away" the passwords for PayPal accounts, give PINs for their cards, write empty checks... etc
Ashcroft Burnham: Sorry, crashed...
Gwyneth Llewelyn: wb Ash :)
Ralph Radius: Agreed.
Deanfred Brandeis starts the Free State of Black Jews, Turtles, and Unicorns.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Obviously, there will be fraud ? I'm pretty sure that if the risk is worth getting away with it, it'll be done ? but on a daily basis, nobody will "steal" validated accounts from friends to get some extra votes or such
Pelanor Eldrich: Grey, you are a lich version of Hunter S. Thompson's attourney.
SL Exchange Magic Box white: SL Exchange - Delivered item Gothic Pants "Tripped Fly".
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ok
Ralph Radius: To me the problem is selling validated ALts not stealing them.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: aaah yes
Gwyneth Llewelyn: but that would be about the same,
Gwyneth Llewelyn: or rather
Gwyneth Llewelyn: even more silly :)
Conover's SuperSmooth Flight-Helper 3.0a whispers: Max-Velocity now set to 30 M/s.
Conover's SuperSmooth Flight-Helper 3.0a whispers: Commands: /flyhelp to get documentation.
Ralph Radius: And here you are right on. Would I sell you my credit card?
Mondrian Lykin: anyway, the wiki will be under invitation
Auto-Teleport-Memory 3.0b (WEAR ME!) whispers: transfer'O'tronic free memory: 9701
Deanfred Brandeis: gotta eat; later all
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Exactly. Or even give me your PIN number to your homebanking system.
Ralph Radius: Worse yet LOL.
Mondrian Lykin: so we'll set up a way to have the interested one invited
Pelanor Eldrich: Thx Grey, just lost my appetite. :)
Conover's SuperSmooth Flight-Helper 3.0a whispers: Conover's Ultra-Smooth Flight-Helper activated...
Pelanor Eldrich: You must be an ACLU type from San Francisco.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: That's why I'm confident that, although criminal elements will certainly try to do that, MOST people will not risk it.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Ok
St Porno Girl whispers: Cheers from Studio 3D!
Object whispers: Cheers from Kitchen Kreations!!
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Should we adjourn?
Ashcroft Burnham: Thank you very much to Mondrain for volunteering to maintain the LGSG's Wiki :-)
Little Gray: yeah im on the board of the ACLU
Ashcroft Burnham: Before we do, a few final words, if I may? :-)
Little Gray: incidently, may I may an annoucement?
Little Gray: a quick one?
St Porno Girl whispers: Cheers from Studio 3D!
Object whispers: Cheers from Kitchen Kreations!!
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hehe sure :)
Little Gray: The ACLU is forming a RL chapter of the ACLU in SL
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Oh wonderful!
Ralph Radius: I agree but the details must be thought out very carefully because as the stakes go up so will the rewards for dishonesty. A lot of brain power will be applied to breaking the system. :-)
St Porno Girl whispers: Cheers from Studio 3D!
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Great news, Little :)
Little Gray: I am looking for people to serve on the organizing committee to vote for innagural boardmembers
Ashcroft Burnham: Excellent :-)
Object whispers: Cheers from Kitchen Kreations!!
Little Gray: please IM for more info
Ashcroft Burnham: Before we go, I'd like to say a few words.
Ashcroft Burnham: Judging by the attendance and the very constructive input, a goodly majority of the people here are keen on good local governance tools, and that's excellent.
SL Exchange Magic Box white: SL Exchange - Delivered item Buckled Gothic Pants.
Ashcroft Burnham: Robin Linden, the (rather senior) Linden who joined us earlier on had said earlier that the Lindens would pay more attention to a popular set of ideas.
Ashcroft Burnham: So, if we want local government tools, we'll have to work for them :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Publicity is key.
Ashcroft Burnham: We've had a goodly number of people come to the meetings, but, with a bit of teamwork, we can do even better.
Ashcroft Burnham: Michel Manen is our publicity officer, but he hasn't been available lately. It would be useful to have a number of publicity officers to share the work.
Ashcroft Burnham: Anybody interested, IM me :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: Mondrain has *very* kindly agreed to help to set up a wiki, which will be invaluable to promoting our cause.
Ashcroft Burnham: So a round of applause to Mondrain :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: :-D
Ashcroft Burnham: :-D
Mondrian Lykin bows
Ashcroft Burnham: :-D
Ashcroft Burnham: :-D
Pelanor Eldrich: YEAH BABY!!!
Mondrian Lykin: Gwynet, check your IM
Ashcroft Burnham: If any of you know other people who might be interested in joining, do encourage them to come along.
Little Gray: nice job mandarin . .. http://lgsg.wetpaint.com/
Ashcroft Burnham: The more people we get interested in this, the more chance that we have of making it a reality.
Ashcroft Burnham: :-D
Ralph Radius: :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: If any of you are interested in helping to run and organise the LGSG, do send me an IM, and we'll talk :-)
Little Gray: er .. mondrian .. shoot that comes from not reading
Mondrian Lykin: anyone interested to join the wiki, IM me your email
Ashcroft Burnham: Anyway, any other ideas on publicity would be *very* welcome :-)
Ashcroft Burnham: It's very good that the Lindens are seriously interested in this group and its ideas: we need to persuade them that the governance tools (as we will come to discuss) are the way forward for the long term.
Ashcroft Burnham: We'd all rather, I'm sure, flexible sophisticated governance tools than the reverse :-)
Little Gray: hrm .. "Local Government Study Group Threatens Lawsuit if Demands Not Met" ?
Ashcroft Burnham: Hardly :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: lol
Ashcroft Burnham: It's a matter of reasoned persuasion.
Ralph Radius: LOL
Pelanor Eldrich: You've been chatting with Prok, huh? :)
Little Gray: "Local Government Study Group Formally Declares Indenpence from RL"
Ashcroft Burnham: The next thing is that the next meeting will be a meeting about the *tools*.
Ashcroft Burnham: I'll send out the latest draft of the tools again for discussion.
Ashcroft Burnham: Anybody with commetns can send me a notecard, which I'll distribute.
Pelanor Eldrich: I like that.
Ashcroft Burnham: Those comments will go on the agenda at the next meeting in priority over comments raised at the meeting, whcih will be discussed at the end.
Ashcroft Burnham: I don't have a time for the next meeting yet, but I'll announce that in due course.
Little Gray: i kinda wonder how this meeting would have gone down if prok were here
Ashcroft Burnham: If there are any particular times that are inconvenient to any of you, please let me know in advance :-)
Little Gray: i had a meeting the other day to discuss the Grid Sheperd deal .. we all just kinda ignored him/her
Gwyneth Llewelyn: hehe he'll comment on it, rest assured.
Ashcroft Burnham: (Gray: he was here for hte first meeting, the one that was disrupted by all the griefers. He hasn't been back since the agenda annonced that we had proper security ;-) )
Mondrian Lykin: prok?
Ashcroft Burnham: And finally...
Little Gray: but .. in the event he reads this (OMFG), the meeting was getting tired until he showed up and infused it with that tremendous energy of his.
Ashcroft Burnham: ...even if LL does implement the tools thiat we're hoping for, it'll take some time in coming.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Yes, it won't be "tomorrow" hehe
Ashcroft Burnham: What would be good in the meatime is some interim form of governance, using the existing tools as best we can.
Pelanor Eldrich: Prokofy Neva. = Prok.
Ashcroft Burnham: I have recently had some thoughts about such a system.
Ashcroft Burnham: Pelanor, at least, knows about it in a little more detail :-)
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Well, i could comment on that, but it would be unpolite to do so ;)
Ashcroft Burnham: I think that I told Gwyn about the ideas, too.
Ashcroft Burnham: In essence, it would involve something a little like BanLink, but also different.
Gwyneth Llewelyn: Hmm possibly... ah well
Gwyneth Llewelyn: now it's my time to apologise, I really need to leave
Gwyneth Llewelyn: thank you for coming :)
Ashcroft Burnham: Anybody would be able to get an auto-eject object, and put it on her/his land.

Transcript of Meeting March 24, 2007

GwynethLlewelyn — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 06:24:38 CDT

Ashcroft Burnham: Do take a seat, everybody: meeting's about to start :-)

Piet Garfield: Iam from The Netherlands

Lem Skall: Baluchistan

Ashcroft Burnham: Please note, this
meeting is being recorded and a transcript published, so, if you don't
want what you say to be made public, don't say anything :-)

Eyesov Argus: Germany

push restrict: Automatic avatar position locker active.

Ralph Radius: The US.

Auction Hammerer: I am from the US too, this is such a wonderful place to collaborate

Elspeth Guyot: England here.

Ashcroft Burnham: Michel will be chairing the meeting :-)

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda to Ashcroft Burnham

Michel Manen: Hello everyone and welcome to the Second Plenary Meeting of the Local Government Study Group The benefits of local governance

Michel Manen: I'm glad to see you all here and i'd like to thank Angel Fluffy for arranging this facility

Angel Fluffy: You're most welcome :)

Michel Manen: My name is Michel Manen and I am a member of the Represenative Assembly of the Confederation od Democratic Citizens

Michel Manen: I am also the LGSG Pulicity officer and will be chairing todays meeting

Michel Manen: You fill find todays documents in the flipchart prepared here

Michel Manen: including the Agenda for discussion

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Elspeth Guyot

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda to Dnali Anabuki

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Elspeth Guyot

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Dnali Anabuki

Michel Manen: To ensure that the
meeting is progressed expeditiously, and that everyone gets a fair say,
after initial introduction, AShcrfft will introduce each topic,

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda to Dnali Anabuk

Michel Manen: then a chair appointed
for the meeting will select from those who indicate via IM that they
wish to talk to either make a brief additional statement

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda to Rose Springvale

Michel Manen: the chair will set the
time to ensure that all have a fair say), or ask a question to either
the original speaker or a person who has made a subsequent statement,
or some combiation of the two, whereupon that person will have a
specific time in which to answer.

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Rose Springvale

Michel Manen: Without further ado i will yield to the Founder of the LGSG, Ashcroft Burnham.

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Angel Fluffy

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda to Angel Fluffy

Michel Manen: AShcrfot?

Ashcroft Burnham: Thank you very much, Michel :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: Hmm, interesting rotating poseball thing here...

Ashcroft Burnham has indicated consent to be recorded.

Ashcroft Burnham: Thank you all very much for coming along, everybody.

Ashcroft Burnham: This meeting is for discussing the benefits of local government in SecondLife.

Ashcroft Burnham: There will be
another meeting in a few weeks' time to discuss the tools in detail,
so, if you have any good ideas about the tools themselves, hold your
thoughts: they'll be most welcome then.

Ashcroft Burnham: Before we start...

Ashcroft Burnham: ...I'd like to say a word of thanks to those people who've helped to organise this event and make it possible.

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda to Dnali Anabuki

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Dnali Anabuki

Ashcroft Burnham: First of all, thank you to Angel Fluffy down there...

Mark Lock: good evening all

Ashcroft Burnham: ...for putting me in touch with the person who set up the venue, and for organising security.

Ashcroft Burnham: Second of all, thanks to Haden Divisadero for loaning the LGSG part of his exclusive low-lag private island...

Mark Lock: hi Intl

Michel Manen: Hello IntLibber

Michel Manen: have a seat

Ashcroft Burnham: ...and, even more, for setting up this wonderful conference venue.

IntLibber Brautigan: Hey folks

Mark Lock: glad to see you here

Ashcroft Burnham: Not only that, he did it in the sapce of about two days - from scratch!

Ashcroft Burnham: So, if anybody's looking for a superlative events organiser in SecondLife, look no further than Haden Divisadero.

Ashcroft Burnham: He really is very talented - and extremely efficient!

Ashcroft Burnham: A transcript of this meeting should be available afterwards...

Ashcroft Burnham: Now, we will shortly be moving onto the topics, so I'll hand you back to Michel for a second.

Michel Manen: All those who speak are
asked to touch the black box under the speaker ball, in otder to obtain
a full transcript of the meeting

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda to Ralph Radius

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Ralph Radius

Michel Manen: Ad now ASh, please
intorduce the topic of the chair will set the time to ensure that all
have a fair say), or ask a question to either the original speaker or a
person who has made a subsequent statement, or some combiation of the
two, whereupon that person will have a specific time in which to answer.

Michel Manen: sorry

Ashcroft Burnham: LOL!

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda to Kuan Yiyuan

Michel Manen: and now ash please introduce item nr. 3

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Auction Hammerer

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda to Auction Hammerer

Ashcroft Burnham: As Michel said, this meeting will be divided into a number of sections for each item on the agenda.

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda to Piet Garfield

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Piet Garfield

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda to Kim Chihuly

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Rose Springvale

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda to Spiritof Saintlouis

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda to Justice Soothsayer

Ashcroft Burnham: More detail about
each of those items can be found inside the flipchart: the other
notecard alongside the agenda (no. 1), "Benefits of local governments
in virtual worlds", gives details on each of the topics.

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Spiritof Saintlouis

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Justice Soothsayer

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Kim Chihuly

Ashcroft Burnham: I will only give a short introduction to each topic so that most of the time can be dedicated to questions and comments.

Ashcroft Burnham: Starting with the first substantive item, the benefits of specifically local government.

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda to Eyesov Argus

Ashcroft Burnham: Ultimately, the
most pertinent question with respect to government, which inherently is
an institution that exercises power over others to some extent, who
should get to decide who is in positions of authority in the
government, and what sort of government to have?

Ashcroft Burnham: All four million
or so SecondLifers are never going to agree on how to organise their
governments, let alone *who* should be doing the governing.

Ashcroft Burnham: So, for any system
of government to work in SecondLife, it has to be a system that is not
a single, universal sysetm for all of SecondLife, but a localised,
opt-in system, where the powers of government are only those that the
citizens of government choose, by becoming citizens, to give it.

Ashcroft Burnham: Welcome newcomers - do take an agenda from the flipchart :-)

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda to Sabine Stonebender

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Sabine Stonebender

Ashcroft Burnham: A local, rather
than universal system, will have the advantage that the amount that a
government controls is subject to the ultimate form of democracy:
market forces.

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda to Sunray Susenko

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Sunray Susenko

Ashcroft Burnham: Which systems work
the best will be weeded out by trial and error, and which people are
most suited to govern will be determined by seeing in practice just how
well they do govern.

Ashcroft Burnham: Those who like one sort of government can live under that sort, and those who like other sorts can live under that.

Ashcroft Burnham: Hopefully, in time, a whole range of different sorts of governments will emerge to suit many differnet sorts of purposes.

Ashcroft Burnham: That diversity and
variety alone is a potentially worthwhile addition to SecondLife, but
that topic Is hall reserve for "social experimentaiton and publicity"
at the end.

Ashcroft Burnham: One final clarification:

Ashcroft Burnham: the choice, if the
tools that I have devised, or something very similar to them, are
adopted, will not just be between one sort of government and another -

Ashcroft Burnham: it will also be between government or no government at all.

Ashcroft Burnham: Those who are
sceptical of the worth of governments in SecondLife, or those who just
prefer anarchy, will be catered for just as much as those of us who
want to see a world in which legislative institutions resolve disputes
prospectively and judicial institutions resolve disputes
retrospectively.

Ashcroft Burnham: Choice is the cornerstone of locality: without choice, government could never work effectively in a virtual world.

Ashcroft Burnham: Thank you all for
listening on this topic: more details are available in the notecard on
the flipchart. I'll had back to Michel, who will field comments. Those
making comments or asking questions should, when they have been
selected to speak by Michel, come and stand up here so that we all know
who has the floor.

Ashcroft Burnham: Over to you, Michel :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: BRB

Michel Manen: The floor is now open to comments

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda to Sngac Carter

IntLibber Brautigan: I'd like to comment

Michel Manen: please let me know if you ant to adress this issue

Michel Manen: you have the floor

Michel Manen: please touch the black box

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Sngac Carter

IntLibber Brautigan: I must say that
what Ashcroft has presented fits my most cherished wishes for the
proper means and role of government in real life. His concept is
excellent in construction.

Stephane Deschanel has indicated consent to be recorded.

IntLibber Brautigan: and I think it
can certainly work as a very good model for us here as well, and
provided some important issues are addressed, I'm prepared to endorse
it.

IntLibber Brautigan: my two issues are thus

IntLibber Brautigan: 1) griefing and
security: the one almost universally acknowledged role of government is
to protect its citizens from enemies without and within

IntLibber Brautigan: yet LL does not give us the tools to effectively do that

IntLibber Brautigan: SL is wide open to abuse by griefers, cyberterrorists, and hate criminals

IntLibber Brautigan: as well as fraudsters, etc

IntLibber Brautigan: LL refuses to take the steps necessary to close these loopholes, and ignores our pleas for change

IntLibber Brautigan: if we take action into our own hands, we run the risk of being banned ourselves

IntLibber Brautigan: our core rights of self defense are therefore nonexistent in SL

IntLibber Brautigan: until and unless the issue of security is addressed, then the core reason for government in SL has no foundation

IntLibber Brautigan: issue 2

Michel Manen: 2 minutes intlibber please

Tasrill Sieyes: The question is how
much goverment can be build even if the proper tools are given when the
foundation that the goverment is build on is made of sand.

IntLibber Brautigan: without any
basis for the core reason for government, then, what is the purpose of
having government here? since we cannot protect against real criminals,
is it instead to engage in collective action against property owners?

Michel Manen: Are there any comments on Inlibber's remarks?

Joseph Grumiaux: nope, just got here

Smoke Wijaya: yes, what about the core issue of government is security of existence and self rule

Smoke Wijaya: instead of defence

Michel Manen: Intiller?

Michel Manen: you want to reply?

Michel Manen: or Ash?

IntLibber Brautigan: yes

IntLibber Brautigan: security of existence is meaningless when your sims are crashed and buildings are being deleted, or pummeled with hate crimes

Ashcroft Burnham: I'll let IntLibber reply to Smoke first :-)

Smoke Wijaya: fair enough

Michel Manen: but how would you balance the two Intibber?

Ralph Radius: IntLibber, Are you saying we need a police force with the legal power to stop griefers?

Joseph Grumiaux: huh, is that not LL job?

IntLibber Brautigan: and they are developing a new client that combines aspects of libsl to give them unparalleled power to destroy

Michel Manen: Ash do you want to comment on this and conlude this topic to mve to the neext one?

Ashcroft Burnham: Thank you very much IntLibber for your comments :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: Security is indeed an important issue: so important, in fact, that it has its own agenda item :-)

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda to Robin Lobo

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Robin Lobo

Ashcroft Burnham: I daresay that there is more tha LL could do to address security issues.

Ashcroft Burnham: IntLibber, perhaps
you could form your own "Security Study Group" to get together security
tools ideas and persuade LL to adopt them in the same way as the LGSG
does with governance tools?

IntLibber Brautigan: sure

Ashcroft Burnham: One thing that I don't agree with, however, is that local government is pointless until LL improves its security.

Ashcroft Burnham: I daresay, IntLibber paints perhaps too bleak a picture of the security situation in SecondLife.

IntLibber Brautigan: I'm on the front lines daily

Ashcroft Burnham: There are griefers
who can exploit the system, but those who use ToS-breaking clients or
those who crash sims will always need to be dealt with by LL, not local
governments.

Ashcroft Burnham: Ahh, then you are in the position of always seeing the worst of it :-)

Michel Manen: We could all coordinate
our actions of course. I know others, such as Angl Fluffy, re also very
much interesed in this topic. Angel maybe you will want to say a few
words?

Angel Fluffy thinks...

Ashcroft Burnham: However, just as
there are many worthwhile things to do in SecondLife before LL improves
its security, so is local government possible as things are now: the
existing security measures of banishment, for example, with the added
posibility of penal measures for citizens is enough to be worthwhile,
if not necessarily perfect. But remember: real governments aren't
perfect, either: people get away with crime in real life all the time.
That doesn't mean that it's not worth having a government and a police
force and a criminal justice system.

Ashcroft Burnham: Over to Angel :-)

Tasrill Sieyes: What is griefing?
Some people call my avtars griefing, while others say hate speach is
greifing. Do we have the right not to be offended? That quesion makes
the powers needed very vague.

Michel Manen: One moment Tasrill Angel is adding acomment then we wil get to your question

Tasrill Sieyes: *nods* sorry first time here

Angel Fluffy: Greater flexibility
with regard to permissions (e.g. the ability to turn build off only for
non-verified users) and greater informational (e.g. ban data) sharing
tools would be good also.

Angel Fluffy: In short... the current
way security is done in SL is not working and while there may be
borderline cases which might or might not be griefing, there are also
clear cut cases which are not being adequately dealt with.

Ashcroft Burnham: I think that we have another candidate for founding the Security Study Group ;-)

Angel Fluffy: My point is simple :
local government requires some way of enforcing rules - one that cannot
be bypassed simply by creating alts.

Michel Manen: One intersting topic is that of the benefits of local versus universal government. Anyone has any comments on this?

IntLibber Brautigan: I endorse it

Ashcroft Burnham: Incidentally, Angel, much of what you say is addressed by a later topic, that of identity verification :-)

Angel Fluffy already has a long-standing
large group for security-related topics. It is called 'Proactive
Security' and it is comprised of estate admins and the owners/managers
of popular places in SL, as well as developers that make things like
BanLink and the weaponscanner item. :)

Ralph Radius: I don't think that
security can be seperated from government. It ultimatly has to be
controled by government in a peacefull society.

Angel Fluffy: unfortunately Ashcroft
I do not agree with this - fundamentally I think that identity
verification won't work for public club security because people will
prefer environments where they don't have to register for an ID service
for entry... and so we need some sort of ban that works even on totally
unverified users, like for example, an IP-based ban.

Madeleine Fitzgerald: Passing comment: Encoded (therefore secret) IP addresses in every AV's profile.

Michel Manen: madeleine do you want to stand up and elaborate?

Madeleine Fitzgerald: Not really. ANyone can contact me for that idea.

Michel Manen: great. Any other comments on this agenda item?

Michel Manen: since none ash please conclude and move to the next item

Ashcroft Burnham: Thank you all, and some very interesting comments on security.

Ashcroft Burnham: There are some
interesting ideas out there, and Angel/Madeline's idea of IP banning is
a very useful possible solution to add to the armoury.

Ashcroft Burnham: Which brings us all on to...

Ashcroft Burnham: ....agenda item no. 4 :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: Now, of course, we've covered some of this already by now.

Ashcroft Burnham: However, it seems that this is a burning issue for many.

Ashcroft Burnham: IntLibber and
Angel point out the need for better security tools, and that's
certainly something quite independent worth lobbying LL for.

Ashcroft Burnham: If there are going
to be serious security tools, it would be far better if there were also
seriously fair means of implimenting them.

Ashcroft Burnham: Indeed, for all
but hardened client-hacking griefers, the existing security tools of
banishment, etc. can be quite harsh in itself: there are reported cases
of banishment powers being misused, both at local level, and even at LL
level.

Ashcroft Burnham: The reality is
that Linden Lab doesn't have the resources to investigate every report
of griefing properly, and give every alleged griefer a fair chance to
defend her or himself.

Ashcroft Burnham: That is precisely
what is needed if punishments severe enough to be effective are ever
available, which, in large measure, they already are.

Ashcroft Burnham: The local
government tools that I have proposed also include further possible
penal powers of forfeiture of liquid escrows (effectively, a
software-enforced fine), and forfeityre of land held within the
jurisdiction of the government.

Ashcroft Burnham: The potential severity of those punishments underlines the need for locality and choice, as in item no. 3.

Ashcroft Burnham: It also higlights
the need for tools that are flexible enough to allow truly
sophisticated government design, to allow for, for example, proper
separation of the powers, so that independent judiciaries can be
developed.

Ashcroft Burnham: Again, as with
previous agenda items, more detailsd thoughts on this topic can be
found in the "benefits of local governments..." document in the big
flipchart.

Ashcroft Burnham: In conclusion on
this topic, proper governments, with the possibility of having proper
judicial systems, are the best way of ensuring that instances of
alleged griefing are dealt with fairly.

Ashcroft Burnham: Thakn you.

Michel Manen: Thank you Ashcroft. Comments or questions from the floor?

Ashcroft Burnham: Over to Michel again :-)

Elspeth Guyot: Michel I have a comment

Michel Manen: Eslpeth?

Michel Manen: plese stand up

Michel Manen: and touch the black vbox

Elspeth Guyot has indicated consent to be recorded.

Michel Manen: Well one of our aims

Michel Manen: is to work together with LL

Michel Manen: to influence their thoughts and decision making

Michel Manen: on exactly such issues

Michel Manen: Ash?

Michel Manen: any comments?

IntLibber Brautigan: yes

IntLibber Brautigan has indicated consent to be recorded.

Michel Manen: intllibber please

IntLibber Brautigan: ack

IntLibber Brautigan: okay

IntLibber Brautigan: firstly LL does have tools available at this time, they are encoded, at least off the mainland, in the estate functions system

IntLibber Brautigan: estates are essentially nations

IntLibber Brautigan: their owners have allodial title to the land

IntLibber Brautigan: they collect "property taxes" in the form of tier

IntLibber Brautigan: There are a LOT
of estate level functions which IMHO should be scriptable via a subset
of lsl that only works for objects owned by estate owners and estate
managers

IntLibber Brautigan: this proposed
subset will empower us locally to a great extent, but estate powers are
limited and do need some features added ore xpanded

IntLibber Brautigan: for instance, the ban list max size is 300

IntLibber Brautigan: since the patriotic nigras declared war on my estate, we have maxed that list out already, and we are only 3 months old

Michel Manen: Thank you Intlibber . Elspeth you wanted to add something? We didnt hear you i think as you were out of range.

Elspeth Guyot: Thank you.

Elspeth Guyot: Well I have a
question. Linden are taking on more in-world representatives, in US and
international. Is there a way these people could be linked with the
regional governments or be helpful for example for enforcement of
anti-griefing measures? Acting in effect as GMs?

Elspeth Guyot: I don't think this showed up before?

Michel Manen: Ash can you comment and conclude please?

IntLibber Brautigan: There are exactly three Lindens currently online right now.

Ashcroft Burnham: Thank you Michel :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: To start with
Elspeth, the important part about agenda item no. 3 was that users
themselves, rather than the Lindens, would deal with local government
functions: the aim of that was to ensure that local government is based
on market forces and choice.

Ashcroft Burnham: However, there'll
always be some functions, such as dealing with those who cause problems
on Linden-owned land, or those who create sim-crashing objects, etc.,
that Lindens will need to deal with.

Ashcroft Burnham: As for IntLibber's
suggestion of increasing ban list sizes, I couldn't agree more.
IntLibber, you'll have to come to the next meeting, which will be all
about the tools :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: Now, onto agenda item no. 5...

Michel Manen: Thank you Aash, Please introduce the next agenda itam

Ashcroft Burnham: Contract enforcement, IP and commerce.

Ashcroft Burnham: As with all the
previous agenda items, the more detailed explanation is available in
the flipchart: just click for the "benefits of virutal government..."
notecard.

Ashcroft Burnham: However, the short
version is that local governments, using their powers of enforcement
can, if they have proper judicial systems in place, use the powers of
enforcement not only to deal with common griefers, but also to enforce
contracts.

Ashcroft Burnham: The importance to commerce of enforcable contracts can hardly be underestimated.

Ashcroft Burnham: It is often said,
for example, that the British empire was so successful economically
partly because of its stable, efficient contract law, developed by the
common law in the 19th century.

Ashcroft Burnham: Millions of US$ are transacted in SecondLife every day.

Ashcroft Burnham: Successful
commerce is possible here without enforcable contracts largely because
of computer-code enforced transaction requirements: some kinds of
simple transaction (pay money, get object) cannot be defrauded easily.

Ashcroft Burnham: The whole of the SecondLife economy is built on ultra-simple buy/sell transactions.

Ashcroft Burnham: With enforcable
contracts, much more sophisticated transactions become possible without
the trouble and expense of entering into (and possibliy litigating in
real-world courts over) contracts made using real-life identities.

Ashcroft Burnham: Just imagine the
possibilities for commerce if SecondLife had its own internal, fair,
just and predictable means of enforcing contracts.

Michel Manen: Yes ASh can you elaborate on the issue of real world versus in world jurisdication?

Ashcroft Burnham: And just imagine
also the greater efficiency of using the in-built enforcement
mechanisms, and one or more in-world justice systems for enforcing IP
rights.

Ashcroft Burnham: Yes, certainly :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: If A makes a contract in world with B, and B breaks that contract, what can A do?

Ashcroft Burnham: As things stand
now, A would have to find B's real identity, find B's local court, find
(and pay) a lawyer local to B to bring an action in B's local court,
possibly travel thousands of miles to attend a court hearing in a
foreign country, and hope that the court thinks that a contract made in
what it would proably consider a big computer game is serious enough to
be enforcable.

Ashcroft Burnham: That means that only contracts with huge values in the first life are ever likely to be enforced that way.

Ashcroft Burnham: Now, imagine if there were in-world governments.

Ashcroft Burnham: A makes a contract with B.

Ashcroft Burnham: B breaks the contract.

Ashcroft Burnham: A brings an action against B, using B's avatar name, in an in-world court.

Ashcroft Burnham: The court orders B to pay damages.

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 0. Benefits meeting agenda to Davidorban Agnon

Ashcroft Burnham: If B doesn't, B is banned from his own land, or has money deducted from her or his Linden Dollar account.

Ashcroft Burnham: Far simpler, cheaper and more effective :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: And over to Michel to feild comments and/or questions.

IntLibber Brautigan: If I may comment

Michel Manen: Indeed. Any comments or views on this important issue?

Ashcroft Burnham: /afl

Ashcroft Burnham: BRB

Michel Manen: one moment intlibber

IntLibber Brautigan: ok

Michel Manen: any one else?

Michel Manen: since none please go ahead intliber

IntLibber Brautigan: okay well this is a very important issue, but one that has been addressed elsewhere in the literary foundations of SL

IntLibber Brautigan: as many are aware, much of the ideas of SL came from Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash

IntLibber Brautigan: That depicted a very anarchical world

IntLibber Brautigan: post-federal in type

IntLibber Brautigan: The Diamond Age

IntLibber Brautigan: developed a very anarcho capitalist solution for justice without government

IntLibber Brautigan: these ideas were formed first by David Friedman in his ancap manifesto The Machinery of Freedom

IntLibber Brautigan: in which market
based judiciaries enforced contracts under common law without the need
for the corruptible insturmentalities of government

IntLibber Brautigan: the markets can decide who is the greater justice giver

IntLibber Brautigan: our ratings systems allow for those who are most positively rated to accrue the greatest credibility

IntLibber Brautigan: also the novel Diamond Age depicted a future extension of Common Law called the Common Economic Protocols

IntLibber Brautigan: those protocols have been fleshed out and are available online

Michel Manen: Thank you Intillber for your insights.

Michel Manen: We have the pleasure of
havign with us today David Orban, a Real life Expert on 2L and frequent
lecturer around the world. David you wish to say a few words?

IntLibber Brautigan: I have encoded theminto my own covenant

Michel Manen: david please touch the black box recorder

Davidorban Agnon: Thanks for the floor Michel.

Davidorban Agnon: I reached the discussion late

Michel Manen: the recorder david please?

Davidorban Agnon: please fogive me if some of what I say

Davidorban Agnon: (touching...)

Davidorban Agnon: has been covered already

Davidorban Agnon: (Michel, am I recording ok?)

Michel Manen: yes

Davidorban Agnon: I want to refer to the relationship of contracts to the chain of trust in IP

Davidorban Agnon: Many of the transactions in SL are relative to the transfer of digital goods

Davidorban Agnon: Currently the service value of the creation of the good

Davidorban Agnon: is often incorporated by the sale value of the good

Davidorban Agnon: as the entire Sl world is going to move towards an open source model

Davidorban Agnon: in the server level as well

Davidorban Agnon: the currently accepted

Davidorban Agnon: and uncontested

Davidorban Agnon: DRM-based chain of trust is going to be

Davidorban Agnon: easily and universally broken

Davidorban Agnon: Basically what now is the dependable system of CMT rights

Davidorban Agnon: (Copy Modify Transfer)

Davidorban Agnon: is going to be universally broken, or breakable.

Davidorban Agnon: This is as much of an issue for small transactions as for large ones.

Davidorban Agnon: It heightens the urgency for what Ashcroft has expressed

Michel Manen: THank you David

Michel Manen: Ash any comments?

Ashcroft Burnham: Indeed, thank you IntLibber and David for your comments :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: Dealing with them both backwards, firstly David's...

Ashcroft Burnham: As to IntLibber's
remarks, one of the exciting things about the local government system
that I have proposed is its configurability, and consequent possibility
for experimentation.

Ashcroft Burnham: A judiciary-only
government as IntLibber described could indeed be tried out (or, even,
a whole series of them), and battle it out for popularity alongside
more conventional legislature-executive-judiciary models.

Michel Manen: Thank you Ash. And now Ash please introduce the next agenda item.

Ashcroft Burnham: Thank you, Michel :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: Agenda item no. 6 is...

Ashcroft Burnham: ...land :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: Land has all sorts
of relationships to local government, some of which are more
appropriate for exploration when we look at the tools in more detail in
the next meeting.

Ashcroft Burnham: (Newcomers should
note that a fuller verison of what I'm talking about is available by
getting the second notecard by clicking on the flipchart).

Ashcroft Burnham: However, one aspect that is suitable for discussion here is what I call land enforcement.

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Davidorban Agnon

Ashcroft Burnham: That is, using government to prevent highly undesirable and problematic uses of land.

Ashcroft Burnham: I'll give one or two examples.

Ashcroft Burnham: Many people in SecondLife complain about what they call "sign extortion".

Ashcroft Burnham: That is where an
owner of a small plot of land next to larger, more valuable plots
erects on that land a large, unsightly and often rotating sign, that is
a substantial blight to the surrounding land, with the specific
intention of selling that tiny plot of land at a grossly inflated price
to the neighbouring landowners, intent on getting rid of the annoyance.

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Davidorban Agnon

Ashcroft Burnham: Another is
resource over-usage: on the mainland, where agent limits are low, a
problem that has often occurred is where the owner of a smallish part
of a sim opens on it an attraction so popular (casinos with camping
chairs are a common example) that the sim is so often full that the
rest of it is unusable for most of the time.

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Smoke Wijaya

Ashcroft Burnham: If the landowners
in question were all citizens of the same government (or the offending
landowner was a citizen of a government that enforced rules prohibiting
that sort of thing, even at the request of non-citizens), then the
enforcement mechanisms of government could be used to prevent such bad
practice.

Ashcroft Burnham: The obvious question is: what motivation would those intent on doing wrong have to join such governments?

Ashcroft Burnham: Firstly,
governments will be able to be configured (if my proposals are adopted)
such that, once land is in their jurisdiction, it cannot thereafter be
seceded from them without their consent.

Ashcroft Burnham: Secondly, land in
a sim in which all land is controlled by either a single government, or
a set of governemnts on good terms with each other, and all
more-or-less prohibinting land misuse will be more valuable than land
not under such controls because people would buy it knowing that they
would be free from such misuse.

Ashcroft Burnham: So, people would
have an incentive to make sure that, over time, land becomes under the
jurisdiciton of governments by, for example, buying a large amount of
land in a sim, putting it under the control of governments, and then
selling it on.

Ashcroft Burnham: That way, over time, market forces would help to put land in a posiiton where governments can effectively prevent abuse.

Ashcroft Burnham: Oops... misfly :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: Market forces would determine also how much land is government controlled: after all, some people will still like anarchy :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: Now, over to Michel again for comments from the floor...

IntLibber Brautigan: I can comment

Michel Manen: Thank yo ASh. Comments from the floor?

Michel Manen: Intlibber?

Davidorban Agnon: I have a comment as well.

Michel Manen: then David

Michel Manen: go ahead intibber

IntLibber Brautigan: okay I can share my experience in my estate here

IntLibber Brautigan: firstly, estates hold allode, ergo they have eminent domain power

IntLibber Brautigan: they also have covenants

IntLibber Brautigan: in my estate, we don't discriminate against uses

IntLibber Brautigan: but we do treat lag as pollution

IntLibber Brautigan: we audit land holders for the amount of lag they produce

IntLibber Brautigan: limit it based on land area they hold in the sim

IntLibber Brautigan: if someone refuses to comply with their limits, they have to buy more land, or else get their laggy items returned to them

IntLibber Brautigan: if they persist in deploying those laggy items again

IntLibber Brautigan: they are warned they will lose their land or be fined x lindens per day

IntLibber Brautigan: if they refuse to pay a fine, they lose their land

IntLibber Brautigan: usually they either comply or they put their land up for sale

IntLibber Brautigan: with regard to
signage, we require admin approval for large signs that are not
attached to buildings and don't relate to their property function

Michel Manen: THank you intlibber. DAvid please take the floor

Davidorban Agnon: Ok

Davidorban Agnon: Hi Ash!

Davidorban Agnon: My remarks, questions regard

Davidorban Agnon: the speed of implementation, and diffusion of a given set of parameters

Davidorban Agnon: in the local government rules and regulations

Davidorban Agnon: as concerns land use

Davidorban Agnon: these have to adapt to changing conditions

Davidorban Agnon: (I mentioned open source before

Davidorban Agnon: which will radically change the economics of land ownership)

Davidorban Agnon: for example the adoption in the future of direct teleport

Davidorban Agnon: will do away with the slightly antiquated metaphor

Davidorban Agnon: of euclidean geometry and map based navigation in-world.

Davidorban Agnon: So back to the question:

Davidorban Agnon: have you planned cross-parameter-set incentives

Davidorban Agnon: to accelerate the adoption of best practices

Davidorban Agnon: and keep the evolution of the parameter sets

Davidorban Agnon: in par with the way the whole world evolves?

Michel Manen: Thank you David for sharing your perspective. Any more comments or questions on this issue?

Michel Manen: Thank you. As you can see all issues we have discussed today are very important for the future of 2L.

Michel Manen: So are the next five:
7. Group organisation and asset sharing; 8. Self-regulation and
external regulation; 9. Social experimentation and publicity; 10.
Identity verification; 11. Any other benefits of local governance.

IntLibber Brautigan: I would just like to point out the obvious that direct teleport exists, but is not allowed in many areas for security reasons

Michel Manen: Given the time and the importance of these topics, I suggest we adjourn these items to the next meetings. Anyone opposed?

Ashcroft Burnham: Michel's probably right :-)

Michel Manen: Good. Ash please move on to the last agenda item.

Ashcroft Burnham: But I have one or two responses to the comments just raised before we adjourn to open discussion...

Michel Manen: go ahea ASh

Ashcroft Burnham: IntLibber:

Ashcroft Burnham: your comments are very interesting, as ever :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: And your ideas about just how land enforcement could work on the ground are indeed good.

Ashcroft Burnham: As your
illustration points out, some degree of governance is already possible
on private islands, with the estate owner as governor.

Ashcroft Burnham: But that sort of
governance is limited to private islands, and the government type
limited to monarchy, except in those extremely rare cases where estate
owners genuinely and unfalteringly let other people tell them what to
do :-)

IntLibber Brautigan: he he

Ashcroft Burnham: David: I must confess to a degree of confusion about what you said: what perameters and what incentives? :-)

Michel Manen: David?

Michel Manen: comments?

IntLibber Brautigan: ah just that if he thinks as a business owner I don't have to listen to my residents, he is crazy

Davidorban Agnon: Sorry

Davidorban Agnon: Here I am

Michel Manen: DAvid any comment on Ash s question?

Davidorban Agnon: the parameters I am referring to are those that define the incentives to behave well on the land governed.

Davidorban Agnon: Different lands will have different incentives.

Davidorban Agnon: As these systems evolve faster than we can discuss them ;)

Davidorban Agnon: it is important to make sure that the best set of incentives 'wins'

Davidorban Agnon: In RL this is for example

Davidorban Agnon: embodied by global trade imbalances

Davidorban Agnon: which over time theoretically self-correct.

Michel Manen: Ralph you have a question?

Davidorban Agnon: I hope this clarifies a little.

Michel Manen: Ash please move to the concluding iagenda item

Ralph Radius: I'd be interested
what functions intLibber thought would be necessary to impliment his
version of anarchy, Not right now but as a long term issue. Anarcho
Capitalism has a sizable following and it would be good if they had the
powers they thin they need

Michel Manen: Intlibber? any ideas?

IntLibber Brautigan: well its been covered before

IntLibber Brautigan: but

Ashcroft Burnham: ...

IntLibber Brautigan: I can post a link to the common economic protocols for people to study

Ashcroft Burnham: Thank you David and Michel...

Ashcroft Burnham: Oopd...

IntLibber Brautigan: they also have a mechanism by which contractees can register their contracts

Ashcroft Burnham: *Oops...

IntLibber Brautigan: http://cep.metropipe.net/

Michel Manen: Thank you intillber.

Michel Manen: Ash item 12?

Ashcroft Burnham: Sorry for interrupting :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: Replying briefly
to that last comment, the idea of the local government tools is to
enable all sorts of self-governing communities to spring up, from
conventional governments to the anarcho-capitalist systems described
oin the protocols. It's all about choice :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: As Michel said, we are coming to the end of what we have time for, even though there are discussion items outstanding.

Ashcroft Burnham: The meeting has taken rather longer than we predicted :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: We shall have to have another meeting at another time to deal with them - watch out for group notices.

push restrict: Automatic avatar position locker active.

push restrict: Automatic avatar position locker active.

Ashcroft Burnham: Before we move to
open discussion, however, I'll raise the point in item no. 11 briefly
(I'll raise it again at the next meeting)...

Ashcroft Burnham: Can anybody here
think of any other benefits of local government that aren't listed on
the agenda or mentioned in the "benefits of local government" document
available in the flipchart?

Michel Manen: Any furhter questions or comments?

Michel Manen: well in this case

Michel Manen: Ralph?

Ralph Radius: I have a general comment on the value of government in virtual worlds.

Ralph Radius: If users of virtual
worlds can?t manage our own affairs then someone -- or something --
else will. We might be managed by over restrictive software, external
governments or the owners of the virtual world. This will get clearer
as more and more people interact. SL is effectively the size of a small
city now. Imagine the chaos if there were actually millions of people
interacting on a daily basis without effective systems for settling
their disputes.

Ashcroft Burnham: :-D

Ralph Radius: I think that virtual
worlds will be limited in their complexity, size, or freedom until good
systems of local governance can be set up. I think we are looking at
problems which will stifle the development of virtual worlds if they
are not solved.

Michel Manen: Ash you wish to comment?

Ashcroft Burnham: Thank you Ralph for your excellent comments: that really does sum up why we're all here very well :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: Before we move into open discussion, I'd like to make some concluding remarks.

Ashcroft Burnham: (Although Ralph has already done a pretty good job of that).

Ashcroft Burnham: I'd firstly like
to thank those who've helped with this meeting again: Angel Fliuffy for
getting somebody to set up the venue, Haden Devisidero for setting up
the venue in lightning quick time (if you ever want an event organiser,
he's your man)...

Ashcroft Burnham: ...Kirsty Laval for making the wonderful flipchart from scratch...

Ashcroft Burnham: ...Angel Fluffy
again for doing the security (althoguh, thankfully, we haven't needed
his services this time - if only you were here for the last meeting :-p)

Ashcroft Burnham: ...Michel Manen for chairing...

Ashcroft Burnham: ...and, of course, all of you for coming along.

Ashcroft Burnham: We have had a wonderful turnout, and I know that there are lots of people who couldn't make it to-day.

Ashcroft Burnham: I'll hold meetings on a Sunday in future, when more people seem to be free.

Ashcroft Burnham: But we have had some excellent ideas.

Ashcroft Burnham: I hope to see you
all in the second part of this meeting, whenever that's arranged (look
out for group notices), and in the next tools meeting.

Michel Manen: Thank you ash. The floor is now open for any general questions or comments on any topic or issue discussed today. Anyone?

Ashcroft Burnham: I know that some of you hhere have already expressed some excellent ideas about tools.

Ashcroft Burnham: Thank you all very much for coming along.

Michel Manen: Intlibber?

Ashcroft Burnham: Anybody who hasn't
already done so, please do join the "Local Government Study Group":
it's open enrolment, and there's no joining fee :-)

Flipchart v3 - LGSG: I give 1. Benefits of local governments in virtual worlds to Davidorban Agnon

Ashcroft Burnham: And now onto open discussion...

IntLibber Brautigan: just to finish
my earlier comments, i suggest people read The Machinery of Freedom by
David Freidman, or The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson to get either an
in depth, or cursury, respectively, view of my ancap ideas

Michel Manen: David any thing else to add?

Angel Fluffy was very briefly going to
suggest some sort of IP-hash. So landowners/governments could ban an IP
hash (thus, banning an IP, or IP range) without knowing the IP or range
they were banning, thus, not breaking privacy. This idea is not new by
any means, but he'd like to make sure it is on he record :)

Davidorban Agnon: Speed of implementation of these ideas is going to be key

Michel Manen: Angel how do you see our work moving along from here?

Ashcroft Burnham: Angel - excellent idea.

Ashcroft Burnham: You *will* come to the next tools meeting, won't you? :-)

Angel Fluffy: *the record even, apologies for typos, lag is quite bad :)

Angel Fluffy: very likely :)

Michel Manen: do you have any comments on where we move on from here Angel?

Ralph Radius: Has there been any work done on a system to script these governmental powers?

Angel Fluffy: IMHO the major things
that need to be done from here are : 1) finishing up the details for
the flexible government system 2) getting high-level Lindens to LOOK at
the thing 3) justifying it to them in terms of their future goals for
SL.

Ashcroft Burnham: Ahh, Ralph, they can't just be scripted because they need server-side asset control for enforcement :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: And trying to test-drive a government without enforcement is like trying to test-drive a car without wheels :-)

Davidorban Agnon: Angel: 3) is key!

Ashcroft Burnham: No. 3 is what this meeting is about.

Michel Manen: yes David ia agree

IntLibber Brautigan: Ashcroft, not necessarily, estate power is all thats needed

Ashcroft Burnham: Ralph's contributions on the matter are particularly helpful :-)

Angel Fluffy: IMHO there are some
things that are more important than others - e.g. scriptable estate
bans and such give a GREAT deal of functionality... as does the idea of
automated billing or erscow systems. Essentially, the Lindens are busy,
so if we want this to become reality we have to get a map of it then
focus on the most doable parts first.

Davidorban Agnon: Ashcroft: Server-side has a new meaning when anybody can set up a server!

Ralph Radius: Thanks Ashcroft.

Ashcroft Burnham: IntLibber:
interesting, although you'd still need an estate owner that one could
trust not to just turn the scripts off and resume full control :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: Indeed, David :-)

Michel Manen: hahaha

Ashcroft Burnham: But that's a while away yet.

Michel Manen: yes intlibber indeed

Angel Fluffy: Ash: estate owners have pretty much full control anyway. They don't gain much from turning off scripts on their estates.

IntLibber Brautigan: well, thats a matter of caveat emptor: you pick who you buy land from based on whether you trust him as much as the price

Davidorban Agnon: That is the speed differential I am referring to, when I insist on measuring how quickly the new LG tools can spread...

Ashcroft Burnham: Angel: the *really* important bits are the bits that let governments be things other than monarchies :-)

IntLibber Brautigan: and estate scripted powers should be in the hands of estate owners and estate admins anyways

Ashcroft Burnham: Because a lot of government, monarchy style, is already possible on private islands.

Ralph Radius: It might be neat to prioritize these powers so that what was easy and poweful could be implimented first.

IntLibber Brautigan: actually, there are other possible styles

Ashcroft Burnham: IntLibber: the
whole idea of local government is to empower governments over
landowners, where landowners choose that governmenst shoudl be so
empowered, the choices being based on market forces :-)

IntLibber Brautigan: but any government that tramples property rights is tyranny

Angel Fluffy: Ashcroft: I disagree.
Currently, we have monarchy-style governments on private islands which
are 60% effective at dealing with security and contract problems. They
have some tools to do so. We don't have any viable democratic
governments - they have NO tools to do so. It is more time-efficient to
finish the last 40% for monarchies than it is to do democracies from
scratch.... simply in terms of developer time vs progress made.

Ashcroft Burnham: IntLibber: the idea is that market forces will weed out the tyrannies :-)

Ralph Radius: Are there no limits to "property rights"?

IntLibber Brautigan: There are viable democratic governments arising now

Ashcroft Burnham: And property rights aren't absolute, or else that creates tyrranies, too :-)

Angel Fluffy: at least if
monarchy-style governments were finished, we would have *one* truly
viable style of government in SL this year. If we insist on doing
democracies first, then we will end up with no truly viable style into
the future.

Ashcroft Burnham: Hmm, an
interesting point, Angel. Just as long as the Lindens *do* get around
to doing non-monarchies in a reasonable time (i.e., within a year or
two at most).

Sngac Carter: i think that it has been proven that market forces do not a government make.

Robin Lobo agrees with Angel wholeheartedly

Ralph Radius: That's a good point. But what if the Lindens stopped at monarchy?

Angel Fluffy: I agree both styles as
options would be good - hell, a flexible permissions system for custom
setups would be better.... but right now, the Lindens seem pressed for
time/resources and so we have to concentrate on asking for things
strategically - ask them to make slight extensions to what already
exists - so we have maximum chance of getting things done.

Ashcroft Burnham: Sngac: there
hasn't been the sort of market forces that will exist in SecondLife if
the tools that I propose are implimented operating over governments
before :-)

IntLibber Brautigan: If I may comment

Ashcroft Burnham: Populations have never chosen, en masse, one government over another :-)

Michel Manen: go ahead intlibber

Stephane Deschanel: Ashcroft : OK,
islands have private owners but that's normal as well as islands must
be bought. So, owners but be kings of monarchies. It doesn't matter, a
monarchy as England is can me democratic also, no ?

Ralph Radius: Starting with monarchies might teach people some good lessons. It did in RL. :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: Only if the monarch invariably does what Parliament tells her to do :-)

Stephane Deschanel: can be (and excuse my poor english)

IntLibber Brautigan: okay because of the mechanisms of the World Stock Exchange

Angel Fluffy: if they stopped at
Monarchy then we'd still be better off than if they tried to do
Democracy but never quite got around to finishing it. We'd only have
one style of government, but that would be better than none. An 'in
principle' monarchy can be an 'in practice' democracy (look at the UK!)
but the reverse is much harder.

IntLibber Brautigan: there are now busineses that are stockholder owned to various degrees

Michel Manen: Stephane?

Davidorban Agnon:
Ashcroft: that is a very important point. Many analogies with
traditional government powers break down if we take into consideration
the lack of constraints in SL, as food, or shelter.

IntLibber Brautigan: those stock corporations are buying estates

Ashcroft Burnham: It's really rather important that Linden Lab *does* get around to doing non-monarchies properly...

IntLibber Brautigan: and as those
corporations stock holdings become not controlled by one individual
holding a majority of shares, they become effectively democratic
systems of governance of estates

Ashcroft Burnham: One of the reasons that there are no viable democracies is precisely that there aren't the tools for them.

Michel Manen: WEll im glad to see we conclude on such a lively and itneresting debate and discussion,

Michel Manen: Thank you all for
attending and contributing to this Second Plenary Meeting of the Local
Government Study Group on The benefits of local governance

Ralph Radius: Agreed Ashcroft. Democratic governments are the main issue.

Michel Manen: The full transcript of
the meeting will be publicly available shortly. You will also be
informed well ahead of time as to the date and time of the next meeting.

Ashcroft Burnham: In addition, if
one person had to do all the bannings, for example, anything of any
size would soon break down because of the administrative burden.

Ashcroft Burnham: Thank you Michel :-)

Michel Manen: To conclude, I would
like us all to thank Ash for the time and effort he has put into
organizing this conference and giving us a lot of material to reflect
on. Thank you, Ash. On this note, the meeting is adjourned.

Stephane Deschanel: hm right
Ashcroft... However, how someone who buy an island or another land
could give administration powers to another ? It would be difficult for
owners to accept that...

Davidorban Agnon: Thanks Michel, and Ashcroft!

Angel Fluffy: Ashcroft: yes, but it
is even more important that they do monarchies properly.... given that
you can (and people do) have a monarchy-like setup that functions as a
democrcy but a democratic setup trying to function as a monarchy is
impossible.

IntLibber Brautigan: I have 7 estate admins on my estate

Stephane Deschanel: Yes Michel ?

IntLibber Brautigan: no it isn't

Ashcroft Burnham: Stephanie: the detailed answer is contained in teh tools :-)

IntLibber Brautigan: I trust them all implicitly

Michel Manen: please feel free to continue discussiong informally these issues

Stephane Deschanel: :(

Ashcroft Burnham: Angel: perhaps the
important point is not which of the tools are more important than each
other, but that all of the tools, taken as a whole, are pretty
important as a set :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: Michel: we already felt free, I think ;-)

Angel Fluffy: Ashcroft: I agree
entirely, I'm not talking about which is more valuable, I'm talking
about which we should push LL to put in place now, I'm talking about
which would be more useful, today, to ask LLto cosider.

Michel Manen: very well Ash... :)

Stephane Deschanel: I'm such a newbie in the group and I have to read lots of things, even if I have thought on those questions for a long time

Ashcroft Burnham: Ahh, if one's individuating the tools, perhaps that's a discussion best left for the tools meeting? :-)

Stephane Deschanel: but where are this tools please ? Only in group notices ?

Ashcroft Burnham: I'll give you a copy of the latest draft, Stephanie :-)

Elspeth Guyot: Could I see a copy too please Ash?

Stephane Deschanel: Stephane, please lol

Ralph Radius: We need to give
Linden some pretty organized proposals. The less work for them the
better. The more the first tools improve things the better. The easiest
and most effective first.

Angel Fluffy: there is one issue I
really want to discuss at some future point... though I'm not sure this
is the right place. Are democratic societies in SL viable *at all*? I
have heard of one democratic project in SL, N.... berg... or
something... but IIRC it collapsed due to 'too many chieftans, not
enough indians' syndrome - essentially, it was inefficient and prone to
VERY harsh political in-fighting.

Ashcroft Burnham: Rats, I can't seem to give you a notecard.

Michel Manen: hahaha

Stephane Deschanel: Me ?

Ashcroft Burnham: Notecard giving seems to be broken, I'm very sorry...

Stephane Deschanel: Oh, no problem

Michel Manen: Yes yo heard right. Both ASh and i were quite involved in hte Neufristadt experiement. I stil am :)

Angel Fluffy: Is it still alive?

Michel Manen: DEpends who you ask Angel.

Michel Manen: I think so, yes

Michel Manen: Ash may have a diffrent perspective :)

Angel Fluffy: asking a question about
an organization's viability and getting a "depends on who you ask"
answer does not inspire any confidence at all.

Ashcroft Burnham: There, notecards are transferring again.

Angel Fluffy: Ashcroft: I agree, and the potential for greatness if they *are* viable is, IMHO, sufficient to urge developing the tools

Stephane Deschanel: It will surely be a silly question for those who know the group but is there a LGSG website ?

Ashcroft Burnham: One thing that I'd
say, though, is that one swallow does not a summer make: one example of
something going wrong doesn't prove that it can never work :-)

Ralph Radius: Sorry, I have to go. I think these sessions are very valuable. I'm looking forward to the next ones.

Angel Fluffy: Ashcroft: I'm just being a pragmatist - trying to get the maximum utility from the resources we have :)

Robin Lobo: thank you all for an interesting meeting, Ash, Michel for the well run agenda and Angel for the invite, good evening all

Ashcroft Burnham: Stephane, at present, no there isn't, although plans are afoot, I understand, to make one :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: Thank you, Robin, for coming.

Stephane Deschanel: oK I'm preparing one too

Michel Manen: The Community of
Democratic Simulators has had six democratic and successful consecutive
elections nad is in hte process of expaning to a 3rd sim. I think this
record is notewrothny nd worth working for to imporved :)

Ashcroft Burnham: Goodness. *Two* websites, eh? That'd be something :-)

Stephane Deschanel: about an approaching subject

Stephane Deschanel: but the project is more "global"

Stephane Deschanel: It would be interesting to make a partnership between us

Angel Fluffy: Michel: that's very interesting!

Michel Manen: well this is the issue of the interaction between local an nviersal goverment- a conference topic unto itself

IntLibber Brautigan: I'd like to say
that IMHO the greatest issue that mainland residents should lobby for
is to have the power to elect to make their sim an estate

Stephane Deschanel: yes it is

Ashcroft Burnham: Go on, Stephane...

Stephane Deschanel: I don't know (even without details) the goal of this group, I spoke with some members but the only thing I understood

Stephane Deschanel: is that you are working on local governments only

Michel Manen: well the two cannot be separated stephane

Michel Manen: to have local government

Stephane Deschanel: and in the virtual worlds only

Michel Manen: there needs to be coordiantion

Michel Manen: with the lindens

Ashcroft Burnham: Stephane: the goal
of this group is to devise proposals to put to LL for local government
in SecondLife, and then persuade LL to adopt them :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: Angel - whether
democracies are viable or not in the long term can only ultimately be
tested by giving the tools to let people form them and seeing whether
they work out :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: Market forces are the key.

Angel Fluffy: IntLibber: I doubt that
will happen.... because I would imagine that LL would like the mainland
to be a politically connected space - not a patchwork of private
estates. I also doubt it will happen because really... mainlanders live
on the mainland because they DON'T like island living. Do you really
think they will want to 'convert' over to living on a P.E? The idea is
very interesting and potentially VERY powerful, I'm just not sure if,
practically, many would make use of such a feature.

Michel Manen: and a universal government

Stephane Deschanel: yes, great ! We are OK

Ashcroft Burnham: The point about mainland sims and estates has been raised before.

Stephane Deschanel: I think LL is and will be a company so it won't want to give control to consumers

Stephane Deschanel: But I hope not and I want to work on that goal

Angel Fluffy: IMHO it might be
productive to ask one champion to come up with a list of problems and
code-based solutions for the toics in their area, then let the
arguments be heard for those...

Ashcroft Burnham: In the first draft
of the tools proposals, I had suggested an alternative idea of having
one sim, one government, and having mainland landowners elect their sim
government (or elect to have no government).

Angel Fluffy: e.g. in security, we
have the obvious problem that it is impossible to effectively ban
anyone now - given open registration and unlimited unverified accounts.

Ashcroft Burnham: I removed that
from the second draft because, ultimately, it contradicted the
principle of choice: that no landowner should ever be subject to any
government to which he or she has not chosen to be subject, either
directly or indirectly.

Angel Fluffy: or e.g. in contract
enforcement - you can't make people pay you money they owe as they can
always cancel their account and start a new one.

IntLibber Brautigan: Ashcroft, that problem is addressed by the market

Stephane Deschanel: Indeed Angel, that's a problem...

IntLibber Brautigan: if you don't like the government in your sim, you sell your land and leave, or work to change the government

Ashcroft Burnham: Angel - avatar
verificaiton (which can be done *without* Linden intervention) and
IP-hash bans are good solutions to those prolblems :-)

IntLibber Brautigan: but if you buy into a sim knowing what government there is there, its your own damn fault if you wind up not liking it

Ashcroft Burnham: Which problem, IntLibber?

Ashcroft Burnham: Yes, indeed :-)

Michel Manen: Intlibber i have a
question for you - how do you see the Security and EXchange Commission
you are setting up integrate intself into Ash's idea of an in-world
judiciary?

Angel Fluffy is simply suggesting that,
in order to work out what the LGSG should focus on next... a list of
problems/solutions should be drawn up, and we should focus on the one
that has the greatest utility / time_taken_to_put_in_place ratio :)

IntLibber Brautigan: the SLEC is a market oriented body

IntLibber Brautigan: like Underwriters Laboratories

IntLibber Brautigan: or Consumers Union

Ashcroft Burnham: Angel, an interesting idea.

IntLibber Brautigan: an exchange, or listed company, has to earn and work to keep the endorsement of the SLEC

IntLibber Brautigan: if it fails to meet our standards, we remove our certification

Ashcroft Burnham: Although, there
may be disagreements about the relative degrees of utility, and it may
be very hard to work out how much time that each would take :-)

IntLibber Brautigan: and notify the market accordingly via publicity

Michel Manen: what about enforcement? which dispute resolution system will it use?

Ashcroft Burnham: My preferred
approach is to put forward a comprehensive set of tools, and a
comprehensive set of justifications for that whole set, and presuade LL
to adopt the whole lot, whenever it is able to do so.

IntLibber Brautigan: we will have a commission through which people can file or appeal

Stephane Deschanel: I'm working in
a highly visited land in the "french SL" (a politic place which was
created to sustain Segolene Royal for presidential elections) and I
know that hackers are a very serious problem

Ashcroft Burnham: Breaking it down creates a very real danger that some bits might not be implimented at all...

Michel Manen: ah

Stephane Deschanel: The time I take to answer is too long lol

Michel Manen: Ash any comments on Intlibber is comminnsion idea for te SLEX?

Elspeth Guyot: I ahve to go, thank you all, very interesting discussion.

Michel Manen: SLEC?

Ashcroft Burnham: I mean, some of
the security-specific tools (IP hash bans, verification, increased ban
list sizes, better protection against client hacks) are conceptually
independent of (although useful to) local government, and can be dealt
with as separate issues.

IntLibber Brautigan: Second Life Exchange Commission

IntLibber Brautigan: yes

Ashcroft Burnham: But different bits of the local government proposals probably ought not be splintered :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: Thank you for coming :-)

Angel Fluffy: Ashcroft: I don't
pretend that such a list would be clear or easy to interpret, but I do
think that drawing one up might be productive in that it would at least
help to clarify the myriad of issues we face.

Ashcroft Burnham: I suppose that it's hard for me to comment on such a list without actually seeing one... :-)

Stephane Deschanel: Your ideas are very interesting Ash but we have to weight enough before LL make what we are demanding

Ashcroft Burnham: But perhaps that's a tools issue, rather than a benefits issue :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: Ahh, yes, undoubtedly, it will take time.

Ashcroft Burnham: But all good thigns come to those who wait :-)

Stephane Deschanel: Indeed :)

Ashcroft Burnham: In the meantime, we can do other things. I, for example, make furniture. Would anybody like a hatstand? :-)

Ashcroft Burnham: Only L$272... :-)

The meeting closed at 15:9 Linden time
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