Revenge of the FIBB, or a Promise Fulfilled?
by Alphaville Herald on 10/06/05 at 1:16 pm
by Walker Spaight
A Linden-sponsored public meeting will be held this afternoon at 3pm game-time to discuss “how to resolve transactional disputes in a fair manner as well as the possibility of an in-world ‘Better Business Bureau’.” But more than one major SL landowner is concerned that the purported FIC may hijack any such body, effectively turning it into a Fetid Inner Business Bureau that would promote its members’ interests rather than protect the interests of the consumer.
The need for some kind of Better Business Bureau has been raised in a couple of recent forum threads (here and here), and many SL residents agree that there is a need for some kind of body that would be able to police in-world transactions reputationally, through mechanisms that would resemble either a blacklist of those found to be unscrupulous or a whitelist of those who had consistently provided upstanding service.
The Herald is confident in Linden Lab’s ability to allow residents to devise a Better Business Bureau on their own. But more than one major SL landowner (none of which are the others’ alts) have come to the Herald with concerns that some residents may wish to use such a body to settle personal scores or to put an exclusive group of merchants in an advantageous position to conduct in-world commerce.
What kind of BBB will result (if one appears at all) could be a kind of turning point for SL. The Grid is still a relatively small community (less than 32,000 residents). At this point, perceived transgressions are easily brought to the attention of Linden Lab. While the company is showing strains in dealing consistently with such complaints, and while the system lack much transparency, the population is still small enough that their voices are being heard.
But as Second Life grows, such personal attention will quickly become impossible. Nor will it be desirable. The impersonal and transparent enforcement of a clear set of regulations will become imperative if LL is to retain the community’s confidence.
Concerns have been raised in this context by a number of residents who fear that a purported Feted Inner Core of SL citizens enjoys access to the Lindens that allows them to sway Linden policy. While most of these claims are clearly overblown, indications are that LL does reach out to a select group of content-creators for their opinions more than they do to the community at large. This is only to be expected; these are their best customers. What is less clear is how this affects conflict resolution and policy-making.
The parallel is easily found in real-world politics. Even in the wake of recent campaign finance reform in the United States, it’s clear that the more you contribute, the more access you have to those who make the rules. And with access comes influence, and with influence comes advantage. There’s no evidence that things should run any differently in Second Life. But there is an opportunity for them to do so.
A Better Business Bureau or similar body could help take the strain off Linden liaisons and, more importantly, would be a significant step toward the self-governed community that Second Life promises to become. Reputational tools like the abuse reporting system are simply not effective in a community as small as Second Life, where personal attacks by a few (or even by one) can too easily skew one’s standing in the community. (In an environment like eBay, which has a critical mass of users, such tools are more effective, and give a better reflection of how the entire community perceives any particular person.)
Second Life is still too small for such tools to be reliable. But a Better Business Bureau that is “owned” by the community, that is transparently run, and that is not controlled by any particular group of residents would be a step in the right direction. For it to work, Linden Lab will have to bring a kind of “cyber finance reform” to the Grid and let it live or die on its own. As the community grows, the company will not be in a position to take a close look at each and every commercial dispute. To fulfill the promise of a world created by its residents, LL will have to hew closely to the ToS and CS and let residents build their own governance tools through the kind of experimentation that’s going on now.
Aimee Weber
Jun 10th, 2005
Always with the FIC accusations. If this keeps up I may just CANCEL this 3:00 meeting!
Mark Wallace
Jun 10th, 2005
Just for the record, I do state above that most of those claims are overblown.
So please, Aimee, make sure your minions don’t cancel that meeting ; -)
Prokofy Neva
Jun 11th, 2005
Look, these claims aren’t overblown, Read my latest expose of FIC/Linden activity in the IRC channel titled “What is the Process for Change?” illustrating how a gang of scripters got to a Linden in the IRC chat and forced him to change his already-done deed involving removal of the pernicious bounce script “teleporthome” function:
http://forums.secondlife.com/showpost.php?p=527678&postcount=1
Ideally, we’d have several BBB type or Consumer Advocate type groups come into existence, but our problem now is that under cover of saying “no one wants to volunteer” or “it’s too much work” or “it’s too much burden on the Lindens” a few players will follow through and monopolize this issue precisely to keep themselves from scrutiny. It truly is appalling. that some could cook up a “whitelist” to put themselves beyond scrutiny and house the entire thing on a third-party website precisely to avoid having to follow TOs regulations like not disclosing RL information.
I proposed having an Ombudsman Linden who would be sent capctured-chat contracts from the game to store and then retrieve in the event there was a dispute. I raised the idea of having player groups work up presentation of cases to the Lindens. But we’d be stymied in this, just like the SLH itself is if it takes these things seriously, by running the risk of being accused of being “unethical” or “in violation of the TSO” if we accept and compare various chat logs betwen players, private IMs in game, PM offline, etc.
Pathfinder himself has made it clear that he simply will not open up and review any notecarded convo in the game that if it is a private conversation between 2 residents. Um, well it’s good he’s taking the high road on this, but what on earth can you do when you’ll be reporting allegations of TOS violations in the game, and allegations of the offenses that go beyond the TOS like fraud, libel, and extortion (the TOS simply cannot deal effectively with these categories of offenses). This involves the very necessary ability in any society to allege wrongdoing.
Groups of players that are going to be AR’d by the angry targets of their inquiries and their buddies; or by groups of net nannsy; or by Lindens, are not going to be able to function to mount impartial and independent investigations. Everyone harps so much on the ability to alter an IM, they forget that these are useful documents many rely on to keep others honest — the shaming factor is an important one.
I think groups of Lindens (they don’t think all in one mind on these topics) and groups of vested interests wlil likely gang up on a fledgling Consumer Advocates group or even BBB staffed by the most respectful parties.
Maxx Monde
Jun 11th, 2005
Luckily, things will turn out for the best, despite the nutjobs present.
Aimee, if you cancel the meeting, how will I get rid of all this potato salad I made! Selfish, the lot of you.
Prokofy Neva
Jun 12th, 2005
Um, *turn out* Vexx? Says who? Turn out *for you*? Uh, BTW, this wasn’t Aimee’s meeting. It was technically Pathfinder’s meeting. Of course, he added to that sense of hierarchical control like Plotinus’ universe, with the power cascading down from The One, by having Gwyn notify me and others that there’d be this confab at Pathfinder’s. That way, we could feel oh-so-dependent on Gwyn’s good graces! Wonderful! I’ll hope you’ll return to this page to read my “I told you so” when I tell you that Christiano Midnight, Chip Midnight, Schwanson Schlegel, and all the FIC regs are going to be in this entity, running it off their third-party servers, using it as an information shake-down device, and ultimately repeating the reward of keeping themselves in power in each sector where they dominate. I have a new word for this. It’s the Feta-Verse. Yeah, it’s all about the cheese.
Urizenus
Jun 12th, 2005
What’s wrong with ‘fica-verse’? Nothing says “I’m erudite” like a piece of Italian profanity incorporated into the cyberpunk lexicon.
Gwyneth Llewelyn
Jun 15th, 2005
The question is, how can we make things like a Better Business Bureau emcompass the largest number of people – ie. actually all that wish to participate and are willing to contribute – without turning it into a “FIC thing”.
If by inviting people to attend any sort of organizational meeting in SL will always be judged as a “FIC thing”, you’ll be in a classical lose-lose situation – you’ll be simultaneously be arrested for owning a dog or for not owning a dog.
Readers of forums, blogs, and The Herald are all FIC. They represent perhaps 5-10% of the SL population which is actually interested in discussing these things (and similar things to these). The rest of the SL population are clueless, since there is no easy way to get in touch with all of them. Sure, you can put a message on the login session of SL – “attend this meeting if you’re interested”. But not everybody logs in on every day, or at least, on the day the message (or the meeting) is available.
The problem with base democracy is that it is only participated by the ones who are really paying attention to it. If you miss a message, a post somewhere, an article on a blog or e-zine – well, it’s tough to say that “the FIC are conspiring against you”. That will always be the case with any tentative base democracy.
So, there is no way you can discuss these things or write about them without being shunned and labeled as FIC. Since you will never be able to address all 32,000 residents simultaneously (and over 90% of them really don’t care a bit), all sort of meetings will always be FIC. No matter how “open” they are, no matter how often they’re announced, in-world or off-world, by posting on public forums, exchanging emails, posting on blogs. It’s utterly impossible – you will never reach them all. So, you’ll be only addressing an “elite” of interested residents. Thus, you’ll be FIC and talking to the FIC. It’s simple to understand.
Taking this to the extreme, if two or three people meet in-world, and organize themselves to abide to a code of ethical behaviour that they have just invented on the spot, and nobody else attends – well, these 2 or 3 people will be labeled as FIC in less time it takes to look up “feted” in the Wikipedia (well, it’s no there yet). After all, they did not announce their meeting; they are doing something definitely FICish; they are an elitist and exclusivist group, since there are only the 2 or 3 in them; they have sorted out a group of common rules that nobody has participated in elaborating. So, you have to watch your steps. If you talk about anything intelligent which is neither related to business or to Tringo – beware, you may be FIC, and not even notice it.
Actually, I propose that we start to name all people that ever meet together to talk about these things “FOC” – the Fetid Outer Core. They are dangerous, because they might become FIC very quickly – you just need someone to overhear them. Worse than that, if you want to discuss anything intelligently, never do it in public. Never do it with any resident older than 30 days. And never, never do it in front of an avatar whom you don’t know. Lindens have alts, you know, and if you just happen to say something intelligent in front of a plainclothes Linden, you’ll be immediately immortalized as FIC. They may even give you access to their IRC channel.
Walker Spaight, beware. You have revealed yourself as FOC, and a prime candidate to become FIC very soon. Who nominated you to speak on behalf of the upcoming BBB? Why are you bringing it to public? Have you done a public consultation to be able to speak about these things on the Herald? Surely you’re revealing your FOCness and your desire to be FIC, by appearing clever and intelligent, and posting your ideas in public? Beware – we all know they are not your ideas, but the FIC’s ideas, so you’re another FIC wannabe. We have recorded your name on the FIC candidate list. You’ll be IMed shortly and get an invitation for the secret (and hidden) FIC membership club.
Abandon all hope, ye who enter this place. Play Tringo, stick to buying or selling land and objects, or else you’re FIC, or at the very least, FOC, and a FIC wannabe.
i find all of this very disturbing. I would like to live in a SL community that allows you to express your opinions freely, without being labeled as being “elitist” for doing so. But then again, perhaps I’m just naive. This doesn’t happen in RL because RL is so big. SL is just a small town, with a provincial feeling about it.
Urizenus
Jun 15th, 2005
It happens in rl too. Except in RL you hear the elitest charge from more than one person (i.e. Prok). The other difference is that in RL we have learned to ignore the John Birch Society. I say: embrace your FICdom. Be Proud! Be Loud! This is the path to FICtory!
Mark Wallace
Jun 15th, 2005
Gwyn, I am already on the shortlist. I received my application, I just can’t find it in the mess around here.
I am all for a Better Business Bureau of some sort. But while I feel the FIC is mostly a straw man, I also feel there’s a ribbon of legitimacy running through the concerns some people have raised. Part of our duty as a newspaper is to chronicle not only what’s happening on the Grid but residents’ reactions to what’s happening, and the tensions that are keeping things from happening. One of the most interesting things about this moment in the development of player governance (not *government*), is that everyone seems to be spending more energy trying to be right than they are in trying to get their projects off the ground. This is often under the guise of “this is a serious issue and we need to be taken seriously on this.” But what it says to me is that a lot of residents do *not* take their second lives as seriously as they think they do. What they take seriously is how they feel they’re being perceived.
The one thing we absolutely need right now, and I’m not being facetious, is for “two or three people [to] meet in-world, and organize themselves to abide to a code of ethical behaviour that they have just invented on the spot.” There is /nothing/ in the game that stands in the way of a Better Business Bureau or any other kind of ethical or governance body arising right now. What stands in the way is pride. Everyone wants to have their views known, be the protector of the little guy, defend themselves against accusations, etc. In part, I’d imagine this is a function of cyberspace, where “who one is” is something that’s not very well defined. But it doesn’t get much better defined through debate. I gets defined through work and action. Three of the most successful entrepreneurs in Second Life are people who rarely if ever participate in the ongoing Core discussions: Blue Burke, Anshe Chung and Cubey Terra. They just go out and do their job, they explore the limits of the Grid. We all need to do this a little bit more, I think.
I haven’t been in to check the forums, but I hope the meeting went well. I hope the next step is that someone goes out and actually starts one of these things. Whether it’s the one that becomes The One, only time will tell. But even if it’s just a seed, it needs to be poked into the soil so we can see what sprouts up. And please let us know at the Herald that it’s going on, so we can celebrate the moment for our readers.
Walker Spaight
Jun 15th, 2005
That’s me in the post above, by the way. “Mark Wallace” is the name of my RL alt.
Prokofy Neva
Jun 23rd, 2005
Walker, I wish you’d come to some of the meetings on this and talk about it more practically. I’ve held several events on it, including a disputes resolution vote on a real dispute, etc. There’s a glaring thing stopping any of us from really starting this: the pernicious and much-abused Abuse Report system. We do not have the freedom to investigate inworld. It is a TOC, ROC, etc violation to copy notecarded conversations between private players and send them around inworld. Yet if you are to examine a case, you need to do that. Now we all know that such notecards can be faked. But when they have a time/date/creator stamp on them and haven’t been changed as to those features, it is at least a tip sheet to use for investigations to try to triangulate on the facts. But it is impossible in the current climate to gather facts in this way without someone ARing you for either stalking, verbal harassment, or whatever — and the Lindens also possibly swooping down on you. I know this has chilled my efforts even to do the model disputes voting I have done — if I put up copies of people’s IMs or chats they have presented in the course of a dispute, are we all going to be AR’d to death not only by the parties on the dispute, but the fanboyz trying to push me out of the game, for instance? No one is free to perform investigations in this game properly — yet — unless they assume risk.
I maintain that players must do this somehow, and then prepare cases for Lindens to examine. I’d like to see dozens of such groups emerge of all sorts, consumer advocates, community associations on sims, BBBs, trade assocations, and all of them interacting as associations with an “Ombudsman Linden”.
I know it seems like sectarian college stuff when everyone worries about being right and not active in world. But when we have a small group of people with lots of Linden attention who brag also of Linden blessings actually forming a group and actually claiming that they already do do mediation in secret with secret results, we have to worry. I think it’s the wrong way to go about things. I think there could be a company that does private mediation for businesses who don’t want mediation to be public, but the consumer and the average player in a dispute is not served by secrecy, they are served by the public record creating a paper trail of deterrent and empowerment.