I also asked (but the mods being AFK or confused didn’t convey) this question:

what does Lessig thing of putting out freebies, but that have no mod/no transfer?

Well I think in generic terms, he answered this: well let them, and let’s have different kinds of stuff.

He then really really REACHES for this analogy of some group of South Africans putting some book for free up on the Internet. I mean, really bad analogy. Why? Because the people who use the Internet in South Africa don’t number probably in the multi-millions of Western market countries where an amazon.com or something is doing business and where people wish to sell books to make a living of some sort.

Give me an example of how this free culture stuff works when it isn’t Soros or the World Bank or the Ford Foundation footing the bill for all the conferencing and NGOS, and let’s talk.

Also, as critical as I am of things, I don’t see that it is necessarily any kind of “Kremlindenlab” thing to have Philip host or co-chair this meeting with Lessig. After all, it’s Philip’s brainchild and concept, the whole SL thing. And it was in his discussion with Lessig last time (I presume, I wasn’t there) that they cooked up this idea of giving people more IP rights. And they did, in fairness to them. Of course, it’s not so perfect, eh? And people bitch endlessly about textures and stuff and the grey squares and stuff (I hate that, I have to live with it) but all in all, you can make stuff, sell it, put “no copy” and “no transfer” on it, and pretty much have a claim to a copyright when all is said and done.

I guess what I don’t get about these things is why they bother to invite us. We’re not going to get to speak in any kind of meaningful fashion. So they either should have a public broadcast system, where they are the talking heads and we merely tune in, like television, and they chat coherently without interruption from the mob, except for something like a moderated “phone-in” to a “switchboard” — or they decide to include us, warts and all.

If they wish to include us, they need to realize the era of “you guys” and “we’re all on the same page” is over, and their audience isn’t the FIC anymore, but a very, very diverse, and very differently-prepared audience, even self-selecting for topic interest.

Accordingly, there are two things they need to do. Either they stop their fussing with Jeska, and just let people talk normally, interrupting each other, making people scroll, like a usual open talk with less people in it — and the devil take the high road — or they seize control and announce very loudly and clearly and repeatedly that they are running the meeting, and that all questions have to be driven through mods.

But they do neither. What happens is Hamlet arrives and stands around for 15-20 minutes in his little IMs with his little fanboyz or something, who the hell knows. He’s not clearly Large and in Charge, with respect from the community, he’s off somewhere catering to the people who pay his paycheck, and not paying attention to the social task at hand: running a public meeting. I’ve been in enough meetings watching Hamlet do this now, that I feel that I can really bitch about it with the facts of the transcript behind my back: for all the work he does organizing these meetings, and it is considerable, I realize, he is not framing them by having a clearcut Beginning, Middle, and End where he says all the host stuff like “Good Evening, here I am, I’ll be moderating, or Jeska will, and please hold your chat, and that means you, and this is how we will do Q&A.”

Given the scroll and lag and distraction factor, he has to say that 6 times, not 1 time, to get it to register.

Then…Philip logs in from his busy RL being a Master Game Dev from a conference somewhere, where he is only half paying attention. Jeska saunters up to center stage…and stands there…weaving back and forth in silence, as she attends to some other urgent office thing. Everybody starts nattering and interrupting each other. Some people dutifully send questions to Jeska, but she’s AFK. Others send them to Hamlet, but he’s in IMs and hasn’t announced what he’s doing exactly. Still others just start talking, seeing no one in charge.

This is such idiocy, and so fixable, that I don’t know why they don’t choreograph these things better, like this: Enter Hamlet. Awake, control, and with “busy” on or ignoring IMs from his little pals for the moment. “I am chairing this meeting. I will be introducing the speaker. I will be taking questions in IMs to me, only. Then, if not in public, at least in private IMs: “Jeska, please move off stage now hon to avoid confusion. Phil, wake up, you’re on the air, focus for 20 minutes now please and Griefer, please shut up or we will be booting you from the property,” etc.

That’s all it takes. I’m thinking that given how hard it is to run these things with the scrolling text, the functions have to be divided. That is, one person has to ride shotgun. That would be Jeska. She takes IM’d questions, and she also scans chat for troublemakers, warns them once, and runs the switchboard to boot them.

Hamlet, then, is free to focus on the guest, keeping him engaged, keeping him talking sensibly, and keeping Philip on cue. This would really have to be the way this thing is run.
Usually when you have principles like a Philip to run, one staff person has to stay on call just to keep him on task — so the moderator on the air has to make sure they have a line to the control room or scene from out in the restaurant to keep the guy on task, too.

I dunno, this is basic stuff. Why can’t they do this? Or not…but then don’t scream at the customers if they start all shouting at once in chat.

I was disappointed that the Lindens did seem to control the event closely, and there were not more questions related to Second Life presented. My question was more general, and I suppose I should have thought more deeply about a better question.

I wonder why there were not more questions concerning Second Life, it seemed that the presence of the Lindens made people less likely to ask any questions that might be critical of LL or Second Life.

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