[...] | Add to Playlist | Email | Share this | Website | Download [...]

[...] | Website | Download [...]

[...] Psychochild’s blogPast week Today226: google.com120: images.google.com76: zenofdesign.com36: raphkoster.com26: virginworlds.com25: writerscabal.wordpress.com24: mogb.blogspot.com24: [...]

[...] of the lack of a codified design process behind Massively Multiplayer games. Raph’s Website — The Boundaries of User Created Content. Raph comments on serious issues facing monitors of virtual spaces, as a spin off from Linden Labs’ [...]

Porn is popular but actually not as easy to create as simple drama. I’m not sure if “drama” is the best label, maybe indignation or conflict would work as well and maybe it’s broader than that, but the word suffices. Think about the typical sort of content that you find on a LiveJournal or MySpace or a typical fan forum or MMO forum and most of the content there is what we’d generally label as “drama”. Look at SL and I think that you’ll find that most of its content is the same sort of thing.

And just like niche porn, there is niche drama. A common internet joke is that one need only mention a new sexual fetish and an online community for that fetish is created. The joke is just as appropriate for righteous indignation. Make up any perceived slight that people might get indignant over and there’s probably a LiveJournal group, blog or forum populated by people bitching about it. It’s constantly amazing to stumble on to these communities and admire how creative people can be in coming up with things to rant about.

It seems to me that no online worlds really embrace this yet and maybe some could. LiveJournal or MySpace certainly serve up this content as their primary staple but it’s not clear that they do this intentionally. Similarly, Second Life thrives on this sort of content even though it doesn’t seem like that was particularly their intention. In fact, most of these services are often working against “drama/indignation” or trying to manage it (i.e., recent scandals for EVE, LiveJournal, etc.). For all the talk of managing a community and setting good expectations in advance there are a lot of people for whom a “nerf” or new, controversial rules are content because it gives them something to bitch about with thousands of user-created posts and whines as content that they can respond to and interact with. It seems like there has to be a way to embrace this sort of content more closely. Perhaps to create artificial controversies about one’s service or just more directly focus on creating a world around certain pre-generated sources of indignation and interpersonal conflict or to come up with more creative ways to connect players and create “drama” (arguably “guilds” are an example of an in-game drama tool and stuff like cities in SWG or Achaea take this further but where could the idea go if you started with the premise that created drama and personality conflicts was your goal?).

What this means is that the game creator can maintain some control, at the minimum, by their choices if they don’t allow actual creation by others.

And if you want proof that the terms are different, just remember that you know exactly what we mean by them. And as developers move forwards, they should be talking about this difference and what it can mean to their games. That’s why you need the terms for each case.

In some cases, it may be a cross between the two. I would consider UO’s custom housing to be this. The player is limited to previously created material, but can customize it to their own plans. It’s the best of both worlds, allowing creation in a fashion yet still maintaining the control that prevents dildo-roofed towers.

[...] Raph’s Website » The boundaries of user created content – Then again, a lot of professionally-created Internet content is porn too. It’d be interesting to see whether the percentage of user-contributed smut in user-built spaces is different from the percentage of professionally-contributed smut… [...]

Yes allow Neo-Nazis, Yes allow Al-Qeada, yes allow extermists, yes allow pornographers, yes allow those people you despise.

Because ft you don’t, then you will lose the pacifists who are unpatriotic in not supporting their country, the freedom fighters who are looking to be free from the heel of oppression, those who seek dialog & understanding, the artists, and those people you respect.

You can’t have freedom through oppressing others, it just don’t happen.

Morgan: Options for generation are limited as opposed to options for creation. For example, in SWG you can place a house, generating content. In Second Life, you can create a house that looks like an enormous penis, creating porn.

I don’t see how using different approaches and tools to generate content suddenly changes the activity of generating content, necessitating a new neologism.

From a community administration point of view, at some point you’ll have to set the standards for your community and then stick to them. Leaving out the real-world legal concerns for a minute, there are choices that anyone running a community on the internet is going to have to make in terms of what’s acceptable and what’s not.

Yes, but their Community Guidelines still states:

Content, communication, or behavior which involves intense language or expletives, nudity or sexual content, the depiction of sex or violence, or anything else broadly offensive must be contained within private land in areas rated Mature (M).

Now how does that rhyme with the message Daniel posted on the blog? One says ‘you can’t do it. at all.’ the other one – that would have worked fine, if LL would have actually putt some staff on wading through and handling the abuse reports filed on sexual age play, for instance – says ‘you may, but keep it private’.

I wonder if they are going to make the whole grid ‘PG’ now they are facing yet another law case (Familles de France).