Resident (Second Life)

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For other uses of the term "Resident", see the Resident disambiguation page

In the context of Second Life, the term Resident is applied to "people who have a stake in the world"^[1]:

	It was pretty early in the development of Second Life. One of my jobs was to come up with the different words we wanted to use, including the name! The naming discussions were usually between me, Philip, Hunter and Peter (both of whom aren't here any more) with feedback from everyone else. When it came to what to call the people in the world, we knew we didn't want to call them 'users', although that would be the most typical thing for software. However, the word 'users' doesn't do a very good job of describing the two-way nature of Second Life, where the people involved are providing content and contributing to the experience. We also thought about 'members' (boring!), 'citizens' (too political!), and 'players' (too game-y). 'Residents', however, seems most descriptive of people who have a stake in the world and how it grows.
—Robin Harper (aka Robin Linden), [1]

The term is not generally applied under the following conditions:

• People who have only created an account, but never logged in
• People who have had accounts created on their behalf for promotional events
• People who have created an account, and logged in a few times then stopped using the account

A slight exception to the application of the term would be when referring to a person who holds multiple accounts. In this case, their primary account is referred to normally with the others interchangeably referred to as Resident or Alt. No exceptions are made for those with Basic or Premium accounts, however Residents who have held active accounts since the beta or periods and have purchased Lifetime subscriptions for US$225 can be optionally referred to as Charter Members.

Contents 1 Activities of Residents in Second Life 1.1 Subcultures and countercultures 1.2 Resident Created Content 1.2.1 Avatars 1.2.2 Objects 1.2.3 Scripting 2 Favoritism 3 Residents of Second Life 3.1 Residents who achieved fame or notoriety through Second Life 3.1.1 A - E 3.1.2 F - J 3.1.3 K - O 3.1.4 P - T 3.1.5 U - Z 3.2 Notable people who joined Second Life 3.2.1 A - E 3.2.2 F - J 3.2.3 K - O 3.2.4 P - T 3.2.5 U - Z 3.3 Notable people whose Second Life names are identical to their own 3.3.1 A - E 3.3.2 F - J 3.3.3 K - O 3.3.4 P - T 3.3.5 U - Z 4 See also 5 References

[edit] Activities of Residents in Second Life

[edit] Subcultures and countercultures

Second Life is composed of rich, diverse, user-driven subcultures and countercultures.

Some Second Life cultures revolve around established "groups." Groups can be created by Residents for a fee of L$100. Residents are then given 3 days to recruit an additional member, or their investment is lost and the group is deleted. A group must then maintain a membership of at least 2 members at all times in order to remain active. The groups that each Resident belongs to are displayed in that user's profile.

Each group comprises officers and members, with titles determined by group leadership. The Owner, Member (referred to by the client as Everyone ^{[citation needed]}) or the title for any custom roles may appear superimposed above the name of the Resident's avatar. Residents may participate in up to 25 groups, and may choose which group's title to display at any given time. Group activity is usually centered on a particular interest, so creating groups can give people a common ground for discussion and provide an easy way to break the ice. Some groups maintain websites to bridge the gap between real-life (referred to as "first life", or abbreviated to "RL" for "real-life") and Second Life (commonly abbreviated as SL, but 2L is also used) interests.

Groups are allowed ownership of land and resources, so they comprise the closest thing to a corporation within the Second Life environment.

Aside from groups, many of the subcultures found in Second Life revolve around events. Events include many activities related to arts, culture, charity, support groups, commerce, discussion, education, games, contests, nightlife, entertainment, pageants and sports.

Second Life is also being influenced by many Internet phenomena which include the Moskau Dance, Ulae, and Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Many of these memes are in the form of gestures, which are animations that the avatar uses. These gestures are a cause of Internet culture spread in Second Life.

Second Life blogs are also appearing where Residents detail their second lives, sometimes more extensively than their first:^{[2] [3]}

[edit] Resident Created Content

The majority of the content in the Second Life world is Resident-created. Linden Lab actively promotes the concept that Residents retain the intellectual property rights to objects they create (although they are required to offer Linden Lab a limited license for the purposes of promotion and marketing.^[4]

Only LSL scripts and the basic 3D objects can be created solely with the client (although a future release will enable animations to be created within the client).

Animations can be made with the free program Avimator that is made specifically for SL, Poser, or they can be acquired via motion capture using a third-party application. Animations can be triggered by scripts and used in hot-keyed gestures.

Textures can be uploaded as TGA, Bitmap or JPEG, and are made in applications such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Paint Shop Pro, or The GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP)). Textures can be applied to the surface of any 3D object, land, clothing, an avatar's skin (including tatoos) and can be used as scripted particles.^[5]

Sounds can be made using any piece of software capable of creating WAV files, ranging from an Operating System's basic sound recorder, media players such as foobar2000, as well as dedicated audio editing packages such as Audacity and Pro Tools.

There are a limited variety of textures, animations, sounds and objects available in every Resident's inventory (this stock content is found in the Library folder).^{[citation needed]} Textures, animations and sounds cost L$10 to upload.^{[citation needed]} JPEGs, although smaller in file size, are not recommended since they will be converted to JPEG2000 file format on upload regardless of original file format. TGA files have the added advantage of alpha channel transparency.

[edit] Avatars

Residents of Second Life are represented in the environment by an avatar. The basic avatar is humanoid in shape which may be customized in a variety of ways:

• A series of GUI controls, modifying every aspect of the basic mesh (body shape, skin, hair style etc)
• Creating clothing or buying clothes made by other Residents
• Attachments - 3D objects intended to supplement or replace body structure, clothes or hair
• Animation Overriders (intended to supplement or replace the stock set of animations) using LSL to trigger BVH format animations.
• Sonic Overriders- using LSL to trigger sounds such as footsteps, or emotive cues such as laughing, crying and orgasms.

The result can either be faithful to the original humanoid avatar, or can result in a completely non-humanoid representation of the character. These customizations can be packaged up into a single outfit, with common applications of outfits including animals, robots, mechs, furries, Clone Troopers and "tinies", which are just "folded up" (via a static animation--a "pose") regular avatars.

[edit] Objects

Second Life includes a built-in 3D Modeler that allows Residents to create complex objects out of a set of basic building blocks known as prims (short for "primitives")- parametric models supporting dynamic scalar level of detail. Second Life uses Havok for simulated physics, though not all objects in the world respond to physics. A future update will include Havok 2 support, an improvement that Second Life Residents have awaited since its announcement by Linden Lab before June, 2002. All objects and 3D information are streamed in real-time to all clients. This allows for real-time editing of 3D objects so any Resident can view what is being created as it is being created.

The 3D objects can be used to make avatar attachments, vehicles, buildings, furniture, sculpture or anything else the user can think of. Attachments can be something as simple as a pair of glasses, or a complex series of objects in order to make the avatar look like something else entirely. Vehicles can range from a small pair of roller skates to a car^[6], to large and full scale replica of fictional vehicles from Sci-Fi and Anime ^{[7] [8] [9] [10]}

[edit] Scripting

Residents can apply scripts to created objects, thereby controlling the behavior of the objects within the environment. Second Life uses its own scripting language, called Linden Scripting Language (LSL). LSL has a syntax similar to C, Java, and, to a lesser extent, Python, and allows objects to interact with the Second Life world, as well as the Internet via email, XML-RPC and HTTP.^[11]

LSL is used to drive all interactivity in Second Life that isn't provided by the interface. For instance, while it is possible to sell an object by leaving the object out with the correct attributes set via the interface, but it becomes increasingly difficult the larger a single object is, the more numerous a collection of objects are, or for objects that are updated on a regular basis. Textures, scripts, animations, gestures and notecards cannot be sold by themselves (although they can be transferred between Residents in such a manner), requiring them to be held within a containing object. Games, doors, flashing lights, and basically anything that is seen in Second Life that is interactive is scripted.

[edit] Favoritism

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The Second Life resident Prokofy Neva achieved significant notoriety on the grid with his theory that a particular group of residents received preferential treatment from Linden Lab. The group in question was supposedly composed of early adopters who had created impressive objects or areas and gained the attention of Linden staff and gained benefits through contact with these staff - in particular, placement in the publicity used to advertise Second Life to the real world. This position, he argued, then further resulted in residents tending to preferentially associate with these people, because of their celebrity status and the potential favours they could provide. Although it was not essentially unreasonable that users achieving good things should be rewarded in this way, Prokofy argued that granting these great rewards to early adopters would leave no rewards left for future adopters; and that a situation where a society went straight from lacking the technical foundations to support certain social interactions, directly to having the "leaders" of the interacting groups established as those who created those technical foundations, left no openings for users specialising in social or leadership skills ^[12] and would thus lead to the formation of dysfunctional groups. Prokofy coined the term Feted Inner Core, or FIC, to refer to the "favoured" users.

The FIC theory caused a serious split in the Second Life community at the time, being supported by some but widely derided by others, and became the cause of much emotive discussion on the Second Life Forums. The current Second Life community now uses the term FIC as a satirical term for an imaginary conspiracy that supposedly controls the world, but instances of favouritism (such as the InfoNet example above) have arisen on occasion.^{[13] [14]} It has also been alleged by some residents that the FIC theory itself damaged Second Life by making Linden Labs afraid of supporting residents creating good content for fear of claims of FICdom.^{[citation needed]}

In addition, users who own large amounts of land (and thus pay larger subscriptions) are generally seen to have greater influence on Linden Lab due to the financial loss that would be incurred by removing them. With the growth of the Second Life world, the financial loss is lowered due to more Residents contributing.

[edit] Residents of Second Life

[edit] Residents who achieved fame or notoriety through Second Life

The following is a list of Residents who have become well known outside of Second Life to varying degrees, either due to a significant accomplishment in-world - generally being featured in a Linden Lab press release or news source primarily focusing on Second Life or gaming in general (e.g. Anshe Chung and Tateru Nino) or have been featured in major news sources outside of the scope of Second Life or their in-world accomplishment has carried on the "real" world (e.g. Laukosargas Svarog and Kermitt Qurik )

[edit] A - E

• Alex Harbinger - Alex Harbinger is the owner of Eden, and as of November 19, 2006 is the resident with the most registered land.^{[verification needed]} Alex is one of the largest land-resellers, owner and operator of Hyperion City, Mega-Mall Cascade, Mega-Mall Eden, and Eden itself. He also owns Harbinger Productions, the largest Gadget/Scripted Objects store on Teen SecondLife ^{[verification needed]}
• Alpha Zaius - Alpha Zaius is a developer of libsecondlife, and an Estate Manager of Eden - Teen Second Life's second registered teen-owned Private Island. Alpha is also the founder of AZTech. ^{[verification needed]}
• Anshe Chung - Ailin and Guntram Graef, entrepreneurs/virtual land speculators
• Bailey Ganache was a highly respected designer on the Teen Grid specializing in avatar customization (clothing, shoes, jewelry, skins). Bailey has since left the Teen Grid. ^{[verification needed]}

[edit] F - J

• Fizik Baskerville of Rivers Run Red, for his work with BBC Radio 1, Disney and 20th Century Fox^{[15] [16] [17]}
• Johnny Ming - John Swords (now a member of the Electric Sheep Company^[18]), for his contribution to the evangelisation of Second Life through podcasting:
  • SecondCast with Cristiano Midnight, Lordfly Digeridoo, Torrid Midnight and Walker Spaight
  • The Goods with Torrid Midnight
  • Metaverse Sessions with Mark Wallace
  • Second Life Town Hall Meetings (as Producer)

[edit] K - O

• Kermitt Qurik - Nathan Keir, developer of the game Tringo. Keir licensed the game to Donnerwood Media, however retains rights to the game inside Second Life.
• Laukosargas Svarog was the subject of an article featured on Slashdot that focused on their work in creating Svarga, an artificial eco-system for SecondLife ^[19]

[edit] P - T

• Prokofy Neva- notorious for coining the phrase Feted Inner Core- seemingly SMOF, re-applied to Second Life.
  • Prokofy is also a regular critic of Linden Lab^[20]
  • Prokofy regularly writes articles for the Second Life Herald-^[21]
    • Prokofy resigned from the Herald in November 2006^[22] over a controversial Op/Ed piece involving CopyBot^[23] and rejoined December 8, 2006.^[24]
• Shoshana Epsilon - "A Second Life artist whose avatar goes by the name Shoshana Epsilon has taken stunning digital portraits of other users' avatars".
  • Was the first artist featured in the University of Texas at Dallas Metaverse Gallery.^[25]
• Tao Takashi for World of SL^[3] and his coverage of the in-world X-Men: The Last Stand premiere ^[26]
• Tateru Nino for:
  • her contributions to the Volunteer programme and to Second Life as a whole^[27]
  • her journalistic and creative talents writing for Second Life Insider^[28] and her own Webcomic, Dwell On It:The Comic^[29]
  • her work as a statistician through the New World Numbers series on New World Notes ^{[30] [31]}
  • organising SL3B- the "official" Second Life Third Birthday event that took place from June 21, 2006 to June 25, 2006.^[32]
• Tin Bling - Owner of Mecca; Teen SecondLife's first resident-owned Private Island ^{[verification needed]}
• Toy LaFollette - "one of Second Life's most well-known Live Helpers"^[33]

[edit] U - Z

• Wagner James Au- contracted from April 2003 to February 2006 by Linden Lab as an embedded journalist as Hamlet Linden, Au is now known in-world as Hamlet Au^{[34] [35]}
  • Both the archives of Au's work as Hamlet Linden, as well his current work as Hamlet Au can be found on New World Notes^[36]

[edit] Notable people who joined Second Life

Listed alphabetically by first name. Individuals on this list may or may not be currently active in Second Life. The following is a list of people who became well known prior to creating an account. Individuals on this list may not currently be active or even found in Second Life, as some of these people may have only entered Second Life for the purposes of a promotional event, may no longer hold account, might not actively use it or they may have been permantly banned from Second Life.

[edit] A - E

• Adam Curry, former DJ and MTV VJ and currently host of Daily Source Code Second Life name: Adam Neumann.^[37]
• Adam Pasick, veteran technology and media journalist, Second Life name: Adam Reuters^[38]
• Bhante Kusaladharma, a real life buddhist monk who chose Second Life as another medium to spread the word of the Buddha, Second Life name: Kusaladharma Demar.^[39]
• Duran Duran, members of the popular band announced they would perform live concerts on a Second Life island being built for them.^[40]
• Drew Domkus, of The Dawn and Drew Show, Second Life name: Droobles Knopfli.^[41]

[edit] F - J

• Jeff Howe, contributing editor for Wired Magazine. Second Life name: Bingham Roundfield.^{[42] [43]}
• June Peoples, executive producer for The Infinite Mind. Second Life name: Quirky McArdle.^[44]

[edit] K - O

• Leo Laporte of This Week in Tech, Second Life name: Pruneface Spatula.^[45]

[edit] P - T

• Peter Ludlow, college professor, Second Life name: Urizenus Sklar.^[46]
• Philip Rosedale, founder and CEO of Linden Lab. Second Life name: Philip Linden
• Rudolph Joseph Rummel, politicial scientist and Nobel prize nominee. Second Life name: Rudy Ruml.^[47]
• Tod Maffin, national broadcaster (CBC Radio / CBC Television) and podcaster, Second Life name: Davo Nabob.^[48]
• Torley Wong, classically trained musician and composer (mostly electronic music), joined as Torley Torgeson, later to become an employee of Linden Lab as Torley Linden^[49]

[edit] U - Z

[edit] Notable people whose Second Life names are identical to their own

[edit] A - E

• Cory Doctorow, author of many published works.^[50]

[edit] F - J

• Howard Rheingold, a leading thinker on the cultural, social and political implications of modern communications media such as the Internet, mobile telephony and virtual communities (a term he is credited with inventing).^[51]
• Hugh Perkins, co-founder and lead developer of OSMP. ^[52]
• Joi Ito, General Manager of International Operations for Technorati, Chairman of Six Apart Japan, and also currently a member of the board of Creative Commons^{[citation needed]}
• Julian Dibbell, technology journalist.^[53]

[edit] K - O

• Kurt Vonnegut, American novelist^[54]
• Lawrence Lessig, Stanford legal scholar and founder of the school's Center for Internet and Society.^[55]
• Mark Warner, former governor of Virginia.^[56]

[edit] P - T

• Paul Mason, BBC TV Newsnight journalist^[57]
• Richard Posner, Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.^[58]
• Suzanne Vega: singer-songwriter. Her avatar gave a live concert on the Grid on August 3, 2006, which was recorded for the weekly public radio series The Infinite Mind.^[59]
• Thomas P.M. Barnett, New York Times best selling author and American military strategist.^[60]
• Tony Moore (musician), UK musician, music promoter, radio producer. Moore began simulcasting Bedford Pub music into Second Life weekly starting August 31, 2006, and debuted his first live music performance there on October 19, 2006.^[61]

[edit] U - Z

[edit] See also

• Second Life
• Anshe Chung
• People category @ Second Life History Wiki

[edit] References