Talk:Second Life

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Second Life article.

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[edit] Source for currency exchange data

The Second Life#Economy section includes a blurb about the best exchange rate for selling L$. You need to be logged in to view https://secondlife.com/currency/sell.php . Is that a valid source, since you have to be a member to view it ? I'm thinking no. If it isn't a valid source, is it a case of stripping out the info till something relevant turns up on the Official Linden Blog ?
Signpostmarv 15:21, October 9, 2006 (UTC)

No. In situations where a login is required, leave the source there for people who can login, and put in a {{fact}} blurb.
(yes I'm aware I'm talking to myself)
Signpostmarv 00:34, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I believe [secondlife.reuters.com] has the exchange rate on its news page. Rhialto 01:03, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sources from the SL Forums

The Second Life Forums require login. The Blog doesn't. It'd be handy if links referring to official statements made by employees were replaced with links to the blog where appropriate.

Also, since the Linden blog is now a centralised place for employee blogging, any links pointing to their individual blogs should probably be updated as well. Signpostmarv 16:41, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:SIZE; Dividing out Second Life/Issues and criticisms

As per my understanding of WP:SIZE, and my observations and statements on Talk:Second_Life/Archive3#Cutting_down_article_bloat, I divided the article up in order to reduce the length of the article.

If my understanding of the WP:SIZE guidelines is incorrect, I apologise. I did make small edits to Second Life prior to dividing up the article if this is the case, so as to avoid the need to remake the edits.

Signpostmarv 07:34, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Note that the article size is now at the level it was when I originally noticed the problem on the 29th September.
Signpostmarv 07:38, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
This strikes me as a POV Fork; the one section with negative information on Second Life was moved out to another article. I propose that we restore some of that content here and break out multiple sections to new articles (e.g., Economy of Second Life) to avoid the appearance of POV. | Mr. Darcy talk 16:28, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Had anyone suggested this while I was asking for comments on how to handle the situation, I would've gone for that.
You are quite right to note that some of the sections of the article are in need of expansion, and that WP:POVFORKs are undesirable.
Since most of the issues and criticisms pertain to specific aspects of Second Life (Economy, Land, User-created content), I do agree with your suggestion to break them out into articles such as Economy of Second Life. I'm also suggesting User-generated content (Second Life), Land (Second Life) or Real estate (Second Life), moving the Other list back into the main article, break out Teen Second Life into it's own article or stub (although I'm unsure about that one), and break out Businesses and Organizations in Second Life into a list type article, with a summary relating to the economy, land and user-created content features of SL allowing for people to start businesses and for real-world entities to enter into Second Life remaining in the main article.
Signpostmarv 17:17, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
I couldn't have said it any better - that's an outstanding set of suggestions. And I am comfortable with breaking Teen Second Life into its own article. By moving those details out, perhaps we can get more meat here on what Second Life itself really is - how it works, what the goals are, why people are using it, etc. As the article stands now, it's all detail, as if we've skipped the intermediate step (the same problem that prompted my request for expansion on the Economy section. Let's give other editors a chance to weigh in, but if there are no objections, consider me signed up to help you with this. | Mr. Darcy talk 18:58, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
The only thing that concerns me about the Teen Second Life article is the lack of information on it- since adults aren't allowed there, it's difficult to comply with WP:V without breaking their TOS.
I've contacted one of the Liasons who works on both the Main and Teen grids, to see if anything can be done regarding jump-starting the Teen Grid Resident's interests in helping out on the Wikipedia.
Signpostmarv 20:50, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm also concerned whether or not it would have separate articles for Land and Real Esteate- or at least leave the technical information about the land in the main article, and the information about the buying, selling development of land be linked up with a summary in the main article to Real Estate (Second Life)
Signpostmarv 18:05, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Considering that the conversion of references just bumped up the article size to 50kb, methinx we need to start planning the article breakouts now :-P
Signpostmarv 03:26, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I assumed we would just pull out each level-1 section into its own article, leaving a summary graf here in this main article. Is that a bad idea? | Mr. Darcy talk 03:43, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Well yes, because not every level-1 section is relevant enough to warrant it's own article.
Anywoo, since the topic of this thread is starting to shift towards a different topic, and the number of indentations is getting ridiculously high, I'm going to start a new topic for the migration :-P
Signpostmarv 12:55, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I did mean to refer just to sections that had enough meat to form their own articles. But yes, good thought on the new thread - I'll see you below! | Mr. Darcy talk

[edit] Teen Second Life Client

Insofar as I know, all differences are server side for Residents of the Teen Grid. Would it be permissable to get a quote on that from an admin, or is that still considered original research? 65.104.16.76 20:45, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I can tell you right now. Im not an admin, but there is only one version of the file for mac, one for windows, and one for linux(alpha). There are no differences in software, s there is only this one download(per platform).--Vox Causa 22:45, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I think the only way to solve the issue in order to satisfy WP:V would be to have a Linden make a blurb on the Linden Blog or Knowledge Base, since having a third party go in to take screenshots to compare the clients would violate the TOS, and also be very weak under WP:V. So methinx it's a case of find an official statement or strip it out completely. Signpostmarv 06:06, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Accidentally deleted

Was doing an edit to remove something entirely unnecessary and unrelated to second life and accidentally deleted the following section, I'm not sure how to go about restoring it:

[edit] Sample Live Musicians and Venues

Examples of live musicians who perform weekly include: Astrin Few (Jazz, Pop - Vocal, Guitar), Flaming Moe (Jazz - Saxaphone), Frogg Marlowe (Original Folk and Blues - Vocal, Acoustic, Harmonica, Piano) [1] and Jaycatt Nico (New Age, Boogie, Jazz - Keyboard, Piano, Melodica) [2]. Examples of popular bands include Keltish (Traditional and contemporary Irish Music - Vocal, Violin, Guitar, Harp) [3]. Several Second Life live musicians perform under both Avatar Name and Real Name and include links to their real world web sites for CD and MP3 sales.(For examples see: [4] and [5]) Additionally, several established professional musicians are now beginning to perform inworld as well, including Cletis Carr (Billy Thunders), [Grace] (Cylindrian Rutabaga), James Holland (SinginCountry Commander), and Kevin Burdick (Kevin Noble).

Live music concerts are scheduled daily at multiple live music venues across Second Life. Examples include Lily Pad Lounge, The Blarney Stone, The Roc,Old Salt's Pub, The Hummingbird Cafe.

Some musicians are now experimenting with a "daisy chain" system where the first artist plays into a stream which is picked up by a second artist. This artist plays following the lead of the first artist, sending the the combined music stream into Second Life. The term coined for this is "meta jams" [6] (page 22).

As of Fall 2006 there were about 40 live music artists and 30 live music venues with more being added monthly. The growth of Second Life music is documented in several Second Life media including The Metaverse Messenger published weekly online in PDF format.

If someone else could drop it in that'd be appreciated.

DONE ---- Sitearm | Talk 03:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed the kit list.

The kit list of a Second Life band is useless in the context of second life. Instead of listing what sorts of instruments you have and the mixer you use (as I'm pretty sure from the glowing reviews posted of the band that it was most likely posted BY a band member) try posting the process involved. The only thing I got out of your section that even remotely informed me about what was unique about playing music on second life was the "four computers with an avatar technician" line.

Talk more about that and less about what guitar you use. This isn't a music article.

Kalemika 06:57, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

  1. So you're claiming WP:NPOV ?
  2. What glowing review are you referring to ?
  3. Why are you deleting the section instead of rewording it ?
Signpostmarv 07:22, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
The section has no real importance in terms of Second Life. I'm not saying the band shouldn't post their kit list, but have them do it in their own article. The kit list of a band that plays on Second Life is not part of Second Life itself. Perhaps we can add a link to an article ABOUT Keltish in the section above, and in there can be placed the kit list. For the most part, someone coming for information on Second Life would really have no interest in the instruments Keltish plays. Instead there should be a brief summary of the process of performing on Second Life.
66.240.35.207 20:21, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I see absolutely no reason why this section should be included. The specifications and set up for a live performance has no place in a general article about Second Life. I strongly suggest it be removed or rewritten to be less specific. -Kraw Night 03:25, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
If there's no further argument on the topic, I'm going to re-word this to be a very brief paragraph in the near future.
Kalemika 14:11, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. This section should at the very least be reduced to a small generic paragraph. The kit list is far too specific and worse still, may make some people believe that they really can only do this kind of thing with, for example, a mackie mixer. It's obvious that this is a kit list for a specific band and as such has no relevance in the main SL article. I would move to remove the section completely. Angelstorm 19:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
A brief paragraph with a link to the full info on their own site would be preferred.
Signpostmarv 22:48, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
I love Wikipedia o..O ... a separate entire article will be prepared instead -- Sitearm | Talk 06:54, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Added technical information back a second time with commentary here

Hi Kalemika! Thanks for signing your delete and discussing here on this page. I have added the info back a second time and added my supporting discussion below as well.

I take issue with your saying that how live music is played in second life has "nothing to do with second life". The Second Life support wiki explicitly includes mention that streaming music is an integral part of second life (e.g., [7]).

The technical section is relevant as it shows how residents who are musicians create the stream using an audio streaming client and stream. Instead of arguing by deleting material, I agree with Signpostmarv: make a wording edit that addresses your concern.

More sections are needed, actually, such as how residents who are disc jockeys create streams as well. :)

-- Sitearm | Talk 09:10, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Pre-emptively combating article bloat, should information about things you can do with Second Life go under Second Life/Thing X, Second Life/Thing Y, Second Life/Thing Z etc, e.g. Second Life/Live Music or Live music (Second Life)
Signpostmarv 10:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Like I said above, streaming music IS an important part of Second Life. The manner in which it's being posted, however, is not. We do not need five sub-sections on the different types of kit that one band on SL uses, but rather a brief summary of Keltish's approach to performance on Second Life with a link to an article about the band itself that can list its kit specifically. I'm not saying don't explain it. But instead of that long list that dominates a good portion of the page, how about "Keltish plays their music live, the sound is fed into a mixer and then onto a computer which streams it onto the internet?" Make Keltish a link to a separate article, the stuff we have now can go there.
66.240.35.207 20:28, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
If you check the history log, you'll see I wikified the list so it was more semantic, and less sucky. It was styled in a complete mess, rendering things as headers, subsections and lists, but not coding them as such.
Audio streaming is a supported technology of Second Life. Technicaly speaking, since this relates to the activities of Second Life Residents, and not SL or the activities of Linden Lab in SL, this section should probably be summarised and moved over to Resident (Second Life) if it's not moved to Second Life/Live Music or Live music (Second Life).
Signpostmarv 21:57, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Compare/Contrast with Sims & MMORPGs

I'm very surprised to read this entry and not one mentions of The Sims! How does this compare? More readers will be familiar with the Sims, so compare SL to something they already know? --68.103.154.140 03:59, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

TSO maybe. The Sims stand alone, hell no. Second Life is as similar to the standalone sims as Second Life is to playing with lego bricks. Also, see Talk:Second Life/Archive3#What defines something as a competitor to Second Life.
The Sims (offline) is a single player god game, Second Life is neither single player nor a god game.
Signpostmarv 05:50, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Just so you know, rather than list it as a competitor or mention it in the article, it might be time to start thinking about a tabular feature comparison rather than just saying "product x is like product y". That's not informative in the slightest if you have no idea about product x OR product y.
Signpostmarv 05:52, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Something missing here?

I may well be wrong, and correct me if so, but shouldn't this article give some explanation about what Second Life is, apart from just saying it's a virtual world? What do people do there, apart from owning land? And so forth. As it stands, it seems that the article just lists various properties of Second Life without really telling what they are properties of. For example, I read that "the group tools received many improvements". Well, that's nice, but what are the group tools? Ville V. Kokko 17:59, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

There's a problem with documenting the activities of Residents in SL in a manner that satisfies WP:V.
There's also a huge amount of activities to document, and considering the article is suffering from page bloat already, is it inside the scope of the Wikipedia to document everything people get up to in-world ?
I agree though, the information about the client itself is sorely lacking- again a matter of satisfying WP:V
Signpostmarv 22:39, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] tech info

The section "Recent improvements" has a bullet point "improved communication" which is pretty vague. Does that mean client-to-server or player-to-player communication? The previous unsigned comment was made by User:Kraw Night 04:25, October 31, 2006

heh. That's a good point :-D, even I don't know which communication related feature it's referring to :-D
Documenting the changelog history probably isn't the responsibility of the article, but a feature table might be- e.g. dates in a column in the table when the feature was added/removed/disabled
Signpostmarv 04:30, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I believe it means "object to object" communication via scripts. It may also mean that they have reduced the lag that results from having too many "listen" scripts in one area. Or any number of technical things that are completely transparent to the users.

[edit] Vandalism?

I noticed the article is protected from vandalism and so I go looking in the history to see what was vandalised. I can find no instances vandalism anywhere near the point that the article was protected. Are people just going around protecting pages without warrant? 24.254.141.93 22:42, 31 October 2006 (UTC)Lucy(Unregistered reader)

[edit] Typo?

It looks to me like the section that discusses currency and the exchange rates between L$ and US$ mistaken says, in the last line, that exchange rates over L$289 would result in a LOSS on investment. Shouldn't this read GAIN?

Suzobr 13:34, 1 November 2006 (UTC)Suzobr

Probably :-D The point of that blurb was to illustrate the levels of currency exchange at which users earning the L$500, L$400 and L$300 weekly stipends would have to sell their yearly balance in order to recoup their premium subscription.
It's quite probable I messed the maths/english up.
Signpostmarv 10:08, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
It all depends on which side of the exchange you're looking at. If the number of L$ to a unit of real world currency goes up, the value of the $L in relation to real world currency goes down. However, you get more L$ per real world currency in that instance. If the number of L$ goes down in relation to real world currency, you need to pay more real world currency to get the same amount of L$. Lastly, if the number of L$ goes down in relation to real world currency, you get more real world currency for your L$. The result is that if you're only concerned with buying L$, then you want the the number of L$ to real world currency to go up. If you're concerned with cashing out your L$ for real world currency, you want the ratio to go down. In short, it's basic economics. 24.254.141.93 22:46, 2 November 2006 (UTC)Lucy
I'm thinking that if/when the content of the article gets broken out into seperate articles, that a table be created showing the various tiers of Premium account Stipend (L$500, L$400, L$300, any lower future tiers added), the 3 price plans (monthly, quarterly, yearly), and the exchange rate required to break even and have a credit on your US$ account balance with Linden Lab so your premium account fee does not get debited from whatever payment method you have provided.
Signpostmarv 14:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Also, so as to avoid too many minor updates to the proposed main economy article- Economy of Second Life, that the table be done on a separate article, and included in the economy article with the {{ }} syntax.
This should allow the table to reflect the closing exchange rates without spamming up the history log of the main article.
Signpostmarv 14:43, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 1 million residents

Why do we need to know precisely when they hit it? I don't care if it was at 8AM or 9AM. Can't we just write the date or something? This is superficial. --Ysangkok 21:31, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Right now, it's important. It happened in recent history, people might be looking for that particular bit of information. I think it should be dropped in a month or two, though. Kalemika 14:17, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
It is the most accurate information provided by Linden Labs. There is no need to dilute it further.
Whether or not you care about the accuracy of the information is irrelevant, as an encyclopedic reference, the more finely grained the data, the better.
Signpostmarv 15:08, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm newly registered, so I can't make changes. The page is locked anyway (not sure why). I'd like to point out that "1 million residents" is misleading. There are one million accounts, as many people (such as myself) have more than one account, so strictly speaking it should say "1 million accounts". Seanfitz64 11:49, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
It is not misleading, it is the terminology used by the company to refer to both an account and an account holder. Resident (Second_Life)
Signpostmarv 14:30, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Definitions

What is a prim?

Prim, an abbreviation of Primitive- Basic shape used with the solid body modelling interface used to create objects in Second Life.
Signpostmarv 13:24, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Virtual reality communities category

I'm working to clear out the Category:Virtual reality communities of all MMOGs and MMORPGs. If this is an MMOG (which it is based on claims within the article), this does not need to also be in the virtual reality parent category. --- RockMFR 13:53, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

The basic interpretation of WP:DR does not mean re-do the questionable edit then make a talk page discussion, it means leave it be until consensus is reached.
You are making claims that the article claims to be a Massively Multiplayer Online Game. Please cite them here. If no citations are provided within a reasonable time (3 days- a week at most), your edit will be reverted, and it would be advisable not to re make your edit (WP:3RR), nor change it to stripping out the MMOG category until sufficient discussion from interested parties has taken place and a consensus has been reached whether or not (in the context of the wikipedia at least) Second Life is primiarily resides under Category:Virtual reality communities or Category:Massively multiplayer online games.
Signpostmarv 16:04, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
revert made.
Signpostmarv 07:20, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
see Talk:Second Life#Categorisation of Second Life
Signpostmarv 03:24, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Add a language

Add a catalan language on this site of Second Life in the wiki. Is ca:Second Life

This is done. | Mr. Darcy talk 17:51, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Economy section expansion request

I placed an {{expand-section}} tag on the economy question because it doesn't answer a major question: what is the nature of the economic activity in the game? In other words, how are people making real-life money in SL? I'm not requesting a how-to, but I think stating that there is an economy without descriptions of its nature is insufficient. | Mr. Darcy talk 22:57, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Adding Teen Grid Residents to the Second Life article.

See Talk:Resident (Second Life)#Teen Grid Residents.

Signpostmarv 14:49, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Categorisation of Second Life

As stated previously, Talk:Second Life#Virtual reality communities category, RockMFR was given fair warning to provide citations that the article claimed that Second Life was an MMOG.

Since the citations were not given, as per my statements in that thread, I am inviting all interesting parties to come to a consensus on the topic of is Second Life a Virtual reality community, an MMOG or "Other"'.

As a pre-emptive statement, this discusion is with regards to the wikipedia ONLY- this is not a philisophical discussion intended to be the be-all and end-all of genre definitions.

This will be a case of looking up the definition of a genre category, and applying your interpretation to your decision.

Signpostmarv 07:43, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I have no objection to marking this as a "virtual reality community," especially as its main competitors (ActiveWorlds and There) are both listed in the same category. | Mr. Darcy talk 14:26, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
One could argue that Second Life is no longer a community- due to it's size- and indeed, many have. But within the confines of the wikipedia, Second Life does not fit the definition of MMOG:
A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) is a type of computer game that enables hundreds or thousands of players to simultaneously interact in a game world they are connected to via the Internet. See also list of MMOGs.
  1. It is rather difficult for hundreds or thousands of players to simultaneously interact- with the exception of the group chat and conference system, at most only 100 users- 30 on average can interact on a per-region basis.
  2. Second Life is not a game, and therefore to refer to it as a game world is incorrect.
This category is for online communities in which users can walk around in 2D or 3D.
  1. Putting aside that this definition is rather, umm, "limited", the users can walk around in 3D.
  2. Smaller communities do exist within the size of the general population- generally focussing around a particular group, region or estate.
Since
  • Second Life does not fit the definition of an MMOG
  • It is a virtual world that enables the online interaction of many many sub-communities
  • The wikipedia does not have a category purely for the listing of Virtual Environments
it would be more accurate to say that Second Life belonged under the Category:Virtual reality communities
Signpostmarv 21:13, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
As the Game element in SL is much less exposed than the community element I would go with VRC. IvarSnaaijer 21:43, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Categories changed.
Signpostmarv 03:23, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] inuse- will be taking a bit longer

Thanks to the over-sensitive keys on this keyboard, I just lost all the edits I was making >_<

I'll be making a series of smaller updates per section, rather than attempting to do a monolithic update and risk losing the data again.

Grrr.

Signpostmarv 22:36, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

done converting references.
Signpostmarv 03:19, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:SIZE: Breaking sections out into their own articles

I'm going to start by running through each level-1 section, give it's filesize (as reported by Notepad++ divided by 1024 to get kilobytes then rounded to 1 decimal place), and my reasoning for why each section should/should not be given it's own article.

Although probably not in keeping with the style of discussion threads, I'm thinking it would be easier if responses relevant to each section were made directly underneath the section, as opposed to the bottom of the comment, purely because this topic is so extensive that it would make it hard to keep track of comment threads if they were all house at the bottom.

Signpostmarv 14:46, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

comment:
If there is no significant opposition (e.g. compelling arguments opposing one or more change), or other suggestions proposed for possible articles and article names by December 8, 2006, I aim to have all migration work as described below completed by December 16, 2006.
I believe this to be sufficient time (two weeks) for any discussion regarding support, opposition and alternatives to the changes proposed below.
Signpostmarv 22:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sections of main article

[edit] Second Life#Second Life as the Metaverse

  • Size: 0.9 kilobytes
  • Content: Directly relates to Second Life the platform.
  • Breakout ?: No. Too short, too relevant to the platform itself.


[edit] Second Life#Pricing

  • Size: 3.6 kiloytes
  • Content: Directly relates to Second Life the service.
  • Breakout ?: No. Although of a fair size, it is too relevant to the service offered by Linden Lab. However, the overal size of the section could be reduced as I'll explain later.
Comment I agree that anything directly related to the service or product (such as pricing) should remain in this article, whereas items related to the SL metaverse are better breakout candidates. | Mr. Darcy talk 15:12, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I know it'll be a pain, but for the sake of completeness (e.g. so the re-arrangement of articles and content can't later be contended), could you add your opinion to each point please ?
Signpostmarv 15:28, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Second Life#Residents


[edit] Second Life#Recent improvements

  • Size: 0.6 kilobytes
  • Content: Directly relates to Second Life the client/server software
  • Breakout ?: No. Too short, too relevant. However, it is too short. Will explain other ideas later.

[edit] Second Life#Open standards

  • Size: 3.1 kilobytes
  • Content: Relates to the technology the client and server are currently/will be built upon.
  • Breakout ?: No. Too relevant to the technology Second Life runs on.


[edit] Second Life#Economy

  • Size: 2.9 kilobytes
  • Content: Relates to the emergent behaviours of the users of the platform, and a rather complex topic.
  • Breakout ?: Yes. As Mr. Darcy noted, this section is sorely in need of expansion, and the complexity of the topic likely deems it to have it's own article. As suggested previously, I'm thinking this section be moved to Economy of Second Life, and marked with the {{Econ-stub}}
  • Action Taken: Moved to Economy of Second Life

[edit] Second Life#Land sales system


Second Life#Land Ownership should probably get moved to Real estate (Second Life) along with Second Life#Land sales system.
Signpostmarv 16:00, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Second Life#Teen Second Life

  • Size: 3.9 kilobytes
  • Content: Relates to the slightly modified, duplicate service aimed at teenagers
  • Breakout ?: Yes. Reduce to summary, then breakout to Teen Second Life. Also, I suggest following the WP:WSS/P guidelines to propose {{SecondLife-stub}} so that Teen Second Life could be marked more appropriately than using {{Cvg-stub}}.

[edit] Second Life#Businesses and Organizations in Second Life

[edit] Second Life#Live Music

  • Size: 1.5 kilobytes
  • Content: Relates to the emergent behaviours of the users of the platform, and the technology of the client that allows the behaviour to occur.
  • Breakout ?: Possibly. Summarise and move to Resident (Second Life) or Live music (Second Life) marked with {{music-stub}}. An alternative will be discussed later.


If Live music (Second Life) is created, a #REDIRECT should be created in Live Music (Second Life), and either a disambiguation page for Live music or edit to Concert should be made.
I'm leaning towards disambiguation page, because live music does not necessarily mean a concert performance.
Signpostmarv 15:05, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Second Life#Issues and criticisms

  • Size: 0.9 kilobytes
  • Content: Relates to issues surrounding the platform, service and emergent behaviours of the users of the platform.
  • Breakout ?: No. The reverse in fact. This will be discussed later.

[edit] Second Life#Trivia

  • Size: 1.1 kilobytes
  • Content: Relates to the platform, service and behaviours.
  • Breakout ?: No. Too small- however, any trivia relating to a broken out section should be moved to the appropriate article.


[edit] Second_Life#Competitors

  • Size: 0.2 kilobytes
  • Content: Relates to the platform.
  • Breakout ?: No. Too relevant.


[edit] Second Life#Screenshots

  • Size: 0.7 kilobytes
  • Content: Relates to the service and emergent behaviours of the users and external entities.
  • Breakout ?: Sort of. Will be discussed later.

[edit] Re-organisation of existing or proposed articles

As previously discussed, the breaking out of Second Life issues and criticisms was an unintentional POV fork.

Here I will propose where the content of the article be reorganised in relation to the above discussion on breaking out of articles, although since the article is already quite categorised, it will be a short one.

[edit] Second Life issues and criticisms#Economy

Since this relates to the Economy of Second Life, and an article has been proposed for this topic, it makes sense to move this section to Economy of Second Life.


[edit] Second Life issues and criticisms#Land

As with Economy, it makes sense for this section to Real estate (Second Life).


[edit] Second Life issues and criticisms#Content

As with Economy and Land, these topics relate to a specific aspect of Second Life. Where to move it will be discussed later.

[edit] Second Life issues and criticisms#Unverified users

Since this relates directly to the service offered by Linden Lab, this should be brought back into the main article.


[edit] Second Life issues and criticisms#Favoritism

Not entirely sure how to describe why, but this section should probably moved back into the main article, or Resident (Second Life).


[edit] Second Life issues and criticisms#Linden Lab lawsuit

Since this relates to legal action against Linden Lab, this should be moved to Linden Lab.


[edit] Second Life issues and criticisms#Mac OS X client

Since this relates directly to a version of the Second Life client, this should be moved back into the main article.


[edit] Second Life issues and criticisms#Customer Security

Since this relates directly to the service offered by Linden Lab, this should be moved back into the main article. However, because it also relates to the company themselves, it also holds a small amount of weight to be moved into Linden Lab, but I'm leaning towards Second Life.


[edit] Resident (Second Life)

As there are two grids- the Main Grid and the Teen Grid, each with their own separate population, there may be a need in the future to have Teen Grid Residents listed in their own article- Resident (Teen Second Life), although currently I do not believe it warrants breaking out- however, if it does, it would need to use the {{SecondLife-stub}} I mentioned earlier.

[edit] Businesses and Organizations in Second Life

As with Resident (Second Life), there is a minor need for a clarification of which grid each entity exists upon, and as with Resident (Teen Second Life), Businesses and Organizations in Teen Second Life would need to be marked with {{SecondLife-stub}}. For now though, it should probably be sufficient to setup a #REDIRECT to Businesses and Organizations in Second Life#Teen Second Life- if only just for Global Kids to be listed correctly (since, as far as I am aware, they are not active on the Main Grid).

[edit] Further Ideas as mentioned earlier

[edit] Economy of Second Life

[edit] Recent Improvements

As I mentioned earlier, this section is too short. A summary of the archived release notes found on the SL History Wiki[8] should replace this section, and the section should then be retitled appropriately- something along the lines of Development of the Second Life platform with sub-sections for Client and Server.

[edit] User-generated content (Second Life)

  • If Second Life#Live Music does not warrant it's own article, it should be summarised and moved to User-generated content (Second Life)#Live Music
  • Second Life issues and criticisms#Content should be moved to User-generated content (Second Life)#Issues and Criticisms
  • Second Life#Screenshots. Now this is a bit difficult to explain to anyone who doesn't use Second Life.
    • SL has an active Machinima community
    • SL has an active Photography community [9][10]
    • The Screenshots section does nothing to address either of these, and as such, the screenshots section of the main article is in dire need of updating, and User-generated content (Second Life)#Machinima, User-generated content (Second Life)#Photography should probably be created to reflect the activities of Residents in these areas.

[edit] SL-centric user-generated content not created in Second Life

If Podcasting and Journalism do not belong in User-generated content (Second Life), it might be an idea to categorise Businesses and Organizations in Second Life by type rather than alphabetically alone.

comment- Journalism (Second Life) is another suggestion.
Signpostmarv 07:54, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Second Life is not a game

Linden Labs does not refer to it as a game on its website and I think this page does a good job at not refering to it as a game, but rather as a virtual reality. The previous unsigned comment was made 10:55, November 26, 2006 by Cwlq

Only the uninformed, the ignorant and the closed-minded refer to it as a game. Which more often than not tends to be game journalists, and people who've never used SL before. I tend to use the following argument:
  1. SL is not a game because it has no goals other than those you make yourself
  2. "Real Life" has the same situation- it has no goals other than those you make yourself, and is not considered by most (yes I know that's a weasel word) to be a game
  3. Since most people do not refer to Real Life as a game (at least when taking it seriously), you cannot refer to SL as a game
Thanks for catching those game references in the article Cwlq, I wasn't looking for them when I was running the conversion.
Signpostmarv 14:29, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Claims of "Firsts"

It is the experience of this Wikipedian that when a person, group of persons or other entity makes a claim of doing something "first", they are either blatantly lying and are ignoring all prior instances of their claim, or they are ignorant.[12]

Since such claims are generally only used for marketing purposes- being used in press releases and the like- and since edits to the wikipedia making these claims have a tendancy to be unsourced, any unsourced or poorly sourced claims of "firsts" should be cut back from "x did y first" to "x has done y".

I believe this to be a preferable course of action to letting the list of unsourced claims pile higher and higher.

Signpostmarv 19:28, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

A third-party (and mostly independent) list of "first" claims is available here: http://history.secondserver.net/index.php/Firsts

Gwyneth Llewelyn 11:33, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Money

So, I'm confused. Do you earn any money in the game if you don't provide payment details, like a credit card, for basic accounts? It doesn'tsay in the article.70.149.191.230 01:11, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

You can earn Linden Dollars by taking jobs in-world, using camping chairs, gambling etc.
As for whether you can sell them on the LindeX to credit your US$ account balance, my ISP's incompetence kicked in before I could find out.
Signpostmarv 18:15, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Memberships Plans

Im confused aswell, but with the membership plans. Does it mean that you start a basic free and have to pay later? or is a basic membership entirely different from an additional membership? If so, how? --Chickenfeed9 18:49, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

As the article states, the only difference between the basic plans and the premium plan is that the premium plan can own land. And a L$300/week (as of December 3, 2006 it is L$300/week, but I'm on L$400/week) stipend.
  1. Basic members can rent land from other Residents
  2. Not all premium Residents have land
  3. You only need to buy land if:
    1. you wish to sell it to other Residents
    2. you wish to rent it to other Residents
    3. you wish to have permanent storage of objects in-world (basic vs premium has no bearing on the contents of your inventory)
  4. You only need to rent land from other Residents if:
    1. You cannot afford the tier fees to own the land yourself
    2. You wish to have permanent storage of objects in-world, but find the risk of an independent landlord acceptable.

There is an exception to this however. You have to pay tier fees to own land on the mainland- that is to say, to own land on simulators paid for by Linden Lab. You do not pay any tier fees for land owned on a private sim.
The owner of a private sim can either:
  1. Rent the land out in a similar manner as is done on the mainland
  2. Transfer a parcel of land into the ownership of a Group or Resident, enabling them to either sell or rent land out in a different manner.
    • Parcels of land transferred to the ownership of another group or Resident can be reclaimed by the sim owner if the the parcel owner does not keep up rent payments for example.
If that doesn't answer your question, or confuses you more (as I imagine it will :P ), just ask more questions. If possible, please state your interpretation of my rambling, so I know for sure whether I've confused you or not :-)
Signpostmarv 20:08, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your response, but im still a little confused. There is a basic account 9that I gather is free) and an additional basic (which you must pay for). Why would you pay when you could have it for free? if you do pay, what else do you get? --Chickenfeed9 16:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
  1. Basic accounts are free
  2. Getting an Additional Basic account helps prevent your account be erroneously perma-banned if you happen to share your computer with an asshole.
  3. Land owners have the ability to block people who have not provided Linden Lab with payment details, although chances are you'll not find anywhere that you really need to get into that employs this policy.
    • You can interact with objects inside a parcel by moving the camera inside- so unless the object is filtering out people not on the parcel, you'll still be able to buy objects from a mall.
    • You do however have to be on a parcel on order to watch streaming videos and listen to streaming audio
    • Although automatic parcel blocking only works up to an altitude of about 200m, you can use LSL functions to boot and ban people out above this altitude
Signpostmarv 18:36, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I understand now. --Chickenfeed9 15:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Economy

If everyone's out to make money, then why would you buy jewelery etc. when you really need to be selling items? I don't get how it works, because people's needs/wants in virtual reality are vastly different than in real-life. For example, you can be houseproud in real-life, but not in SL for example! leopheard 02:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Logically, your basic hypothesis is flawed. Not everyone is out to make money, so teh rest of your point falls apart. Rhialto 02:17, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree- people keep offering to pay me rather substantial amounts of money for the things I do in SL, and I generally do it for free or give a large amount of the money back to them.
As for being houseproud- are you saying that someone cannot be proud of the place they live in SL- in some cases, the place they have built with their own hands ?
  1. Not everyone is out to make money.
  2. A figure touted about every now and then is that SL is 20% Creators, 80% Consumers. The 20% make money by making clothes, vehicles, buildings, jewellery, terraforming, and scripting. The 80% make money gambling, camping, investing, hosting, dancing, modelling, escorting etc etc. Everyone wanting to make money is.
I think the key point in your hypothesis is that you don't get how it works.
Signpostmarv 18:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the info Mr Patronising leopheard 19:05, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Graphics cards

How come my graphics cards point was removed? Surely, if only TWO TYPES of card can use the SL client, that's a huge problem for millions of potential users surely!?! The previous unsigned comment was made December 10, 2006 20:03 by Leopheard

You seemed to have misunderstood the meaning of a system requirements list. These tend to be hardware specifications that a company releases that gives an implicit guarantee that the software will run successfully on.
It is NOT a list that explicitally states "The software will only run on this hardware". Second Life runs on hardware below the spec of that list, but Linden Lab will not make any guarantees about it. I've had SL running on hardware not on that list, as doubtless many hundereds, possibly thousands of users have.
To cut things short, the section violated WP:NPOV, and thus it was removed.
Signpostmarv 01:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Advertising

The whole article looks like an advertisement by a Web 2.0 venture. Look for a Second Life IPO near you soon.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.168.104.36 (talk • contribs) 23:47, December 11, 2006.

That'll be why there's an issues and criticisms section, and why the article notes the competitors, yes? Rhialto 01:26, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
See Talk:Second Life/Archive1#Vanity.3F
Signpostmarv 11:26, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
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