Robin Linden's Blog
Be the Change.
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
---Mahatma Gandhi
Did you ever wonder why so much of the architecture in Second Life seems to strive to model reality? David Denton did, and his work on LOCUS in Second Life seeks to go beyond replication to explore new possibilities for expression that can only exist in a world without weather, gravity or budgets.
Known as DB Bailey in Second Life, David set out to design a place which allows “each building to have an individual architectural expression, working together as an aesthetic whole”. Currently located on the region known as Cetus Institute, eventually LOCUS will be housed on its own island.
LOCUS takes the approach that architecture in a virtual space should reflect the unique character of that space, while fostering a sense of community. In that regard, it’s possible to walk together throughout the space along tree-lined boulevards. At the same time, vertical signs hover above, providing orientation for airborne avatars.
It’s not surprising that such a creative place would attract a community of artists and designers. There are exhibits by individual artists, galleries and design showcases, and clearly the range of artistic involvement will grow. As Denton and his partner, Alex Noble (Happiness Merryman in SL) describe their goal:
The overall direction for the project is to create a community of design oriented entities, each connected to its Internet website, drawing traffic to and from the websites and Second Life. LOCUS will be a colony of virtual versions of websites that would encourage the meeting and interaction of website visitors. The intention is to strengthen the connection between SL and RL as well as to promote the sales of RL art and design services through the SL venue.
LOCUS is still in development, but stop by — there are already installations by well-known real life artists Robert Wilson and Daniel Maltzman, and showcased Second Life designers such as Eshi Otawara, with more to come. Or take the elevator up to the top of the tower (originally built for Burning Life), which features music by Second Life’s own Dizzy Banjo.
Feel free to discuss in the forums. I’ll join you there.
To all my Second Life friends,
After nearly seven years, I’ve decided to step down from my role at Linden Lab on February 15. I’m planning to take some time to explore a few different avenues as I decide where, when and what the next chapter of my life will entail.
Watching the growth of Second Life from the early beginnings in Lindenworld to the unbelievably diverse, creative, vibrant community that exists today has been the highlight of my career. The people who built the world of Second Life are fantastic pioneers and I’m so proud to have been part of the genesis of this amazing experience.
I’ll be in Second Life as Robin Linden for the next two weeks, and after that as my alt, Taliesin Protagonist.
See you in-world and in the forums!
We have all experienced the sometimes strange and mind-bending intersection of real and virtual in Second Life. Just before Thanksgiving I had the opportunity to attend an exhibit at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which features a build in Second Life called Dante Hotel on an island known as Hotwire.
The SFMOMA exhibit intends to “examine how artists have engaged members of the public as essential collaborators in the art-making process”. The corresponding exhibit in Second Life displays the archives of a remarkable artist and film maker, Lynn Hershman Leeson.
 Viewing the Dante Hotel in Second Life from SFMOMA Lynn rezzed in Second Life in 2005 when Henry Lowood and others at the Stanford Humanities Lab suggested Second Life as an appropriate place to migrate some of her archived projects which were housed at the Stanford Library. Her goal was to make her history accessible digitally, and the project came into being as Life Squared.
Maybe because it felt so familiar to my experience as an avatar, I found the Roberta Breitmore story, showcased in its own room at the Hotel, to be especially intriguing. For years Roberta Breitmore was a “private performance of a simulated person”; a fascinating exploration of what it’s like to express yourself, even partially, through another personality. You can meet the latest incarnation of Roberta at the Dante Hotel in Second Life, where she is currently serving as a guide for the SFMOMA museum attendees. (more…)
This is the second installment of “Stories from Second Life,” an occasional series of profiles of the people behind Second Life innovations, and the tangible benefits that these individuals and their businesses have brought to both the virtual and the real worlds.
Hadrian Yorke rezzed on June 26, 2003 and later Edgware Marker (real life name David Kaskel) first rezzed in Second Life on April 23, 2004, buying his first land in Second Life. At the time he was a graduate student at the Center for Computing in Humanities at King’s College in Great Britain. His doctoral research was focused on looking at avatars as a theatrical paradigm, considering how much you as an individual are an audience for what your avatar is doing, and how much your avatar is a reflection of who you are. Among other projects, he worked on a visualization project for King’s College to recreate historic European theaters in Second Life. The theaters reflect different time periods and different locations including Britain, Germany, Italy and Greece. Designed to be learning theaters under the heading of King’s Visualization Lab, this project is still growing within Second Life.
 At Languagelab, Class is in session Early in his Second Life experience, David paired up with master magician Starax Statosky and the two created a giant living room. Within the build they placed a large magnetic board with word magnets that could be manipulated to form sentences. It was the resulting collaborative play that led David to realize the potential of bringing people together in a virtual space to work together and learn.
In 2005 David laid out the idea for teaching English as a second language to the global audience within Second Life, and at the end of the year he incorporated Languagelab. At that point he decided to put all his focus on his new venture and by the fall of 2007 Languagelab was completing its beta. This year they enrolled their first paying students.
 A Student at Languagelab Today Languagelab operates exclusively in Second Life and has invested a significant amount in terms of R&D and testing to provide an unparalleled virtual learning space where students can be paired with highly qualified, innovative language teachers from around the world.
It’s long been known that immersion in an environment with native speakers is the best way to practice and learn a second language. And as David realized early on, the virtual world environment naturally lends itself to language learning, due to its immersive nature and ability to make learning contextually relevant to both situations and locations.
Using the creation tools in Second Life, Languagelab built “English City” where students learn to have contextual conversations with native speakers, for example, by sitting in a café and ordering food together. This methodology of supervised user driven instruction is called in Languagelab parlance; IAL (Instructor Assisted Learning.)
 Languagelab Students in Second Life David’s company now has 250 students from countries such as Yemen, France, Brazil, KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), China, India, Japan and Poland, registered to learn English in the immersive environment of Languagelab.
The company has also built a specific entry route from its website at www.languagelab.com and its own Registration Center in Second Life, enabling students to get up to speed quickly in the virtual environment and and providing support in choosing the best study plan.
Today Languagelab’s students pay a monthly subscription which gives them access to the City where they practice under teacher supervision to increase fluency. They also take structured classes in the classroom. Beginning in 2009 full courses will begin, and allow students to pay by the course or to maintain a subscription. David also plans to launch additional courses in 2009 including a 10 week elementary Spanish course. The company has 11 full-time employees in London, eight teachers and an instructional designer plus 20-30 part-time staff populating the City and providing technical support, Second Life skills training and voice set-up. If you’re interested in picking up a second language, visit Languagelab in Second Life, on Language Lab Island, or see their website.
 A Languagelab dance It goes without saying that we’d love to feature more of these profiles, so we can continue to highlight the infinite number of ways the Second Life community is innovating. Is there a hidden gem that you feel is worth the spotlight? If so, please comment in this Second Life forum thread, or email me at robin@lindenlab.com.
You can also visit more Second Life Grid success stories via the Solution Providers listing.
I am very excited to announce the inaugural Linden Prize.
The Linden Prize will award one Second Life Resident or team with $10,000 USD, paid in Linden dollars, for an innovative inworld project that improves the way people work, learn and communicate in their daily lives outside of the virtual world. The award is intended to align with Linden Lab’s company mission–to connect all people to an online world that advances the human condition.
Since the very beginning, Residents have recognized the potential for their work in the virtual world to have significant value that extends into the real world. Second Life Residents have developed virtual philanthropy and medical research, innovated and explored new business opportunities, and educated others using the virtual world to create experiences that teach complex topics with revolutionary simulations.
We know so many projects inside of Second Life have already enhanced and changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around the world, and we want to recognize those accomplishments.
(more…)
I’m happy to report that we have some great things ahead for the Linden Lab Blog. We are on track with a multi-stage process of upgrading our Web presence, including both the Blog and the Forums. Our goal? To improve the information you get about Second Life and enhance our dialogue with you.
We’ve put a lot of thought into how best to expand the usefulness of the blog and forums without slowing down the efforts of those working on grid stability and reliability. And, we’re making great progress with the project. One foundational change we are making is adding in authentication so it’s there for the blog as well as forums. This is valuable because it adds better security and uses Second Life names in a consistent way.
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There’s been a quiet revolution going on, as international Second Life Residents and a small number of Lindens work together to translate tens of thousands of text strings and critical web pages into nine key languages. In another month (depending on QA time) the full viewer will be live in German, French, Korean, and Japanese. It will also be partially localized into Spanish, Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese and Danish. We’ll continue to work on these languages, and plan to begin Italian and Dutch next. The goal is a high quality Second Life viewer and website available to all Residents communicating in each language.
While many companies have benefited from the translation efforts of their communities, including Facebook and Google, we’ve found that Second Life Residents are producing a particularly outstanding quality of work because they understand the intricacies of Second Life and they work closely together through constant communication, inworld meetings and discussions.
With PJIRA serving as a base, these international groups are translating Knowledge Base articles, viewer strings and web pages as part of a pilot project in German and French. This project anticipates a new translation portal which will open later this year and will contain several localization tools to facilitate easier, quicker and better quality translations, not only for German and French but for many more languages. The current effort in PJIRA is helping us flush out the work flow and specifications for the portal.
What makes this project successful is the extraordinary effort of the international community of Second Life Resident volunteers, working with a small team of Lindens, including Noelle, Simone and Lexie, and led by Danica Linden. At this writing, the German Knowledge Base has grown from 50 to 100 articles, viewer strings are being reviewed by Residents, and we were able to expedite localization of Land Pages, the Installer and Registration in just a month and a half! Many thanks to the Resident volunteers, and a particular shout out to Tom32 Anatine, Lore Lamont, Torben Trautman and Ourasi Ferraris for their work this summer, and to Tue Torok for stepping up and leading the Danish project.
You can read about some of the work this team is doing on the Second Life wiki.
For language specific projects: German Knowledge Base Localization and French Viewer Localization.
You can also read about other community translation initiatives that are currently active.
Some Residents have told me they worry the Linden Lab Blog is quieter than usual, and that this may reflect a decreased commitment by us to communication. In fact, the opposite is true. We’re making changes to enhance dialogue with you through adding better tools and organization along with fewer constraints.
Limitations of the Current Blog and Forums
The current blog has become unwieldy and messy because there is no way to categorize posts. Tag clouds, categories and search are inadequate tools for finding what you’re looking for. And we often hear that it can be frustrating to try and have meaningful exchanges about the original post because of the 150 message cut-off and the difficulty highlighting key comments among all the messages.
Similarly the current forum software is outdated, barely functioning and lacks important features that would enhance conversation between posters.
Coming Improvements
So we have embarked on a significant project to improve the web-based communication tools. In addition to updated software, we will be changing the blog’s organization, integrating the blog and forums for extended conversations, adding content to the log-in page to make it more useful, and integrating tools to highlight communications.
The new blog will have multiple categories to allow topic experts to talk about their areas of expertise and to promote discussion and Resident feedback and ideas. Large topics will integrate with the forums, as we’ve done recently, to allow for richer and more involved conversation with Linden Lab and Residents than is possible in blog comments.
Forum changes include feedback tools to allow Residents to elevate the most useful posts to the top of the thread. You’ll be able to vote on and rate comments so that the ones judged most useful will be highlighted. These helpful answers will be transferred to the Knowledge Base in the Second Life Support Portal.
Forum moderation will also be expanded to ensure focused and reliable exchanges of information, opinions and suggestions. We are contracting with a group to help us keep forum posts on topic and to handle abuse reports. They’ll also skim blog comments for off-topic posts and spam. It’s important to keep in mind that the moderators will not be answering blog or forum questions. This group will not be taking the place of Linden Lab employees, but rather will be freeing us up to communicate with forum and blog participants about substantive issues. These moderators, whose experience includes moderation assistance with EBay, are multi-lingual and will also be moderating our German, French, Korean and Japanese forums.
Timing and Transition
We will be introducing the new blog and forum enhancements in October. Until then, the blog will continue to be utilized for announcements, policy updates and introduction of new features. Other information is also being made available in other parts of the website such as the Grid Status page, blog margins and Showcase. We’ll help you find this information via the log-in message of the day.
In the meantime, we’ve created a forum thread where we can talk about our blog plans. I’ll be out for a short time this evening but will visit the forums in the next few hours to respond to your comments and questions.
Recently I was approached by two Second Life Residents about revitalizing the Resident Moderator program on the forums. They had a group of people who had volunteered to help moderate the forums, given that the current program has effectively ended.
We decided not to take them up on this very generous offer, not because we don’t believe that Residents should have a role, but because the forums are about to get a new Linden owner – welcome Katt Linden! – and I want to wait to decide the best way to proceed.
We’ve debated for a long time on the role of the Linden Lab forums and have at various times considered the following arguments for closing them down:
- Linden Lab has other ways to communicate and gather feedback
- people aren’t always very nice to each other
- there are other forums run by Second Life Residents
- we don’t have the staff to manage the discussion at the level we think is needed
- people should interact in Second Life rather than on the website
and so on.
At this point my plan is to work with Katt Linden to update the vBulletin software, map out a plan for revitalizing the forums and integrating them with the blog. Updating guidelines, revisiting permanent bans, archiving and creating new forums will all be part of what we look at. I’m sure you all will have lots of input, so please discuss with us here.
In the meantime, many thanks go to the Residents who have helped with moderation in the past, as well as to those who volunteered to help with moderation in the future. Volunteers are very important to us, and we appreciate their willingness to pitch in to make Second Life better for us all.
And special thanks to Nika Talaj and Qie Niangao for all their thoughtful input on improving the forums.
Previous Resident Moderators
Adam Zaius
Alan Kiesler
Cybin Monde
Damien Fate
Satchmo Prototype
Lash Xevious
Barbarra Blair
Elle Pollack
Euterpe Roo
Jana Fleming
Millie Thompson
Steve Steed
Strife Onizuka
New Volunteers
1. Yumi Murikami
2. Dannoth Dagger
3. Jeb Gibb
4. Oryx Tempel
5. Adz Childs
6. Kokoro Fasching
7. Okiphia Rayna/Anatine
8. Broccoli Curry
9. Joker Opus
10. Alyx Sands
11. Chance Abbatoir
12. Jellin Pico
13. nimrod Yaffle
14. Void SInger
15. bobbyb30 Zohari
16. Jaime Salman
17. Strauss Ulderport
18. Nyte Vargas
19. Tygers Dagger
20. Darien Caldwell
21. Micheal Moonlight
22. Element Smirnov
23. Rhyph Somme
24. Turbo Streeter
25. Natalie Oe
26. Mandy Carbenell
27. Samantha Goldflake
28. Gordon Wendt
29. Ann Launay
30. Angel Fluffy
31. Ramo Benedek
Catching up with the concerns that have been raised regarding our recent expansion of age verification testing….
Legality, Privacy and Data Storage
Some of you have raised the question whether the age verification vendor we have selected, Aristotle and their Integrity service, is complying with various global privacy laws, which generally pertain to collection, use and storage of personal data. We’ve been assured by them that they are in compliance with all relevant privacy laws. But the most important point here — which we think makes a big difference in evaluating safety and compliance — is that no data is being taken, retained or stored. Rather, an automated check is done at the point of contact, and all data is then purged. Thus, there is no collecting, using, storing, or transferring of your personal information beyond the one-time match. Period. Certainly, you are not being asked to place your information in a database.
We are pursuing age verification in a good faith attempt to comply with international laws, and after discussions with numerous governmental agencies across Europe, North America, and Asia. In some cases, these governments have publicized their views quite widely. We encourage this debate, but we also ask that you understand that we are seeking to comply with the laws of the countries our Residents are from — notwithstanding that many Residents may disagree with their own country’s laws or directives.
Voluntary Status
As currently implemented, age verification and parcel flagging to create adults-only restricted areas rely completely on voluntary participation. However, there is no assurance that either feature will always be voluntary for all Second Life Residents. It’s possible, for example, that we could be required at some point to make one of these features mandatory for the citizens of a specific country. Should that happen, we will do everything we can to provide maximum advance warning.
Accuracy, Reliability and Other Options
Although previous global testing of the Integrity system with a smaller sample showed a nearly 80% success rate, broader implementation has been disappointing, with too many failures. We’re continuing to fine-tune the process to improve the success rate. While the Integrity process is attractive because it offers global matching without any data storage, if necessary we’ll look into other options to ensure that minors are not accessing Second Life or inappropriate content.
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