I feel fortunate, most days, that I am on a mainland sim. Why? Well mostly because we're too small and too much bother for most of your malicious griefers. In the ten months that I've owned the Bluffs I've had to ban only a very very few people; all of them for behavior problems rather than scripted or programmed destruction or disruption.
Each of the venues welcome guests and offer a rules note card. Now, if you're like me you immediately click IGNORE and keep going. If I kept every note card handed me when I landed some place, my inventory would implode. Still, the rules card for the Bluffs is very lean and very simple. MY RULES are very lean and very simple:
1. Be NICE
2. Don't be disruptive during a live event
3. No child avatars (I have made some rare exceptions--this is at my discretion)
4. No hunting/biting, weapons or combat huds.
5. HAVE FUN!
Gosh, you wouldn't think most folks would have a problem with that. You can be a child avatar and wander all over the meadow and galleries if you'd like, I don't care. You can be a vampire or a lycan and enjoy an event, just don't send bite invites (or bite uninvited). Scripted weapons and active RPG huds really add to the lag problem and frankly there's no one in the audience to shoot. So... you know--no brainer! You don't need it; take it off. BE NICE and HAVE FUN should be self evident...but really that seems to be the two rules that folks have the most problem with.
Case in point: this morning a child avatar arrived for Russell Eponym's event. This wasn't a Lolita who maaaaybe could pass visually for 16, 17 or 18 years old. This was a child avatar who was at MOST age 8. I messaged her privately and restated the rule and asked her to change avatars or relog as an adult alt. After three minutes, I got not a single response in public or private chat. Per my own rule then, I ejected her and restated that if she changed shape/age she could return.
What happened instead was she IM'd Russ' manager and asked to be added to his group. THEN she proceeded to paste my private IMs to her into group chat for the express purpose of causing an incident. This, my friends, fits my definition of a griefer. A child avi, and now NOT nice, and disrupting other people's enjoyment of a fantastic event. Yup...3-strikes and she was banned from the lodge. I thought her retaliation was very immature and passive-aggressive. I wish I could say I was surprised, but I'm not. I've seen this sort of thing time and time again, the sense of entitlement, the sense of being an exception to the rules, ANY rules, simply because they don't like them or its a rule they didn't make.
Hey, I'm a rebel too. I despise rules for the sake of rules. Authority which exists only to feed that person's ego. Sure, I have an ego, but it doesn't mean I beat people over the head with it. I have better self-esteem then that. I learn the rules in order to understand how to skirt under them, I will touch the spirit of the law, while I do what I do in the gray areas around it. I KNOW this about myself and perhaps that's why I'm not surprised when someone else takes issue with a rule. Still, as proprietrix, it is my job to enforce what few rules we have to provide the majority of the audience a pleasant experience and to honor the performer's time and efforts while they're on stage.
It reminded me once again of something a co-worker and I used to say to each other often: In online community we have to have rules and standards for conduct--exactly because of people like us :D
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
A Belated Follow-up
I hate when First Life gets in the way of my online thought process. Thank you Dan, Sen, Gypsy, and Zorch for your thoughts and comments here and on FB while I was buried under the dross of daily life. Let me quote Zorch for a moment, if I may:
He's right. I gave up on commercial radio a number of years ago. For nearly a decade the only thing I listened to was my digital library of tunes. I'd spent one el nino winter ripping all my CDs onto my computer hard drive. I have over 40 gigs of music now to keep me happy--only it doesn't. I still NEED to hear music--new, meaningful music, LIVE music. Where on earth do I find that? FM radio used to be that haven. Local clubs also provided that relief and still does to a point--but on my local scene the clubs no longer book their own music talent, too time consuming. They rely on agencies and booking agents, often they aren't even local. It's about as much a 'showcase' of local talent as an NFL home team. I actively LOATHE what reality TV and shows like X-factor and American Idol have done to popular music.
I was honestly surprised when I stepped back into Second Life in 2009 and began to attend concerts and hear music. Almost EVERY show I found myself standing there with my jaw hanging open wittnessing/hearing an absolute PEARL of beautiful, live, original music. After six months of going from show to show listening and enjoying new music for the first time in decades I decided to buy the Bluffs when it came available. The musicians who play for me bring in a mix of originals and covers, but I do insist on artists who do write (live and breathe) their own music as well as pay homage to their heroes and influences with the covers they choose to include. Every week I hear so many rare, gorgeous, awe inspiring moments of original music. It fills me with a giddy sense of excitement I haven't felt since I was 16 and all music seemed new and inspiring.
So we have Second Life to provide a performance space; a platform which allows artists to reach out to a digitally aware and global audience. We have the ability to digitally record music at home or in makeshift studios, which allow musicians to bypass the excessive expense of a traditional recording studio. We have services which allow self produced CDs ordered in manageable quantities. Artists can self-publish, copyright their own work, OWN their own creativity. They can sell music direct to their listeners and they can upload to online music portals for a broader reach. However, it seems to me that there is still a very unfair limitation in terms of access to wide distribution of music. The old guard recording industry still has a strangle hold on that. Even some of the newcomers like Apple's iTunes shuts down the small independents while paying a pittance to the artist whose music sells. Musicians still spend too much of their time kicking at the bricks trying to find further weaknesses in the system order to bring down that wall which stands between them and fresh ears.
No one said it would be easy, I suppose.
People still write great music. People still listen to it, provided they can find it. It's the music business that is failing to bring great music to the people.
He's right. I gave up on commercial radio a number of years ago. For nearly a decade the only thing I listened to was my digital library of tunes. I'd spent one el nino winter ripping all my CDs onto my computer hard drive. I have over 40 gigs of music now to keep me happy--only it doesn't. I still NEED to hear music--new, meaningful music, LIVE music. Where on earth do I find that? FM radio used to be that haven. Local clubs also provided that relief and still does to a point--but on my local scene the clubs no longer book their own music talent, too time consuming. They rely on agencies and booking agents, often they aren't even local. It's about as much a 'showcase' of local talent as an NFL home team. I actively LOATHE what reality TV and shows like X-factor and American Idol have done to popular music.
I was honestly surprised when I stepped back into Second Life in 2009 and began to attend concerts and hear music. Almost EVERY show I found myself standing there with my jaw hanging open wittnessing/hearing an absolute PEARL of beautiful, live, original music. After six months of going from show to show listening and enjoying new music for the first time in decades I decided to buy the Bluffs when it came available. The musicians who play for me bring in a mix of originals and covers, but I do insist on artists who do write (live and breathe) their own music as well as pay homage to their heroes and influences with the covers they choose to include. Every week I hear so many rare, gorgeous, awe inspiring moments of original music. It fills me with a giddy sense of excitement I haven't felt since I was 16 and all music seemed new and inspiring.
So we have Second Life to provide a performance space; a platform which allows artists to reach out to a digitally aware and global audience. We have the ability to digitally record music at home or in makeshift studios, which allow musicians to bypass the excessive expense of a traditional recording studio. We have services which allow self produced CDs ordered in manageable quantities. Artists can self-publish, copyright their own work, OWN their own creativity. They can sell music direct to their listeners and they can upload to online music portals for a broader reach. However, it seems to me that there is still a very unfair limitation in terms of access to wide distribution of music. The old guard recording industry still has a strangle hold on that. Even some of the newcomers like Apple's iTunes shuts down the small independents while paying a pittance to the artist whose music sells. Musicians still spend too much of their time kicking at the bricks trying to find further weaknesses in the system order to bring down that wall which stands between them and fresh ears.
No one said it would be easy, I suppose.
"You say you want a revolution Well, you know, We all want to change the world..."I think we need to get louder! One song at a time.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Music for Our Life?
Music has the power to soothe the savage breast (or beast depending on your version of things and bewbie fixation). Anthems of our time have called us to war, heralded peace; raised supplications to the higher powers, paid homage to our homeland during the Olympics, broken our hearts, mended our hearts, engaged us and/or enraged us. But, in this day and age of manufactured boy and girl bands, X-factor, American Idol and more...has music lost its power to frame and portray an age, an event?
I cannot listen to Chicago's 'Prologue/Someday' without seeing pictures of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Chicago in my head. I cannot listen to Jimi Hendrix's version of 'The Star Spangled Banner' without envisioning Woodstock. Bowie's 'Major Tom', without remember how my father got me out of bed in the middle of the night to watch the live coverage of Apollo 13, when none of us knew how it might end. Even Benny Goodman's 'Sing, Sing, Sing' evokes sepia toned mental images of Gene Krupa, Goodman's clarinet, and well heeled New York Society types being shocked and delighted by this modern 'jazz' in the hallowed chamber: Carnegie Hall.
So I ask, in this jaded day and age, is unique, meaningful, inspiring music even being made? Recently two videos have come to my attention which give me a chuckle and make me wonder just where some of the magic in popular music has gone:
And, without offering my own opinion on this question, I ask YOU...
can music still reinvent, reinvigorate, and revive us?
just askin'
I cannot listen to Chicago's 'Prologue/Someday' without seeing pictures of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Chicago in my head. I cannot listen to Jimi Hendrix's version of 'The Star Spangled Banner' without envisioning Woodstock. Bowie's 'Major Tom', without remember how my father got me out of bed in the middle of the night to watch the live coverage of Apollo 13, when none of us knew how it might end. Even Benny Goodman's 'Sing, Sing, Sing' evokes sepia toned mental images of Gene Krupa, Goodman's clarinet, and well heeled New York Society types being shocked and delighted by this modern 'jazz' in the hallowed chamber: Carnegie Hall.
So I ask, in this jaded day and age, is unique, meaningful, inspiring music even being made? Recently two videos have come to my attention which give me a chuckle and make me wonder just where some of the magic in popular music has gone:
And, without offering my own opinion on this question, I ask YOU...
can music still reinvent, reinvigorate, and revive us?
just askin'
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)