Any chance of an explanation of the term?

you go girl!…um girl avatar – always think of you as a susan??

anyhow.

41 flavors of ice cream at Baskin Robbins… maybe good.
41 flavors of Blue at Google… Pricelessly stupid.

Is there one person at LL that has a min. 10,000 hrs as a professional/lead in product user design and interface who wasn’t a computer science major?

Id love to hear from them.:)
c3

I’m not sure whether I’m soooo obscure and long-winded that I make absolutely no sense…maybe I am. Otherwise, maybe you’ve either misread or are interpreting my post in order to make a rhetorical point – which is fine, except that when it’s at the expense of mis-characterizing me, my opinions, or beliefs.

So by way of clarification:

1. “Baseless FUD of certain individuals”: This is, well…insulting, frankly. It starts with an assumption that somehow I haven’t thought for myself, or that I’m basing my opinion on some sort of herd mentality or something, I have no idea.

I barely even skimmed the comments to the JIRA, this isn’t something I talk about over dinner, and it’s not the kind of thing I discuss in-world very often. My conclusions about all of this are based on discussions with and readings of people like Raph Koster, Richard Bartle, Tom Boellstorff and others who have a cross-disciplinary view of the interlinked components that make up virtual worlds.

And, having now looked up what FUD means, which must be one of those common acronyms that we don’t get up here in Canada, I find it pretty shocking that you found anything in my post which expressed, um “FUD-ness”.

What is the FUD you think I’ve subscribed to? Fear of freebie culture? Where did I say that exactly? Fear of change? Where did I say I didn’t like change?

I look forward to your clarification about what FUD you think I’m subscribing to.

2. “unsavory and uncharacteristic manner, littered with baseless attacks” – I’m really sorry if any of what I wrote came across like that. I’ve reread my post, and I have to say, I’m quite confused about it.

I’m not sure who it is that I’m attacking? Or in what way is it unsavory? You really don’t get very specific, other than the comment about CC, and then move on to the “fallacies of my argument”.

And yet turn around and make claims that I’m unsavory and filled with fear – if THAT isn’t an attack then I don’t know what is, Jacek. I’ve looked for similar quotes in my own post and can’t find any.

This is a fairly personal attack on my character. Maybe you could help me understand how I was unsavory or in what ways I made baseless attacks? If I was either, I’d like to apologize – otherwise you’ve characterized me as mean-spirited, as being “governed by FUD”, and as being on the “attack” (baselessly). I have a hard time letting these accusations stand, Jacek, because I really don’t understand what they’re based on.

3. CC: My point about CC is in comparison to C/M/T, not “stand-alone”. What I mean by that is CC was constructed to protect the interests of content creators, and to make it easier for content consumers to know what they can DO with content. However, because one slice of content transactions is economic, and because CC is not directly coupled to an economic transaction system, CC purports to protect the rights and ability of content creators to monetize their creations (if they wish, OR they can give it away for free)….but doesn’t. Not directly, anyways. C/M/T, however, DOES….because it IS coupled with an economic system, where the content permissions, being coupled with a system for monetizing those permissions and that content, achieves a goal that CC only partly achieves.

CC purports to support lots of things, but it DOESN’T support monetization in the direct way that C/M/T does. Nor does it directly embed attribution. It can’t really – digital content outside of SL doesn’t have that.

Or am I wrong about that?

4. The “broken” bits: Um….I don’t think we disagree. You’ve pointed out several things which I pointed out in my own post. You are unfortunately coupling my statements in support of C/M/T with the “mechanics” of that system. I don’t disagree that the mechanics are problematic. Did I say that they weren’t? Where did I say that the way that prims are rezzed is “perfect as is”?

C/M/T is a conceptual framework for permissions and content ownership and transfer. The mechanics that operate the system are a mess, and I don’t think I’ve ever shied away from admitting that. I say in my own post that just making the perms more transparent would be a significant step – showing nested objects, for example, in a sort of “visible tree”.

So I’m not sure where the fallacy in my argument is? You’re portraying me as naively believing that the mechanics of how perms operate a perfect. And I never said that. In fact, I’d say that in several major ways they SUCK. Where did you extrapolate that I thought that the mechanics of the system were flawless?

Again, I really feel as if I’m either being very obscure or you’re misrepresenting me to make a point. Seeing as in my post I am very explicit about the flaws, I have to take it as the latter.

5. Leaky holes: on point number one, watch Metanomics, and read current legal opinion and case law. I believe you’re wrong, although the reality is that in the application no one will fight it (or rarely). Doesn’t really matter, I don’t think, but let’s call it debatable as case law is not equivocal but leans towards user protections more than you give credit. (See also Cube3’s comment above)

On number two: You’re agreeing with my point entirely. Yes, there may be better schemes. And yes, there may even be better mechanics. My point is that C/M/T is what we HAVE. And my MAJOR point is that let’s not screw up something good, even at a granular level, until we’ve thought it through from a macro level.

C/M/T is IT…it’s what we’ve GOT. Where did I say there was nothing better? I actually think Raph Koster has a far better system on Metaplace, for example. I never claimed that there was nothing better. I never claimed that it couldn’t have been better from day one. Again, I feel as if I’m being misrepresented (starting with the, again, fairly insulting manner you led the post off).

6. I agree on the protection stuff…at least in that part I managed to express myself clearly, which was apparently a problem with my post.

7. The “barn raising stuff” – yes, it IS a wetware issue. That was my point which was to illustrate two things: 1) even something that SEEMS like it is about open and free choice does not always lead to rational decisions by the actors and 2) we should all TRY to be rational actors regardless, and evaluate the implications of change and contribution against that. Isn’t “choice” a wetware issue? Aren’t you arguing for giving choice to PEOPLE – so isn’t this, in the end, a discussion of the wetware using the interface?

You also extrapolate that I brought up the barn raising comments as an illustration of a solution or directly related to the issues of perms. In what way did I do that? The illustration was around choice architecture not around perms.

8. Where did I ever talk about being worried about freebie culture? Who said I was worried that this change would lead to a Grid of full perm items? At this point, I’m totally confused – because I really have no idea how you extrapolated fear of freebies from anything I posted. I have a fear of losing something of value, which is the right to own, sell or give away content. But I’m not afraid of freebies, I have no idea where you get that from.

But really, Jacek – at the end of the day your one comment in brackets is perhaps the most important:

“How curious that capitalism, a system based on the ability to make choices in a free market, apparently needs to be protected from the ability to make choices in a free market!”

My belief is that unfettered choice is what has led to the collapse of the economy. Your belief in unlimited and unfettered choice is the same philosophy that led to unregulated derivatives. I don’t believe that this is a workable model for capitalism, which does on occasion need a guiding hand, not in a way which limits choice, but in a way which creates choice architectures that are more likely to lead to desired behaviors to the benefit of the overall economy or society.

In fact, most of the economic theory with standing these days clearly stands in opposition to what you said. The reality is that the capitalist system if allowed to evolve and “run on its own” under the theory that we should have our ability to make choice in an unfettered way leads to the WRONG choices, for reasons, and supported by data very well articulated in the literature, including the book I mentioned…”Nudge”.

I am NOT proposing that these choices not be made available. I’m advocating for a consideration of the choice architectures that govern Second Life BEFORE we make shifts that may seem granular, much as the first sub-prime mortgage was granular. If at the end of that discussion it makes sense to shift to some other perm system and other interfaces and new ways of enforcing it – great.

On that, I posted at length on my own blog – I think it’s time for the Lab to step up to the plate and lead an effort to articulate the values that they believe in, and to create an over-arching framework for how content can be protected and created in a way that benefits everyone.

Only THEN, based on a cross-disciplinary discussion, based on data and study, should we be making changes that may seem granular, and may in fact BE granular….but whose very change without a process of due consideration for the broader policy issues sets another precedent of building and maintaining a PLATFORM rather than a world.

LL only can have a “license” to utilize an owners IP as data..isnt this more correct?
i saw no copyright, or trademark transfers in writing in any sign up TOS.

and lack of back up is not an avocation of ownership… is it?

However, the most significant point I’m trying to make is that the current perm system is irritating, frustrating and is a barrier to effective content creation, which I tried to be fairly clear is something I agree with. What I disagree with is making any changes to it without placing it in a larger strategic context, one that is based on an understanding of the choice architecture that underlies SL and is the basis of a perm system that, while perhaps flawed, has worked for the most part to protect the concept of an object-based economy (more on this to follow).

Your idea for a single-session change makes a great deal of sense to me, but that wasn’t the JIRA. It made sense to me because it acknowledged a choice architecture in which ease-of-use and choice should not necessarily be equated with resulting in hoped-for behaviors.

The very purpose of my post was to stimulate discussion of what I think is an important issue: the need for an articulated strategy at a macro level on permissions, content protection, and enforcement, and within that strategy to then assess the choice architecture, usability, interface design, in-world tools and other elements that, combined, would help to facilitate richer content creation, ease-of-use, and protection of core platform values.

You’ve gone a long way to help keep the conversation at that level and I’ll try to respond in more detail later….but thanks Jacek, very thoughtful response.