See, I look at this problem a bit differently; I would turn it around and ask what makes Second Life fall under the category of "games" that we're trying to preserve in the first place. If you ask me, I don't think of Second Life as any more a "game" than my chat programs, but I admittedly only held an account for about a week.

Seriously, though, I think this is just the cusp of a larger debate about not only what content is preserved, but the very definition of the kind of software we're talking about.

Given some of the stereotypes involved with second life, (Sex, odd life styles, porn, and stuff that you don't want in your first life.) you damn well better be sure that some people don't want that as public fact.

Last thing I want is for history to remember me as some pervert

Anybody else not quite able to grasp what hes saying?

"...but it means that if I took everything on SL's servers at the moment, what I've got is the neutron bomb version of second life - a bunch of very beautiful buildings with nobody in them."

Sounds about right. Except the "beautiful" part, maybe.

Well, capturing snippets is really all you can do in any other attempt to record cultural history. For example, there is much we don't know about Native American culture that has been lost for good, but we try to save what we can and learn what we can in order to preserve it, even if what we do collect is an infinitesimal part of the whole.

I like the idea of collecting data from willing participants. I mean, people have vastly different experiences while playing these games, but I'm sure that the average WoW users share some experiences among them all. Like maybe a history of guild participation or something? Maybe if people submitted videos of stuff they find interesting, whether it be a simple conversation or a perfect raid.

I don't think it would be a disservice to attempt to capture this stuff, though. I don't play WoW because I have an addictive personality, and I know it would take over my life. I know a little bit about it but I feel as though I'm missing out on a huge MMO, the most popular that's been out yet. WoW won't be around forever in the form it is in now, unlike almost all other genres and types of games, so I am greatly interested in preserving what experiences people had in WoW and other games like it.

I can only think of one way to preserve both authenticity and privacy: time delay. Privacy laws really don't cover the lives of dead people (they do, but there are workarounds, etc.) And authenticity could only be achieved by observing without the subjects knowing.

Or, Second Life users could just sign off on their privacy, either or.

If Big Brother was actually a furry, then I could see this being a possibility.

@Stormrider900: you do realize that SL has alot more then furries there...

Yes, I was making a joke.

[kotaku.com]

...

I can't make a decent comment about the subject because this still comes to my mind whenever I read "Second Life".

@Huginn:
Oh, don't worry, we don't know you're a perv by your SL habits, but by your browser's history and cache.

;)

The problem with having volunteers is that they'd know what they were participating in. A person who volunteers to be a datapoint in the records of activity in Second Life isn't going to represent the Second Life community, certainly not as it's seen from my perspective.

The furry obsessions and the flying waggling penises are just part of the community that you wouldn't be able to capture with volunteers, at least not in the same volume that they occur 'naturally'.

Think about it: how many people would knowingly advertise their participation in something so... unique... in a record of human history?

There's either that, or participants exhibiting that sort of behavior because of their participation in creating records. In either case, it's too easy to manipulate the subject by letting him/her/it know that they're being observed.

Of course, I may be biased. I'd rather not preserve Second Life at all, so that once the last member disappears, all records of it fade and it can be finally swept beneath the rug.

I don't get it. We don't expect to be able to record every last detail of what happens in First Life, and yet we can still build a fairly accurate historical record. Why would anyone need to record so much information in Second Life that people would even need to consider the privacy implications in the first place? Besides, it's a business with a central source of ownership, and therefore there is a very simple solution if we really want to archive all of its data. The anticommons problem on contracting around privacy rights is more of a unique problem with First Life.

@BPMΩ: Gah! clear clear clear! :)

Let's be honest here... Is Second Life really worth documenting in such detail that logs of every action are required? I mean sure records of existance and research about it should be kept but there's a limit to how much use this stuff has. Unless we need proof that people in 2007 were asshats on the internet but that must be documented already.

@Huginn: I believe the last story kotaku posted about second life involved a unicorn mounting female players to produce mini unicorn pets. So umm yeah...

I can see where they are coming from, wanting to preserve in their records how a "game" like Second Life might have been played circa 2007. Ten years from now even the program is still around it won't be the same as it was at this time. But it is kind of like wanting to preserve your childhood memories down to the last detail. Obviously we don't remember every conversation we had when we were a child, we only have vague fragments of memories and feelings left.

I think in the case of Second Life it is the same. We don't need to preserve every conversation there ever was. But what we do have are the news posts, blog posts, images, videos and such things that are far more concrete than a childhood memory. So I think what Second Life was like at this time will be well preserved.

Now why you'd actually want to preserve the memory of that place is beyond me.

Wait Second Life is a community of sexual deviants? Goddammit computer download the installation file faster!

@bowl of petunias: You, sir, are in for a world of disappointment and confusion.

@Iron_Dragon_2.0: I on as a guest on a furry pod cast and had to comment on that.

Yeah, even tail waggers simply didn't understand that at all...

As a Linguist, I ask these questions to myself often. I am currently working on a project examining the language within MMO's, though I am more curious with Language in general. In a way, I am cataloging the culture and system for presentation outside of the medium. What level of individual privacy do I have to honor? If an individual in an open channel broadcasts his messages to all around, is this a public sphere and has the individual given up his right to privacy? Since each individual is going under a pseudonym, does this reduce the level of intrusion?
All linguists have to maneuver in an environment where their influence must be minimal and their observation encompassing, yet not invasive.
I am intrigued to read the criticism of this practice.
An electronic environment allows for a greater observation. In field studies, a linguist must transcribe the conversations to retain them. In a MMO, the linguist only needs to log the chat. This change allows for a more complete and precise observation.
The historical record is filled with errors and misinterpretations especially in areas of controversy. Should the historians, folklorists, and anthropologist ignore the advantages that the new environment provide and rely on the imprecise and biased approach of gathering information they have had to use in the past?
I am interested to read the further comments.

Documenting something like people's conversations is like having a museum for telecommunications with transcripts of people's cell phone conversations hanging up on the wall. It's pointless to do that. If they want to preserve the function of the "game" that is fine, but anything more than that should be automated to show some of the basic functions and uses of the "world" with references to the types of activities that went on at the time much like any other museum would do.

This is sorta like archive.org, isn't it?

How many people on this comment section play Second Life regularly? My estimate is 0.

Seriously, SL adverts are not news.

History and culture is NEVER 100% preserved. And if it means my private conversations aren't being recorded, then I'm okay with that.

@lov3: *raises hand*

I'm in SL, and I comment regularly. I've just given up trying to comment positively or point out my successful game business in SL because every Kotaku SL thread is basically "LOL NERDZ" over and over again.

This one's a little thicker and juicier in content, at least, considering the issue of digital archiving. It's something that people in-SL have been considering, since a lot of the best builds and gadgets from yesteryear are gone now -- the users left, deleting their stuff, or just cleared out and sold off. Rights management baked into SL ensures those items can never really reach the "virtual public domain".

It's a sticky issue and I'm glad someone's taking it seriously.

When I think of preserving second life, I wouldn't think of the world created, I would think of the creation tools. Second life is by design ever changing. Sure there are some landmarks that might last as long as Second Life does, and they could be recorded, but is the building built by some anonymous player that is redesigned daily worth preserving? Record a few select locations, keep the creation tools, and maybe records of past visitors creations. Games are interactive. If theyh ever get put in a museum, then they should still be so, to retain their impact.

I become very sad when I think of someone sitting at a computer, "playing" SL, and genuinely enjoying their experience. Honestly, SL just conjures a host of negative connotations and images -- namely of FOX News broadcasters creaming themselves on-air over the "3-D, virtual environment!"

I will never understand how a game like SL could possibly get more mainstream coverage than something like WoW. People act like this shit-tastic game is second coming.

Second Life's very own Second Coming! Log in and be Saved today!

I feel like if I commented on this... my head would explode.

Oh wai... *BOOM*

The issue of recording conversations within Second Life (however banal or explicit) does not seem so ethically troublesome as is implied, although I would have one stipulation that I will explain shortly.

There is precedent for the amount of recorded historical detail that is being implied by this project. There is currently a huge movement to record oral histories; a big focus is on World War 2 vets, but they aren't the only ones being targeted. The main project that I've read about is the Veterans History Project (VHP), which sends volunteers out to interview veterans and civilians -- basically, anyone who experienced any aspect of contemporary war -- and then transcribe the interviews and archive them.

Now, clearly the importance of the VHP dwarfs anything like conversations from Second Life, but I think there is a fear among researchers and archivists that we are experiencing the tip of the iceberg in terms of virtual society, and they want to chronicle it as well as possible. The boundaries are limitless in terms of the technology, and they don't want to have to play catch up in 15 years, when this material would be much harder (if not impossible) to acquire. As mentioned, Linden isn't transcribing conversations, and I doubt many users are, so the data would just evaporate. Any study of the evolution of digital interaction would be greatly hindered.

My stipulation that I mentioned previously is a simple and obvious one: just check with users to see if you can follow them around for a day in the game, recording what they do and/or say. The value is the same as the value of footage in a documentary, or interviews for a dissertation. Legality is another question, but one that could be easily resolved with enough footwork. All you would have to do is find people who were willing to sign waivers, and you'd be good to go.

Those who say we should preserve solely the functions of Second Life don't fully appreciate the argument of MDA that was set forth a few years ago. Some game designers, I believe in 2002, wrote a short paper (about 5 pages) arguing that the inherent process of game experience is such: mechanics (the code), dynamics (the systems created by the code), and aesthetics (the experiences rendered by the systems). While it is necessary to preserve the mechanics of SL, it is also necessary to preserve the aesthetics, because from the two of those you can achieve a clear picture of the dynamics, and fully understand the way SL works. I argue that, if you are archiving a game, both function and user experience are necessary to catalogue -- especially in a persistent online game. That may be different in single player games, where linearity is still the rule of the day, but when the experience is largely determined by the society of players, their interaction is essential to the big picture.

I hear Second Life is like living in the Internet.

I'm just suddenly having this amusing image of the LoC's head librarian finding out that archiving a log of all Second Life activity will require the inclusion of the flying penis parade from that one political rally. I'm sure that when that happens, there will be Second Thoughts about including Second Life in the archives.

The first issue to focus on is that Linden Lab and some of its chosen partners already store all this data, and questions need to be asked about its use. The Bragg court case documents revealed that when they wish/need to, the Lindens save chat logs of residents for years. They may not physically bother with doing this for tens of thousands of people, but clearly they flag some cases.

They say they aren't able to back up copies of the entire world but they back up a lot of it here and there.

Every single IM, notecard, transaction, motion, land edit etc. is in theory preservable. That gives LL or any game/world/3-d company, unlike even any central government in history, an unprecedented amount of power to monitor the attention and intention of everything on the servers and create server logs as the "only form of truth".

When you start trying to think of what to preserve aside from these privacy issues and the power issues of 3-D online software companies, it's the same issues as with real life. What part of real life do you preserve? Which memories and whose memories do you preserve from an event like 9/11?

And how much do you save? Every single execution of an action, which is a huge amount of data, or just some of it?