There was a topic that came up in today's Metaversed meeting: separation of sub-worlds. Many people disagreed with the idea but I think it deserves consideration. Allow me to explain my view of such a separation.
Take a look at the global map. Zoom out until you can see the whole of it. What do you see? Practically nothing. A few blobs that are the continents and then a galaxy of dots. How is especially a newcomer supposed to make anything out of that? Where do you go? Where are you? Where do you find the things that you're interested in? You hear from word of mouth, you explore at random, going to whatever sim has more green dots. But let's say that you're not even a newbie anymore and you have heard so much about universities coming into SL and you want to explore that. How do you search for those sims? We could (and should) eventually improve search let's say by use of tagging. Good point, Lem Skall, but what use is then the global map and why not make it work for us? How about grouping sims that are strongly related into separate maps? After all, we do such grouping for files on our computers by using folders and directories. If only there were a planet Education, then I would know where to look for university sims. And there could be a planet Corporate, a planet Live Entertainment, even a planet Anshe Chung.
Besides, I know those corporate types would like to be away from the silly stuff like furries and red light districts. And live entertainment venues would like to be protected from inventive griefers and from enjoyable billboards of Naughty Knickers (yes, I actually saw that at a show I attended recently). Beats me why, because some of my best friends are furries, I think red light districts are exciting, and I even enjoy the occasional ads for knickers, can't say much for griefers though. And we would certainly hate to see corporations and live venues going away from our residential planets, we like having big buildings and big crowds next to our plots.
Sarcasm off now. Realistically speaking, the separation of sims is here already. More separation is inevitable. Corporations build on their own islands and not on the mainland. Educational institutions do that too and many of them are already grouped in a certain zone on the map. Once the server software will become open source, corporations and educational institutions will run their own servers and they will also want to organize themselves, with their own rules and their own governance system. For instance, identity verification, ban lists and security in general will be more stringent in corporate sims than in residential ones. It will probably be more efficient to implement security policies as a group with common ban lists (or trust ratings maybe) and a common identity verification protocol (like OpenID). Even common residents will want to organize themselves in groups, just see what the Metaverse Republic is trying to do. I am not saying that sims should be forced to join one group or another, but they should be given the choice to do so, assuming that the other members of the sims group will accept them.
Grouping of sims can also be implemented with just logical separation (tags for instance) and without physical separation on the map. It will happen one way or another. But let's use the map as a tool for this separation and let's break it down and re-structure it. What's in it for us, commoners? It will help not only sim owners to organize themselves, it will also help all the SL users. We will find places more easily. It will also be easier psychologically to expect certain rules to apply when entering different sub-worlds. I will know that my weapons will be disabled and that I may not be able to do much without an identity verification when I enter planet Corporate (and I may choose to just stay out). It will be also easier to be careful not to enter planet Red Light District when I am in my corporate avatar. Okay, sarcasm was back on in that last statement.
I wasn't even the one who asked the question about separation during today's meeting and I am sure that some people will agree with me. However, the balance seemed to be tipping towards those who disagreed in the meeting. I personally hope I was able to make the idea at least more acceptable.
Disclaimer: I am not an employee of IBM, never was an employee of IBM, and even if I will ever be an employee of IBM, the opinions expressed in this article are my own and in no way do they reflect the opinions of IBM.
