Op/Ed: When In Doubt, Discuss - Or Call Someone To Discuss.

Yesterday evening, a friend of mine called me over and said, "I have a big problem. Can you help?"

My response was, "I don't know. Can I?"

It ended up that he had an ad spam 16m square in the center of some of his property. He'd tried walling it in (haven't we all tried that?), and the owner of the little plot - who I shall leave unnamed (the dispute was settled) - had set his prims into motion, up and down, and had them extending over the property lines. I rolled my eyes. This is not new. This, in fact, has gotten very old. I messaged the person and had a conversation with them, asking them if they really wanted this sort of thing associated with a website that they had - a matter of reputation. Their response was that they were not doing anything wrong, to which I responded that the community would end up deciding that. I would just write the facts, such as the price of land presently being around 6.8 Lindens per square meter and the price of the plot being at about 50 Lindens per meter - easily 7 times the market price.

Given that sort of information, it becomes pretty apparent what the spot is being used for to people whose land has been littered by these forms of advertising. Granted, there is room for marketing and advertising in Second Life - I appreciate that. But when it comes to adversely affecting the experience of others and leveraging very small amounts of money through annoyance marketing so that people have to buy the land to get rid of ugly plots... well, the majority of the community has had to deal with that.

I told the person that I would publish their side, to notecard me with it and that I would publish it with the rest of the information - I am many things, but I am fair or at least try to be fair. I also said that I wouldn't write about it until today, giving everyone time to think - too often people write about things half cocked and make mountains out of molehills. Molehills are more easy to deal with.

When I checked my messages this morning, the whole episode had blown over - there was no issue to really write of except how a fair discussion and a third party to arbitrate can really help matters instead of making them a scene of disembowelment. I believe everyone involved learned something from this - I know I did.

It isn't the first time that I have arbitrated a dispute. This one went very smoothly, but it went smoothly because people were willing to discuss things. Would that this were always the case. It is unfortunate that there are those who are not as open to discussion. Those are the real problems in Second Life and virtual worlds in general. Sometimes just asking people to consider the other perspective... well, sometimes that can make the difference. This time it did.

Next time it may not. And that is why Linden Lab needs to address the only virtual commodities that they advertise: virtual land and the Linden dollar.