Field Assignment

Group:

Kyle Hylton - Malmi Hawker
Allison Oxner - Matilda Foxdale
David De Santis - Dante Mexicola

Examples of collective action &/or activism:

1) Second Life Left Unity (SLLU)
http://slleftunity.blogspot.com/
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/Left-unity-in-Second-Life

2) Commonwealth Islands
http://www.commonwealthisland.org/

How are they making their statement:

1) SLLU is an international socialist and anti-capitalist organisation which operates entirely within Second Life. Originally established by members of the Scottish Socialist Party and other left activists, it challenged the Front National when it attempted to establish a base within the virtual reality world, demanding that they were only allowed to operate in adult areas of the game. They are a serious activist group whos involvement can be found throughout the world wide web. However, within Second Life SLLU is a group of over 400 people worldwide that owns land, a freebie shop that gives away things that can be used in Second Life, a ‘hub’ build that includes links to real life affiliations of members, and a ‘solidarity area’ – a place where people can erect stalls and small buildings with educational web links and note dispensers on real life issues.

2) The Commonwealth Islands are home to a progressive activist community of up to 15 resident organizations and their staff, boards and volunteers. Commonwealth Islands uses signs and devotes the entire island to different causes. It is a place where organizations can create a hut or building to advertise their ideas. It is home to organizations that may or may not have sims of their own. One example is the area with huts. There are separate huts with the name of the organization above them.


Does the SL location provide any interactivity between avatar/you and the RL organization:

1) SLLU has a lot of interactivity in their SL location, a few were mentioned above but others include a recent addition for Gaza and Greek protest stalls. They have links to their website, places to click for information on the group and events, donation boxes, as well as a number of free give aways.


Most of the interactivity is pretty creative, as you can see from the picture above, you can click on these computers within SLLU's main sim and be linked to other external websites that deal with issues they are involved with. SLLU has been involved in many things in Second Life – including tackling head on fascist groups seeking to use the medium to connect with young gamers.

2) If you walk into the Greepeace hut, there are signs that you can read to hear their points of views. There is a box that allows you to donate linden dollars towards the foundation. There is also a place for you to click that gives you a note card, which is much like a brochure. There is also a sign that you can click which will open up their official website. Many of the other huts also provide the same details.

Most Effective Group:

SLLU

Strengths:
- SLLU is a very active group
- The SL sim is effective and gets right to the point
- Lots of information in SL and on web
- Many members in the group to converse with
- Their content is updated frequently

Weaknesses:
- The sim does not take up the whole island (many spots adjacent to it have nothing do with SLLU’s values, can be a bit confusing)
- Every time I visited the sim there were no members there to talk to

Commonwealth Islands

Strengths:
- Many different organizations in one spot much like a job fair, where your avatar can wander and explore and learn about more than just one
- A lot of information and a small space provided for each organization
- Place to get active and learn how to get active in real life, as well as links for more information
- It is a large sim with much to explore, but this can also lead to a weakness

Weaknesses:
- Not an entire sim devoted to one island, makes exploring a little more difficult
- It is difficult to make this sim your favourite place because interacting interacting with other avatars is difficult as it is not dedicated to one organization
- Different opinions can contradict each other when organizations of different kinds are in the same location
- Its an island and in certain locations does not even look like an activist sim (it looks like a nice place to hang out and surf, etc)

We picked the SLLU sim as the most effective sim. We thought this because it had the least amount of weaknesses and was a certain area for one organization. It also has had the most activism involvement in Second Life out of the two sims.

Reflect

Cause: Activists Against the Un-ethical treatment of NPC/Bots
A.K.A
AAUTNPC/BOT

Throughout our travels, it has come to our attention that many SL patrons have a distinct hatred towards non-person controlled avatars (NPC’s) or Bots. This is severely unfair towards the NPC/Bot community, as it is not their inherent fault, they are just following the codes/programming they have been given by their creators.

Although our group members do not have any direct funding to support any kind of economic means of activism, we would set up in various supporting Sims, asking for donations. By designing signs/banners and creating notes to hand out to willing SL patrons, explaining our cause, it would be our hopes to enact change/educate the SL community. As well, public demonstrations within public Sims would also pro-actively visualize the various ways in which users can politely interact with Bots/NPC’s without demonstrating hate or speaking in ways that may disrupt other SL patrons. The most fruitful result would be to enact a social movement, in which bots/NPC’s are treated and perceived in a way that is morally/ethically understanding to their situation, as well as the perpetuation of a more socially acceptable, and nondisruptive way of dealing with the perceivably “bothersome” NPC’s/Bots.

Benefits/Constraints of this method of activism: One major concern with any form activism is funding and population. Without proper Linden backing, or a population of people to support the cause outright, our voices may not be heard. By asking for the support of other groups, with strong representation in SL, there is an increased chance that our message may get across to more people. Another major concern is that this particular concern is strictly based within the Virtual worlds. As such, any RL activism would be a fruitless endeavour, resulting in our campaign to strictly be based in virtual worlds. What does benefit, however, is the fact that NPC’s and Bots are persistent across many platforms of VR, and are not strictly based within Second Life. This does, positively, allow for our cause to reach a larger number of people, of whom have interacted with NPC’s in one form or another.