The dust has settled a bit
... along with my thoughts.
(which are not quite worked out - a beer at SIGGRAPH woukd help)
Lets assume the following is true:
A person should be able to take their own Avatar into any world they choose.
This would imply that if you are wizard, citizen etc those powers hold true
everywhere because those rights are assigned via the Avatar.
Problem is that the rights and functions of person vary not just by who
they are but where they are. A court judge and a soccer player have
different roles and powers in court or at a soccer game. audeniences for
both events are expected to behave differently. In virtual environments
are especially tricky. There are few if any common standards for behavior
and in productive or entertainment worlds the rules vary greatly
You can say - just limit everyone, and offer powers & rights in return for
good citizenship. But this gets unwieldy in the long term. Politics,
jealousy, arrogence are in play. Rules change, get bent along with
people...Mistakes and misunderstandings are still made by "empowered"
people.
The limitation of user action via the Avatar, done to stop disruptive
behavior is a not a solution that fits the problem. The issue of behavior
is as much a matter of where the behavior takes place - if not more so than
who is doing it.
Ought not each person be the master of their own home? Yet those rights
aren't transfered when they enter the places of others. Also as a
performer I can see the variety of issues in VR theatre, Gaming, Work -
each place individually ( or each event) could need differing levels of
interaction from the people inside.
All of this points to the rights of the user/visitor being established by
the world and its owner.
Lastly I guess I'd like to see a community arise from the chaos, people
given as much freedom as possible to explore, create. My own work Avatar
as Content Delivery Platform comes from this freedom as will more ideas and
notions that we cannot conceive of yet. Avatar based limitations don't
address the real problem and hurt the natural course of evolution of a
virtual society.
Steve
PS I think everyone should have the right to boot folks out of a world.
Perhaps a world owner is simply unbootable. Password protection on the
front of a site and records of each booting should allow for proper action
to be taken... ( Perhap - an"ingnore" mode - you don't see or hear them ; )
Oh and about HTML - The Town Square Library does open a new HTML page, but
for me alone. Other people in the world at the same time don't get a page
suddenly appearing ( Do they??? I guess I don't know for sure ). So an
earlier suggestion was to be able to open pages new or framed on the
screens of everyone - or selected people in a world. I think this would
be very useful in the near to midterm in VR development. Text, picts, data
sent directly to an audience in support of the VR activity.
