A Second Life success story: NCI

It has been in Second Life for four years (having just celebrated its fourth anniversary), has over 150 staff, costs about US$13,000 each year to operate, holds 46,592 square metres of Second Life land (and rents quite a bit more), and is among the virtual environment’s most well-trafficked organizations.

It isn’t one of those corporate sites you read about, though. It’s a non-profit group, with little existence outside of Second Life. It’s NCI, a volunteer organisation that ranks among the most successful groups in Linden Lab’s virtual world.

NCI’s basic mission is to assist and support newcomers to Second Life. Originally founded by Brace Coral in April 2005, Coral named the organisation New Citizens Incorporated (though the ‘incorporated’ part was merely in jest), and founded it on the principle that everyone in Second Life was able to contribute to the orientation and support of new users. Even those with only a few days of experience would have answers and information that newer users lacked.

Originally a self-help facility with social events and a building sandbox, the scope of NCI was already expanding by the time Carl Metropolitan took over as executive director in a popular vote in September 2005, when Brace Coral scaled back her Second Life activities.

With Metropolitan at the helm of the organization, NCI expanded significantly both in land and personnel, offering large numbers of classes and events, funded by advertising and donations, and standalone ‘aid stations’ called Infonodes scattered all over Second Life near areas where new users are likely to be found. NCI’s financial picture isn’t always a rosy one, however.

Advertising and donations don’t quite meet the operational bills each year, usually falling about US$1,500 short, which necessitates periodic fundraising activities to make up the shortfall, often in the form of charity auctions. NCI’s charity fundraisers are supported by quite a number of Second Life creators, as well as some corporations, such as Microsoft who donated software to the last big fundraising auction.

In an environment where users only have a limited number of group memberships available, NCI’s free-to-join group sports nearly 9000 members at present, and provides round-the-clock live-help for new users with questions and queries.

The NCI’s watch-words are civility, respect and courtesy, but maintaining a safe space for new users, protected from those who would exploit them or intentionally disrupt or harass them isn’t easy. NCI maintains strict rules of conduct, and enforces them swiftly when staff feel that new users may become upset or disturbed by the actions of a disruptive or abusive visitor. Indeed, one of the main pillars of NCI’s popularity is swift and strong enforcement of local conduct rules.

Keeping an organization like NCI running isn’t an easy job either. While class instructors and event hosts recieve payments from the organisation for their duties, nobody is getting a wage from the process. Senior staff can be under tremendous amounts of pressure. In the wake of NCI’s 4th anniversary celebration on 18 April, executive director, Carl Metropolitan decided that he needed a sabbatical, partly from the daily pressure of work, and partly due to unavoidable circumstances related to the USA’s economic downturn.

Presently, a new interim management team are settling in, with Afon Shepherd and Gramma Fiddlesticks cooperatively managing the organisation until Metropolitan’s return to duty. That NCI works at all is something of a surprise, being an expensive operation, with so many people from all walks of life, from most of the countries in the world, bonded primarily only by the willingness to help others and to donate their spare time.

NCI does work, however, and it works well. If you’re new to Second Life, it’s one of those must-visit places.

NCI Major Locations

• Original site at Kuula
• NCI South (Hamnida)
• NCI Beach (Fishermans Cove)
• NCI Caledon (Caledon Oxbridge Village)

Popularity: 6% [?]

Metaverse Aid

Late last year I wrote on Metaverse Aid, which is a team on the Kiva website.

I just wanted to take the opportunity to encourage anyone involved with virtual worlds to join the Metaverse Aid team and make a real difference to entrepreneurs in developing countries. Each loan is just that, a loan, and you can reinvest the amount paid back in another entrepreneur.

Read more about Kiva and Metaverse Aid here.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Italian Earthquake Benefit in Second Life

I won’t embellish this announcement from Australian Second Life resident, Rebelmuum Slade, on a fundraiser being held tomorrow morning at 6am AEST (1pm SL time):

When disaster strikes the global community of SL unites in love and acts fast.

One of the wonders of this marvellous community is the closeness of people from all over the globe.

Last week our Italian friends were shocked by an earthquake that killed many too many and left so many more homeless and injured. The Phoenix Wave Mentors decided to put on a benefit to help those in need.

The following invitation recommends making donations directly to the Red Cross. For those who want to donate lindens or bid at the auction on the day we will dedicated jars with one person responsible for ensuring all lindens are givne to the Italian Red Cross.

Should you wish a deeper look at this wonderful story of love across the oceans, Ghost Trefoil is the benefit Co-ordinator and Ghost Ulich is the founder of Phoenix Wave Mentors.

Please pass this invitation to your groups and help us to help others in need. AND of course we would love to see you there!

We have a wonderful line up of entertainers who donated their talent to organise and entertain, who gave items or selves for auction

1pm – Rush Parkin – opens with his new special song and then conducts the first auction
2pm – dune burt (Italian DJ) entertains and leads the way to the second auction
3pm – 5pm : Alexdancemusic (Italian DJ) Takes us through to the end and hosts the next 3 auctions

Some auction items – auctions will occur just after each hour:

- 2 hour personal modelling lesson and a professional portfolio,
- 2 weeks on the beach in a lovely little (SL) holiday house.
- A 2-hour PG date with Ghost Ulich
- 2 hour personal tour with author of star journey Richard Geer. Plus a copy of the ebook
- A 2 hour PG date with Rebelmum Slade
- Personal styling indulgence with lillyanne lewsley ( new skin, shape, clothes, eyes, etc )

5.30pm Total Lindens raised announced – reciept from Italian Red cross will be posted in PW notices

Cheers Rebelmuum Slade

Popularity: 3% [?]

Relay for Life in Second Life: teams being formed

A yearly highlight in Second Life is the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. The 2007 and 2008 events were big successes, with more than 55 million Linden Dollars (approximately 200 thousand US dollars).

Teams have started forming and if any Australian or New Zealand teams are forming, do let us know and we’ll promote your fundraising efforts. The team registration form can be found here.

The Australian Relay for Life is a superb community event for a lot of towns and cities. The Second Life version achieves that same community vibe and it’s an opportunity to remember those lost to cancer, to support those currently fighting cancer and to help find more effective treatments for cancers.

Thanks to SL Entrepreneur Magazine for the heads-up.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Virtual world IP: not a steal

Virtual environments and the public Internet sport a bewildering array of economies, from purely fantasy economies to real money trading between users. Fundamentally, many of these are currency-based economies which we all understand – you purchase something you value and give something of value in exchange. That is, you buy something you want with some manner of currency.

People generally have a whole lot more trouble with various license agreements, such as the GNU Licenses , or the Creative Commons licenses. Infringements of these licenses are common, and when challenged the infringers are often rather baffled. Either they do not understand that the content can be misused, or they do not understand why the ‘license nazis’ seem so put out.

Let’s break it down.

None of these licenses is technically ‘free’. Yes, they involve the use of content for no monetary cost, but that isn’t the same thing. There are multiple definitions of the word ‘free’ and if you apply the wrong ones, at best you’ll be confused, and at worst you’ll end up looking like an ass. So, these licenses are ‘free’ as in ‘no monetary cost’, but they are not ‘free’ as in ‘given freely for no exchange in value’.

These licenses are your basic, free-market, capitalistic contract. The owner of the property has something of value (the exercise of certain rights with respect to that content) and their release of some of those rights under a license makes that value available in exchange for something of value to them (your compliance with the terms of the license).

You both get something you want out of it, in short. That’s basic capitalism at work. Money need not be a component of the exchange, demagoguery notwithstanding. However, this is the fundamental principle that a lot of people miss, because they mistake the various different definitions of ‘free’.

If you take the content and use it in ways that don’t comply with the license terms, it is essentially the same as refusing to pay. That is why people get steamed about it. The rights to use the content in certain ways is given to you based solely on your agreement to comply. No money is changing hands, but ongoing compliance to the terms of the license constitute the payment for the usage.

Vint Falken was surprised to find that a texture that she made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derives license was being sold by a number of merchants in IMVU, some of whom claimed it as their own original work. Some of those merchants were even more surprised that she had any rights to her work at all.

KirstenLee Cinquetti quit providing her Second Life viewer binaries when pressed to comply with all the terms of the licenses that she was required to uphold in order to retain her permission to distribute viewer binaries. Some licenses require more compliance effort than others.

If you were handing over currency to obtain the necessary rights, that would be one thing. However, the purchase you are making is paid for with ongoing compliance to the terms. Quite often, you can simply arrange some alternative licensing or purchase scheme with the rights-holder. If you don’t, however, these licenses aren’t as simple as clicking ‘Yes, I agree’ somewhere and forgetting that you ever saw it. They’re contracts that require you to uphold your part of the bargain or lose what you gained.

Trying to evade or cheat the obligations under which content was granted to you wins you no friends either. As Bruce Perens points out:

don’t look for, and use loopholes in the Open Source licenses. Nothing makes your company look worse than taking unfair advantage of people who provided their work to you without charge, expecting in good faith that you’d honor their license.

Why? Because you took value from someone without the intention of paying the asking price. And that upsets everyone.

It really is as simple as that.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Victorian Bushfire support continues in Second Life

Across the Second Life grid, fundraisers continue to occur for the victims of the Victorian bushfires. Tonight I heard about a fundraiser occurring at Bringiton’s Music Hall of Fame.

Australian owner Bringiton Paine is hoping to raise up to half a million Linden Dollars overnight, so if you’ve got some spare time and want to have a dance, join the party and make a donation. There were more than 40 people having a good time when I jumped in, including a significant proportion from Austria, Germany and France to name a few. Another example of grass-roots fundraising at its best.

Don’t forget there’s a growing list of Second Life vendors selling goods to raise money for the cause.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Second Life vendors: Victorian bushfire relief

Australians and friends of Australians in Second Life have not surprisingly rallied to support the ongoing tragedy in Victoria. There’s a growing number of vendors selling goods in Second Life – a list of participating vendors is here.

The picture above is one of the many examples of goods available. If you’ve got some spare Linden Dollars, it’s another great way to show support.

Also, don’t forget our own t-shirt range on sale, with 100% of profits to the Red Cross appeal.

Thanks to Mal Burns for the heads-up.

Popularity: 7% [?]

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