Virtual Identity and Real Value

(photo credit: flickr.com/photos/wakingtiger/3157622308/)

I'm going to open with a disclaimer: this may be a rambling, personal post in the way I imagined "Phasing Grace" would always be - a summary of what's phasing Grace - were it not for my simple insecurities and tendency toward "perfectionism" and some self imposed rule that posts should be deep, well thought out and structured as if they were going to be graded by Mrs. Jones - my 9th grade AP English teacher.

Those things have weighted me down long enough to where I have gone weeks without posting even a salient point that is otherwise lost, all for want of approval or correctness. So if a glimpse into my here and now mind scares you (and by all accounts, it should) then have a look elsewhere for now, although my suspicions are that henceforth, Phasing Grace will rediscover and embrace its original intentions so if you can, please stick around.

So today, the things that phasing Grace are largely but not surprisingly about identity.

Let's start with the first thing that caught my eye, a newly minted Wallace Linden's "conversation starter" post entitled "Will the Real You Please Stand Up". Provocative headline notwithstanding, the post tries to state a seemingly straightforward question: What are the issues attendant to virtual identity management? People have spent entire lifetimes researching this question; I'm sure Wallace didn't expect to work it out in his inaugural post but he certainly touched a nerve of the Second Life Residents, at the time of this post, it has 375 comments and few are of the "nice post, thanks buddy" variety.

Wallace's post appears to place a high value on name spaces as a means by which to traverse a person's digital droppings, and avoids exploring a more meaningful identity construct that extends beyond a mere user name. This is actually somewhat ironic as a precursor to a major Linden Lab announcement just nine days later, the acquisition of Avatars United.

Avatars United is described by M Linden as a Web-based community site designed especially for avatars. My personal Avatars United account was over a year old and primarily inactive because the service afforded very little outside of what established services such as flickr, twitter, plurk, and Facebook provided but the acquisition may prove to be a means to broaden the reach of Second Life on the whole by raising awareness across gaming and virtual world platforms.

But why is it ironic you ask?

Well primarily because for all the goodness Avatars United might bring the to the Second Life ecosphere, it failed to protect one tiny thing that Wallace lauded: your Second Life name space. Avatars United, now prominently promoted as part of Second Life, has no means to verify your valuable Second Life name.

I cannot be anyone other than Grace McDunnough on XStreetSL and there can be only one Grace McDunnough in Second Life, but on Avatars United anyone and everyone can be Grace McDunnough anywhere and everywhere. Consequently, on Avatars United the virtual identity name space Grace McDunnough has been devalued.

Ordinal Malaprop was the first person that made this clearly obvious. Let me state my short opinion: this is bad ju-ju.

Why does this make me crazy?

For Second Life, I selected my name very carefully. Using the clumsy interface that the Lab affords new registrants, I picked Grace first, then looked for something vaguely Scottish or Irish. I wanted Grace to be a uniquely named person with traces of me; I diligently searched Grace McDunnough to see if there were any potential identity collisions. I found two: J. McDunnough, a Canadian Entomologist fascinated with classifying butterflies, and H.I. and Edwina McDunnough in the Coen brother's film Raising Arizona, both of which sort of sealed the deal for me in some weird way.

On February 6, 2006 Grace McDunnough became little more than 15 identity characters on a screen wandering aimlessly down the Orientation path, wearing a purple t-shirt and jeans, talking to a parrot and picking up a torch to light the way to the new world.

Since then, the user name Grace McDunnough has become my digital fingerprint in every virtual space I reside and my identity has real value outside of those 15 characters. I made a steadfast decision that I would not use my "real life" identity in any way to alter, shape, drive, etc. my eventual identity as Grace. I wanted Grace to develop her own street cred. I also chose not to gender bend or role play, but rather simply be the person I could not be in my day-to-day existence - more of an artist than a technologist - more of a philosopher than a executioner - more of an ENTJ than an INTJ.

Every instance, every action, every aspect of the virtual identity Grace McDunnough are important to me and as we move closer to the reality of the networked society they hold immeasurable value. Do not devalue them with a clumsy deployment.

Finally, this week my schedule allowed me time to participate in a great conversation with The Thinkers group in Second Life about identity and reputation. The discussion came on the heels of a post by Extropia DaSilva on Gwyn's blog entitled "Digital People and Anonymous Avatars". The discussion was to be pivoted on Scope Cleaver and his work in Second Life as a builder and what it takes to develop an online reputation. This strikes a deep chord for me because if it were not for Second Life, the music of Grace McDunnough would never be heard.

The most interesting and perhaps the most troubling part of the discussion was about how the work of a person that does not provide offline credentials holds little to no value. So beyond trust, which is another ongoing debate among scholars, a person's work in a virtual space may actually be of less value than someone who holds real life credentials.

To me, this will stifle any hope of realizing any of the new economic potential outlined in Yochai Benkler's book "The Wealth of Networks" simply because the opportunities for people to participate are cut off by the very limitations we are trying to supersede.

As a 4th year rez day approaches I am even more keenly aware and appreciative of the power, the nature and the delicate intricacies of digital identity. In fact, I may blurred in my thinking because this topic is so passionately appealing to me but I might go so far as to suggest the following:

The single most unappreciated element of Second Life is identity because in the end, a virtual identity is a commodity with tangible value.

That perspective, which may be solely my own, is the lens through which I have viewed my entire existence within Second Life. It's how I evaluate what Linden Lab does or doesn't do, it's how I process the events that occur and to some extent it is how I (and maybe others) start evaluate my self worth.

What do you think?
Is the fluff over Avatars United without merit?
Does your identity have value?
Do real life credentials increase the value of your work online?


Share Some Grace:

Do You Manage Your Virtual Identity Value?

CC image courtesy of flickr.com/photos/dramaqueennorma

A while ago I was talking to a friend of mine and they called me "Grace". We stopped talking and just stared at each other for a moment, bemused and bewildered because this conversation was taking place face-to-face in the real world, in meat space, in my OP, in the atomic world ... you get the idea.

I asked, almost afraid of the answer, "Why did you call me Grace?". They replied, "Because in that moment I was talking to Grace, you were Grace."

That incident stuck in my mind, leaving me with a lot of questions, mostly unanswered. What did it mean to be "Grace" at that moment? How was the line between my real life identity and Grace blurring? When did people see me as Grace, and how did they make that transition in their minds? If Grace were a male avatar, would they make that connection as easily? What characteristics of Grace, good and bad, carry over to my personal day-to-day interactions?


We need to recognize that identity is a construct. Beyond the formal academic and clinical treatise of identity, there are emergent and complex ramifications from that which recent technologies have afforded us to define and redefine our "identity". We should be both safeguarding and leveraging the investments we make toward that construct.

Tom Peters taught us long ago about personal branding ala "Brand You" and we know how important Online Reputation Management can be in the real world, but are you adopting those same principles to your virtual identity and/or are you recognizing the blurring between the real life reputation you've established and that of your virtual self?

It's fairly easy to track the evolution of online identity constructs from screen name, to iconic avatar, to personal profiles and ultimately to fully immersive representations of our "identity" in spaces such as MMOGs and virtual worlds. What we may be missing in that evolution, however, is the economic value emerging from our virtual reputations.

The Yale Law Journal recently released a great paper called Reputation as Property in Virtual Economies by Joseph Blocher. In this article, Blocher explores the notion of reputation as currency, with value, just as we think of property. As Blocher puts it:

Having defined status as a kind of property, it is possible to further subdivide the virtual reputational economies: social networking platforms like Facebook and MySpace present one model; anonymous blogging and commentary another. In at least one important way, the former are more like online economies than they are like virtual world economies—the status they create and destroy exists both online and in the real-world reputational economy. Individuals use their real identities in these forums and often interact with people with whom they also have off-line relationships. Thus someone whose reputation is ruined in the online reputational economy likely loses it in the real world as well.

Anonymous blogging and commentary, on the other hand, correspond to the virtual world economies describe above. The reputational property this type of activity generates exists only online, associated with virtual identities that generally are not connected to any real-world identities. What enables this division from the real-world reputational economy is anonymity, which permits bloggers—or even blog commenters—to gain online status, often at the expense of others, without risking their own real-world status. And as with the online and virtual world economies, challenging problems arise when the two reputational economies meet, as happens when anonymous posters (members of the virtual-world-style reputational economy) attack nonanonymous online profiles (members of the online reputational economy). From a practical standpoint, it is difficult, though not impossible, to identify anonymous online attackers, making redress rare. But from a more theoretical standpoint, it is difficult to replace, with currency or any other kind of “old” property, the reputational property they have lost.

This leads me yet again to more questions.

What would you do differently in your day to day lives online if there were a legally recognized reputation economy?

What sort of value are you creating or destroying every day?

How will these things (some say predictable eventualities) change the way we see virtual worlds where arguably your identity is more pervasive as it is presented in the context of activity, discussions, etc?

Furthermore, this is becomes even more complex and compelling when you think about the pursuit of interoperability in virtual worlds, and Linden Lab's pursuit of Identity Verification.

These are interesting things to think about for me and I'd love to hear your perspectives.

Share Some Grace:

Stanford Prison Experiment and our Second Life®

In August of 1971, an advertisement appeared in the Palo Alto Times:

Male college students needed for psychological study of prison life. $15 per day for 1-2 weeks ...

What followed in response to this modest classified ad became a controversial and influential psychological experiment known as the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE), led by Philip Zimbardo.

Over seventy men responded to the ad placed by the Stanford team intent on studying the effects of prison life; candidates were screened with diagnostic and personality tests to eliminate those with psychological disorders, medical disabilities or a history of criminal activity or drug abuse and 24 were selected.

By all accounts and diagnostic measures, those selected were an average group of "healthy, intelligent, middle-class males". Immersed inside a mock prison, candidates were randomly assigned roles of either guard or prisoner, dressed in clothing specific to their role. Prisoners were assigned numbers for identity and guards were allowed to play out the scenario with very high level guidelines for behavior. What followed in the short course of merely six days was astonishing.

• The illusion became the reality.
• The boundary between the role each person played and their personal identity was erased. This was true even for P. Zimbardo.
• Nice men became brutal guards; healthy men fell ill and emotionally disturbed.
• No one ever quit the experiment but five prisoners were released because of extreme emotional disturbance. These were replaced by stand-by candidates.

Prisoner #416 was added as a stand-by prisoner toward the end of the experiment and it was his individual actions to resist that split the fabric of the experiment, bringing it to a close after six days.

What did it feel like to be dropped into this situation mid-course and find yourself at odds? Prisoner #416 says the following:

...I began to feel that that identity, the person that I was - that had decided to go to prison - was distant from me, was remote until finally I wasn't that, I was 416. I was really my number, and 416 was going to have to decide what to do.

I have read numerous criticisms of SPE and the findings, but what has struck me most is the parallel we can draw to our Second Life® experiences - not by the power equation, although some may argue that Linden Lab is walking a fine line in that regard - but by our ability to distinguish and effectively respond to situational influences.

What happened in the SPE illustrates the very power of an immersive platform when combined with willingness to participate, to embrace a role so completely that we are #416, and to accept our surroundings as real.

The effect demonstrated by the SPE is the power of Second Life, the enormity of what we can become, good or bad, when we allow ourselves to be fully consumed - visually and audibly immersed - in the environment.

Have you ever noticed how often the words drama and Second Life appear together? This should be no surprise given the SPE results, but more importantly, must be a lesson to us as we find our way through the evolution of these virtual spaces.

We are at a new cross roads. We have found a place in which we can embrace the positive and powerful nature of a platform from which we can expand our personal influence, explore the many dimensions our identity, and discover the power of our most basic human interactions. However, we must do so responsibly, consciously and deliberately and when the situation should arise, I trust we all can find our own Prisoner #416.

Share Some Grace:

Identity Verification = Trust ?

I took a brief hiatus from Second Life and blogging in general, and the next time I will follow blogger etiquette and post a "gone fishing" sign. It was kind of everyone who inquired politely about my well being, but when I got a worried email from my dad today saying in part ".. and there's no activity on the web. You OK?" I decided it was well past time to return. (And by the way, Dad - you've got mail.)

I had planned a detailed post about my experience with Burning Life, but as that event unfolded I lost most of my enthusiasm for it and all of what I wanted to say which was largely unfavorable. Instead, there have been a few things lingering in my head and they are more relevant as we approach the Virtual Worlds 2007 Conference and Expo. The first is Identity Verification and what it means. I know it's a relatively old topic in Second Life time, but it's weighed heavily on my mind since a recent interaction, so out it comes.

When Linden Lab first introduced the intent to deploy an identity verification system (IDV), I skimmed over it thinking it was akin to establishing a MPAA-like ratings system for content. If you have a rating system and intend to enforce it, you have to have some form of verification and that made sense. In fact, large portions of the initial Linden Lab reasoning in the first, second and third blog posts alluded to segmentation of and access to rated content.

I largely ignored the system and the beta trial as I have no need, desire or intent to explore the vastness of the Second Life Adult Content (defined as explicitly sexual or excessively violent). However, Robin Linden's blog post and a personal experience has made me rethink the true intent and extent of "verification".

Robin starts her post with an interesting statement:

Trust is the foundation of any community. And one cornerstone of trust is identity. You’ve got to know something about the person you are dealing with before you can trust them. Knowing who to trust in an online environment presents unique challenges. Traditionally Second Life users have based their trust on relationships built over time, and often on some basic verification such as ‘Payment Info on File’.

This is a subtle introduction to the underlying message, which is that the focus of the verification system to that of a "trust", not simply age identity.

The IDV system aims to deliver two things. First, for Residents, it gives them the chance to independently verify certain aspects of their identity (their name, age, location and sex for instance) if they choose to. This will help establish trust by removing a layer of anonymity for those they interact with. It’s much easier to trust someone who puts their name behind their words and actions.

The second benefit of the IDV system is to help land owners and content publishers be sure that minors do not get access to inappropriate material. ... ]

What is so interesting about these statements? It is an attempt to suggest that the institution of IDV will somehow introduce a new layer of "trust" into the community.

Anyone that has spent any reasonable amount of time participating in on line communities knows that trust has to be earned over time, it is not merely a factor of your name, age, sex, or location; it's about who you are and what you contribute in the context of the community. I would argue that if you start with a person's age, sex, location as a basis for trust you are more apt to be fooled or lulled into some false sense of security by a "verification" tag. Even worse, the methods by which Linden intends to execute this verification are weak, based on publicly available information and are fraught with opportunities to be scammed. If you want a good treatise on IDV and how it really translates to liability transfer and culpable deniability rather than trust, read Gwyn's post "I am who I am". I will summarize the key point: IDV does not assure your avatar is who you say you are, it merely indicates that the data you provide to Integrity matches data that is publicly available.

The impact of IDV hit me more directly in a recent group event. In the context of the group discussion, the leader suggested that it would be "of benefit" to the group if everyone introduced themselves, telling everyone what they do in Second Life and who they are and what they do in real life, over the voice system. It was the first time I'd seen such a request, and it was not a heavy handed "tell us or you're out", but it was presented in the context of the discussion as a perfectly reasonable request and expectation.

I shared my information, after which I was mildly amused that I was presented with five new friend requests. This was in balance with the sixth interaction which was a private IM from someone I had not met before. This person wanted me to restate my real name. I obliged and the reply was loosely "I don't trust people here and I fully endorse Linden's Identity Verification system. I need to know you are who you say you are. Here's my blog link, you can read it and friend me afterward if you think that is worthwhile." I wasn't sure how to respond, other than "Are you KIDDING me?" so thanks to me mum, I replied that I understood and have a nice day.

Of course I checked the individual's blog, which was actually a web site (when did every form of rendered html become a blog?) and from there I deduced that this was most likely this person's first online community experience. The trouble is, this person and many other "newbies" that read the Linden Lab posts on IDV believes that "verification" in the IDV acronym equates to trust and a new business utopia as described by Benjamin Duranske in this post . I can assure you, it does not.

Trust is critically important, but it is based on community interactions. If you are reading this, you are probably aware that for enterprise systems such as eBay and Amazon and even news and information sites, rating systems implemented to work within the community norms are successful. Ratings serve as their own form of verification. I don't know the eBay seller i_can_has_cheeseburger (fictional example) but they have executed 2,000 transactions over the last 12 months and have zero negative comments from buyers. Therefore, within the eBay community I *trust* them and will do business with them. Do I care about their age, sex, location?

Do the community norms of the Second Life population endorse anonymous third party systems even if they *promise* not to store any personally identifiable information? No, not so much. Second Lifers build trusted networks by participating in communities of practice (CoP). Without a generalized and publicly viewable rating system, an individual's contributions are locked within the confines of that CoP trusted network and cannot be exposed as an indicator of reputation and therefore implied trust.

In a short-sighted decision this spring, Linden Lab removed the rating system this year because "the ratings system has become less and less useful" when in fact it was merely poorly designed from both a technical architectural and a social architecture perspective. This decision to dump the rating system left the community without this critical tool. Linden suggested adopting other community systems - RatePoint, TrustNet, Ban Link, Sloog.org, Real Reputations, and SLicr - but not surprisingly, none have risen to the challenge because the community looks to Linden Lab to provide the basic tools to function as a community. Once the IDV system is in place, the community will have to keep looking.
Share Some Grace: