Where do we go from here?

I started writing this post last week sometime, finished it yesterday only to have Wordpress eat the final draft. But, now I am rewriting it in a different way.

The past couple weeks have provided yet another lesson in futility of community interactions. It reminds me of why I spend less and less time in SL. I have made some amazing friends in Second Life and ironically spend a lot of time in touch with the people that matter through other modes of communication – Instant message clients like Meebo, Twitter, various blogs, forums, Facebook, My Space and Pownce.

I try to think back to a time in Second Life where the drama was minimal or non-existent or even downright irrelevant. Suffice it to say, its been awhile. It seems like the drama started around the summer/fall of 2004 and just has been one steady runaway train ever since. Different faces, different situations, but still the same dramatic overtures. What started it all? Who knows? Sometimes I just don’t think that humans are meant to get along peacefully.

I can pinpoint my entrance into Second Life forum culture as a catalyst for certain drama facets. Forums always make things worse — no matter what the case. I’ve met some great people through forums and bulletin boards, but they are such hotbeds for drama at any given time. Blogs aren’t really any better, but given the multitude of blogs in Second Life — you know who to avoid and who not to.

I’ve been slowly, but surely trying to extricate sources of drama from my life. No one ever said it would be easy and I occasionally slip up. I stopped reading  SLH a few months ago unless someone sends me a link to a particular story in which the drama involves myself, which happens every few of months. Drama aside, SLH is so badly written that it makes my eyes bleed under normal circumstances so it was no big loss. I usually avoid the usual dramatobloggers. No names need to be mentioned here. If I don’t like you, why should I read your blog? That one is a no brainer. Occasional random dramas start on mostly harmless blogs — Its bound to happen from time to time. I left the official Second Life forums, which was easy to do once they closed down most of the discussion forums. Though I hear that they still have some discussion and ensuing drama in the Resident Answers forums to be precise and especially with regards to a certain forum moderator thug who is hellbent on causing strife amongst the residents from what I can gather.

When I stopped being a SL forum regular I started being a Second Citizen forum regular. The forums vary drastically – SL had its rules, while SC is a no holds barred steal cage death match most of the time. I like most of the people there save for a few muckrakers and perpetual dramamongerers. As much as I love anarchy and chaos, I think we do need some basic guidelines for human interaction. I’m just as guilty as everyone else for fanning the flames from time to time. I never thought I would say it, but I miss Jeska’s “This thread has outlived its usefulness and is therefore being closed” posts from the old forum days. I’ve taken hiatuses from reading and posting to Second Citizen in the past and I see myself growing more towards a permanent exit strategy. Ive found that the best way to quell drama is usually to avoid it. Now, if I could just follow my own advice we’d all live happily ever after.

I find myself more and more drawn to environments that I can control. With social networks like Twitter, Pownce, Facebook, Personal Blogs, Live Journal, My Space etc. If you don’t like someone you almost never have to interact with them. In Second Life and its ancillary forums there is almost a sense of forced interaction with people.

I don’t have any drama on the aforementioned social networking websites. Why? Because if I don’t like you I don’t have to deal with you and vice versa. In places like the Second Life forums such as Second Citizen unless the drama perpetrators completely leave and stop posting and/or reading the forums the drama never ends. One of the features I absolutely adore on Second Citizen is the “ignore thread” function, but there comes a time in which you have to say if I am ignoring 100 or more threads what the hell am I doing here anyways?

The point of all this is that I stopped enjoying Second Life at some point in time. It officially became not-as-fun in the Summer of 2005, a royal pain in the ass by fall/winter 2005, annoying as all hell throughout 2006 and now in 2007 after occasion renewed bouts of fun, its back to being utterly dreadful.

I can’t see myself ever leaving Second Life fully. I think what I need more than anything is just for Second Life to be fun and enjoyable again. Second Life was a hobby for me – for better or for worse. It was something I enjoyed and still do on some level despite a general feeling of dissatisfaction. It is only when it became a constant source of irritation that I started enjoying it less and then it just became a job to me. Right now, Second Life is one big multi-tabbed Excel Spreadsheet.