Re: [ogpx] one virtual world, or many?

[Joshua Bell <[e-mail]>]

On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 7:39 AM, Dave CROCKER <[e-mail]> wrote:

>
>
> Meadhbh Siobhan wrote:
>
>> so. this is an interesting one.
>>
>> those of us who called for the OGPX BoF are in agreement that the term
>> "virtual world" is informational only.
>>
>
>
> This calls for an alternative that hadn't occurred to me.
>
> The charter currently has the string "virtual world" thirteen times.  And
> it is used heavily in discussions on this list.
>
> That level use of use essentially guarantees that the string is not merely
> informative.  It really does have to have specific technical meaning that
> folks agree on.
>

I agree that this is problematic. We should alter uses of "virtual world" in
the charter are not necessary. I'll work on this tomorrow with Meadhbh.

One is particularly interesting, on review:

"Within a single virtual world, avatars exist in at most one location in a
shared virtual space."

This line actually points at the loose working consensus we seem to share
about what a "virtual world" really is - the set of places "you" can "go" as
"yourself". This includes both the technological aspects (i.e. services
adhering to common protocols; network access) and policy aspects (i.e.
permission to access, trust agreements).

Again, it seems like we agree on what we're talking about, even if we're
loathe to define it precisely.


    My suggest is to remove all occurrences of the term from the charter,
>     except for the two in the first sentence of the draft charters
> Description
>     section.
>
> In other words, say that vwrap provides a service in virtual world
> simulation, but then make all other references be in terms of vwrap-specific
> technical constructs.  regions, agents, etc.
>

Agreed. We'll probably retain "virtual world" where the description is
entirely to evoke the problem space, but avoid it elsewhere.

We should have a new draft charter out tomorrow.