Click the Vote!

Regular readers of this paper may remember back in May, I did an article on the “Justice List”, an effort to bring more democratic governance into SL, through uniting land owners through agreement to conform to laws and judgements laid out through democratic means (http://15timez.blogspot.com/2007/05/virtual-arms-of-law.html). In that piece, I pointed out that our current community leaders, The Lindens, are in many ways “unelected officials, answerable to no-one, personally enforcing what laws they decide upon, if you can find one.”

Recently a group called the Concerned Citizens, who had become frustrated with recent Linden policy regarding cracking down on what was vaguely termed as ‘inappropriate and offensive content’, decided shine a satirical spotlight on this meta-political situation. They sent a letter, distributed by member’s blogs, and the Flickr SL photo groups. The letter read as follows:

"Concerned Residents of Second Life do hereby declare a new election process for Governor.Governor Phil Linden has held the office for four years and the seat is now deemed up for re-election.Interested parties should file a Petition of Candidacy in accordance with SL 22.141(A)(4) with the Concerned Residents of Second Life Board of Elections no later than June 14 to be eligible for this election ballot.Voting will be open to all residents and will be held on July 1, 2007.
The Concerned Residents”

From this point, the gauntlet was thrown down, and many people, including our very own weatherman Khamudy, posted their posters, and made their cases for why they should become the new supreme pontiff for our virtual world. Some addressed serious issues, like Grid Stability, or the inability for inhabitants on the main and teen grids to innocently socialise (as led by Teen Gridder Smiley Barry), while some took the opportunity to entertain, and some just seemed to like to fantasise about what they would do with the almost limitless powers in the virtual world.

Then came the ballot, and once the votes were counted the following announcement was made:

Dear Residents,
Thanks for participating in the 2007 SLelections for Governor. Before we announce the winner and the new Governor of Second Life, we would like to thank all the residents who participated in this SLelection. Your candidacies were strong, your platforms inspiring, and your campaign posters excellent! You have shown us many excellent paths for Second Life’s future.
However, we had some minor problems with returning the SLelections 2007 voting boxes into our inventory. They were, um, lost. Luckily upon contacting Live Help, the Lindens were able to tell us the following:
“We were pleased to see all the Residents participating in the democratization of Second Life. After discarding the votes of the residents that are not registered with our Identity Verification System, it is clear that the community wishes to re-elect Philip Linden Governor of Second Life. We are very happy with that, as this means we can keep our current jobs in the Linden Administration. Thank you for voting.”
Congratulation to Phil on his reelection. Please note that any protests of election results will be considered broadly offensive and offenders will be Abuse Reported. Despite any discrepancies you may think you see, we stress that this does not represent a change in our position, and we remain committed to the same democratic principles we have held from the start.
The Concerned Residents

It seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. However, no one can say that good people say silently while censorship and limitations of our inworld freedoms were going on. For although the administration has not changed, people have shown that they are not happy… and if things continue as they are, this may prove to have been less of a satire, and more of a test run.