Multi-User Virtual Environment Level 6 Report: Analysis and Discussion

This report analyzes a student's participation in the Exhale Dance Club, a virtual community within a Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE). It describes the community's activities, strengths, and weaknesses, as well as the student's experiences with dance animations and interactions. The report also examines Second Life's Community Standards, outlining prohibited behaviors like intolerance, harassment, and assault, and discusses how to avoid violating these standards and address violations by others. Furthermore, the report explores the concept of intellectual property within virtual environments, emphasizing the importance of protecting original creations through permissions and licensing, and addressing issues like CopyBot. The report also includes the permissions on objects.

Running head: MULTI-USER VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT LEVEL 6
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Multi-User Virtual Environment Level 6
Student Name
Institution Affiliation

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Multi-User Virtual Environment Level 6
Introduction
The adoption and application of virtual worlds are accelerating exponentially in the
contemporary world according to a study conducted by Joint Information Systems Committee
UISC. Multi-User Virtual Environments have a short development history in the IT sector, but
they are becoming very popular, especially among youths. Multi-User Virtual Environments
have evolved from text-based environments to include text descriptions, 30 graphics as well as
several informal communication tools such as the chats. The Multi-User Virtual Environments
are appealing to the youths because it provides an opportunity to interact with other people in the
virtual community, (Wellman and Gulia, 2018). The MUVEs gives the participants real-time
interaction and provides a sense of being there in the virtual community. The MUVEs have
various advantages such as educational and training purposes. However, several social and
ethical concerns should be addressed for useful application of MUVEs, (Rolls, Hansen, Jackson
and Elliott, 2016). This essay is my posts that discuss my participation in a virtual community
and other concerns such as the SL community standards, permission on objects, and protecting
intellectual property. Multi-User Virtual Environments can be very efficient if the above-
mentioned concerns are addressed appropriately.

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Participating in a Virtual Community
The virtual community I participated in is called Exhale Dance Club, and it involves
activities such as dance movement, hip hop raps, trap, EDM, DJ Mixing, Live DJs among many
more in the music and dance entertainment sector.
Group URL: second life: ///app/group/750f2974-e1f8-2c01-0286-dfc27f6b0d51/about
The founder of the Exhale Dance club is known as Naynay Domenici. It is a huge group having
more than 1000 members, and it is currently known as "Exhale VIP." The activities in this group
run on a 24/7 basis with so many DJs playing and mixing music all the time as group members
enjoy and dance. The main purpose of this virtual community is to bring together music lovers
and allow them to relax as they listen and dance to the music and interact with others to create
friends.
The screenshot below shows the two balls I found hanging on stage the first time I
participated in the community. When I clicked one of the balls, a notecard showed up consisting
of different dance movement animations to select. I chose one of the animations, and it was a
thrilling moment taking part in the dance moves. The next time I participated in the activity was
‘Couple dancing.' Here the two balls were labeled male and female couple and once clicked, it
gives the dance moves based on the gender. The male dance moves were different from the
female dance moves. I got a partner, and we engaged in a dance session. The community also
allows chats where a "couple" can communicate on their dance move of choice.
From my experience in participating in the Exhale Dance Club virtual community, the
group has several strengths. These strengths include comprehensive music types, professional
dance animation, staff are amiable, many activities, and the large membership consisting of
people who are passionate about dancing and music. Owing to these strengths, this virtual

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community can be used for educational purposes in music and dancing institutions as it offers an
avenue to practice and learns in real time.
The community also has several weaknesses that affect its effective operation and the ability to
realize its mission and purpose. The first weakness is too much notification. Owing to the many
activities, the community will almost fill your email with their notifications. Also, as much as the
community does not have any age limits, it is more suitable for adults. They should come up
with a way to settle on a specific age group for good interaction.
The components part of the community is lovely dancing, and good music, and they are
essential. They allow members to dance and listen to a comprehensive music selection. The
group has excellent and fascinating dance animations that make dancing enjoyable.
The community has a large membership, and it should work on solving its weaknesses. It should
include the option to block some notifications as well as the staff should try to eliminate the less
popular activities.
SL Community Standards
The link to Second Life Community standards is provided below.
https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/403539-community-standards/
The community standards outline the six behaviors that are prohibited in SL. They are
commonly referred to as the "Big Six." The forbidden behaviors include;
I. Intolerance
Second life community does not allow any community member to defame or belittle
another member or groups. The community prohibits members from using bad images and
language to belittle the sexual orientation, religion, gender, or race of other users, (Chou, Wang,

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and Tang, 2015). The standards ensure that members in the community can interact
harmoniously without any discriminatory remarks and impressions.
2. Harassment
Harassment refers to any form of interaction and communication that can make other
members feel uncomfortable. The SL community does not allow any form of harassment during
the interaction of its members. Harassment has always been a concern in virtual communities
since such avenues comprise of people coming from various cultural and religious backgrounds.
Some are conservative, and they may take such an avenue to intimidate some group of
individuals. Harassment may also include activities such as cyberstalking, soliciting for sex,
vandalism, threats, theft of identity, monitoring among many more.
3. Assault
Assault involves malicious activities such as hijacking, attack, and shooting is highly
prohibited in the Second Life community. Most areas in the second life community are safe.
Safety of all the community members is given a priority. The standards ensure that the residents
cannot suffer physically, psychologically, or economically because of the action of other
members in the virtual community.
4. Disclosure
The right to privacy is safeguarded in the second life community. The personal
information of the residents, such as their real address, bank accounts, and phone numbers, are
well protected. Only the information on the profile is availed to the other residents.
5. Adult Regions, Groups and Listings
As much as Second Life is an adult community, adult community is not displayed in all
sections. There are few lands such as "Zindra" which can allow the display of adult content.

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6. Distributing the Peace
The Second Life community allows every resident to live their own lives in the
community. Disturbing the activities of other residents is highly prohibited. The activities that
may disturb the peace of other residents include internationally slowing the server performance,
self-spawning items, use of repetitive sounds as well as advertising without permission.
Community standards have been created to enable the community to work efficiently and have
control of the activities in the community, (Chou, Wang, and Tang, 2015). Rules and standards
are essential to allow the staff to manage the community well. Even in the real world there are
rules and policies put in place to manage people and bring law and order.
I would make sure I do not violate the standards when I am in the Second Life
community just the same way as I don't violet rules and laws in the real world. Ignorance is
never a defense when it comes to violating laws. Therefore, I would read and understand the
standards in the community and the expectations in the community. Apart from understanding
the rules of the entire community, I would also read and understand the rules of any new location
I visit. This would enable me to obey the rules well just as I obey rules and laws in real life.
If I think that someone else is abusing the SL standards, I would first determine whether it is
unintentional or intentional. If it is unintentional, I will make them understand the standards they
are violating and how to correct the situation. If it is intentional, I will use the report abuse option
in the Second Life community to report them to the responsible authority.
The community standards have both strengths and weaknesses. The standards are strong,
and they make it easy to manage the community. The standards are similar to the laws in the real
world; hence, residents find it easy to obey. The standards also provide a good living standard for
all the residents. The weaknesses of the rules include weak enforcement and too much

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dependence on resident reporting. The standards do not outline the punitive measures for the
residents that go against these standards. This makes it easy for some residents to violet them.
Also, there are no monitoring mechanisms that can identify residents that abuse second life
standards. The enforcement of the standards entirely relies on the reporting of residents that
identify others violating the standards. If the residents choose not to be bothered about the
activities of others unless they are directly affected, then these standards won't be enforceable.
Protecting Intellectual Property
Intellectual property refers to innovation or any work of creativity that is original or unique, and
an individual or organization can honestly claim to own, (Baldwin and Henkel, 2015). Such
innovations and creativity which may include a design or manuscript can be legally owned by an
individual or an organization through the application for a patent, design, and trademark as well
as plant variety right. Protecting intellectual property is a business concern that is cutting across
all sectors of business, including manufacturing, processing, technology, film production, and IT,
(Chou, Wang, and Tang, 2015). Protection of intellectual property has been used by the
organization to create and maintain a competitive advantage over their competitors. An
organization that invents a new creative or unique technology can apply for a patent so that
competitors cannot duplicate the technology thus giving the owner of the technology a chance to
enjoy the economic benefits of their innovation, (Grabher, and Ibert, 2017). Every Multi-User
Virtual Environment or community is unique and requires specification for the activities taking
place; thus, they should be protected.
The permission system plays a crucial role in protecting intellectual property. For
instance, in Second Life, the community member who creates an object becomes the owner of
that object. They gain the right to manage and control the object. The owner then can use

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permission to what can be done with the object. They can put a setup that will allow residents to
copy the object, but they won't be able to transfer it. Intellectual protection is advantageous since
it stops people from coping with your work or modify it.
CopyBot can export items without permission in SL, and Linden cannot press any charges. The
CopyBot can be used to steal the stuff of other residents such as sculpts and prims, and this is a
way of taking intellectual property. There are several malicious application in the real world to
take the intellectual property of other organizations, and this should be discouraged. The
organization put a lot of investments to come up with innovation, and thus, they should be
allowed to enjoy their profits and see the return on investment. The best way to stop applications
such as CopyBot that bypass the permission systems is to report the people to the relevant
authorities for the appropriate action to be taken.
The content creators can protect their work in the virtual community in various ways,
such as having permissions and licensing. Licensing allows safeguarding the intellectual property
since those stealing or modifying it can face charges. Having permissions setup protects the
intellection property since the content creator determines the activities that can be done with it.
Permissions on objects
Permission on the object is a system that controls some activities in the virtual
community. The system enables object owners to allow some people while denying others access
to their objects.There are several levels of permission levels in virtual communities. These levels
include move, transfer, and copy and modify permission settings.

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Permission is very relevant to MUVEs since such communities have so many users that
create content. People may want to steal the work of other community members or modify it,
(Drahos, 2016). Modification permission allows or prevents a user from making changes to an
object. The copy permission if allowed enables users to make copies of the object, but if the copy
permission is disabled, the copying o objects are not possible. The move permission, on the other
hand, enables or stops residents from moving objects of other residents. The transfer permission
may stop or allow objects to be moved from one resident to another in the community.
Permissions have several strengths in MUVEs. They allow the owner to decide who can move,
copy, modify, or transfer their objects. This makes the owners stress free from worrying about
their content being tampered with when they are inactive. The permission safeguards the object
from being modified if they are only given the other authorities
I think authorities could work well in MUVEs, especially for the content creators who
can decide on who can and cannot use their objects. Some people in the virtual environments are
a fraud, and without permission, they can steal and use objects of other users for personal gain.

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