[MUD-Dev] The Root of the Tree (was NEWS: Why Virtual Worlds ...)

[ceo]

David Kennerly wrote:

> I agree that since it's been used it might as well continue to be
> used.  How could I not.  I type on a qwerty keyboard, speak
> English, and do all sorts of conventional things just because
> they're conventional.

I'm with you (all) there, to a certain extent.

However, I find that the term limits peoples brains a lot on what
they consider to be part of what they are talking about. Right or
wrong, it happens.

The second word is, I think, exceptionally limiting. I've seen it
again and again cause people to subconsciously limit their own
thinking or what they're consciously willing to consider, for no
reason (When you come down to it) than that it conflicts with the
umbrella term. I hate this; it gives me a powerful urge to revolt
against the VW term.

The first word, I used to think, wouldn't pose problems (trying to
be optimistic here; all words always cause problems ;)). Pitching
online-game business plans to investors proved me to be utterly
wrong.

It is depressing the number of apparently intelligent people who,
after spending weeks (part-time) researching themselves, and then
reading a 15 page business plan, and looking up the references, and
having 2 or 3 meetings discussing things, come out with comments
like:

  "But this money that people pay [on ebay] for characters isn't
  real, is it? It's virtual, so it's not like people are actually
  paying money for something, like in real life when you buy stuff"

  [fx: bangs head against table repeatedly]

NB: they did know what ebay was. They were confused, because they
were struggling to reconcile the trading of non-real goods for
non-real money on ebay, which they believed was only for trading
using real money. This only happened, it transpired, because of the
term "virtual world", nothing else!

In general, I will put up with a lot of problems with a terminology
just to be conventional, because the benefits (to everyone) are
huge. But the disadvantages of the VW term long ago became
unbearably large for me. Shrug. From my perspective, it seems to
have caused considerable problems even in that one article from
Richard - I've seen a lot of people misinterpret and stumble or even
just fail to finish reading the article until co-erced, simply
because of choice of terms. That's not a minor issue. At least, not
if you (anyone) want people to read what you've written, and/or talk
to you about it.

Adam M
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