Der Weg zu Open Simulator ist wahrhaft lange, steinig und gewunden. Wahrscheinlich haben die Meisten, wenn nicht Alle, die an OpenSim interessiert sind, mit Second Life angefangen und dann davon gehört, und wollten es, aus welchem Grund auch immer, einmal ausprobieren. Dieser Eintrag (oder eher, diese Serie von Einträgen) will meine persönliche Herangehensweise an OpenSim beschreiben und soll daher keinen umfassenden Reiseführer zu allem, was mit OpenSim zu tun hat, darstellen. Meine Ansicht ist einzigartig, und kann für Sie funktionieren, oder auch nicht, was mit Ihren eigenen Bedürfnissen, technischen Fähigkeiten und persönlichem Engagement zusammenhängt.

Das erste, was man verstehen muss, bevor man in die technische Seite von OpenSim einsteigt, ist die Geisteshaltung. Es gibt eine Menge Verwirrung zu Worten und Konzepten, daher will ich hier zunächst etwas abschweifen: Erstens, OpenSim ist kein “Ort”. Es ist noch nicht mal ein “Dienst”, wie Linden Labs Second Life gerne bezeichnet. Es ist vielmehr ein Software-Projekt welches zum Ziel hat, eine quelloffene Serversoftware zu erstellen, mit der man eine secondlife-ähnliche Umgebung laufen lassen kann.Bedenken Sie daher, dass Sie über eine Menge Orte reden, wenn Sie davon sprechen, “nach OpenSim” zu “gehen”.¹ OpenSim geht allerdings über das, was Second Life bietet oder bieten kann hinaus und nimmt mehrere neue Technologien, die Second-Life-Nutzern unbekannt sind, mit auf: Hypergrid, Megaregionen, Realxtend, Lightshare, Meshmerizer, usw. Die Liste ist lang. Die Grundregel ist: Alles kann, nichts muss. Um Verwirrung und Frustration zu vermeiden, lassen Sie uns allerdings vorab einige Worte klären:

Open Simulator, wie bereits bemerkt, ist der name des Software-Projekts, wie auch der Software selbst, die nötig ist, um eine SL-Umgebung auf dem eigenen Gerät laufen zu lassen. Das Projekt ist quelloffen und jeder kann mitarbeiten.

Ein Avatar ist ein virtueller Repräsentant eines Computers, der in eine OpenSimulator Installation eingeloggt ist. Avatare müssen nicht zwingend von einem menschlichen Nutzer bedient werden. Um “echte” von computergesteuerten Avataren zu unterscheiden, nennt man die Letzteren üblicherweise Bots. Ein Nutzer kann mehrere Avatare haben, da man normalerweise so viele Konten auf einer OpenSim-Installation haben kann, wie man will.

Viewer sind die Software, die notwendig ist, um in eine OpenSim-Installation einzuloggen und sie mit Hilfe des Avatars zu erleben. Es gibt eine große Anzahl verschiedener Viewer, die öffentlich erhältlich sind, und sie sind normalerweise quelloffen und kostenlos. Ich persönlich nutze den Imprudence-Viewer für fast alle Fälle.

In-world bedeutet alles, was ‘innerhalb’ einer OpenSim-Installation geschieht, wenn man eingeloggt ist und sie durch den Viewer erlebt.

Ein Simulator, oder kurz Sim, ist eine OpenSim-Installation, die auf einem Gerät läuft. OpenSimulator kann in verschiedenen Einstellungen laufen, daher unterscheiden sich Sims stark. Zum Beispiel ist ein Standard-Diva-Distro-Standalone mit 4 Regionen eine Sim, ebenso ein Grid wie der 3rd Rock Grid, auf dem hunderte Regionen laufen und tausende Benutzer verwaltet werden. Eine Sim ist nicht dasselbe wie eine Region, oder ein Grid!

Ein Grid ist eine OpenSim-Installation, die Assets getrennt von Regionen verwaltet. OpenSim in der Grid-Einstellung laufen zu lassen ermöglicht es anderen, ihre Regionen mit dem Grid zu verbinden.

Eine Standalone ist eine OpenSim-Installation, die Assets und Regionen gemeinsam verwaltet. Standalones sind einfacher zu handhaben als Grids, und reichen normalerweise für private Zwecke aus.

Eine Region ist ein quadratisches Stück virtuellen Landes, welches ein Gebiet von 256 x 256 Metern bedeckt. Eine Sim kann (und wird normalerweise auch) mehrere Regionen beinhalten. Megaregionen sind eine Erweiterung der Standardregion. Sie werden aus Standardregionen “zusammengesetzt” und ihre Größe ist daher immer eine Mehrzahl von 256 x 256 Metern. Der Vorteil von Megaregionen gegenüber normalen Regionen ist der, dass man nicht den üblichen Lag erfährt, wenn man von einer Region in die nächste wechselt. Es gibt auch einige Nachteile, da die Megaregion-Technologie noch entwickelt wird.

Eine Parzelle ist ein Bruchteil einer Region (erstellt mit dem Land-Editor Werkzeug im Viewer). Parzellen können individuelle Einstellungen innerhalb einer Region in Bezug auf Medien, Zugang, Sicherheit usw. haben.

Assets sind virtuelle Dinge. Eigentlich sind sie die Summe der virtuellen Dinge auf einem bestimmten Simulator. Assets können Texturen, Prims, Objekte, Animationen, Sounds, Gesten, Kleidung, und eigentlich alles sein, was Nutzer in ihrem Inventar haben können.

Prims sind die Bausteine aus denen alles in der Welt errichtet ist. Sie können (mit der Ausnahme von Sculpties) mit den Werkzeugen im Viewer in-world erstellt und bearbeitet werden.

Sculpted Prims, oder kurz Sculpties, sind eine spezielle Art von Prim welche eine Grafikdatei (Sculptmap genannt) als Referenz dafür verwendet, wie es aussehen soll. Der Gedanke dahinter ist der, dass jeder Pixel in einer Grafikdateil mindestens drei Informationen beinhalten kann, welche die Werte für den roten, grünen und blauen Kanal darstellen, die wiederum in der Mischung die gewünschte Farbe ergeben. Diese Werte, wenn man sie einzeln nimmt, werden als die Vektoren auf der X, Y und Z Achse des Sculptie interpretiert. Um Sculpties zu erstellen benötigt man eine 3D-Modellsoftware. (Ich benutze dafür Blender.) Sie werden nach OpenSim importiert, indem man die Sculptmap hochläd und sie auf ein Prim anwendet.

Ein Teleport ist ein Sprung von einen Ort in einer Sim zu einem anderen.

Hypergrid ist eine Technologie, die es Nutzern ermöglicht, zwischen verschiedenen Sims zu teleportieren, egal ob Standalones oder Grids. Ein Hypergrid-Teleport erfordert nicht, dass der Nutzer auf der Zielsim ein Konto hat, und ermöglicht ihnen, die eigenen Assets mitzunehmen.

1. In etwa so, wie Deutsche sagen, sie “gehen nach Amerika”, wenn sie meinen, dass sie Strandurlaub in Florida machen.

The road to Open Simulator is a rocky, long and winded one, verily. Probably most, if not all people interested in OpenSim have started with Second Life and then heard about it and, for whatever reason, wanted to give it a try. This post (or rather, series of posts) wants to describe my personal approach to OpenSim and therefor aims not to be a comprehensive guide to anything OpenSim-related. My approach is unique, and might or might not work for you, depending on your own needs, technical ability and personal engagement.

The first thing you need to understand, before getting into anything technical about OpenSim, is the mindset. There’s a lot of confusion on words and concepts, so I’ll go off on a tangent here a little:

First, OpenSim is not a ‘place’. It is not even a ‘service’, as Linden Labs likes to call Second Life. Rather, it is a software project, which aims at producing an open sourced server software for running a second-life alike environment. Therefor, keep in mind that you’re talking about a lot of places, when you’re talking about “going to Opensim”.¹ However, OpenSim also goes beyond what Second Life does or can provide and incorporates several new technologies that are unknown to Second Life users: Hypergrid, megaregions, Realxtend, Lightshare, Meshmerizer, etc. The list goes on. The basic rule is: Everything can, nothing must. To avoid confusion and frustration, though, let’s clear up a few words before we start:

Open Simulator, as already mentioned, is the name of the software project, as well as the software itself, that’s neccessary to run an SL-environment on your own machine. The project is open sourced and anyone can contribute.

An Avatar is a virtual representation of a computer being logged into an OpenSimulator installation. Avatars do not neccessarily need to be operated by a human user. To distinguish “real” avatars from computer operated ones, the latter are usually called Bots. A user can have several avatars, as they can usually create as many accounts as they want on an OpenSim installation.

Viewers are the software neccessary to log into an OpenSim installation and experience it with your avatar. There is a great number of viewers publicly available, and they are usually open sourced and free. Personally, I am using the Imprudence viewer for almost all tasks.

In-world means anything happening ‘inside’ an OpenSim installation when logged in, experienced through a viewer.

A Simulator, or sim for short, is one instance of Open Simulator running on a machine. Open Simulator can be configured to run in different modes, thus the sims vary greatly. For example: A standard diva distro standalone with 4 regions is a sim, as well as a grid such as 3rd Rock Grid, running hundreds of regions and hosting thousands of users. A sim is not the same as a region, or a grid!

A grid is an OpenSim installation that handles assets separate from regions. Running OpenSim in grid mode enables others to connect their regions to someone elses grid.

A standalone is an OpenSim installation that handles assets and regions simultaneously. Standalones are easier to maintain than grids, and are usually sufficient for a personal installation of OpenSim.

A region is one square of virtual land, covering an area of 256×256 meters. A sim can (and usually does) run several regions. Megaregions are an expansion on the standard region. They are ‘constructed’ out of standard regions, their size therefor is always a magnitude of 256×256 meters. The advantage of megaregions over regular regions is, you don’t experience the usual lag when crossing from one region to another. There are some drawbacks, as megaregions technology is still in development.

A parcel is a fraction of a region (created with the land edit tool). Parcels can have individual settings within a region regarding media, access, security and such.

Assets are virtual things. Actually, they are the sum of virtual things on a given simulator. Assets can be textures, prims, objects, animations, sounds, gestures, wearables, and basically anything users can hold in their inventories.

Prims are the building bricks anything inside the world is constructed of. They can be created and edited in-world with the tools built into the viewer (with the exception of sculpties).

Sculpted prims, or sculpties for short, are a special kind of prim that uses a graphic file (called the sculpt map) as reference to how it is supposed to look. The thought behind this is that every pixel in a graphics file does store at least three informations, which are the numbers for the red, green and blue channel, which mix to the desired colour. These numbers, taken individually, are interpreted as the vectors on the X, Y and Z axis of the sculptie. Creating sculpties requires the use of a 3D-modelling software. (I’m using blender for them.) They are imported into OpenSim by uploading the sculpt map and applying it to a prim.

A teleport is a jump from one place within a sim to another.

Hypergrid is a technology that enables users to teleport between separate sims, be they standalones or grids. A hypergrid teleport requires the user not to have an account on the destination sim they’re hypergridding to, and enables them to take their assets with them.

1. Much like americans talk about “going to Europe” when they mean they’re going on vacation to Cornwall.

There has been a heated debate recently about the most popular of all Second Life Third Party Viewers, especially regarding the integrity of its development team. While it is quite hard to distinguish rumour from fact, what happened is, to my very own conviction, this:

Early this year, Gemini Cybernetics released their ‘Client Detection System‘ (CDS). The system detects the use of certain ‘blacklisted’ viewers with griefing and copybot abilities. Once detected, the person who used the viewer will be stored in an external database and users of the CDS can ban all those listed in said database from accessing their land. It is being sold mainly as a tool for shop owners to fight copybotting (the copying of inworld assets). Representative and main merchant of Gemini Cybernetics is Skills Hak, who is also a developer of the Emerald Viewer (Screenshot). While the Emerald team states no involvement with the developing of the CDS, it is featured on Arabella Steadham’s developer blog and recommended by LordGregGreg Back (link broken, no cache available), another Emerald developer.

On March 4th 2010, Fractured Crystal went public (cache: screenshot 1, screenshot 2) with Onyx (access currently password protected) (link broken, no cache available, screenshot here), a project several Emerald developers (among them Skills Hak, Fractured Crystal and Lonely Bluebird) are involved in, and which deals with identifying and testing the exploits of ‘blacklisted’ copybot / griefing viewers. 2 months later, on May 7th 2010, Fractured Crystal admitted the Onyx project made use of bots (cache: screenshot), that scanned avatars all throughout Second Life for ‘stolen attachments’ (i.e. attachments, whose specifications have been registered by the creator, but show a different creator name on the wearer).

Finally, on May 11th 2010, the Alphaville Herald reported that a ‘secret’ database had been leaked from Modular Systems (who is hosting the Emerald project, along with Onyx), and soon thereafter published the names of all avatars the database contained. According to Lonely Bluebird (a.k.a. Phox Modularsystems) and Fractured Crystal, the database was used for testing purposes in order to track down griefers that attacked their Second Life regions, and contained the names of avatars who registered through the API on modularsystems.sl or visited their regions. Both the CDS database, as well as the leaked database, link Second Life accounts to the according IP adress and possible geolocation data, and store this information. Also, in the comments of the Alphaville Herald article, the source code and revision notes of an ‘Onyx’ client have been leaked. Subsequently, Phox admitted the Onyx team had been working on vLife (a copybot / griefing viewer originally made by Fractured Crystal) (screenshot 1, screenshot 2, just in case) besides Emerald, which later became the Onyx viewer.

While it is true that almost everything someone visits on the internet will record and store the IP adress, these databases are linking IPs with other information they gathered, apparently in order do make single accounts traceable, and they are doing so without informing anyone about it, and thus especially without the consent of the person whose data is being stored. It is a safe bet to say this is a violation of data protection laws in many countries. In addition to that, the fact that a large number of Second Life residents is randomly being scanned without any provocation puts the whole population under a general suspicion of doing something wrong and needing to be watched. There is also a certain strange twist to the fact that people, who have been creating copybot viewers and thus enabled copybotting, are now working on systems, which, for a regular fee, are supposed to protect people from the very same viewers their protectors made. In addition to that, they are still working on a viewer with copybot abilities.

So far, no official statement from both Linden Labs, or Modular Systems, about the implications of these events, and the future of Emerald and Onyx has been made.

[EDIT 13th June 2010: Obviously at least Phox ModularSystems is involved with the Gemini CDS as well, as I witnessed him today having access to the CDS database.]

[EDIT 28th July 2010: ModularSystems changed their website a while ago, so most of the links in the above article aren't working. All the developer blogs are gone, as well as all the blogposts regarding these events. I found a few of them in google cache and provide them as screenshots here.]

Yesterday, Winch Gate Property Limited released their MMORPG Ryzom as open source, and they really mean it. In contrast to SL, all the code is released under AGPL 3.0, whereas the textures and 3d models are released under CC-BY-SA 3.0, making this, according to the Free Software Foundation, “probably the single-biggest contribution to free software games yet”. Especially the textures might be of interest for SL creators, as they can be easily used in SL builds and / or with a bit of tweaking in clothes and skins.

Also, today, the good people at Imprudence released the 3rd beta of Imprudence 1.3.0, their best release yet, introducing viewer side AO, advanced build options, IM autoresponse and, as one of the very few viewers, optimized Opensim support, allowing for some Opensim features (100 groups and megaprims, to name a few), which, in addition to the already existing features makes this the best viewer for both worlds.

But Emerald ruined my day. To be fair, it’s not the whole Emerald team, but the ‘Onyx’ Project which several of their developers are working on and which is housed under a common ‘roof’ (the Emerald website) and thus I can’t see any clear distinction between the two. Obviously, they (the Onyx people) make use of bots, scanning all avatars for ‘stolen’ content by inspecting avatar attachments, checking them on a centralized database and, when having found a ‘stolen’ attachment – i.e. an attachment that matches one created by someone else, but listed with the owner as the creator – will send a report to the original creator.

No, I don’t want that. I don’t want to be randomly scanned for ‘stolen’ content. Not only, because copyright laws vary from country to country, not only because ‘stolen’ doesn’t have to be stolen, not only because this puts every single user under the suspicion of being a potential ‘thief’, not only because it is also not clear under whose authority these bots do these scans in the first place (I certainly don’t log into SL to get scanned), but also because the road here is all too clear.

Take two developers of copybot/griefer clients – Fractured Crystal (alias Jcool410 Wildcat), who developed vLife, and Phox ModularSystems (a.k.a. Lonely Bluebird, alias PattehPh0x) developer of PhoxSL, both are listed in the viewer reference on the Onyx page itself. Combine them with Skills Hak (alias Skills Hax), who develops the Gemini Cybernetics CDS system, which allegedly can detect copybot users and automatically ban them, making this a hot asset for paranoid virtual store owners to have. Now add to this that all of the three people have been banned on previous accounts from SL, due to copyright infringement, and you’ve got the most bigoted and untrustworthy group of third party developers in SL. And these people run a surveillance program on everyone? Why?

Take Griefers. Griefing is at best a sub-genre of Trolling, or simply the same phenomenon on a different platform. I always thought anyone with more than 2 months of internet experience would be familiar with it (trolling, I mean) and would, after another 2 months, have found out about the only viable way to deal with it. Therefor, I was astonished to learn that people, who have been around for a while, in fact never heard the term ‘Troll’ at all, and that griefers could cause an uproar with very simple and childish means, that would actually be a minor annoyance, if dealt with correctly.

The incident was to hang around in the OSGrid IRC channel when one day reports came in of a ‘griefing’ at LBSA plaza, which actually was ‘making’ all agents present ‘point’ at a specific target and a following crash of the sim.¹ Regardless if it was a griefer attack or not, I was surprised how people freaked out about it. If everyone would’ve remained calm, restarting LBSA and relogging would have been the only disruption (which happens without griefing attacks regularly anyway) and 5 minutes later nobody would remember it anymore. But with the outcry people started, it turned into an hour-long discussion, and gave the griefer (if it was a griefer attack at all) exactly what they wanted in the first place: Attention.

At this point, I would’ve liked to point to a wonderful interview between an OSGrid user and her uncle, who is a psychiatrist, about the topic of griefing. The whole interview can be found at the OSGrid forum and, as it is published under a CC 3.0 attribution license, is reprinted below. In short, it states that griefers are, just like any other troll, craving attention, and the best solution for an average user was to ignore them (big surprise there). For a service provider, however, it is quite important to take action against trolls, as Paul Graham pointed out in one of his brilliant essays. Not only, because griefers can do damage through DoS attacks, but also because they can degrade the general usefulness and niveau of your service by driving away the intelligent people.

This is no small feat in SL, however, as  griefing is a passing phenomenon that leaves little trace – which is both a blessing and a curse, as it makes it easier to ignore, and also harder to identify. It would require to have moderators and staff online at all times and in all places (something LL will never be able to cover), or give parcel/estate owners the powers to deal with all these issues themselves without having to submit tickets and abuse reports.

However, fast forward to driving away the intelligent people. After the openspace fiasko, after closing down the mentor program, after taking the fun out of making freebies for Xstreet, LL achieved yet another great kick in the balls of the community by their recent third party viewer policy. Even after having been revised, as the first version had significant flaws, it still caused several viewer developers to abandon their projects or drop support of the second life platform.

Enter reggae mice. I have been (and still am) performing on the Burning Life Spring Fling festival, which features two stages, one for live performers (such as myself) and one for DJs. Now, I read too many profiles, and today I found this one profile of a DJ who states DJs are ‘artists’ and that only those who are able to match beats of tracks and don’t talk over them are real DJs, whereas the others are <quote>’Train Wrecks’<unquote>. Now this takes me straight to the gist of what I really really dislike about the general population of Second Life.

There are too many people with attitudes there, who do not only show them in their general demeanour, but also carry them around on a sign attached to their foreheads by rambling on and on about it in their profiles. I am sorry people do have miserable lives, and I’m sorry that some people are upset about something, and yes, it’s nobody’s fault but my own if I read these profiles in the first place, but still… is it neccessary to appear termagant at all times by writing irate rants in your public profile? Maybe I’m peculiar, but the first impression I get from that is that the person in question will give me trouble. It doesn’t really help if most people finish with a disclaimer, stating they are ‘not really as hard to get along with as it sounds’ when they didn’t show anything but their exceptional talent for spite.

If I’d carry on about other performers as the particular DJ was carrying on about their fellows, then everyone who doesn’t follow my own shining example of acoustic guitar playing and instead resorts to be, say, a reggae-playing furry mouse is no ‘real’ performer? Not only Wikipedia would disagree. And yes, I do consider myself an occasional DJ, just because I can play a handpicked assortment of tunes with voiceover announcements. But then, I do not aim to make any kind of artform out of this, I’m just having fun.

Repost of “Are griefers mentally ill? What a Psychiatrist has to say!”

Axaes: First of all thank you so much Maximilian for taking your limited time and help me out with my silly little project.

Maximilian: Well, this is not at all silly, antisocial behavior has some serious issues underneath, besides, everyone is scared of psychiatrists so we don’t get to be interviewed that frequently (smiles). I also enjoy that I’m not the only one in our clan who has an interest in human behavior, apparently.

Axaes: When I, as a preparation for this interview explained to you how Virtual Worlds function and so on, you referred to these kids as “attention gamers”. What do you mean by that?

Maximilian: It’s not necessary to refer to them as kids. While many of them are probably around 15, the onset of puberty, others are likely above 18 and hence have the legal status of adults in many countries. Attention gaming because everything they do is aimed to attract attention to themselves, negative attention.

Axaes: Before we talk about negative attention, I want to know what the importance of attention is in general.

Maximilian: As social animals humans rely on paying attention to be able to communicate and to function as a group. Without attention it wouldn’t make any sense for you to have this interview with me, because we’d be like trees, not having evolved to be able to communicate. But the willful act of attracting attention for oneself is part of sexuality in a broader sense and spreading your genes.

Axaes: Excuse me?

Maximilian: Yes, by “accumulating” more attention than others of same group normally receives in a competitive environment, the attention requester tries to enhance his own social status above the other and therefore increases his chances to mate. Advertising yourself is an essential part of mating behavior, everyone does it either consciously or instinctively. It’s not only men traditionally who work hard to achieve both respect and money, women too add things to the basic frame so to say in order to enhance what they’ve got. Make up is the Porsche of women for example. Of course these days things shift, women strive to own Porsche, or solar panels as well, and men are an important factor in the cosmetic industry, but at the core of things the behavior stays the same. More attention towards you increases your status. We live in an attention economy. With the complexification of society, this is not only true for spreading your own genes, status itself has become a fetish, people want to be powerful and influential just by spreading their ideas and concepts. It’s part of culture. Culture can be referred to as the sex of concepts.

Axaes: Wow. I should interview you more often (grinning). So we are all little attention whores in a way and this is completely normal.

Maximilian: I wouldn’t have used the word whore, as some people may be offended being associated with prostitution, rightfully or wrongfully offended is not part of this interview, but yes. It is perfectly normal.

Axaes: What about negative attention though? People who attract negative attention to themselves?

Maximilian: That’s where the problems begin. Harassment is a violent form of trying to do the same thing that normal people do, which is to increase ones status above the other, but not by the factor appreciation, but the factor fear. Therefore it can never be an elegant or skillful way to adding value to yourself. Putting others down, annoying them or even harming others emotionally or physically is the most primitive attempt to rise above them, no matter what level of technical skill is used to achieve this. It finds only legit expression in sports, boxing for example or wherever there are two willing parties. If one one party isn’t willing, it’s perverse.

Axaes: Why would someone resort seeking to attract negative attention by being a Bully?

Maximilian: Well sometimes, negative attention is only a means to something else. If an affected person, I say affected because Bullies are themselves their own first victim, a victim of their mindset because that mindset seals them off from Real Life of course, appreciation, kindness, warmth and love. It’s funny griefers would accuse users of Virtual Worlds of wasting their Real Life when that mindset is doing exactly that. If such an affected person has a low self-esteem or depression, which is typical for antisocial behavior, he suffers from a chronic stress level. Now, normally, criticizing someone is a positive way to harass someone, so to say, and is directly linked to the reward center of the brain. We’ve evolved to benefit from critique as a group, so criticizing others gives us a little tickle of feeling good. When we criticize someone, we usually think that we’ve done something good because the reward center automatically links this with the vague feeling of good, which releases happy hormones into the blood. I’m oversimplifying here, in keeping with your audience. But if someone generally feels bad, has low self-esteem or is suffering from depression, criticizing others can be perverted into something which the Bully must do to feel better.

Axaes: Griefing is an addiction?

Maximilian: Most certainly, yes. It has all the mechanisms, just that it is directed towards others and not towards oneself. Using drugs like alcohol or heroin is another method “to feel better”, at least temporally, but anything really which is done to reduce the chronic stress level can become a full blown addiction. The reward center is in a very old part of our brain, and few are willing to admit that the old part of the brain reigns supreme _through_ many areas of consciousness. The affected must always do new attacks, because the release and joy from one attack doesn’t last very long of course, the pressure is building up after a while again, and just like a heroin addict a griefer will always look for the next shot. Not only that, the shots have to be given in higher doses and faster frequency. It’s also linked to testosterone, especially males often create or externalize stress as a mechanism to control and dominate a group. And if we have no group to control and dominate, we look for one. It’s pretty much stone age stuff we’re dealing with here, possibly even more primitive.

Axaes: Very interesting. But why would a griefer choose the route of negative attention in the first place? Some of them express artistic skills and it often takes some detailed technical understanding to launch attacks in technical environments.

Maximilian: Most likely a lack of warmth and positive attention as younger children. Children must have positive attention, not too much and not too little, if they don’t get it, that greatly damages them and they do not know positive attention exists, yet they feel they must have some form of attention. Often the only attention they’ve learned about was negative attention, or no attention and this then is repeated in a looping pattern of behavior. To be emotionally neglected as a child is very traumatizing for the child, it can fix behavior in very negative means for a very long time, sometimes for life. But initially the child is very neutral, it tries out different things and of course, crying will most often get an adult to be attentive. Griefing can be seen as a form of crying for attention quite literally, it’s a direct extension of a very basic human survival strategy. As with many pathologies, something got broken in the young years of the person.

Axaes: And when you say the dose has to be increased, can griefers become dangerous?

Maximilian: Posting pictures as extreme as mutilations is a very shrill warning sign that someone is about to derail completely. The images you’ve showed me are so drastic of nature that I would be very concerned if I was living with someone who published this. It has strongly sadistic elements of reasoning, and really anything can be expected from such a person.

Axaes: Stalking, serial killing?

Maximilian: One has to be careful with such assessments, however, serial killing is just on the wide other end of griefing which starts with mild harassment on the light side. It’s wise though for society to keep an eye on a griefer.

Axaes: So would someone who posts pictures of mutilations need therapy? I’ve showed pictures of mutilated animals in demonstrations for animal rights…

Maximilian: Motivation and context matters. Someone who protests against such mutilations showing such images to the people on the street, who are responsible for them follows a healthy motive. Someone who just harasses people to attract negative attention for himself in order to feed an emotional addiction, and all addictions are emotional, is not a very healthy motive. But I would say that actually everyone who griefs needs therapy, not only the most extreme griefers. These “children” need to learn that there are other ways of crying then crying, a knowledge they are lacking.

Axaes: I want to talk to you about the black theme the Patriotic Nigras use, what is behind this, given that very few of them are likely actually African Americans.

Maximilian: Well, first of all it’s a very interesting phenomenon, from my perspective as a psychiatrist, that griefers would form groups and attempt to dress the group with a cultural decoration. It’s a consequence of the internet I think, although protest subcultures are a very normal aspect of growing up and forming your identity.

Griefers know of course that they are behaving ethically wrong, so by appropriating and colonizing the Black fight for civil liberties in the U.S., they want to place themselves into a victim position of oppression and use this as a moral justification for griefing. Ironically this is a projection, as they are actually oppressed, the neglect or abuse they experienced as children or are still experiencing is synonymous with the neglect and and abuse African Americans have and are experiencing with the general population in hostile environments. But imagine how absurd it was if Black Americans tried to justify harassment by the experience of oppression. Civil disobedience is something other from harassing others. That is why Rosa Parks sat in the front of the bus, she didn’t start putting broken glass on the seats for Whites and found that funny. Or Rap and HipHop evolved as a cultural protest answer to glorify the lifestyle of young Black men mainly. This enriched human culture, griefing soils human culture.

Axaes: Patriotic Nigras accuse Furries of being fetishists and call them furfags, is that another irony then considering they themselves are putting on a Black dress?

Maximilian: Very well observed! (smiles) Yes, this is a classic projection. The Patriotic Nigras are of course using the Black outfit so to say for their self-stimulation of griefing, this is the essence of paraphilia. In fact, the Patriotic Nigras are much more so actual fetishists than the Furries, because the Furries are engaging in healthy experiments with role play, nothing can be said against that.

Axaes: What about the furry-hatred itself. I’ve made satirical remarks on it in a comic, some people believed I was furry-bashing but then there is no guarantee that people get satire. What is behind people who actually hate Furries?

Maximilian: This is a little awkward for me to address because I’m not involved in Virtual Worlds, I always have to think around the corner so to say. Furries for me initially are images on a computer screen, like the one of an adorable mouse avatar you sent me. However, conceptually, people with low self-esteem and social status often seek out someone who is different from their own group to put them down to enhance their own selves. This is just griefing all over again. Discrimination is griefing, it’s no surprise that a group of griefers would identify a group and employ racist methods of exclusion and outcasting. This is fairly random. If there were no Furries in virtual worlds, then female characters would be derided or any other avatar group. Since people who do harass others have no knowledge of how to positively enhance their view of themselves, they resort to putting others below themselves. They are not building a box to stand on to be taller, they are digging holes for others so they can self-delude that they are higher. The jury is still out whether aggressive flashing of things society deems positive, like wealth is also a form of griefing if the audience of that message is not wealthy, and we’re all audiences these days. But that is another issue.

Axaes: So given all you said, it would not be an insult to call a Patriotic Nigra or any other griefer an obsessive, delusional, fetishistic sadist who is acting out some childhood traumata?

Maximilian: No, not really. The question would be why frame it like that? It would be much more efficient to make sure the griefers read this interview for example, therefore being confronted with a little more reasoning around such symbolistic definitions. They clearly have problems, some of them more so than others, but they deserve a golden shot of truth about their own psychological dynamics, so they can consciously decide what to do about it. Some of them would instantly feel ashamed for recognizing themselves in this text, of course, such “instant healings” are rare, most likely a griefer reading this interview would react with denial or even accusing you of dreaming up this interview, questioning my existence.

Axaes: When the time comes, will you step forward and defend me against such discrediting attempts?

Maximilian: No, because it really is irrelevant, you can safely ignore all attempts to question you and your credibility, giving your history of teasing people both in our family and on the internet you don’t have much credibility to begin with. I’m just kidding. Your person is not the important factor, what’s more important is what is being said and to reach out to both the griefers and their victims. Of course griefers will respond with emotional shock being taken seriously for the first time perhaps, and then to have their motives exposed in such a manner. But, everything we learn changes our neurology forever the moment we learn it. No denial is so strong that the seed of doubt about what you’re doing can be repressed indefinitely. It’s there and it will grow. And for some faster then for others, the fun part of griefing will start fading away because the impulses behind it have been exposed as primitive reflexes. Once the glory is dead, it fails to do its actual job: interrupting the inner misery which leads to griefing.

Axaes: Is there an estimate on the outlook for the general griefer? Who are they anyway.

Maximilian: From what I know I think it’s save to speculate that the average griefer is between 15 and 25 years old, male, white, not very popular if not lonely, of low income household, and no way or knowledge to express the talents that are there, if any. A griefer will lead a very average, unassuming life, withdrawn, will have difficulty establishing healthy relationships both professionally and personally. Some will get a grip, some will get worse, but many will basically drown in their isolation, fatally thinking griefing is doing something, when really it’s just self-sustaining, addictive loop which sucks off energy that could be invested much better.

Axaes: Yes, uncle, us non-academic folks just call that a loser. Until they, well, grow up or get a grip, what should be done?

Maximilian: The internet is not a legal vacuum, it’s not OK to abuse your freedom by abusing others, so in some cases it will be necessary to inform the authorities, collect evidence, some griefers will use the gathered knowledge of concealing their identity to wander off into criminal activities, become phishers and spammers, so this an environment where preventative measures can be taken, even eventually infiltrate their groups by police or computer experts working for police. For operators of Virtual Worlds this is all just very good practice in fine tuning their security skills, the griefers are helping them to increase these skills with each attack. Schools charge a lot of money do teach you that. Users of so called “grids” should be enabled to have an easy back up ability as a standard procedure if they don’t have administrative access to the servers. Otherwise ignore the griefers like a rainy day. You can use a rainy day by either staring outside and hating the weather, or you can grab a nice book and enjoy yourself. If you walk away from a griefer _you_ score, and in terms of vandalism you employ the technical tools you have to prevent it. Without attention, a griefer will shrivel and die, you should only give them attention if you find it amusing to have them around, making them your Clowns.

Axaes: Who wants to have Clowns this boring?

Maximilian: Well griefers don’t know they are boring, they think of themselves as witty stars, it’s the narcissistic rush which comes with the act, that moment of greatness and dominance that is so essential, especially to the young male. Out of kindness, it would be OK to not let them know that they are, as you say boring Clowns.

Axaes: Well, sometimes truth is more important than kindness. My plan was to transfer this interview into writing as it was spoken, and I want to thank you very much for taking the time to explain to us, some of the motives and personalities behind griefing.

Maximilian: Nothing to thank me for, it was very interesting for me as well, I now know what Furries are. (laughs)

Axaes: Just out of curiosity, how much would it have cost to have you evaluate the issue as an expert?

Maximilian: Roughly 2000 to 3500 Euro, depending who contracts (smiles).

Axaes: Nice.

Maximilian: Well, I heard you know some Linux?

Axaes: ohoh
–
This text has following copyleft: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/ and was originally posted by OSGrid user Axaes Xandal on http://www.osgrid.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=183&start=0

1. While this exploit is familiar from SL as it’s one of the griefing tools provided by the Neillife Viewer, it is uncertain if it really was a griefing attack or simply a malfunction of server software.

As I wrote earlier, There.com will close on March 9th. I also wrote that many of their users might probably go to Second Life afterwards, as their approach at virtual reality is similar. But is Second Life really an alternative for There?

I have been at this point several times in the past, only approaching it from the opposite direction, and asked myself for alternatives to Second Life. It is the purpose of this article to compare my view on other virtual worlds than There and Second Life, and perhaps serve as a guidance for refugees from both worlds.

I am limiting my comparison to the ‘Second Life’ model of virtual worlds. This model shares the following traits:

• There is no overall ‘theme’ or ‘goal’ to the virtual world, and it is not a ‘game’, but rather can serve as a platform for such.
• The virtual world does (or can) have an in-world economic model
• The virtual world enables its users to create content themselves

Thus, I did not include many of the most popular MMORPG’s like World of Warcraft, EVE Online, or even Entropia Universe (which is sometimes traded as the hottest alternative to Second Life, but which has been left out here because of the gaming aspect and the fact that there is no way to step out of the ‘theme’).

Another point to note is that most virtual worlds do not display their user statistics, so there is no telling how easily and how many people can be met when signing up to that world, unless you become an active part in it. I did not try all these worlds myself, but merely collect them here as a reference and comparison guideline.

Active Worlds is unique (or near-unique) as it allows access not only through a client software, but also through a browser plugin. Personally, I believe this is overrated, even though there seems to be a consensus that ‘people don’t want separate clients for different aspects of the internet’ and prefer to have everything inside their browsers. This view leaves aside the fact that web browsers aren’t eternal themselves, and are subject to change as the technology changes. (Who knows, maybe Viewers will be the next browsers?)

Other than the browser plugin feature, Active Worlds looks really  ugly from the outside, and the avatars aren’t nowhere near as good as in Second Life (even though they are a far cry from the avatars in There). Also, their community guidelines prohibit “material containing nudity, pornography, or sexual material of a lewd, lecherous or obscene nature and intent”, which is a showstopper to me, as these contents are all part of the human life (and a most enjoyable part actually) and something I enjoy virtually as well. So all in all, it’s not a place I’d like to be.

On the other hand, the chinese online world HiPiHi seems to come closest to Second Life in terms of graphics and content creation. Actually, it is so similar that it’s hard not to think of a Second Life Copycat, even though HiPiHi creator Hui Xu states otherwise that “it is absolutely a misunderstanding of the virtual world if people think HiPiHi is a copycat of SecondLife”. Due to the nature of HiPiHi, most of its users are chinese, so the real issue with it will probably be language barriers. And then, why switch to a virtual world that is just like SL anyway?

IMVU is another virtual world whose user base seems to be quite large (the website talks about ‘millions of users’ and shows around 100.000 users ‘online right now’). Their avatars, again, look worse than Second Life (and childish, in a way). Actually, ALL competitors seem to share this common drawback, even though SL avatars are believed to be ugly already (probably in comparison to MMORPGs which feature expertly created avatars and great graphics, but nowhere near the creative options of virtual worlds).

Kaneva is another world with ugly avatars and terrible graphics, and even the website doesn’t feature much (or ANYTHING at all) about why I would want to join it in the first place. Actually, it is getting tedious of seeing this trait over and over, as virtual worlds all offer the same ‘meet friends, chat, create, have fun’ scheme without offering something unique that would give people reason about why to join THIS world in the first place.

Maybe it’s just me, but the avatars of Onverse look so freakish to me that I actually am afraid to join it. They are probably meant to be comical, but for some reason give me the creeps. Also, this ‘funny’ approach prevents users from creating a really beautiful virtual persona, which is a huge incentive that shouldn’t be overlooked. Other than that, more of the same.

Then, of course, there is Blue Mars, which, from its onset, offers much better graphics, more professional building tools, allegedly better performance and (by now, at least) cheaper prices than Second Life. A massive drawback right now might be the small user base, and the demanding system requirements.

And finally, there’s the Red Light Center, which is an exception in this list as there doesn’t seem to be a way to create content yourself. I just included it here as a curiousity, because it is exclusively aimed at the ‘adult’ side of virtual worlds and gives its residents plenty of opportunities to dance and have intimate encounters. The point here is again: Why settle for ‘just this’ when you can have the same things at the same graphics quality in Second Life as well, and so much more?

While there are some promising alternatives (Blue Mars, HiPiHi), Second Life remains the standard in today’s virtual worlds, and will provide its users with the largest possible creative freedom and customization as well as sporting a gigantic user base. However, SL has its drawbacks, too. As There.com shows, virtual worlds are dependent on commercial success, without which they will cease existing. This is true for all of the above, and thus sets them at the same risk as There, which already backed Adam Frisby’s first prediction for 2010.

To sidestep this risk, there is the very narrow path of taking part in an open sourced project at creating standardized virtual world software, called Open Simulator. Is is a non-commercial project (and thus independent of commercial success) and aims at openness and intercompatibility. Currently, it is fully compatible with the Second Life viewer software, thus enabling anyone who is familiar with Second Life to access one of the many OpenSim Grids and enjoy the same graphics and features as SL itself (plus a few extra, such as megaregions and megaprims).

The biggest of these Grids is OSGrid, which is also the most ‘open’ as it enables anyone to connect their own servers to their grid, and test and play with the software in any way they like, without being restricted by terms of service.  The one thing to keep in mind is, however, that the user base of OSGrid is very very small in comparison to Second Life (around 100 users online at all times in OSGrid, when over 60.000 are online in SL). Thus, OSGrid and OpenSim are certainly not for everyone, but rather a viable alternative for those who feel SL is too restrictive, expensive or not innovative enough to be exciting.

Wow.

Well, for the record, I do not know what the regular second life citizen does most of their online times. But from the focus of viewer 2, it seems that they don’t like anything more than teleporting, given the attention the management of teleports got.

There are some exciting new features, which I have to admit: New clothing layers, and the ability to apply an alpha mask on them. But… are these features groundbreaking enough to warrant a whole new version? Personally, for viewer 2 I had expected nothing less than a completely new rendering engine, the implementation of meshes and the ability to create sculpties inworld. So I’m sligtly underwhelmed.

With viewer 2 falling short of the mark, the bigger news for me was the third party viewer policy. While most of the requirements included in that document were to be foreseen and are somewhat rational, there are two things that stand out to me:

On the up side, there’s the fact that some of the most strange (and suspicious) announced policies didn’t make it to the final document. There is no requirement to “not facilitate the export of an entire Second Life inventory; and preserve the Second Life ‘creator’ name and information that the content was originally created in the Second Life virtual world”, as those features didn’t serve any purpose other than secure corporate superiority (and even in a really blunt way).

On the downside, there’s this really really, I mean really strange paragraph which I just would like to quote here in its entirety:

“[1.h.] Central to Second Life is the principle of shared experience. The services we provide through our viewers, for example, our Land Store, the LindeX exchange, and the Xstreet SL marketplace, are designed to enhance Residents’ shared experience. We may ask you to make changes to your Third-Party Viewer if it disables certain of our services, or if we believe it is inconsistent with the principle of shared experience or otherwise negatively affects the Second Life user experience. If we do, you agree to make the changes we request.”

Is there anyone around who could explain me what they mean with ‘shared experience’ here? Other than that really charming way of explaining what they mean when they use the term ‘ask’ (obviously ‘ask’ = request = force someone to do something), I just can’t get my head around how the ‘principle of shared experience’ (whatever it might be) would be connected to the Land Store, for example. (Again, obviously, ‘sharing’ here isn’t really ‘sharing’, i.e. giving something or a part of something to others for free in order to enjoy it together.) I really can’t say I understand that paragraph, but it certainly reads like ‘if your viewer disables some of the services we use to make money of, we’ll force you to either re-enable them or gtfo‘.

Actually, right now I’m wondering what anyone at Linden Labs did the past year or so.

Why OSGrid?

Apple introduced the iPad yesterday. To be honest, I’m not too impressed with the device. But it shows one thing: The internet is pervasive. It creeps into every corner, into every home, into every part of our lives. Mobile devices are the new black, because they allow us to take the internet anywhere we go on our daily chores. It also shows another thing, that is less obvious, but also true: Our lives move into the internet. Things that were firmly rooted in the physical world, are moving to the digital. Music. Newspapers. Books. Imagine: How many more things could be digitalized? How many more things are actually better when digitalized? How many things can be done more efficiently, economically and ecologically sensible and human-friendly on the internet? Selling? Counselling? Teaching? Creative work? Management? Accounting? Production?

Why OSGrid?

Apple launched a new store along with the iPad, called iBooks. It’ll change the way we buy books just as iTunes changed the way we buy music. There’s no need to go to a music mall anymore. There isn’t even need for CDs. But is it the same? Physical shops have functions that go beyond the simple sale, even though the sale is the final ‘product’. Salespersons are advisors, counsellors, friends and co-fans, they are people that ‘understand’ you in that specific field you’re interested in. They should be. They’re pros. If you go to an electronics store, you might need advice, and you expect the staff to be competent at what they tell you. Shopping on the internet lacks this advice. That’s why there are so many sites dedicated to testing things, explaining things, giving advice. Many more than anyone could possibly comprehend. They’re often contradictive, and confusing to people not very well adept at the subject. Advice is based on trust. You trust the shop assistant because he’s an employee at the shop. It’s his job to be an expert. How do you know whom to trust on the internet?

Why OSGrid?

Second Life is about social interaction. That’s its base concept, which makes it so incredibly popular. Leave the content, but take away all modes of interaction with other avatars, it will become empty within the day. It didn’t do something other programs didn’t allow their users to do before. It just allowed them to share it. To do it together. That’s the single key to its success. What are people doing on Second Life? Just what the name implies: Live. Make a home. Go out. Talk. Shop. Explore. Play. Listen to music. Have a life. The same concepts that apply to their first lives, apply to their second ones as well. If anything, Second Life is cheaper, easier, and more free than first life. It is easy to get beautiful things for your avatar. It is cheap to access all the content. And it is so free to allow you to create things just as you imagine them.

Why OSGrid?

Combine. It is cheaper, easier, more free to live in the digital. The internet is pervasive. You could do a lot of things over it. Where does this lead to? Imagine walking into a virtual bookstore. It is staffed with professional book sellers. They are experts, they provide advice, you can chat with them about your favourite authors. And you can buy books. Imagine going to a virtual representation of your town hall. You can fill out forms there, get advice from the employees about them, have virtual appointments. Dream harder. Imagine the books will be delivered to your home. Imagine the books will be instantly available on your iPad. Imagine, the books will be instantly available in your virtual world software client, to read in-world, or take them offline anywhere. Dream harder. Imagine to upload a full body mesh of yourself as an avatar. Imagine going to a virtual clothing store and have clothes customized, designed and tailored to your measurements in any way you want. Not for your avatar. For you. Delivered within a week. Dream harder.

Why OSGrid?

The internet is based on open protocols. Anyone can know how it works. Anyone can connect to it in any way. Anyone can go anywhere. People will want to have control over their content. They will want to have control over where they can go to, what they can take with them, what they can do on their servers. People will want to have control over themselves. Virtual worlds are facing two great challenges: Infrastructure and assets. Infrastructure means the technology to provide a virtual environment, that can be accessed by anyone. The technology to have a 3d ‘homepage’. One that uses a standardized protocol, to be accessible by any browser. People will not want to have to use one client for this part of the web, and another client for another part. Creating different platforms for virtual worlds is like having to use Firefox to access Amazon and the Internet Explorer to access Youtube. Assets means that people will want to retain their identity throughout the virtual worlds they visit. They will want to keep their appearance, their inventories, their content, their wallets. Nobody will want to have to remake themselves from scratch every time they enter a different part of the web.

Who will offer this technology? Who will want to offer it? Who will be able to make all this code, all these protocols, all this technology open and free for anyone to use? No business venture can do that. It would mean instant death to their business model. No national agency will be able to do that. It would conflict with their own ambitions and goals. Only a free, open, and non-profit community will be able to do this. And they do.

Why OSGrid?

William Gibson said in ‘no maps for these territories‘: “We’re using technology to extend the human neural system (…) The internet is a kind of global prosthetic extension of human consciousness. It wasn’t consciously intended as one, but it amounts to one. (…) It’s become the place where we do everything, it’s become the place where we look for everything. We’re doing something new here; it resembles something that we’ve done before, but it’s different. I think it’s probably as big a deal as the creation of cities.” We are building cities. The population of a medium sized town is online in Second Life at any minute, people from all over the world, speaking all kinds of languages, with all kinds of knowledge and professions. We are building cities. People are meeting not by physical proximity, but by common interests. People who are able to choose their peers from all over the world, who are free to indulge in the things that really interest them without constraints. We are building cities. We are working on letting people get access to things they really want faster, cheaper, more efficient and more personal than anything ever before.

The new cities will be the cities of the mind. Their foundation will be open, and free. Dream harder.

There are several viewers¹ which provide an already built-in solution to access other grids than Second Life. Technically, though, it’s possible to use about any viewer that can access SL for opensim grids as well (except when the grid operators have restricted access to their own viewer or when the grid supports a different rendering technology). According to the login instructions on the OSGrid site, the changes that need to be made are the loginuri, helperuri and loginscreen. (Imho helperuri and loginscreen can be left out, but the loginuri manages which grid to connect to. [UPDATE: helperuri is neccessary for some features, such as parcel transfers and buying, even for 0L$]) These instructions work on the regular SL client as well as on the popular Emerald Viewer. However, being a Mac user, the login instructions for Max OSX are somewhat complicated, because working with the console (or rather terminal) is awkward for anyone not familiar with Unix. Fortunately, there’s an easier way.

[UPDATE: With the release of Emerald 1.23.5 Build 1585, Emerald incorporates the Meerkat grid manager, making the below instructions unneccessary.]

Right-clicking on an application icon enables you to open its package contents, and in the Contents/Resources folder of the Emerald Viewer there’s a small file named ‘arguments.txt’. All you need to do is put the additional informations the viewer needs to connect to other grids into that file (the part starting with ‘-loginuri…’). There are some things to watch out for, though. First off, every argument needs to start with a double minus instead of a single one. (Thus, -loginuri needs to be –loginuri.) And second, the settings_emeraldviewer.xml causes problems that prevent from logging into OSGrid correctly. So there are some steps that need to be taken first. Here’s what worked for me:

1. Download and install the Hippo Viewer.
2. Log into OSGrid using the Hippo Viewer once. This should create a file named ‘settings_osgrid.xml’ in Library/Application Support/Second Life/user_settings/
3. Open arguments.txt in the Emerald contents.
4. Change them to:

--channel "Emerald Viewer"  --settings settings_osgrid.xml --loginuri http://osgrid.org:8002 --loginpage http://osgrid.org/loginscreen.php  --helperuri http://osgrid.org/

Now you should log into OSGrid by default whenever Emerald is started up.

The nice thing about Emerald is the built-in IRC client, which enables you to connect to the OSGrid IRC channel, as well as making your own IRC channels, which come in handy as long as group chats are not working. To log into OSGrid’s IRC, open the communicate window, click on the IRC tab and choose ‘new’. Change the settings to:

• Settings Tag: OSGrid (optional, you can use any other name here)
• Nick: <your nick here> (You can use any nick you like, not neccessarily your account name. This means, that others in IRC could also have different names than their OSGrid / SL account names.)
• Server: chat.freenode.net 6667 (6667 in the separate input field next to the chat server)
• Channel: #osgrid
• Save

Now double-clicking on the OSGrid chat will open the irc chat window, which works mostly just like a regular IM-chat window. If you left ‘connect automatically at login’ checked in the IRC Settings, you’ll be connected to the OSGrid IRC whenver you log into OSGrid. (Or into ANY grid, at that. The nice thing about IRC is that it’s separate from a grid, so you can stay connected to the IRC channels from anywhere.)

1. Hippo, Imprudence and Meerkat