In this paper the author considers the possibilities for establishing democratic governance in virtual worlds. He looks at the freedoms currently available to players in "Second Life", contrasting these to those established in Raph Koster's "A Declaration of the Rights of Avatars", and assess whether some restrictions are more necessary in game spaces than social spaces. The author looks at the early implementations of self-governance in online spaces, and consider what lessons can be taken from these, investigating what a contemporary democratic space looks like, in the form of"A Tale in the Desert", and finally considers how else we may think of giving players more rights in these developing social spaces.

In an April 2007 article, Doctorow C declared that "Online Games are Dictatorships". This I would agree is a fair summary of the current state of affairs, and would seem to be one that the designers of these worlds are keen to maintain. In this paper I will examine existing literature on the rights of players and consider previous attempts at enforcing (and extending) these rights through self-governance. I will then take a look at some recorded abuses to player rights that have been recorded in the virtual world "Second Life", contrasting these to Raph Koster's (2006) "Declaring the Rights of Players". I will finally consider what alternative exists to self-governance in order to give players a greater degree of rights and freedom in these developing social spaces.

In 2000, Raph Koster first published his "A Declaration of the Rights of the Avatars". He created this from the position of a game administrator, and much of the early discussion of drafts of the document took place amongst administrators on the Mud-Dev mailing list. Much of the feedback to the original drafts was of the nature you would expect from game administrators, namely extremely critical. Koster details much of this feedback in the online version of his paper, with common themes being that administrators do not want to be tied to a game, and giving players rights might restrict their ability to terminate it, that game design considerations cause many of the rights to be problematic, and the age-old argument that avatars, like chess pieces, don't deserve rights, only the players behind them. There is also some criticism that appears valid from a player's perspective, primarily complaining that the document is too vague, and has too many escape clauses allowing admins to justify abuses by saying they are "necessary for the world's survival." (Koster, 2006, p. 61).

The original rights of avatars document then evolved into a version entitled `Advice to Virtual World Admins', on which Koster (2006) reports "MUD admins find the second doc much more palatable. Phrased in this way, it's not an abrogation of their power. It's concrete advice that will help you retain your playerbase" (p. 65). The most important of these revized rights, at least for my purposes here, are #6, which reads "The code of conduct should evolve based on the way the MUD culture evolves, and players should get a say in how it evolves. The MUD admins get to write it however they want, but they have an obligation to listen or else players might leave" (p. 64) and "You can't punish someone in a way not in the code of conduct, and you the admin don't get to rewrite the code of conduct after the fact to make it legal. The only exception is action taken to keep the MUD from going `poof'" (p. 64). In essence, this is targeting two key areas, the first that players should have a say in the formation of the code of conduct, and the second that the code of conduct must be enforced `as is', not according to the whim of the administrators. Koster's work was later published in the book, The State of Play resulting from the State of Play Symposium at New York Law School.

Cyber Law Journal, Virtual Worlds, Social Spaces, Democratic Governance, Regulatory Bodies, Governmental Systems, Space Monkeys, Game Environment, Economic Aspects, Self-Governance, Dispute Resolution Systems, Online Games.