Zoning? In a Virtual World?

The past two posts have sketched out the cases for and against regulation. On one hand we need regulation in virtual worlds to provide the orderly and predictable environments in which commerce and education can be pursued. On the other hand, regulation seriously inhibits the potential of virtual worlds as a medium of self expression and exploration. Can these two conflicting potentials of virtual worlds both be achieved? Or will one have to give way to the other?

I think they can both be achieved via virtual world segmentation or in more common terms zoning. Zoning can be achieved fairly easily. Each simulator or virtual location should have a set of attributes associated with it indicating its regulations. For example, it may require visitors to be over a certain age and may require user authentication. Another simulator may allow anonymity but require visitors to adhere to role playing rules. Anonymity may require some refinement. For example it is one thing to be anonymous to the land owner and another thing to be anonymous to the other visitors.

It may take some time to get a standard set of attributes that simulations will set, but careful zoning takes careful planning. Further, if the zoning attributes are selected carefully it will be possible to group simulators into parallel virtual worlds. These parallel worlds might emphasize commerce, education, tourism, art, socializing, self expression, or any other thematic attributes.

In addition, each avatar would have similar attributes. These may include age, anonymity, credit worthiness, and social or moral restrictions. Again, these attributes would have to be carefully thought out. And just like today where vendors target certain market segments, virtual world developers would target a specific segment of the visitor population.

This attribution would allow a wide range of opportunities for sef expression while preventing someone from inadvertently landing up in an undesirable neighborhood. At the same time it would allow land owners to restrict undesirable visitors. If this all sounds a little too confining, don't forget that you can always have multiple avatars, some well documented and some anonymous. So, it seems to me, that it solves the problem of reguation. Hey, maybe we should start doing this in RL as well.