Our Second Life Project

I feel as though I have learned a lot about community through my explorations of second life and by listening to the observations of my peers. Our island of study may have been unique to some others as far as we had no large heirarchial building such as a church for users to revolve around and did not have a strict social order like the community at Bogart's. Our community seemed to be pretty casual, people could go where they wanted, and do what they wanted to do. Nobody was confined to a strict area to interact in or forced to follow a strict set of rules governing a single area. There were only a few publicized rules on our island, they seemed be things along the lines of no nudity and no violence. These seem to be pretty commonly accepted rules, altough I guess celebrated nudists would have a tough time assimilating here. Because of the very few rules, our island community differs greatly than the communites of bafa bafa. In that environment, there were two sets of communities with incredibly different out looks and customs of doing things. This made it very hard for one culture to understand the other. However, I feel as though because our island has so few rules and mandatory customs that practically anyone can come and instantly fit in on it. The people seem to accept outsiders immediately, and accept their values and beliefs(as long as they don't go against the rules). I also feel as though the people of our island our cosmopoltians because of this. I did not ever observe anyone ejecting anyone due to conflicts of interests, or any other dispute. In fact I never witnessed any disputes at all. It seems that everyone comes here to have a good time, nobody argues, and everyone can learn from one another.