As to our defense, For example: lying becomes “protecting yourself,” plagiarism becomes “copying text,” stealing becomes “downloading files,” often without a second thought. … I fear we have picked this up from the real life media… ‘body bags’, ‘collateral damage’, ’slightly overweight’, … . It’s becoming a general trend to speak more ‘political correct’… . ;)

For most of the SL residents, there is also a major difference between ‘not telling’ and ‘lying’. If I ask RL data, or smth related, and I get a ’sorry, I am not willing to share that’, I’ll easily accept. If I found out somebody lied to me, I probably will not ever trust them again. (Except about gender, as well, if you rezz as a bloke whilst being a RL girl, that might already be considered a lie. Common decency in SL is also to not enquire after RL gender, as you know there’s a huge change you will force someone to tell a lie. If someone shares willingly, I accept that as the truth, even when I sometimes have my doubts.)

Something that might be interesting also, if you did not stumble over it yet - is Second Life’s ToS, where sharing ANY RL data you have about an avatar with someone else is an offense. Of course, it is impossible for Linden Lab to enforce this outside SL. But commonly, people who ‘expose’ others, are not well received within the community.

Do mind that - this is an estimate, but I’ll run a poll on that, ty for the idea - about 33% of SL’s avatars, and especially those who do this ‘more professionally’ are willing to share their RL identities with the world, or at least with a select group of friends. Of course for the virtual stock market people who like the possibility to flee when things go bad… . ;)

So yeah, at least they notice when you are not giving them their full attention in main chat. In IM, that depends on your typing speed, I assume.

I agree that is only a part of it. I shall hardly use ‘voice’ in Second Life, but think this can be part of the ‘trust’ too. There’s are a lot of voice transforming tools out there, and some might change your gender successfully, but I doubt if there are any that can change intonation, or get rid of ’stalling’ when you are asked a though question. Sound quality is still better on Skype, btw.

About the appearance, from personal experience, I am more likely to take a Skeleton serious than a Hot Guy in business suit. I’m more likely to trust a woman robot than a blond with huge breasts. Probably because most - but not all - great builders, scripters, creative geniuses, … in Second Life are a bit ‘weird’. And to me, somehow, running around as a stange avatar - or even a fridge or couch - tells me more about you than hiding behind ‘the perfect skin and shape’. (For some reasons, I distrust people with dragon avatars, I get along great with the cat & furry ones. Really, I’m not joking.)

As for dealing with people in Second Life, yes, some don’t deliver (I’ve been guilty of that once too - says sorry to Nevar, again), but you learn to take that into account. That there’s always a chance that ‘it won’t happen’. And learn to check regularly ‘where are you, and when will I get this?’. This is often not malice, but in a world that changes and evolves as quickly as Second Life does, and with most ‘businesses’ and ‘content creators’ being semi-professional, or hobbiests that might be expected. It’s that easy to get sidetracked on another project, testing something new and nifty, … . But you learn. And the people that do deliver, are the ones you are most likely to cooperate with again.

By Integrity, I mean the traditonal honesty + trustworthy, open, consistent, “doing what you say and saying what you’ll do,” etc.

I was responding to the statement above “Interactions among strangers within the virtual world are very similar to interactions between strangers in the real world.”

In the real world, our interactions are based on the other person’s reputation (as you mention). But if a relationship grows into something deeper and get beyond the surface level (i.e. how’s the weather?) We must answer trust and/or integrity questions. Also, reputation takes time to build, and we may not have much to go on sometimes.

In virtual worlds, integrity is needed in business contacts (buying selling) as well as genuine interactions in discussion threads, advice, etc. The problem in virtual worlds is that we can’t read their face or voice inflections to determine if this person is misleading us or taking us where we don’t want to go. Someone said the words are less than 10% of what is communicated in the real world. The other 90% is appearance, body language, dress, voice, etc.

For example, in the real world, a car dealer may have a great reputation, but I still want to know that he/she isn’t lying to me about some aspect of the car they are trying to sell to me (right now). We have the same issue with advice/opinions on topics ranging from sports to medical treatments.

Bottom line, can avatars have a trustworthy character?

As for integrity, how exactly do you mean that? eg. Not slander someone because you’re anonymous?

I would not take an ‘anonymous’ account, message or action into account much. If it’s not anonymous, see the ‘virtual reputation’ part.

I think your point about the difference between real life and virtual world friends is right on target. The study results were interesting.

But in my research, I have also found that most people rename actvities in virtual worlds (and cyberspace as a whole) that most in society consider immoral. For example: lying becomes “protecting yourself,” plagiarism becomes “copying text,” stealing becomes “downloading files,” often without a second thought.

Actions are justified for numerous reasons. Teenagers tell me that the Net is “fake” or “one big game” and doesn’t really count the same as Real Life - sometimes. This is certainly not true with Facebook, etc.

Many people also experiment with opposite roles online, such as male/female or liberal/conservative. They also (deliberately) answer questions in opposite ways from real life to see what the consequences might be.

Don’t underestimate the role of anonymity. People can behave in crazy ways when they think others don’t (and won’t) know who they really are. The challenge is knowing who is playing what roles.

As virtual life and real life merge together more and more in the coming years, a huge number of virtual world definitions are going to clash with real world schools, workplaces, and homes.

Question: How do you define Virtual Integrity?