Over in Alphaville the votes are in and winner is announced. Mr-President won the Alphaville Government Presidential Elections with 53% of the vote.
However the loosing candidate Laura McKnight aka Ahsley Richardson is alleging election irregularities. The Alphaville Herald is also raising questions about the whole process, all the way back to the primaries.
.. and electronic voting is supposed to stop questions about rigged elections - right?
Update 20/04/04: Peter Ludlow aka Urizenus of The Alphaville Herald has broken out of character and written this piece exposing the what is looking like real story behind the election.
"and electronic voting is supposed to stop questions about rigged elections - right? "
What gave you that idea? Its supposed to make a rigged election undetectable and untraceable. :)
Posted by: DivineShadow | Apr 18, 2004 at 20:15
Ren>Mr-President won the Alphaville Government Presidential Elections with 53% of the vote
So in a break with tradition, the candidate who controlled the counting system didn't get 99% of the vote, only 53%?
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | Apr 19, 2004 at 03:02
Richard > So in a break with tradition, the candidate who controlled the counting system didn't get 99% of the vote, only 53%?
Yup, that's pretty much the allegation. It seems that voting was not in the hands of a party fully independent of both candidates.
Posted by: Ren | Apr 19, 2004 at 08:13
Ren>It seems that voting was not in the hands of a party fully independent of both candidates.
I guess Mr President will need to show that he really is in charge, then.
Does this mean that Alphaville will be invading anywhere in the near future?
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | Apr 19, 2004 at 10:50
So far the discussion on the Alphaville Herald seems to be generating more heat than light, but when people started throwing words like "blackmail" and "libel" around, it started me thinking. Is it possible to libel another person's avatar in the legal sense? After mulling it over, my first guess is that yes, you could make a good legal argument for it, but that showing any significant damages would be tough in most cases.
Posted by: CherryBomb | Apr 19, 2004 at 13:09
CherryBomb> Is it possible to libel another person's avatar in the legal sense?
That’s a very interesting question. I believe the answer is yes – in principle, well theoretically in principle.
The principle being that that if an avatar is sufficient to identify someone and that someone has a commercial use of their persona, then the can seek legal remedy if their reputation is damaged. I think that the two key cases are Wendt v. Host International 125 F.3d 806 (1997) - which establishes a link between individual and certain aspects of persona even when there is a copyright involved; and the ever wonderful Motschenbacher v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 498 F.2d 821 (9th Cir. 1974) - which establishes that likeness is not necessary to have a right of publicity claim in an artefact.
Posted by: Ren | Apr 19, 2004 at 15:07
Richard > Does this mean that Alphaville will be invading anywhere in the near future?
I believe that they are invading Second Life’s ‘Island’ next Tuesday – unless it's raining.
Posted by: Ren | Apr 19, 2004 at 15:09
I just published a position paper on this. It was actually a phone conversation with Henry Jenkins that led me to pull the trigger on the story and expose the fix. This explains why:
http://www.alphavilleherald.com/archives/000191.html
Posted by: ludlow | Apr 20, 2004 at 15:29
So what's more asinine - holding a political election in a virtual world where you have no real authority or police powers, rigging that election to make a 14 year old girl cry, or being the guy who at the last minute decides he doesn't want to play along with the storyline any more and screw it up for everyone?
Posted by: Sourtone | Apr 21, 2004 at 13:33
Oh quite possibly the last of those. lol.
Posted by: ludlow | Apr 21, 2004 at 17:34