DISQUS

English is my third language, and learning several texting jargons (IM, leetspeak, gamer codes) was never an issue. They have pretty small vocabularies, and are mostly transparent and fun, like little puzzles. In particular, lower case "i" is rather self-explanatory and easy to figure out, since "i" is not a separate word in English. It's a bit condescending to think on non-native speakers as not being able to figure out simple stuff like that.

However, it IS rude to use jargon among those who don't know the jargon, for example, use your field's terms when speaking to someone clearly outside of your field, or use gamer jargon talking to a non-gamer. I am having trouble with assumptions that whole populations (grandparents, non-native speakers, professionals) are ignorant of a widespread jargon, as a whole.

When adult professionals text or use Twitter, they use IM shorthand like everybody else. When they write white papers, they typically do not. I think it depends on the working situation, rather than on who you are.

So, in my opinion, it would make more sense to talk about situations, rather than people.

http://www.gapingvoid.com/history76156-thumb.jpg

<img src="http://www.gapingvoid.com/history76156-thumb.jpg">

Centralasian wrote, "many people would resist, or at least find problematic such a description as “Internet is a nation-state.” “The Internet as a set of tools”, as an infrastructure allowing various economic, social an political configurations to emerge - yes, that would sell better, I assume"

I think it is a very useful distinction to make here. Do we see SL as a world - or is it a metaverse, a shell for creating worlds? Spatial metaphors such as "country" can be treacherous. It is cute when an old lady from a popular joke calls a tech support number: "Hello! Is this the Internet?" It is less cute, and maybe even dangerous, when people with some access to design power don't distinguish between particular worlds and middleware meta-tools used to create worlds.

From the history of SL depicted by Gwyn here, it looks like SL is evolving from a world into such a set of tools. As a result, there may be countries, democratic, libertarian or otherwise governed, that use the engine of SL to run. To be more exact, some of the activities of people using the SL engine can be described as corresponding, metaphorically or through an analogy, to the notion of a country. There could also be other entities that are not like countries, for example, tribes. But to conceive of the SL engine itself and of all activities driven by it as ONE such country, or tribe, or club, or world, or other coherent entity at this point of its evolution, does not make sense. SL is bigger than that. Metaphors such as "SL is a language" or "SL is middleware" or "SL is a construction set" are probably more promising.