Caliandris

13. However well you design your constitution, how can you stop the people who actually have their hands on the tools (the database, the land, etc.) from ignoring the constitution and laws?

Although we have not yet finalised our techincal systems, our preferred solution to this issue at this stage is to use a cobination of open-source software (so that everybody can see how the code works), reqire approval of the code by our democratic institutions, and require automated logging of each use of the systems in question.

Other options under consideration for resource management include registering as a real-life non-profit organisation, and having the people on the executive (which will be partly elected) on the board of that organisation, or alternatively, using an external service to manage the non-profit under the direction of our executive; and using a bot account to hold all of our land.

14. How will the system pay for the land that it will need for the courts and Parliament, and pay its judges and other officers?

This is not something on which we have made any final decisions yet, as the system is still under design. One possibility currently being considered is renting an island, letting out much of the land, and using the revenue from that to pay for the remaining land on which we will house our public buildings. Some income will be generated through fines, although we do not expect that it will be substantial.

The judiciary will have its own, separate, finance, although might be subsidised by the general treasury to some extent. Its finances will largely derive from court fees and costs, which will ultimately be born by the losing party in every case, and will be enforced in the same way as other orders of the court. The court costs will be based on a fixed scale, determined in advance of each case.

In the early days of the system, it might well be that it is not possible to pay any office holders. If and when the system becomes more successful, that position will no doubt be reviewed. Ultimately, we would like to be able to pay whatever it takes to recruit and retain the best people for the job (assuming a SecondLife-scaled income). If the system flourishes, we believe that we will be able to do that in time.

15. What will I be able to do if somebody brings a case against me?

At this stage, the judicial procedure has not been finalised, so this answer is provisional. However, it is envisaged that an official organ of the court (either a scripted object or a member of the judiciary) will always have to notify the defendant(s) so that they can be sure that the action is real, and not fictitious. The notice will contain a link to information about what the Metaverse Republic is, and the procedure for defending a case, as well as Metaverse Republic law generally. It is also envisaged that it will link to a directory of SecondLife lawyers, who will be able to advise as to the prospects of success of any prospective or pending action.

To respond, a person, we envisage, would reply with a notice (either a SecondLife notecard, or using a web interface) setting out what is admitted and what is denied and why, and generally how the party responds to the claim. Based on the answer, the judicial system would then either schedule a hearing to resolve any dispute, or make an order if there appeared to be no dispute.

16. How will the court be able to make decisions in cases where there are no official records of what happened?

There is nothing special about SecondLife or other virtual worlds such that it is uniquely difficult to resolve disputed issues of fact without the sort of conclusive evidence to which Linden Lab (and other creators of virtual worlds) potentially (but probably not in the least practically) has access: in the physical world, there are no server logs: conversation between people evaporates into the ether as soon as the words are uttered, remembered often only by those disputants at least one of whom is often either lying, mistaken or both. Money is often represented by fungible cash, every coin and banknote being, to all intents and purposes, identical to every other of the same denomination. Especially in the days before modern forensic evidence and closed-circuit television, criminal trials relied exclusively on the evidence of eyewitnesses, often combined with circumstantial evidence and some scant obvious physical evidence. Civil trials relied on witness testimony and a few documents (which were sometimes alleged to be, and sometimes were, forgeries). Despite that, however, the justice systems of the age before modern technology served their purpose, and, although were not perfect, were infinitely better than having no justice system at all. There is nothing special about virtual worlds that means that the very same sort of justice system cannot exist for them, too.

However, it certainly is possible to have a system of notarised documents with electronic signatures to make proving the contents of a contract easier than it might otherwise be. Although, in the physical world, oral contracts are, contrary to popular myth, upheld and enforced all the time, electronic notarisation undoubtedly reduces a potential source of uncertainty. There is already a notary service in SecondLife called nota bene, although that only works for quite short documents. We will be considering creating our own tools to allow the notarisation of longer documents. Another possibility is a registered payment system, whereby a scripted object securely records that a payment in a particular amount has been made by one avatar to another, through the object, on a particular date, to avoid disputes as to whether any particular person has received any particular amount of money.

17. If a court in the Metaverse Republic makes a decision against me that I disagree with, what will I be able to do?

In most cases, where the original case is heard in a lower court, it will be possible to appeal to the High Court (consisting of at least three judges) on the basis that the lower court has made an error of law. If one disagrees with the substantive law that the courts have applied, one will also be able to lobby Parliament to change the law, vote for a different set of members of Parliament at the next elections, or stand for election to Parliament oneself.

18. How often will elections be held?

Elections for the Parliament, Executive and Public Oversight Panel will be held every six months, using a single transferable vote system.

19. Isn’t this the same as the SecondLife Superior Court thing from 2005? Didn’t that fail?

The Metaverse Republic is similar in the sense that it involves an in-world court, and the SecondLife Superior Court did, indeed, fail. However, the reason that the SecondLife Superior Court failed was because it had no means of enforcement, which will inevitably doom any legal system to instant failure. In that respect, the Metaverse Republic is dissimilar. The Metaverse Republic is also dissimilar in that it, but not, as far as we are aware, the SecondLife superior court has a democratic Parliament capable of making laws binding on the courts.

20. Does the Metaverse Republic have a presence in-world?

We have a headquarters in Tabula Rasa, part of the Avalon Town estate:
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21. How do I become involved in the Metaverse Republic?

While we are working to build the Metaverse Republic, we have three teams: (1) the Constitutional Team, charged with creating the constitution of the Metaverse Republic, and associated details; (2) the Management Team, charged with overall project management and resource administration; and (3) the Technical Team, charged with creating the tools necessary to enable the Metaverse Republic to work effectively.

To join the Constitutional Team, contact Ashcroft Burnham. To join the Management Team, contact Colleen Kesey. To join the Technical Team, contact Chase Marellan. See below for more details:
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