State of the CDS - 4 February 2007

As I sat down to put together this address, I thought of the question "Where are we?"  Even the question is harder than it looks.  We're at 246722.6, 249788.1, 178.7 . We're in the Neufreistadt (New) Rathaus. How many here remember the old one? We're in  Western Canada, the Central US, Metro London and Portugal. We're on a server somewhere near San Francisco, California.

That's a lot of places to be all at once.

That's not a bad way to answer the question in a broader sense either. Six months ago, we knew, the thirty or so of us who were citizens as of August 1 2006, where we were. We had just parted ways with (or broken free from, depending on your opinion) this community's founders.  It was a messy separation, and one that some saw coming, even if they didn't want to admit it. 

We all knew, roughly, where we wanted to go. We wanted to grow, in space and citizens.  We had just changed our name to the "Confederation of Democratic Simulators". A lot of folk chuckled at that.  Thirty-five people on one sim calling themselves a confederation took some chutzpah.  Lo and behold, six months later the term has some substance to it. We're not Dreamland, but two simulators is still two simulators.  We even have our first mainland expansion in development. 

We also managed to double our population. This, too, was new for us.  Growth, when it happened, had been slow.  Could we grow this fast and maintain our sense of community?  Would we keep going in the same direction?

By and large we've managed quite well.  We're still here; we're financially stable; and debates, though often vigorous, are mostly civil. The question is no longer "Can virtual democracy survive?" We've shown that it can.  The new question is, "what's the new question?"

Is it "How shall we create a legal system?"  That was certainly the front runner for the title last term.  Maybe it's "How do we create a vibrant community of builders and artisans?", or "How do we keep from drowning in red tape?"

If we don't like those, there are lots of old ones like "What shall we do with the SC?" to keep us busy.  There were many structural questions we thought about last term, but didn't answer.  That's not necessarily a bad thing. Making drastic changes in the way our little virtual state works is not something to be done lightly.  

Even so, there comes a time to make choices. This body is in a unique position to tackle the tough questions of where we will turn our energies and what sort of place we will grow to be.  Its members represent four factions, more than had ever existed at one time prior to about a month ago.  It is our task to work together as representatives of the growing diversity in our community.  It is our task to tackle the future of the Guild and SC. It is our task to craft a judicial system in which all of our citizens and the rest of SL can have confidence.  It is our task to manage continued growth.

That's a lot of tasks.

We'll need everyone's help to get them done.

Here is a very different place than it was six months ago.  We stretch across two sims in SL and 16 timezones in the real world.  The days of everyone knowing everyone are passing.  I fully expect this to be the last RA with fewer than nine members.  We must find new ways of doing things, and we must, regardless of our differences, disagreements, and debates, work together.