Update on Mediation in Second Life

Further to my previous post on mediation in SL, Allison has kindly expanded on her experience;

"Ok, since people seem half way interested in this mediation, I will expand on the experience.

I met 3 of my classmates on SL one night to do an online mediation. We did the mediation in a classroom owned by another university. Logistically, it took some time for everyone to find the place where we were to do the mediation, but once we all got there, it was easy to start chatting.Once we got started doing the mediation, we had each party involved tell their side of the story. We actually had to ask them how the felt about it, because it was next to impossible, even with SL emotions, to tell how they felt about the situation.

Once we got their stories, and how they felt about the situation, we began to try and reach an agreement,. This was relatively difficult, more difficult then I think it would have been in person. I think the lack of emotion also affected the parties involved in the dispute, because without being able to see how the other party felt, they seemed less willing to reach a settlement.

In the end, we did reach an agreement, but I think only because everyone was tired of the situation. Because of the typing (and the occasional lag, freeze ups, etc) it seemed like the online mediation took much longer then the same mediation would have taken in person"