Meeping

Soon after you join Metaplace chances are very good you will get a little pop-up message that says "So-and-So meeped you!" Meeping is the Metaplace way of saying Hi/hey/I'm online now/I see you're online/etc... It's just a friendly interaction tool. You can even get badges in different categories. (Number of times you've meeped people, number of times people have meeped you, etc...) Meeps are also these little fuzzball creatures created by Raph Koster that you can find wandering around in lots of different worlds.
You don't know any of this the first time it happens. You get a message that someone meeped you and you wonder what the heck is meeping? So a lot of people who are new to the system end up confused. The staff at Metaplace were a little worried about this. (They are very into making things as easy to understand as possible.) So yesterday an announcement came out that they were going to keep the capability, but they were going to change the name of it. However, and this is very typical of how Metaplace staff handles things, they added "Feel free to post any questions or concerns here." with a link to a forum thread. The thread soon started building up with people asking them NOT to change the name. A campaign was started including a world with a planned protest rally.
I attended the rally and it was a cool thing. There were some odd aspects to it. Like anything on the internet involving more than two people there was some confusion about the issue. (Some people thought they were going to eliminate the meep creatures. One of the speakers talked about MP making decisions without input and I think that is totally off-base.) Late-comers would pop into the room and announce their arrival, interupting the speaker. One troll got me to fire up the /ignore command for the first time.
Raph and some of the staff came and conducted themselves as their usual class act. After letting people stand up and have their say Raph took the floor. You can read what he said here. But the end result is that meeping stays where it is.
As Raph noted in his talk, MP is full of passionate people. I think it is great that they recognize this and are willing to listen to the feedback of users so much. This is my first experience with an online virtual world. From what I understand there are other virtual worlds where a protest like the one I attended last night would never have been allowed to happen. I feel pretty lucky to be starting my virtual life in such an open and welcoming place.
I asked Raph is this was going to be his "It's alive!" moment, meaning the creation that he has poured so much time and energy into is now really taking on a life of its own. His reply: "Definitely."