Unbiased Poll: Impeach-Bush Signs and Freedom of Speech

There is no agreement between different parties involved in setting display preferences.

Your wording is not "correct wording coming from a different perspective".

It's just wrong.

I am not saying that you made a mistake.

It is more likely that you worded it incorrectly on purpose.

Often in RL communities and in SL zones with government, covenants are used to contractually limit what can and can not be placed on a parcel of land. Whether it's Jeb's engine block, Sue's above-ground pool, or Ulrika's massive prim fountain, communities with covenants attached to their deed can limit what can and can't be placed on individuals' lots. (Neualtenburg uses deeds with covenants to take care of such problems.)

I called it a per-avatar or per-lot virtual covenant as it is a technological stand-in for what really should be implemented as sim-wide or SL-wide covenant. Although this is beyond the scope of your question, I feel that as long as humanity is removed from legislation and enforcement (no government) there will only be imperfect blunt technological solutions such as "texture muting" that will in turn will create their own problems.

~Ulrika~

Unfortunately any solution which requires constant input from LL devs is unlikely to be ever accepted - LL needs a solution which scales; blocking certain users from display is probably the best idea I've seen yet.

It's simple, does the trick and should be per-user based, much like you can ban certain addresses in your browser, SL should be able to ban content by various users. (much like say, I have "*jamster*" in my browsers do-not-download list)

I think you're right. There are already similar features in SL already, such as the ability to ban or mute certain players and disable the streaming media feature.

~Ulrika~

Quick clarification on option #2 please?

By "blocking textures by user on a list" do you mean the creator of the texture or the user of the texture?

So far, I like this option the best but there does appear to be the disagreeable side effect that you may only wish to block ONE specific texture, and in turn, may be blocking a whole lot of textures. The world may get even uglier for the viewer as a consequence.

I'm invisioning specificly land barons that you may wish to only block for sale signs of, but in so doing, may very well block the very houses one rents from said baron..etc.

*goes back to drinking coffee*

Governmental: Lindens realize that their already-established ToS allow them to delete any object at any time for any reason, and announce a "Linden's Discresion" policy in regards to borderline behavior. Not governed directly by users, but enough complaints by users would triger a Linden review on an issue, which they would then act on or not as the case warents.

Put simply, the lindens should be able to look at "grey area griefing" and say "Yes, this is free speach" or "No, this isn't really free speach, it's griefing, even if, by the absolute letter of the ToS, it's permitable", and act as appropriate.

I don't see the free speech issue.

Free speech lets you call for Bush to be impeached, if you want to. It doesn't let you go to the cinema, wait for the movie to come on, then get out your loud hailer and shout "IMPEACH BUSH" over and over again, drowning out the movie dialog, until the end.

I realise it'll probably be an unpopular thing to say, but you don't really own your land on SL any more than you own your seat in the movie theatre, and that needs to be recognised.

You can still see land for sale in the map view, so I don't see it as a real problem. That is, after all, what the facility is there for, not for a user to spend an hour flying around looking for a 'for sale' sign'

Why not have an official Linden created 'for sale' sign on the plot which automatically appears on a cleared plot when it is put up for sale, which can be moved as the owner wishes but no other prims/textures can be put up on it?

Alternatively, for sale plots could show up with a different - say grey as it appears to be a popular LL colour - texture when a 'highlight land for sale' toggle is flipped?

Lewis

You raise very valid points. Those points are examples of what makes broad technological solutions so imperfect.

~Ulrika~

Its probably too late but you need another technical solution on your list. I've been harping about a simple technical solution that requires no user id list, no object list, dont need to own land or require any server side overhead. You simply go into land tools, select an area and then click 'filter area'. Anything within that area on that sim is filtered from your view/sound/etc. Your client keeps a list of the filtered areas on your PC.

That's a fantastic idea! You should submit it as a proposal for folks to vote on.

~Ulrika~

George Bush does not exist in Second Life! Bush is not a Second Life sanctioned surname. Silly Lazarus...what a waste of time and energy on something that doesn't exist. Maybe the Lindens should only allow things in their game that "exist" within the game's database. Just a simple-minded thought....