TOS question

Does abuse of colored lighting count as a TOS abuse in any way? Specifically, if the light is so large that it discolors land and objects not owned by the creator of the light? I have seen two separate cases of this lately, one in Freelon where someone had a giant purple light that discolored all the land and objects around it, and in Federal, where there is a giant dark red light that discolors all the properties and builds around it - the side of my hotel, and the snow in my friend's forest is now pink. It seems that filing abuse reports have not done anything, and in both cases, talking to the owner of said light has resulted in the same basic expletive filled response.

I'd also be curious about this, as I have a similar problem in Blue.

2 users have put up an array of particles that are lagging the sim no matter where you stand. In fact, if I stand on the opposite side of the sim, and turn towards their plot, my kbps shoots from 42 to over 450 (and others have told me they have this problem too).

So the question is- if an effect (light or particle) affects other peoples gameplay, even when the owner of the effect is not online, do they have a right to do this just because the effect sits on their land?

This is an important issue, because it opens up the door for griefers to essentially bring a sim to its knees by doing nothing else than buying a small plot and setting up an array of lights or particles.

-Bone

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I don't see how having a light, regardless of the color, could be a TOS violation.

I know that someone in Stanford a short while back put about 6 objects on his land all emitting particles. One of his neighbours was not happy about it and IMed a Linden.... who within a few minutes of arriving deleted all the objects.

I'm interested in the same sort of question, but looking at ambient sounds people place on their properties. Is it acceptable to have loud ambient sounds embedded into objects on your land if they play (loudly!) on someone elses?

B

I was living right next to the one in Freelon, was especialy bad since mostly everything in my build is white like colors and I don't have many lights in the build itself, which effectivly made everything have a hue of purple.

Thankfully it has subsided and doesn't pose much of a problem anymore.

But still the question is raised, since there is no way to block lighting and/or particles other than turning off those effects in your client, is it abuse if they are taken out of controll?

Each owner with their land has the right to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't badly effect neighbors, there are many things you can easily controll avoiding if a neighbor puts something in place, but since we don't have the power to block lighting and particles from spilling all over a sim you gotta think more about how it effects people around you.

I have some land on the mountain in blue and the particles at the top lag me out something awfull. Makes it very hard to select objects when the client is lagging. I turned my # of particles down really low and it didnt seem to make a difference. I dont understand why it lags so much because I've seen other fire scripts that don't cause an FPS hit on me at all...

I don't think these are TOS violations. They're just impolite. Best thing you can do is talk about it nicely with the owners of the lights and see if they'd be willing to make them smaller or turn them off when they're not around. I have quite a few light objects on my land in Freelon but I try and make sure they don't spill over onto adjoining plots too much, especially if they're colored. Someone who has big colored lights and doesn't have local lighting turned on in prefs may not even know they're adversely impacting their neighbors.

Chip,

In both cases, the speak to the owner politely route was taken, with no success. In Freelon, it was "I was here first deal with it" and in the second case it was "It's my land, f@ck off". I am always in favor of taking the talk to the people around you approach to solving something, it is difficult when you live next to someone with no regard for anyone else.

Cristiano

As the rest of these posts seem to show, I think the bigger issue is there are too many things that we have right now that can extend outside the range of your own property - lights, sounds, particles being the three examples I can think of. Each adversely affects the other land owners in the vicinity, and is caused by someone who is not on their land. I am all for the do what you want on your own land philosophy, it is when it affects those around you that it becomes a problem. While it may not technically violate the TOS (I have not looked closely to see what it contains regarding behavior), the Lindens have intervened when no resolution could be reached in some cases.

BTW, as a side note if you want a light to be a certain color, but not to cast light in that color, make a texture that is the color you want, and apply it to the light object, but don't change the tint. It is the tint that affects the color of the light emitted.

Zoe and Ritch have a few examples of people spewing particles (hello Simon M.) without regard for their neighbours. What's the point in putting up a particle foutain, if all it does is damage the gameplay of people on neighbouring property? The same goes for the gigantic coloured lights.

This isn't a matter of taste: if you put something on your property that causes clear problems beyond your property lines, you need to remove it when asked. Particles cause lag for hundreds of meters around. Coloured lights ruin the appearance of neighbouring builds.

If you are doing this, and you don't remove these things when your neighbours ask you to, then it's clearly a case of abuse.

I remember when I lived in Federal a few months back and had a basement .. while it was completely enclosed with thick walls .. a light object (huge light object that spins I might add lol) would affect my avatar's color and the lighting in my basement quite severely.

The light went through my thick wall which amazes me. Magic SL light

Unfortunately light isn't blocked by objects. That kind of real-time shadow generation is beyond the abilities of SL's engine, and adding it would cause framerates to plummet.

One thing that would help with the light issue is to have the light attribute switchable via script so you could actually turn it on and off rather than just change the tint color.

I my stores I use one big 5 meter sphere at the top to light everything, so that boxes are still clearly visible at night. I've had plenty of times in the past where my land was colored by someone else's light so I try to avoid too much spillage onto adjoining land.

If someone's lights, particles, or sounds are a nuisance on your land and they're uncooperative when you talk to them about it, it's neg rating time.

I guess it all depends on what you think is abusive and/or offensive. I will completely agree that sounds can easily be abusive. It's LOUD and often you can't get away from it unless you turn off sound altogether. Same with particle effects. Their overuse is easy to see, since it affects the system with lag, so does getting hundreds of feeds from a single jukeboxe.

Lights though? "I don't want your light to touch my build"? I can understand that perhaps the color might not be to someones taste, but I simply cannot see lights as an abuse violation.

What's next? No lights at all? Or community approved lighting? Vote for your streetlamp?

The easy answer is to have the Lindens fix it so light doesnt
cross your land onto others. Is that possible? Probably not any time soon.

Sound and particle abuse definately can affect your game because of the lag the creators force you to process. Is light also forced on others? Sure, but I think it's more aethestics that you're debating, not abuse.

Here's a situation where light can be a problem. Let's say you spent weeks building your dream home (or whatever), and you carefully selected the right colours or textures to give the place the right mood. You even build lamps that take advantage of the local lighting feature to create a nice ambience.

Then someone moves in next door and puts up a gigantic purple glowing Thing. Now absolutely everything in your home is purple too, and there's nothing you can do about it. Your build is essentially ruined.

In such a situation, I think the person with the purple glowing Thing should consider removing the Light attribute from their Thing or removing the Thing altogether. It's no longer a matter of taste.

Exactly - again, when that light is discoloring your own work, if not abuse, it is at least quite rude and inconsiderate.

I'll agree it's inconsiderate and rude. Abuse? No.

I don't think it's been mentioned yet, but one way you might be able to try to fight the colored lights is to put up your own very bright white light.

I'm not able to test it at the moment, but if lighting in SL works anything like real light, a white light will overrule any colored light since it contains all light components.

This still wouldn't solve the scenario Jellin described with having a subtle indoor lighting mood though since everything would get lit up...

Is color light abuse? Probably not. There isn't anything in the Community Standards that requires your light to stay on your land. Is it inconsiderate to refuse to adjust lights that are bother your neighbors? Probably.

There is at least one circumstance that would push the use of colored lights into the realm of abuse -- creating or using such lighting specifically to harass another Resident. If you think this is happening to you, file an Abuse Report (be as specific as possible!) and we'll investigate.

Don't forget that there are things you can do! Don't be afraid to give a negative rating to the offending Resident (that's why they exist), mount a protest....

Daniel,

What about the issue of particles that affect gameplay far from the owners land ?(see my earlier post in this thread for a more complete description).

-Bone

Okay, a list of names and locations of these peeps please. I need to be able to check the site to see if they deserve a neg rating.

Bone, you have a client-side option to control this problem. If you have a problem with a particle system someone is using, simply turn down your client-side particle limits. If the particles are affecting your gameplay, you have the setting too high.

I don't see why someone shuld have to change their settings because of someone else. Its the same with local lighting, sure you could turn it off if it was making everything purple, but then do you have everyeone who comes to your area do the same? Same with particles.

I see how lights can not be abusive, its their land, its not tangable, but if in RL you took a giant light and shined it on your neighbors houses what would happen? If the light is unreasonably bright it can effect your gameplay quite a bit in that area.

Also, I tried drowning out the light with giant square cubes, just for testing, when the purple light next to mine was bigger than it is now, amazinly it didn't work at all, I have no idea why but I had about 6-8 giant squares of white light and stuff was still purple.

I don't really wana give the location out of the build that caused the problem for me because for the time being it seems to be fixed (atleast to a point where its not as much of a bother to anyone I think). But it wouldn't be that hard to find it yourself.

If you have any situation that makes Second Life unplayable -- be it lights or particles -- let us know and we'll come by and take a look.