*Warning* of Having Group Owned Land

Warning to those who have grouped "owned" land.... BAD SCRIPTS owned by members!!!

Two days ago, early morning, I went to our club, PlayMate Towers. I tend to clean up land each day, sometimes several times in a day. To my shock, ALL our primage had been used !!! I knew, it couldn't of possibly been so unless common sense says one of two things, a bug, or a member (land window showed all items grouped owned) laid out alot of prims somewhere on our vast parcel (over 11 thousand meters).

I wrote a bug report right away and nightmare1212 and I searched way in the skies, all over the land and club, with no luck that first day. By that night, no responds yet from LL, I was feeling pretty discouraged. To know, it took me over two months to build the club, and the time and investment the active team members put into it, and the guests that have supported us..... to be so easily wiped with a blink of an eye.

Day two, it still shows land filled, zero prims available. I went into group IM, and had announced about the prim issue, and filled them in on the current happenings, if it is a bug and we couldn't get help the club would be no more; if it was a member to please remove the objects quietly, no questions asked. If neither happened, the club would be tore down, and if it is someone's objects, I would return all unseen (over a thousand) objects to someone's inventory for them to delete.

A couple of active members, KitKat McLean and Jac Jacques, joined nightmare1212 Knox and myself in the search of obvious unwanted prims on land (along with a few non-members). We didn't find prims, however when I picked up an object worth 21 prims, within minutes the land was filled to max again before I could set that object back out!!! At this point I shut off outside scripts on land, and took out two chairs valued at 8 prims. Sure enough, those 8 prims stayed intact for available. So now, we knew, it had to be a script multiplying primage.

Second bug report went out explaining clearly what the issue was. After several hours, still no word from Linden's via email, things were looking pretty dismal. Finally, a couple of Linden's had come and tried in world, along with a couple of suggestions. But still, no answers on where, and who's script it belong to.

It saddened me worse to hear the unfortunate news by Linden's side that there would be no more support help to find this abusive script, because the land I set to "group owned", and the script was set to group.... I was told it would be almost impossible to find it.

At the moment I stood on the balcony at front lobby entrance.... taking in the view of our club, thinking of some of the awesome times we spent there, and some of the chaos drama that had occured since opening..... was with a heavy heart that I knew the building was coming down. Then appeared a good friend of nightmare1212, Cornelius Bach.

In a short time, Cornelius had called upon for assistence two of his fellow scripter friends, Kyle Gilman and Joshua Chaos. After a fill in on the situation, and an overlook of the parcel they began their determination to find this abusive script. I want to say a half hour, could of been bit less, they found the script!!! It happened to be in a vending machine owned by one of our members. I'm confident this was not intentional malice, but it did cause much emotional drama. The vendor was deleted, rather then returned, and the thousand plus prims were also deleted.

Warning, even though we were fortunate to find this script due to some awesome men, thank you so much Cornelius, Kyle, and Joshua, it is a downfall of owning group land. Myself, I have not decided yet if I want to risk another havok of this situation. If I take the land back we will lose close to a thousand meters that I would not beable to put on my tier because of the allottment of land given available above for grouped land. Means, we will lose primage use that we have supported by another piece of land elsewhere because would have to sell it off. I highly suggest, consider carefully before turning land into group owned. Trust all added members to group; have watchful eye on any scripted items being brought on land and set to group; don't jump to conclusions that it is any one person that had done this; know that if land is owned by you personally, but set for group, then linden's could help easily to find the object/script, or easy enough...to just send back group and other items. When it is group owned, and all items are set to group, then know, it is a needle in a haystack.

Thank you for taking the time to read, what has become a novel... but felt... I needed to share this with all those who are considering, or already have grouped owned land. I can't stress enough how one bad or broken script can cause so much harm. Also, again, thank you scripters for finding the script, and to those who all tried helping to find the problem.

Gardinya

..... damn.

Yeah. Smack around the fool that did that. As an example to the rest of the group.

Lol that was really awesome of those guys to help you like that...Like the A-team coming to the rescue.

What did the vendor do? Rez a new item without deleting the old one, and not use "Temp on Rez"? Both really dumb mistakes when you're making a vendor. (And mistakes I've made mysef )

Cubey, apparently.... when the outside script was marked ok on land... it took a ball that was being sold (I believe)..and constant rerezzed duplicates over and over and over. Sure better explanation from Cornelius Back, Kyle Gilman, or Joshua Chaos would better enlighten what had actually happened with the script... clueless myself to scripts........ just so thankful, they were able to track it down.....and kill it

Good Job Cornelious..

Shadow

grats on finding and extinguishing the script

please correct me if i'm wrong, it took three residents less than half-an-hour to discover something the lindens said that they couldn't possibly isolate? i must have misread that part.

there was(is?) a bug that using llDie() doesn't update the prim usage. so the vendor is probably scripted correctly, but an sl bug makes it not work. best to use temp on rez.

I've wanted a way to limit the number of prims a guest or a group member is allowed to rez on a plot before. I think I'll make a formal post in the Feature Request forum.

I agree that it's either a bug or a need for better group land management tools.

But there might be a few better ways to set up your land; not sure if you use any:

Subdivide your big plot into as many small ones as you can manage. That way you can at least pin down which plot has all the extra prims.

Make separate "Officer" group for most areas, and the regular group for any areas that require it (such as the shop area)

There should just be a way of telling how many prims a member is using.

I seem to have been pointed at, for some reason, for being responsible for this script. I DO sell venders ( I know I know, there are free ones, but I do offer several things others don't). One of those things is comprehensive instructions. In those instructions I do state to include the display script (which will kill the model prims when people switch items) and set the display object to Temp to rez. So I'll chalk this one up to 'someone didn't read the manual'. Please RTFM. read the freakin manual. There's nothing I can really do for people who refuse to read the manual or don't understand it and don't contact me about fixing it (I do get back to people... eventually).


none of my scripts are set to 'share with group' or group associated. Nor would they be associated with your group.

Siro,

I'd imagine you must be reffering to something in-world as i can see no finger pointing in this thread. As for your scripts, They dont have to be associated with any group. if the person who has one of your vendors drops it with a group active, it automatically sets the vendor to that group. Nobody here is pointing fingers and i beleive that it has been pointed out already thet nobody thinks this was an intentional act.

Dont get yer panties in a bunch no harm, no foul.

another thing warning about group owned land - any officer can sell the land. still no word on when that will get worked out but i've been told it's on their "to do" list.

How wonderful for you to get the help from those wonderful peeps

A word on your concerns about group owned land. They're very valid and the loss of the percentage for group land is unacceptable. My solution has been to create a 'family' group that owns the land and the club prims but the club membership itself is different. In my family group, I am the only officer so maintain complete control of the land. Anyone whom I know and trust, I make a member so they can place vendors and such on the land without having them returned. This way, if there IS a problem like that, you can narrow it down in short order.

Additionally, you can segment off pieces of the land while keeping it within the group. All pieces share the prim capability of the whole, but they identify how many prims each parcel supports and is carrying. That way, your shop area can have it's own parcel and report to you any problems with prim counts. Same applies to rental property, for prim control.

/me shurgs - Hope that helps