SL -needs- better mainland land management tools.
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Michi Lumin
Sharp and Pointy
Join date: 14 Oct 2003
Posts: 1,793
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03-12-2006 18:13
The voting proposal is here.http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=1134Every revision sees more and more features and controls added for estate managers/private island owners. Meanwhile, mainland owners, (even those who own larger than 1 sim of land, and i'd say -especially- the little guy or struggling up and comer) are completely left out in the cold with *no* improvement in land management/access tools since SL 1.0. SL is getting large, and griefers are becoming harder and harder to control. The 40m land ban height does NOTHING but allow griefers to attack from a higher altitude vantage point. Ejects do nothing but keep them occupied, now that P2P is available. The ban list, while bans are ineffective, being limited to 50, is far too small and has not grown since 1.0. We need more tools to manage large and popular *mainland* areas as well as smaller mainland areas that sometimes get attacked by griefers. This shortcoming and glaring discrepancy between Private Estate tools and Land Owner tools continues to grow, and *NEEDS* to be addressed by Linden Lab in order for ANY of the popular mainland builds to remain at all manageable and viable. The only recourse we have right now is to call a Linden, file an abuse report, and wait. If the mainland does not get better access control/land management tools soon, it will *not* be feasible to run coordinated builds or community areas on the mainland. == Land tools even -partially- catching up with what private estates have, has been promised for a long time. Our area, Luskwood, is getting to the point where it is absolutely becoming unmanageable with the current 'eject' and 'ban' that we have now. Ban, as it exists on the mainland, is mainly a symbolic gesture.The only recourse is calling a Linden or abuse reporting. "Home security devices" can only deal with one troublemaker at a time; not the 9-10 at time, coordinated, that we've been seeing lately. Also, the security devices themselves can end up being abusive. Explanations for the ban height being only 40m has been explained as due to a 'need to keep a continguous experience' and 'allow vehicles to pass through' all areas of the mainland. I ask that LL re-evaluate which is greater: a disruptive experience perpetrated by large groups who essentially exist in SL only to cause trouble (some folks' sole brand of fun), or the ease of a banned person to fly over a sim they are banned from, or a column of ban-height which they could easily fly around. In fact, the very fact that the private estates *CAN* group ban, and deny access alltogether to troublemakers has *concentrated* the "griefing runs" that occur on mainland builds; they lose their access to the Private Estates after causing trouble there, and the only targets remaining are popular mainland builds which have little or no defense. The problem is exacerbated by this imbalance of access controls and tools. Again, the url is here; it's something the whole of SL could benefit from.
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Michi Lumin
Sharp and Pointy
Join date: 14 Oct 2003
Posts: 1,793
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03-12-2006 20:05
It came to my attention that there is a similar proposal, with 749 votes, http://secondlife.com/vote/get_feature.php?get_id=244 . This was proposed one year ago, acknowledged by Linden, and still nothing done. Acknowledged with: "During the first quarter of 2006, we will be working on several ways to add tools for land owners of all types to improve the Second Life experience. We will certainly take each item mentioned here into careful consideration during the design phase. "As usual, the only "land owners of all types" that have been considered, are private estate owners. 1.9 adds many new tools for Private Estate owners, as did the last few versions. Why so much work and dedication to the Estate owners and LITERALLY NONE, since SL 1.0 (and perhaps Beta) for the parcel/mainland owners? Much discussion of this took place well over a year ago, perhaps two, when the issues began to show up. Since then it's fallen silent, but if you're an estate owner, new and better controls are given to you with every release. Note that it is not always a feasible solution to pick up and move to a (or several) Private Estates. Not to mention the damage it would do to the mainland. Can we get a word on this, at all?
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eltee Statosky
Luskie
Join date: 23 Sep 2003
Posts: 1,258
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03-12-2006 20:59
i'll agree theres some really really *basic* stuff that jus.. fails to be effective...
the 'eject' is kinda silly, i mean, unless yer sittin on 4 consecutive sims, best yer really gonna get is the guy causin problems laughing at you from a few meters further away than he was... that really should be redone to send people home, directly, similar to the teleporagenthome script call... at least then it'd have some kinda rationale for usin it..
the ban is a good idea... but it has all kindsa holes... 50 person limit, a big area, that gets alot of bad attention, can go 'through' that number, in a week, easily... the ban height, is just.. patently ridiculous now.. especially with p2p teleport, no one can 'wall you off' with a ban, you could jus teleport to the other side an move on ... not that with p2p alot of people wander around explorin anyway... but still... any build not a basic box house, chances are, is going to have at least *SOME* facet or area, well and good above the ban height, making adding someone to it essentially a triviality...
the script and physics tools, i understand those are much harder to make 'work' in a broadly acceptable way on the mainland... but it would save a huge number of people from having to complain to liasons etc abuot problems, that could probably be easily resolved, even alot of times on their *OWN* stuff, i mean if someone KNEW, without a doubt, their own objects were causing lots of lag, mebbe they'd stop pickin fights with their neighbor about a slow sim
mebbe even jus do somethin where objects not owned by you or your groups, on the mainland, were registered as just *******'s or something... its not ideal... but it would at least give us *something* until somethin better can be worked out
i get how much harder it can be to work on a mainland style environment, but honestly, the idea that everyone can just 'flee' to an island, to get better services... it doesn sit very well... its like bein kicked off yer land, because it would make a very pretty highway onramp and it would be so much easier over in the next town anyway wouldn't it?
a good number of us mainland groups have spent thousands of dollars and thousands more man-hours buildin up what we have, and alot of it can not really be 'replicated' in an island...
I get the business model works 'better' for both the lindens, and the island owners, but not all of us are here to be businesses... we just wanna provide a kinda relaxed, freeform social area and we don want to rip out 2-3 years of history to do it
_____________________
wash, rinse, repeat
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Michi Lumin
Sharp and Pointy
Join date: 14 Oct 2003
Posts: 1,793
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03-12-2006 21:26
yes, exactly. As to the ban height - there are many things that go above the ban height that are not "estates in the sky". 40m is ... really not that high. A few things that go above this height
1) stages/platforms/dance setups 2) the second story on pretty much any house, club, pub, store, etc. 3) most structures that want to make use of vertical space (a la the Aerodrome).
Essentially the limited ban height puts a limit to not only the LxW of land that we bought which we control, but puts a height limit of 40m to anything we wish to really build and reasonably use on that land --- anything built above 40m is fair game for complete anarchy. Oh sure, the TOS still applies over 40m, but in reality, only if a Linden is there, and, well, "you guys had it coming for building something that high anyways" seems to be the general feeling.
A ban list of 50 was great when the maximum number of people on SL at any one time was 150. Now with us pushing 160k users and ~5000 online at one time, this is really, very inadequate.
Eject, from what I've seen, causes most griefers to laugh at the experience -- ejecting them a few meters away essentially allows them to maybe get better perspective on the chaos they're causing, but not much more.
Group Ban: I was against this, until LL gave it to private estates. In 1.9, estates have this. So, estates can now simply ban you for just being in a group. A lot of the attacks we've had to endure have been 'group bound'; very rarely is one pithy jerk an ongoing problem. I was against this because in the past I would have said that it could be used as just as much of a griefing -tool- as it could be used as a preventative, but the cat's already out of the bag.
I find it interesting that LL is so concerned about peoples' flying/contiguous experience that might be hampered by the >40m ban height, but they aren't at all concerned with the possibility of lack of access and contiguousness that comes from blanket group bans, which estates now have. If you're going to throw -that- baby out with -that- bathwater, I have to ask, then why don't mainland owners have the same capability; and lets please get off the fantasy of a contigous mainland populated by freely-passing airships filled with relieved griefers. It's just silly at this point.
While script tops, physics offenders, disabling of certain people's scripts, etc... I understand would be tougher to implement: really, we're just asking (and have been asking, with assurances ensuing, for the last two years or so) for some BASIC improvements; a couple of developer eyeballs turned to the way of the lowly 'mainland land owner', who's been completely disacknowledged from existence, it seems, as the private estates get more and more tools to help them be all that they can be.
Please, LL. Just throw us a bone here. We're not asking for the world, we're just asking for -something- to make our projects and lives a little easier; so that we can continue to contribute to SecondLife, which I'm pretty sure we have been doing for quite some time now.
As Eltee said, just *SOMETHING* -- because managing mainland areas is becoming a practice in futility. But just a FEW changes to help out, would keep that off until something better could be worked out.
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Lex Neva
wears dorky glasses
Join date: 27 Nov 2004
Posts: 1,361
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03-13-2006 11:18
I agree on this one. I may have to see if I can free up some votes for it, even. I've had some experience with this. The land ban tools work just fine for random griefings by people who are just out to shoot someone up, but if you have someone who's making a serious, concerted, or even team effort to annoy you on your land, they really do have the upper hand. From what I hear, you folks in Lusk have it especially bad, at times. As one of the oldest and biggest builds on the grid, I'm glad to see you spearheading this.
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Alondria LeFay
Registered User
Join date: 2 May 2003
Posts: 725
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03-14-2006 14:16
I agree that something needs to be done regarding this. I also might point out a large area of complaints revolve around user created security scripts - both for their lag they can produce as well as some bad abusive payloads. Perhaps if LL provided a solution to the bulk of land owners both of these problems could be resolve! The 50m ordeal has also proven not to be effective. As the above parties stated, many many builds go up higher. It's original arguement in favor was to allow air traffic, which necessity has decreased since open p2p teleportation. I belive two simple modifications could solve this: - Increase the area of effect to a level where most "main" builds will be encompassed (perhaps more in the realm of 200m up)
- Increase the "banned" list to be able to contain any arbitrary length of users.
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Yiffy Yaffle
Purple SpiritWolf Mystic
Join date: 22 Oct 2004
Posts: 2,802
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03-14-2006 20:18
I'm voting for this. I'm a officer in a island furry sim in -dream-land-. I do not have access to the estate tools. Therefor i have to contact the sim owner (who me and her do not get along too well, and she probably has me muted). I would love to disable llPushObject, llApplyImpulse, and llSetForce in this sim. But I have to email and wait for a response till that MIGHT happen if she agrees to it. I can think of no reason why we need those 3 script functions in our sim. Only thing its used for is silly toys and weapons. Our sim is a no combat zone so its forbidden to use scripts that do these anyway. Instead i have to shield myself with 3 shields i purchased cuz each one protects me in a different way, (lagging the sim with sensors) as i stand there watching the place all day while my shields distract my camera ajustment.I find myself sitting on a non physical vehicle sphere just so i don't have to use those blasted things...
If LL would focus more on Parcel management rather then estate management it would make a lot of people happier. Being parcel tools, they would be accessible by anyone who owns land or is a officer of the land group. Why do the new tools all have to be estate? Theres plenty of empty space in the about land dialog for some of these features. How does LL expect the mainland to thrive like this? What I'm suspecting is LL wants everyone to buy a island sim if you wana be safe. They've made it perfectly clear, if you want to make people think your offline when your not, buy a island sim and hide yourself. if you want to be grief free buy a island sim and ban everything that griefs. In the end all SL will be is a ton of scattered island sims. the mainland will no longer serve a purpose.
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Michi Lumin
Sharp and Pointy
Join date: 14 Oct 2003
Posts: 1,793
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03-14-2006 23:38
From: Yiffy Yaffle They've made it perfectly clear, if you want to make people think your offline when your not, buy a island sim and hide yourself. if you want to be grief free buy a island sim and ban everything that griefs. In the end all SL will be is a ton of scattered island sims. the mainland will no longer serve a purpose. See, if that is/was their intention, I really wish they would let us know instead of making us figure it out the hard way. If mainland tools are simply never going to be improved, then we have something else to think about. The problem is, we've been told they will be improved, and that the mainland is -not- becoming deprecated. As I said before, I would just like to be thrown a bone.
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Argent Stonecutter
Emergency Mustelid
Join date: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 20,263
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My proposal...
03-16-2006 14:26
The Lindens want to balance public access to the air with security. OK. So do I. Right now, they're not doing a good job of it because security scripts that are much more aggressive than "red lines" are being used to replace them, and people are setting exclusive group access when they shouldn't need to just because they're tired of having to update the ban list.
My proposal in another thread was to allow the landowner to extend the protected volume. To keep it from being abused, there would be some cost to establishing a larger volume or having a long-term exclusive ban... but a low enough cost to make it affordable to get most builds completely protected.
1. To make it easy to visualise, the "unit region" is 512 square meters in area, and 40 meters high. Extending the protection outside the default protected region would cost L$10/unit/week, taken on stipend day, plus L$10/unit/week for long-term exclusive restrictions.
2. The protected region is defined as a pair of coordinates. As a special case, if the z value of the lower coordinate is zero the region starts at the ground and follows its contours (the default case somewhat rationalised). The coordinates can be inside or outside the parcel, the zone covers the intersection of this bounding box and the parcel. The coordinates default to <0,0,0> to <256,256,40>.
3. You don't pay extra for adding users or changing the ban... the price would be based on the largest volume you had protected the previous week, plus the long-term exclusion fee IF the restriction was in place on stipend day... with the special case that non-exclusive restrictions on the default volume are free.
4. There's one box per parcel.
5. All access controls would work the same way: you just have two lists... one for exclusive access, and one for banning. The elements of the list could be individual accounts or groups. So you could set your land to allow members of 10 different groups, but ban Suicide Girls.
So, if you have a 2048 and want to protect your skybox at 500m out to voice distance, you'd get a 40m ban and pay L$80 a week for it (if you used it). To protect just the platform at Lusk, create a box containing the platform.
This would be a win-win situation. Landowners get more control, but you wouldn't suddenly have "only people in The Cool Group" towers of redlines up to 768 meters...
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Argent Stonecutter
Emergency Mustelid
Join date: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 20,263
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03-16-2006 14:28
From: Yiffy Yaffle I would love to disable llPushObject, llApplyImpulse, and llSetForce in this sim. No flight scripts!?
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Coos Yellowknife
Registered User
Join date: 25 Jul 2004
Posts: 27
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I have a BIG problem with the built in tools for mainland security
03-16-2006 20:46
First: There is a bug that if someone is using there 'Access' list and you cross a sim line and that owner is using the Access list then you end up someplace about a sim away sometimes more. They do not want scripters to use llPushObject but that 'feature' of the Access bars does about the same thing.
Second: Because the "Red Bars" are buggie There is a way to getinto the below 40 m part anyways. You could just show up right there in the house with the person. The builtin system does nothing but upset neighbors by having the red NO ENTRENCE everywhere around there land.
Third: Because of the lack of good security other make security scripts that do work. Some work very well! Now L labs makes the rules they say that you can do this but you can not do that but do not fix the real problem. Who wins The land owner NO The security scripter Sort of (after lots of hastles from having the TOS shoved at them) The Greavers YES! They win they get to anything they want to till the abuse reports finaly catch up to them. Then a week or two later they are back to doing what they enjoy most again!
Ok I can kind of understand the Access list (Nasty looking) No Access red bars up to 40 meters So the avg Joe flying around does not bump into them when you go for a Joy fly over SL. Why is Ban only 40 m If someone gets on a ban list it should restrict that airspace from them. If you are banned on an island you can not even get there.
Fourth: Why do we have to look at a neighbors Red NO ENTRY bars if it is because you are not on an the Access list. If you want to keep that for Ban ok but why does everyone in SL have to look at them all of the time when you get close to them? Even if you had the NO ENTRY show up for 5 or 10 sec after you try to cross the border and get bumped back. You detect the attempt to cross. You give us the little blue box in the lower part of the screen. Only show the NO ENTRY for a few seconds.
I own land that I have to fly over the area that has Access list in place to get to my land. I have to move over it untill The parcle name on the top bar changes to my parcle name then decend down to my land. I do not think that is right. The access list is useless and anoying to so meny. It needs to be fixed or replaced with something that is usefull!
Basicly The land management tools are not working properly. They lack any real control. The BAN list is to small. The Estate tools keep growing and growing. we get little to help us. Even a way we can return items of others via LSL would be helpfull! Group land can really use that feature.
Please give us some help soon!
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Yiffy Yaffle
Purple SpiritWolf Mystic
Join date: 22 Oct 2004
Posts: 2,802
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03-16-2006 21:08
I was really sad to find out that the feature to disable specified script functions was not added to the main grid. This was the only thing I wanted. I saw it in preview and nothing was wrong with it. Why cant we have this? You can't expect me to believe its that hard to do. It's simple as having the sim force all scripts to ignore a specified line of code. For instance... llPushObject. When a bullet collides sending that command off, the sim will ignore it and continue on down the line of code. The bullet will explode like normal but it wont push the victim. Sounds simple to me... o.O
I would love to take off my shields someday but until we have this feature i wont be able to. My shields lag the sim, use several running timers and sensors, distract my camera ajustment/view, and even jerk me into the void when i try to teleport. LL keeps changing the client every release to make the things even more unstable... I now realize why these things cost so much... The creators keep having to fix them like it's a 3rd party hack or something... Taking them off would be like removing your armor after a long day in the battle field, having a cool breeze hit you, it would be quite invigorating.
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Argent Stonecutter
Emergency Mustelid
Join date: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 20,263
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03-18-2006 14:44
I have never worn a shield.
I hang out in places that have traditionally been griefer magnets.
I have been pushed without my permission maybe three times. Mostly the griefers rez noismakers and particle generators and defensive self-rep chains.
Why is it that some people think they NEED to walk around with sheilds on all the time? What are they doing that attracts unwelcome attention?
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Michi Lumin
Sharp and Pointy
Join date: 14 Oct 2003
Posts: 1,793
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03-18-2006 19:42
From: Argent Stonecutter I have never worn a shield.
I hang out in places that have traditionally been griefer magnets.
I have been pushed without my permission maybe three times. Mostly the griefers rez noismakers and particle generators and defensive self-rep chains.
Why is it that some people think they NEED to walk around with sheilds on all the time? What are they doing that attracts unwelcome attention? Argent, you're simply in a different place then. Maybe a griefer magnet, but perhaps a different sort of griefer. Just because you've only been pushed without your permission 3 times does not mean that is exemplary nor indicative of the rest of the grid. C4 seems to be the weapon of choice to drop in Luskwood, usually from an aerial vantage point, they rez it, yell "boom!" and everyone goes flying. Repeatedly. That may not be your experience, but over the last 2+ years, it sure is ours. I've been told "just sit all the time then", or "who cares, it doesn't really hurt you"... Either way, it's very disruptive, and I don't see the point of even having land if you're going to be thrown out of it repeatedly, and everyone at dances or events has to sit. One thing I've noticed, is, the grid is huge, and places people go - it varies. You ask "What are they doing that attracts unwelcome attention?" -- For us, in Luskwood, that 'thing we are doing' that 'attracts unwelcome attention' is wearing anthro/furry avs. You can argue the finer points of targets "bringing it on themselves" if you wish, but "you asked for it because you're furries" is not really valid in a place like Second Life where its very title implies alternativism. Insert in exchange for 'furries' above, vampires/goths/emo kids/country music fans/mechas/elves/GLBT/tinies ... whatever.
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Argent Stonecutter
Emergency Mustelid
Join date: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 20,263
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03-19-2006 11:25
From: Michi Lumin Argent, you're simply in a different place then. Luskwood is one of the places I hang out in, and I've been C4ed once there. Once in Lusk, once in LostFurest. Don't even recall the third location. That's over the past 9 months. I've had to toss noisemakers and particle bombs off my land in LostFurest a bunch, that's over three months. What I'm getting at is... are people reacting to a problem that is still current and active? From: someone You ask "What are they doing that attracts unwelcome attention?" -- For us, in Luskwood, that 'thing we are doing' that 'attracts unwelcome attention' is wearing anthro/furry avs. I don't even *have* a human avatar.
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Eryn Curie
Lost in the fog
Join date: 24 May 2004
Posts: 205
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03-21-2006 18:07
From: Argent Stonecutter What I'm getting at is... are people reacting to a problem that is still current and active? If individual experience counts, I'd say yes. I visited Luskwood recently; was there for oh, maybe twenty minutes. Cue bomber guy in the sky yelling obscenities at the furs and dropping some kind of bomb so potent it knocked avatars away and outright crashed my client. So yeah, count in my vote for better mainland land management tools. It's obviously so very needed.
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Argent Stonecutter
Emergency Mustelid
Join date: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 20,263
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03-22-2006 08:43
From: Eryn Curie If individual experience counts, I'd say yes. I visited Luskwood recently; was there for oh, maybe twenty minutes. Cue bomber guy in the sky yelling obscenities at the furs and dropping some kind of bomb so potent it knocked avatars away and outright crashed my client. Single anecdotes don't count. The same thing happened to me at Luskwood. Once. Months ago. I visit Luskwood at least every other day day, and I hang out in the sandbox or on my own land near Lost Creatures (another place that's supposed to have a big problem with griefers) most of the time, and I visit Furnation regularly as well. The biggest griefer problem isn't C4, it's people with names like "Tampon Dwarf" showing up with grossly distorted naked avs tattooed with ground textures and emitting obscene particles.
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Michi Lumin
Sharp and Pointy
Join date: 14 Oct 2003
Posts: 1,793
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03-29-2006 08:50
Why are your anecdotes somehow weightier than others?
Argent -- the fact that I spend a lot more time in Luskwood than you do really can't be argued... And I really wouldn't be rallying for this if it was a non-issue.
It's not a non-issue; and many Liaisons agree with this; "Wow, you guys are always getting the brunt of this stuff" et al... Lost Furest is not right next to the Welcome Area, and as far as I know, Lost Furest has estate controls. So you can't really compare the two.
But this thread was about a number of management tools, and the fact that we have *NOTHING* but a "symbolic ban" right now.
Literally, the ONLY thing we can do when more than one griefer shows up is call a Linden and hope.
But you seem to be arguing that griefing isn't a problem. I'm telling you that it is, and that pushes are still -very much- used, in addition to other things (particle bombs, cagers).
I spend 99% of my SL time in Luskwood, because I kinda, you know, gotta run the place. And the amount of times that I've had to take an hour out of say, building avatars, to go deal with a bunch of deformed particle-bursting morons *AND* people with names like "krazy999 kaos" dropping C4 and caging people, is not , in any way, an anachronism; and I don't appreciate nor do I understand your motivation for coming into this thread and trying to 'nerf' the legitimate need for better tools on the mainland.
They haven't been improved since *1.0*. They have been promised to be improved. But they haven't. I don't understand what your argument with that is - but in every thread, I suppose it's requisite that there has to be some sort of contrarian.
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eltee Statosky
Luskie
Join date: 23 Sep 2003
Posts: 1,258
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03-29-2006 09:15
Part of the issue is we have gotten very very very very good at using what tools we have. They are cumbersome, involve alot of scripting know-how to be able to really make them effective, and also alot of experience, and patience, and even then, its only sometimes effective.
So yes, we have gone really far out trying to ensure that problems that do arise, do not significantly disrupt our guests... and we are more effective in that than many other areas, because we have HAD to be come more effective, over the years now...
That does not in any way mitigate the need for better tools though... yes.. brushing your teeth is helpful, and will certianly stave off some cavities, does that mean that applying some dental floss won't improve the situation even more? no.
We have a toothbrush, we use it fairly effectively in many scenarios and our guests generally do not have to deal with significant disruption because we have gotten so good at using it. The issue is there *IS* dental floss out there, its being used to great effectiveness by a large part of the sl population (on islands)... we're just asking if mabye we can't get a little piece of that our way, to help improve our workload and how much effort it takes us to keep things running well.
Yes if you brush yer teeth for 15 minutes each day you may not NEED dental floss, but if brushing + flossing gets the same job done, in 2 minutes, and won wear out yer gums nearly as much, is it so wrong to ask for the improved tool?
_____________________
wash, rinse, repeat
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Argent Stonecutter
Emergency Mustelid
Join date: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 20,263
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03-29-2006 13:02
From: Michi Lumin Why are your anecdotes somehow weightier than others? They're not, they're all pie. That's the reason I was asking why people are still so down on kinetics functions... because they don't seem to be the ones that cause the problems. From: someone But you seem to be arguing that griefing isn't a problem. Not at all. I'm just concerned that people are trying to nerf certain scripting functions that have been popular with griefers in the past and that don't seem to be the big problem right now. It seems to me that pretty soon you won't be able fly over 200m because llApplyImpulse and llSetForce have been disabled everywhere, and airplanes will be useless because griefers switched from kinetic to vehicle based scripts after kinetic scripts quit working, and every time I get near the Lusk platform my Aurora Wings go out... and the big debate will be whether llRezObject should be allowed outside combat sims.
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