Show Banned Parcels on Map/MiniMap

Although many SL residents may never walk or even fly anywhere, preferring to teleport wherever they go, I doubt very much I am the only person who likes to explore SL in the most natural way: by walking or using a ground vehicle (bike, car, or boat). I have found the ground-level mode of exploration to be very enjoyable and educational, but like most features of SL (and RL) it does have drawbacks that can (and more and more often do) become extremely frustrating. Now if I were to name just *one* feature that does more to spoil the enjoyment of an exploratory stroll, ride, or sail than anything else, it would be the existence (and more and more unbridled proliferation) of banned parcels.

Don't get me wrong: I stand squarely behind the right of any landowner to protect their and their guests' privacy by banning any and all strangers from their land. The problem is that the implementation of this right in SL is in the process of becoming so disruptive as to impede the movements of bona fide residents who have no desire whatsoever to disturb the privacy of these landowners, but just want to find their way around. There are several things wrong with the current implementation of banned parcels:

1. They are exceedingly secretive. Even *within* a sim, the NO ENTRY barrier that identifies a banned parcel is visible from only a very short distance away--frequently giving less than a second's warning to someone approaching head-on in a moving vehicle such as a car or boat. However, when the banned parcel barrier coincides with a sim boundary, there seems to be at present *NO* warning whatsoever that one is about to collide with a ban barrier, even when one is standing literally within one meter of it (I have bug reported this). Furthermore, the effect of a collision with such a barrier is often excessively destructive, even aggressive. On more occasions than I have been able to keep track of, in both my own and my friends' experience, the vehicle has been destroyed (OK, derezzed, but finding it in your Lost & Found later is a poor consolation) and the occupants have been scattered to the four winds and sometimes trapped in limbo in falling or sitting animations they can only break out of by rebooting--comparable, in fact, to the effects of severe griefing abuse (this has been bug reported too). And although some might think that this should at least not be a problem on public rights of way in Protected Land, experience again shows otherwise; which brings me to the second problem with banned parcels.

2. They often encroach on public rights of way in a manner sufficient to make these roads or streams impassable by the vehicles they are intended for. Because of SL's technical limitations, strips of Protected Land more often than not have very sawtoothed boundaries, which frequently make them functionally narrower than they seem. In my experience, there are literally scores of public rights of way where an unsuspecting landowner is barring the road for any passing vehicles that have no designs on them or their property whatsoever, by the simple act of banning their parcel--*and* a strategic part of the adjacent road or waterway. I have seen cars blasted into the landscape while driving on public roads, boats wrecked while navigating public waterways (I dare anyone to sail successfully from Promissa to Tuliptree in anything larger than a canoe, despite the theoretical existence of at least two protected waterways between them), even trains derailed on the SLRR by those NO ENTRY sawtooths cutting into the right of way just enough to knock them silly. But there is another effect of banned parcels that applies even to private land owned by *others* than the banning owner.

3. They do not just cut off access to the areas they are intended to protect, but to potentially vast areas of SL, because they effectively block the way to any parcels that lie beyond. Sometimes it is easy enough to find a way around the banned parcel, but I have seen at least two instances (in Oslar and Seomna) where landowners were cut off from their own parcels because they were *entirely* surrounded by banned parcels they could not cross at a time when TP facilities were not available in the area (another increasingly common reason why SL residents sometimes need to walk or drive). Again, the common occurrence of "secret" barriers coinciding with sim boundaries is particularly disruptive here.

One feature that might mitigate (and in the case of point 1 eliminate) these problems is marking these parcels on both the World Map and (more especially) the MiniMap, for example by shading them in a particular color. In my experience, nearly all collisions with ban barriers happen because bona fide residents do not get the chance to anticipate and avoid them. The ability to show banned parcels on the map would be an enormously useful feature in this respect. Moreover, it would also be extremely useful in situations where finding a way *around* the parcel (as opposed to through it) is the ultimate goal (see point 3 above).

Respectfully submitted.

I agree whole heartedly on behalf of all pilots, boaters, drivers. Some advance warning of the existance of a banned parcel in the path of travel would greatly enhance the SL experience.

You make a very good case!

I'd definitely support the idea that parcels one cannot access should show up hilighted in red on one's minimap. That would help people avoid group-only land, land that bans unverifieds, etc.

As for the world map, I'd suggest that all parcels with a blanket access restriction (those that limit access to certain people, a certain group, or people of certain payment status) should show up in orange. I don't think it would be a good idea though to check parcel ban lists for every parcel you can see on the world map, as that might slow down the display of the world map horribly. Check if they use restricted access, but don't check if *that* av is banned. That seems a good way to give more info without slowing things down.


Here's an idea : you should be able to choose what the various colours mean on your minimap.
Currency 'cyan' maps to "objects I own", and pink maps to "objects my group owns".
Other options you could map to colours would include "land that bans unverified accounts", and "land that is group-only access". Builders could use this to search for "land which allows rezzing".
IMHO a flexible system like this would allow people to hilight what they wanted on their minimap. Default for new residents would be :
red -> land I cannot access (am banned or restricted from in some way)
green -> land I own
cyan -> land my group owns
yellow/pink -> objects owned by me/my group.

TKS a lot for this post.. I AGREE as an explorer in SL.. or the explorer I was.. after al ban lines that I have meet and al times I have been sent home (killed) I more and more stay at home. . or TP directly..

Write this again as a question to LL.. or a suggestion..

/Tina

well if you can see on the map where you are banned it won't be as penalizing to be banned from several places.

This would certainly help in mapping out sailing routes!!!

it's soooo annoying to be sailing along, enjoying the view and the day and then

WHAMMO!

Red fence, someone has blocked off the entire waterway with security fencing.

What looks like a passable water way, is in fact, a dead end.

yeah!!!! I whined about this after reading Gearsawe Stonecutter's post about it a while back.

See Prop #1811, and go vote.....Please!

The problem with showing these on the world map is that the images on the world map are not generated on-request, as far as I can tell (this would cause lag) but at a predetermined interval. In order to do this, world map images for each sim would need to be made on a per-resident basis which would create incredible strain on the sims.

I made a similar suggestion about 3 months ago. The thread is here. My own suggestion was regarding damage and push settings rather than ban or access control, but the concept is quite similar - let us see, in some way, where the 'land mines' are before we walk into them!

This could refer to whether a parcel has access restrictions that won't let you in, or has damage enabled, or any of a host of other conditions you might want to know BEFORE setting foot on that parcel.

It would have to be on the mini-map, or in terms of what the Avatar themselves sees on the terrain surface (Like when looking at land owner status in View). The main map would not be able to calculate a unique view fast enough.

Perhaps I should have made clearer that I am thinking specifically of blanket bans, i.e., *everyone* other than the owners and their friends are banned from a parcel. The major problem is that these barriers affect bona fide travelers *who have no wish to enter the parcel*. Remember, in-world these barriers appear *with very little warning* (when coinciding with sim boundaries, none whatsoever). I would assume that a *specific* resident who has been banned from a specific parcel knows darned well that the barrier is there (and why), so the problem of their coming upon it without warning does not applyat all.

It would, however, be incredibly useful if parcels banned to *anyone* were shown on the MiniMap (at the very least) and on the World Map (if technically feasible). There is no reason for this to be resident specific at all; in fact, I see no problem with them being shown as banned even to the owner and other people who are *allowed* onto the parcel--because again, they know darned well they are allowed in anyway, *and* it provides them with useful feedback that their protection is in place. After all, they don't see their *own* ban barriers in-world, so they might find it useful to be able to double-check that they haven't accidentally switched them off.

Edit: I second Xanshin's request to vote for FVT proposal #1811, which essentially requests this feature.

I agree that ban lines only appear when you have got so close to them that you often have little chance of stopping. I agree that this is only a problem with regards to *access* lines, as banned people should know darn well they are there. I agree there should be an option to hilight such parcels on the minimap, and, possibly world map (if that would not cause a bunch of db load).

I think the system could reasonably be extended further than this though, as I can see other uses of it.
I'm not sure that landowners should see their own access lines. On the one hand, it'd discourage people who don't need to from using them, on the other, it'd be annoying for the people that do need to use them. Maybe, for the first week after access lines are enabled, they show up as red ban lines for people who can't access the land, and green/blue/yellow lines for people who can? That would mean that people were generally slightly discouraged from using them, but people who really needed to use them diddn't have to put up with them forever.

As to prop. 1811, the term 'blocked' is vague, and it doesn't allow for minimap hilighting of other things, so I won't vote for it, but I'd be open to voting for better, modified versions.

I agree, it is a good idea.....





...but do you have to write a really long post?



EDIT::



How are you going to see the green blip avatars if they are on top of this "green"/"yellow"/"cyan" zoned area? It's blindy hard.

I think they should just draw the borders of the zones you can't get into in red, on the mini map, and don't worry about more detail than that. That avoids the angry fruit salad problem where you can't see anything on the mini-map, and it's cheap to implement.

Bumping this. I've also saved a bookmark for this topic so I can come back to it later, draft a proposal and put it up on the FVT.

Just wanted to add my support to this idea. I've only been in sl a few days, but until an older resident explained it to me, I thought "greifing" WAS putting up these nearly invisible walls to trap or crash people. They definitely need to be made more easy to see.

In the course of looking around for a piece of land (yes, I finally managed to upgrade to premium, but I hope that will not make me forget the plight of our free accountholders), I have been exploring large parts of SL looking for a place to call home, including a considerable number of "private estates" as I believe the official term has it, and it struck me how many of them have a rather less enthusiastic view of banned parcels as well.

Quoting from the Azure Islands covenant:

" Over-aggressive Security Systems
If your security system teleports users home without warning, we will consider this harrassment of other users."

Although this requirement does not target banned parcels directly, because of the reported bug that involuntary collisions with ban barriers frequently throw residents several sims away or even worse, off-world, banned parcels can certainly be said to violate the spirit of the requirement. Having said that, I encountered several ban walls whilst traveling on theoretically protected rights of way in Alpha Centauri, Hyades (sidewalks in commercial districts, no less!), and Fornax, so Azure Islands do not seem to interpret their own rules that strictly. However, for a much clearer example...

Quoting from the Caledon rules of conduct:

"Don't block waterways or paths by setting up security of any kind. If you feel you MUST have security on, subdivide your plot to allow path or water right-of-way at the far edges, and only turn on security where you need it. Do not ban everyone from your land 24/7. This makes for an awful sim and generally marks you as a newbie."

[...]

"Imagine 6 or 7 people with 24/7 ban lines. Well there are about 15 residents per sim. People on the corners get cut off from their homes, no way to go around, ugly ban lines everywhere, trashing the appeal of a sim that cost 1250 USD and hundreds of hours spent by dedicated residents to make appealing."

Note how these correspond exactly to some of the concerns raised in my original post. It's nice to know (some) landowners and free accountholders are so in agreement on this issue... and all the more depressing how few people seem to care enough about it to bring it to Linden's attention (proposal #1811 still has only 100 votes as of this writing).

I also note the excellent suggestion of subdividing plots adjacent to public rights of way, and blocking only those parts of the parcel that matter. As noted before, the "sawtooth effect" of parcel boundaries makes many, many, *many* roads and waterways de facto impassable when the adjacent parcels are blanket banned. (I particularly recall a certain recent example in McFee where more than two thirds of the width of an important public waterway was blocked by a banned plot of *prim land*, for God's sake!)

So far it seems to have stayed under Linden's own radar, but let's hope that if even large estate landowners are starting to pay attention, the banned parcel problem may finally be addressed in a reasonable fashion. Hey, I'm not even saying banned parcels should be, um, banned (although Caledon has, in the recent update to their rules), just that I should have reasonable warning of them before they smack me in the face

I'm taking the liberty of bumping this thread, given its overwhelming relevance to Lilliput Boshop's recent note on unobstructed flying. Of course that goes for other kinds of unobstructed travel too. Anyone care to explain to me how to sail a boat at Z 1200+?

last time i looked all the land of SL is owned by about 20% of the users.

And?

Isn't this a more equal distribution than we have in RL?

I have previously complained about the lack of visiblily of ban lines, but the ban lines are offensive to the FIC esthetics, so they will be staying the way they are.

those that don't pay for a service shouldn't have a say in how it should run.

What, are you assuming that all landowners agree with you?

OK, I'm paying $50 a month just for land, and I say that knee-jerk use of exclusive access controls and aggressive defense scripts is abusive.

Two things.

1. Many of the unsuspecting travelers victimized by oversecretive ban walls are premium accountholders (whether they own land or not) and are thus most definitely paying for the services of SL even under the narrowest of definitions. They certainly have at least as much of a voice in this as the dog-in-the-manger landowners who aggressively ban everyone from their land (banning an *underwater*, *empty* parcel of *prim land* in the middle of a public waterway, how dog in the manger can you get?).

2. Just because a resident does not own land does *not* mean they are not "paying" for their services in another way. Assuming Kyrah is correct in stating that all the *land* in SL is owned by 20% of its residents, does that mean that those 20% of SL residents contribute all of its *content*? I have not seen *any* evidence for that contention whatsoever, and I have seen *plenty* of evidence to the contrary. Many free accountholders of my acquaintance build and script and otherwise contribute valuable content to SL, often well in excess of the contributions of others who do hold land (a major reason why the continued stereotyping of free accountholders as a bunch of griefing freeloaders strikes me as vicious beyond belief). Are these people not "paying" with their contributions? Who is doing most to make SL a better place, the non-landholding builder/scripter making their creations available to all residents, or the landowner carving their little piece out of the grid and banning everyone but themselves from their magnificent heap of onions?

Oh and BTW, none of this has ever been about taking away any of the banning rights of landowners no matter how callous and aggressive, but only about making the banning tools they use *less secretive*. If one sets a dog loose on one's land to fend off trespassers, it is fairly customary to at least put up a large, easily visible sign saying BEWARE OF THE DOG.

While I agree, in principle, with the previous rebuttals which take the "social contract" position to object to your comment, I think there is a much more pragmatic reason to object to your comment:

Even if someone isn't a "paying member" in the sense of paying a subscription to LL, it is quite likely they contributed to the SL economy by purchasing the vehicle they are attempting to fly over your land. I'm pretty new here myself, but it seems to me that SL would be a vast empty space if it were not for the creativity of the residents. The people making the proposals in this thread are attempting to figure out a way to allow you to protect your land while encouraging the expansion of markets, and the general enjoyment of all residents. If airplane flight were reliable and fun, a whole new market could explode with new business opportunities, and these new businesses could, in turn, provide more entertainment opportunities for all residents. Market incentive. SL grows. People profit.