New Sim Island Project

Have you ever wanted to live in a sim dedicated to mature adults who just want to settle down, relax and explore their creative sides without any risk of people moving in and creteing lots of lag and poorly made builds.

This is a dream of mine and my group of builders but the sad thing is there is only three options:

Buy normal Land - You ALWAYS get people who move in that create lag and trouble
Buy Anshe Land - Too complex for groups to buy and pay for land
Buy own sim island - Too expensive but complete control if governed correctly

This is my proposal
New Sims Island Project
I want to put together a list of groups/citizens who want to form their own sim, working together under and managed by an equal oppotunities council where every resident has it's say on how the sim is ran, managed and built.

This sim will be paid for by each group though the person who puts the most in will have the largest vote on the council.

Right now this is just an idea and I am hoping I can get some support to make this a reality.

If you or your group is intrested please contact me by IM in game: Sakura Raven

If you have comments or sugestions on this idea please reply to this thread.

Sounds interesting. Like to know more details sometime.

Feel free to ask away here or in Second Life. I plan to build up more information as I talk to more people and get their views.

What do you mean by "explore their creative sides"? If Im a scripter, builder, etc, would I be allowed to work/build in this sim? Or could this council say no temp building/projects are to be done on the sim? I'd hate to invest money only to find the council wants me to sit around in a 'perfect' world doing absolutely nothing.

There already is a private sim which does this. It is the private sim of Neualtenburg. It's unique in that it's the first sim owned by a nonprofit cooperative (everyone shares the cost of the server) and governed through a democratic governmental system (a multibranch system to prevent abuse). Here's some information from our website:

The Neualtenburg Projekt is a nonprofit cooperative and self-governed community, whose purpose is to:

1. enable group ownership of high-quality public, private, and open-space land;
   
2. create a themed yet expressive community of public and private builds; and
   
3. implement novel democratic forms of self government within Second Life.
   

We've just rebuilt the walled city and are finishing up rezoning this week. We go "live" this weekend and have already leased a good portion of the land. If you'd like to be a part of this, we'd love to have you. As soon as this sim fills, we're going to repeat with a second sim.

~Ulrika~

Dosent the Gorean people in Sl do this kind of things.. ?? Have own sim/s..

Must be more than that...

Building will be a big part of this community so the council if there are any proposals past about building it it will most likely just deal with things that create mass amounts of lag only.




Ulrika Zugzwang, I'll have to get in touch with them and see if we can help each other out.

I do hope we are allowed to have more than one of these!

I think it's an interesting concept that the person who has the most land will have the most say in a sim's management. I can imagine there will be a lot of howling about this.

This sounds interesting, but I think for projects involving a zoned residential community of this complex governance, you need first to have the group functioning before you buy land.

This kinda describes the Amazon Nation sims, apart from the paying bit.

Prokofy, do you have sims like this??? I am not familiar with islands but how would one be protected if someone in the group decides to sell the group land?

You're talking to one of them now.

If there's any way I can facilitate your efforts, let me know. There are many ways we could work together. We could be a source for answers to your technical questions, we could be neighboring private sims, we could share governmental systems, we could each own parts of the other's sim, and so on.

We have a group forum here and a web page here, if you'd like to know more. Feel free to send me an email too.

~Ulrika~

Ulrika Zugzwang, could you contact me in game and we can talk about it. I appreciate all the help you can give me.

I won't be on much in the next few days, as I'm getting ready to go on vacation. Email or PM works best for me, although I see you have PMs turned off. Perhaps a new thread in the Neualtenburg forum? Then you could meet some other folks as well.

~Ulrika~

Fixed my PM, don't know why it was off in the first place.

Alright I am sure we will talk soon about it.

Why complex? It is far easier than your proposal, plus added benefit of drama free management

Groups can just come, pay me, contributing members subscribe tier and get land pooled on their group. All members can have officer role in group without the danger of one officer stealing all the land, which is big problem on mainland. There is no group member who is official sim owner and no danger of such person abuse his/her power to play boss.

If one group really want share land in save and equal way they should consider one professional community service provider

Big problem? Has there been many cases of this? I have not heard of a single one actually happening. I am jsut curious how rampent this really is.

-Ghoti

I'm sorry anshe, but don't you get enough advertising throughout SL? I think his idea is good, and is already proven by an already existing sim of that nature. Why don't you stop trying to control everyones land life and show this guy some support. you have your own forums on "anshchung.com" so go blab about yourself over there.

I think its a tried and true idea sakura, and I support your commitment to it, and wish you the best of luck.

Ghoti, I have faced this vulnerability and it is harrowing. It is definitely not something you want to deal with. I've had people paralyze my groups with officer recall, and pull out large amounts of tier completely, and once had an officer completely delete all the buildings on some 40k land in 2 sims which we both were working on. It's a terribly distressing thing to have to live with these vulnerability. The answer is to fix the group tools so that when applied to land holdings they protect the ownership rights and privileges of the person who paid the up front purchase cost and who pays the tier.

I agree that buying in Ansheland is not "complex" although it is not entirely "simple".
It takes a few steps of concentration but the benefits outweigh the expenditure of any time or reading of cards.

Della, I don't have private island sims, I just haven't wanted to take that on. I have quarter sims and half sims where I rent out parcels or larger tracts in communities, because I just find that gives me more flexibility.

No one in a group holding the deed on an island group can sell the land, including the officer who accepted the deed arrangement because the land is in the ownership of Anshe or other island holders, they are transfering a deed, not transferring a slice of the island pie. That's how it works.

Forgive me, Anshe, but all the risks are still there. You are simply proposing that you yourself are more trustworthy and reliable than anyone else they could chose from amongst their friends and acquaintances.

Maybe this might sometimes be true, but is it modest for you to suggest it ? And phrased as though it is the most natural and obvious thing in the world ?

from my own small project ramblings, i've discovered that any sort of in-depth cooperation, ESPECIALLY in regards to personal space and investment, true community or whatever takes a SIGNIFICANT amount of time, time, time and work.

You might want to consider finding it in your heart to pull some sort of profit out of this to make it worth your while... otherwise you're only cheating the people you you want to have a eutopia with. They'll expect some sort of organization that needs to be upheld. Democracy is about alot of things but here in SL it's mostly about conflict resolution. I'm an optimist, really.


~Lefty

I second the remarks of many here in this post. The root of the matter is complex, not to mention the entire subject of land, rights and ownership. Just in the core we have trust, communicaiton and organization.. Anche simply takes on a large roll and sets rules.

No matter how you stack it, real communities are a pain in the ass to exist in. Conflict resolution is a table leg we all lean on. Eutopia simply isn't achievable here in SL. We'll get close, though.

~Lefty

I am sorry Games, but the original poster in this thread brought up our land offerings and I had to correct him. This isn't about advertising but about providing correct and complete information where it is necessary.

This topic has changed so lets get back on track shall we? Thank you.

I've been talking to quite a few people about this and still working on a plan and guidelines. Stay tuned.

We've been talking ALOT about communities here in SL, so much so that I'm frankly burnt out on the subject. I'd like to show some of you community-phyles, like my former self, what has burned me out.

A single sim deemed "residential" with 20 plots and 20 houses seems simple. It may be if done right. But not everybody agrees on "right." Here is what I expect to run into if I were to buy a sim and try to get "mature adults" (who just want to sit around and be creative all day) to pay me.

First, Democracy is a full-time job. Democracy, I'm sure we all agree, is never something that is doable half-ass or part-time. Anyone insisting on a democratic republic will insist on nothing but the finest set of laws and a full-time staff to support them. Sim owners and residents will be required to vote constantly and stay fully aware of the issues.

This topic can easily be over-done or sorely lacking in a community because of the nature of human factors and the endless other factors of each community.

Second, Anyone seeing the validity in a constitutional monarchy will find that communities only work if they are simply governed i.e. few actual rules all upheld by a single sim-owning person or triad who tries to stay active in people's issues. This isn't all that bad but would, in a fair and just world, be a 50 hr work week.

Third, land rental is currently not supported by LL meaning that current schemes must be scripted and possibly supported by web access and money conversion frameworks. This requires money, troubleshooting and requires extra helpings of people.

Fourth, money must be generated so that the sim owners make enough money to justify their hard work. Peek at the building, scripting or designing forums and you will see that there are a lot of people wishing they were paid justly for their custom work. Consider being a sim/community owner as doing custom work. Well-meaning people are a breath of fresh air here in SL but are, unfortunately, still a dime a dozen. I've learned this by being one... Even Mother Theresa will burn out here if they are ruining their experience by breaking even on a real job in a pseudo world.

Fifth, plenty of people have plenty of ideas on how things should be run. This is why you don't see any powerful community action groups in RL. People are still appointed to strike down dumb ideas while still allowing them to be heard. Eventually, somebody will gain support in opposing how something is run and the sim owner will be forced to change a policy against his better judgment in order to keep his bills paid by others. He will feel an obligation as the owner to guard his investments but will inevitably lock horns with people who pay him 8 bucks a month for the rights to rally for change.

Sixth, dwell rewards for building something with community benefit are tricky to manage. “Creative, mature adults” are usually not satisfied by sitting on their own porch watching the virtual sun rise and set. They will be spending their time and money outside of your sim. Decide if you are OK with this or not.

This sounds pretty gloomy the way I wrote this but it is really a great job if you are paid justly for the time and energy. I've missed several points here and you should add your own ideas if you think they will help Sakura in a realistic way. He will get plenty of well-wishers and preliminary support but what he really needs is input to balance it all out.

~Lefty

Lefty, as I believe I've said before, your gloomy list of problems seems to have grown out of thinking about this, but not doing it. The problems are both worse and better than you imagine.

Let's leave aside the private islands, because I think they could become a headache, a $195-a-month headache that you can't undo by selling except selling the entire thing. It won't divide up, so you either find 9 other friends in your hippie commune, or you find 9 or 15 strangers who will buy leased deeds from you and then play building code cop, but you still have a lot of work cut out for you it seems even if all scripted.

On a mainland sim, you can declare the sim residential, then sell it. Then the people who buy it take it over as their own, and with pride of ownership, they're motivated to work it and keep it nice. With a minimal community association, you can figure out a commons, prim sharing, residential/business mixture, etc.

Now you'll face the problem of the neighboring sims and what is happening on them, and as we know, anything from giant griefer towers with huge spinning boxes and lights and even King Kong in the water can attack...but you turn down your draw distance, you wait 30 days, you file a few complaints to the Lindens -- it is doable.

The wildcard is how to think whether the rentals that the community might set up for some businesses, or the dwell for events, will be enough essentially to pay for prims or pay for the initial investment in land. The answer is a fat: no.

You are buying and selling entertainment, and that's not an investment. There isn't enough infrastructure in place for that. Renting is easy, and not as unsupported as you say. But it's not going to be enough for every community to sustain itself and return its purchase. Even selling the land to the next customer who'd like to come in may not work.

I've noticed that the prices in Ravenglass on the mainland have gone up steadily. I once set them to $7.5/meter to make them affordable, and $9.5/meter with custom houses on the waterfront. These all resold, and at 8 or 9 or more. Some have sold and resold a few times. I saw maybe one liquidation to a land baron and a resale at a much higher price. It's just a tiny slice of SL life but I think it is possible to make sims that increase in value, although of course there's a limit to this. The limit is the factor of new sims constantly being churned out -- people will always value the pristine wilderness and the illusion it can be kept over the reality of life on an established sim which will may have better protected views but maybe has more lag.