Residential Zoning

Dear Citizens of Second Life,

I dare to speak up for the masses of people who baught their land for good Linden Dollars and put a lot of work and heart into building their cozy homes.
What happens lately, and what happens far too often, is that either one of these big, lag-producing Malls appear next to our houses in all their eye-hurting ugliness, put there by people who have profit in mind and not care for the people in the area, who suddenly find themselves lagging heavily through their own living room, or it's some new club that has opened up, preferably with lots of particles, moving things, poisening the performance as well as hurting the eye in most cases, and, not least, their light ruining the local lighting experience of the own home one so nicely composed before that thing showed up from one day to the other.

What we need is either an accounting of SIM FPS impact or script execution time based on land useage, so that these institutions do not bring down an entire SIM, or zoning of SL, as in Residential SIM's and Commercial ones.

It's the value of our land that's at stake here, and we have put real work and real money into getting us the homes we wanted to have in SL, and this investment wasn't a small one for many of us, and we definitively do not want to have our work ruined by clubs and malls. I have a few friends that even got asked to turn off all their scripts in their homes, just so that a local club that opened at their site can take up even more of the processing power of the sim server. This is wrong. And we should not accept this.

There needs to be an official solution from Linden Labs to this issue, before we take things into our own hands, e.g. by starting to further lag the sims we live in, in order to drive out these unwanted clubs and malls.

If you agree with me, please make a post to this thread, so we can show how many people are fed up with the current situation.

Sincerely,
Leopard Loveless, Residential of Bishop.

I'm sure the masses will be pleased to have you putting words into their mouths



Ah! You're one of those 'If I don't like it it shouldnt be allowed' types. It's a matter of opinion. Some people probably think your builds are ugly, ya know?



Yes! Let's have tools to 'prove our case' on our witchhunts of ugly building lag inducers!



Willfully lagging the sim to try and drive out your neighbors would be outright abuse, and the likely outcome is that you would be the ones leaving. For your suspension or ban.



Well I'm sure there are those that would agree that they would like to see 'residential zoning' as per your post title. Especially since we've had this discussion at length several times recently.

But hopefully there aren't too many who are as self serving as to think that other paying residents should build to your personal standards, play SL your way or that they should resort to vigilantism and griefing to get what they want to the detriment of other players,

If you want support, maybe try to be more reasonable about putting your point across?

Oh, I am beeing reasonable, and I don't put as much flame into it as you obviously do
And me putting lag onto a sim out of my own will, or a disco doing so, where's the difference? We both lag the sim because we seem to want to.

And what you obviously didn't get is that I am not against the ugliness of some stuff, I can live with that, but I am against the lag and problems the neighborhood of a club or mall creates. And there's no denying that the value of land drops when the neighborhood gets unappealing, right? It's like that in RL, too.

Thanks for your overemotional and pretty useless input, tho, Kris Proves that flaming didn't die yet.

Sincerely,
Leopard Loveless.

When I flame you, you'll know

You sure you're cut out for these forums? A word of advice: don't be telling too many people that their input is pretty useless if you don't want a world of flame. We're all entitled to our opinion, buddy. You don't like mine, and I think your attitude stinks.

We'll leave it at that, shall we? Since there is little point trying to discuss with you. You obviously just wanted to stomp in, say your piece in a self righteous tone and stomp off again.

Actually, on second thoughts, you'll fit right into these forums.

I think your desires are not going unheard. I'm pretty sure 100% of these things are all in the works..

Hopefully Uncle Linden will start letting us know what the priorities are.

*nods at Blaze*

Well, this might really be the n'th thread about the topic.. but I guess that is mainly cause noone got an official word on it so far.. and it's an issue.

I know they put restrictions on several sims before, like no tall houses, no skyboxes and such.. so why not make residential areas and the like.

*meow*
Leopard Loveless.

I wish they'd at least experiment with some new sims with built-in, automated limits, just to guage how popular they might be. I know it's caveat emptor when you buy land, but I still think it's kind of weak to encourage people to invest money in your system and then let that investment go up in smoke for no particularly good reason. I don't think they even need to consider things like commercial versus residential. The real issue is resource distribution, not the kind of content, just like it was with prims before they tied prims to parcel size. If, for instance, there were a sim that somehow restricted the number of avatars per square meter, you woudn't see a club there. Well, not for long.

You know what really has begun to disgust me about most posts in these forums? The utter disregard for personal respect. Kris, not knowing you in the least I hope you don't take this to heart and get offended, but somehow reading over this block of text I've got a feeling you will. In what way were all your unwarrented sarcastic remarks and line after line of thinly veiled insult beneficial to this discussion?

Did nobody but me take a debate course in high school? I thought they were mandatory.

The way you prove your point isn't by sticking your fingers in your ears and going "you're a foo foo head! your mother is fat! blah blah blah blah blah blah blah." It's by demonstrating yourself as more informed than your opponent, more eloquent, nicer, more polite, better behaved. Being unduly sarcastic unprovoked makes you look like an ass. A rude ass.


That having been said.

I agree with you wholeheartedly Leopard. In real life a person can't open a strip club across the street from a church, or in a quiet neighborhood, so why should a gigantic club or mall be allowed as well? I, and I'm sure you, realize this would require a large, large reconstruction of SL if it were to be done retroactively, but I think it's important. The clubs ARE lag-inducing, which I've seen with my own eyes. I first started playing SL with a Pentium 3 466 mhz computer, and I'm sure you can imagine how that went. Last month I upgraded to a 1000.00, state of the art, light speed system. SL now runs fine for me with incredible FPS rates (I never knew how ANIMATED the game was!) every single place except when I teleport to a club.

Not to mention most of the clubs are just ugly boxes with a texture slapped on. There's little design and even less creativity to at least 2/3 of the clubs around.

I think there needs to be zoning in place. And it needs to be enforced. So yeah, I agree with you.

Leopard, you might want to talk to Eltee, Chage or maybe Chromal sometime about what they did vis a vis the Lusk Estates and getting official permission from LLab. While LLab maybe examining other solutions right now, group land buying and group rules is probably the way to go. That way participation is 100% voluntary, you and your friends can be happy and no one else is affected by it.

Good luck.

Yup. Like the original poster you so agreed with who has the utmost respect for his fellow players and the Lindens, threatening to grief one if the other doesnt comply with his demands, and condemning other players builds as ugly.



Not really. Like I keep saying, everyone is entitled to their opinion. He's given his, I've given mine, you've given yours. I didn't like his, and he and you don't like mine. We straight now?



In what way were his insults and thinly veiled threats beneficial to his point? Would you not agree that he could have been far more eloquent, nicer, more polite about making it?



Note: There is a world outside America. I know. I live there.



Yeah. Not quite sure where I accused anyones mother of being fat. But anyway, you don't read these forums much, do ya? Show me anyone proving their points by being eloquent, nicer, more polite or better behaved? While you're at it show me a post where I haven't been sarcastic?



In real life, we have governments and regulatory bodies to say what we can and cant do. In SL, which really isnt real life btw, we don't. And I think you'll find that the vast majority that have spoken on the subject would be very much against it happening.



Like I said before, it's really not up to you what your neighbors build. For you and Leopard and likeminded people, its already been suggested that new sims are zoned in some way... as I said, this discussion happened before recently. Then if you want a controlled, regulated environment, you can go there. Retroactively reshaping SL for everyone is not going to be a popular choice. Yes, I will agree to anything that keeps one part of the population happy as long as it doesnt affect or isnt forced on us all. We don't all want to live in little streets of little terraced houses in an idyllic neighborhood in suburbsville, Second Life just to get rid of a bit of lag.

Hi there!

Joshua, it wouldnät even have to be introduced for already existing sims. But a change in the way new sims are introduced, for example as residential only or something, would long term help to solve the problem, I guess.
For the resource distribution, of cause, that would be a global thing, an surely require some work. Still, it would ne nice to have an official word on how Linden sees the issue.

And Kris, since you so much hope to keep up the argument... please stop picking the few lines you can misunderstand from my post and jump on them. It gets old. Face it, most malls are ugly, no roof, no style. There are exceptions, but most just .. are. But that never was the main issue of my post. But you are too busy ranting at some phrases to comment on the meaning I put into it, I think. And, if it help you any, I don't live in the USA either *shrugs* But that's totally beside the point.
And second, you claim that this is the way forums work. Ibegin to agree. It's always someone who comes in on a normally written topic that has a meaning and starts to flame it, and other reply to it, and the original topic is forgotten within 5 posts, replaced with the flamewar that's so easily started on any topic. Do us a favor, and be constructive instead of sarcastic

Take care,
Leopard.

You don't seem to get the point, which is why I have to keep saying it. Which is why it gets old. It's your opinion that it's ugly.



It had a lot to do with a comment about an american education system and mandatory american schooling practices while making a comment about my social skills



I was constructive and sarcastic. Trouble is, just like you accuse me of only jumping on the rude bits of your post and your attitude to fellow residents, you've done the same to me.

Only difference is, I also constructively replied to the rest of your post, whilst you dismissed all of my constructive comments.

Oh, and whether your 'normally written topic' had 'meaning' is also subjective and a personal opinion. As is the reply that we've been through this all before. recently. which again you chose to ignore.

Anyhoo, I'm off to go build something ugly in SL now just to annoy people, rather than sit here and argue about it. buhbai

Doing it retroactively would cause more wailing and gnashing of teeth than it's worth, but it would be great if some of the new sims were brought on line with residential restrictions. I've only been in the game for a week or two, but I've already ditched my newbie lot due primarily to commercial development.

Agreeing on principle is one thing, of course. The devil is in the details. What distinguishes a club from a really good house party? How do you implement a residential zone in a way that doesn't strangle residents' ability to enjoy their residences?

Good question.
A house party won't happen all the time, whereas a club is there all the time, with the people there, mostly, and the effects that seem to apply so much stress on the sim server. The occasional Lag isn't that much the issue, I think.

I know, people can also create laggy content within their houses, but generally, it doesn't seem to be as bad as some of the clubs out there.

*meow*
Leopard

it might've helped, I guess. if I'd been a little clearer about when I was specifically speaking to you and when I was speaking in general. perhaps, Kris: and Everyone Else: ?

Also, not knowing Leopard whatsoever, I guess I assumed too much in assuming it was clear I was limiting my scope to THIS thread. Whatever Leopard has said in the past is irrelevent to this discussion, as far as I'm concerned. Whatever you've said in the past is irrelevent to this discussion, though I will venture somewhat by saying I searched both of your threads and you are extremely quick to jump to long posts of quoting and responding solely to single lines with snippity attitude a lot more often than Leopard is.

Another good rule of debating, leave personal grievances outside the ring.

and the comment about school was again, directed in general. I'm aware that there's a world outside of America. I've slept with a lot of it. the fat comment was also a generalized statement. and I'm always eloquent and polite in my posts.

But in real life, your neighbors do have a lot to say in what you build. I don't know about wherever you live but I'm sure there're similar principles, communities and neighborhoods have entire housing boards that vote to decide whether or not someone can change their front lawn landscaping, move a mailbox, do a new paint color. and if an ugly restaurant goes up, or someone posts a huge billboard, loud complaints from vocal citizens will make it difficult to remain.

Mmrrrhhhhfffhf.

Mrrrfffff!

MMRRRRRFFF!

*spits* Oh. Sorry. Was having a hard time speaking with all those words shoved into my mouth.

Leopard, you do speak for masses of land-owners who have seen their dream turn into a nightmare because one man's dream in this game can easily become another man's nightmare. I personally have moved from land I thought I wanted to keep because of atrocious builds that went up next door, or just plain inconsiderate builds. I've had one surprise success by negrating a builder and asking them on a public forum here why they kept that build out. It was gone the next day. In another case, I negrated a build and the builder changed something to try to make it better. I am for using build ratings much, much, much more effectively in this game. Architects and builders who take over large spaces especially large public spaces have to be prepared to take some community heat.

What you are proposing has no doubt been discussed to death here already: zoning. But as a new player, I too, wonder why they don't at least set aside some sims as residential or as commercial when they roll them out. For one, they could put the entertainment/club type of zoning on better, newer servers to reduce the lag, and maybe get by using older servers for quieter residential areas. (The idea that your home particles or scripts could add to a club's lag seems ridiculous to me, so your threat of griefing a club is an empty one I presume.)

The problem is: how to get zoning? The Lindens didn't put it in because either they figured it would hurt their bottom line or hurt creativity which is also about advancing the frontiers of their technology. So they let it turn into the most outrageous and often even hilarious or infurating sprawl. I've seen the most God-awful stuff in here. For whatever reason, and it would be nice to hear them justified, the Lindens are not going to zone.

Next question: can players make and enforce zoning? Well, this is my current experiment at Ravenglass. I bought a sim and I am trying to keep it residential. Of course, I can't expect everyone who buys there to keep to the character of the neighbourhood, which is clearly woods and residential, but hopefully the big developers of malls and clubs, when they see land parceled with woods and houses, will keep flying on to the next sim.

What I've discovered, however, is that even buying a whole sim, you still don't have control -- the next sim over can have mall or club blight on it, or just idiotic builds, and they ruin your views and your access, and there isn't much you can do about it except reach for "big tall pine" in your inventory. It's a good thing that a giant mall on another sim is on a separate server, correct? That way it can't induce lag on your little residential property even seemingly next door.

You would think it would be fairly easy for SL residents to get together, and make a sim be residential themselvs. But it's not as easy as it looks. .They all have to agree and make a collective purchase, or informally at least start buying together, and they have to maybe pool their tier. I think it can work but in the end, you probably will still have to have some businesses mixed in with the residential, mainly because of the harsh reality of that tier bill every month. Somebody has to get it paid.

So because the company can't or won't enforce zoning (they can't even enforce player-created zoning except to encourage players to use their ban tools, etc.), players have to be prepared to do the following:

1. Run grassroots campaigns of negrating builders and owners who ruin views and lag sims -- restore the meaning back to the "build" part of the reputation instead of letting it be a calling card greeting for every girl or guy you meet on the dance floor.
2. Get players together in groups to jointly purchase sims at auction, pool their tier in groups to be able to handle the amount of acres in a whole (or half) sim, and make their own community as they see fit.
3. Find a wider variety of innovative businesses that can adapt to residential or woods communities that don't have a huge footprint, that are low-impact and don't cause lag.
4. Encourage the Lindens to make some super servers that can hold the clubs and get their customers to go to those servers.
5. Encourage the Lindens to offer discounted land on the old, slower servers and have them make them quiet residential areas that clubs/malls will be discouraged from going to.

What I don't think we can expect is to have the Lindens do mass zoning all throughout the game space, it will just slow down business, there will be the problem of all the existing builds, and there will be a problem of having to create some kind of community boards or town councils to make decisions about zoning -- unless the Lindens entirely assume that administrative headache -- and judging from all the controversies swirling around player-sponsored government, players just aren't going to sit still for that.

Remember, game companies do not enforce rules like zoning because players themselves, taken as a collective, do not want government-type interference in their game.

Remember: even people whose home property value has been ruined shop at malls.

I know that what can be done about existing areas is quite limited, it would caue more promlems than solve them.

Thi I still believe the concept of having some of the upcoming servers reserved as residential areas would work out. A lot of people who moved around due to malls and clubs will jump on their chance to get a peaceful home where they can stay.

The Lindens have done this before, as in limiting sims to specific purposes, and so it is doable, even without any technical enforcement, I think.

When it comes to building and architecture rating.. I am reluctant, because it can be a source for grief, and, I even have to agree with Kris there, what looks good to one man, might look crappy to the next, because people have different taste.

Gathering likeminded people to "take over" a sim is a good idea, tho it has got problems in letting it become true, due to the reasons you specified. Would take a lot of people to cooperatively work together, and it is hard to maintain some control of who comes to the land next, after one dropped out, for example.

*meow*
Leopard

I think the best way to handle this is using a means such as you suggest. The world is large enought that it shouldn't be too difficult to find like-minded individuals who are interested in living in a primarily residential sim.

Why not get a group of trusted individuals together, create a group, everyone deed land to it, and then you could set up your home on land that is the equivalent to what you deeded. The 10% bonus for group land could be used for 'open areas' in your community.

It can work, as long as people are willing to work for it.

I'd be willing to go for this, Leopard. I just got rid of my land tuesday because of an obnoxious person next door who ran a casino that ripped everyone off. I'll be mature and not post the name, though I'll point out I've seen the owner of this casino win dev incentive awards two months now, despite the fact that everytime I was there I'd see five of her friends just standing in place AFK.

When I pointed out that her casino was ripping people off, after testing it myself and neg rating the building part, she got irate and banned me from the land she owned in the sim, which was apparently considerable. So I could only enter my parcel via one direction. Reminicent of Anshe, now that I think of it.

Anyway, I'd love to do a group land type of thing. Maybe we could even do something similar in concept to what Ulrika's doing in the snow sim.

I agree with all of your suggestions as creative and proactive means of solving the problem, with the exception of #1. I think it is far to broad and subjective for punitive action. While I would agree that there are some builds that detract from the environment and cause lag, there is no clear way to decide what deserves a neg. rating and what doesn't.

How do you decide what falls under the category of ruining views? Most of us could agree that a large, spinning, CLUB CLUB CLUB! sign ruins the view, but it is subjective and open to interpretation by each person. If I constructed a 20-story condo tower on the shoreline, one person might love it, and another would complain I just ruined thier view.

I think it would be better to encourage builders to refine thier technique than running a neg. rate campaign. Clearly, some people won't give a rat's ass, but others will and will work to improve the situation.

The Lindens put the rating system in the game evidently with some meaning mind, but it degenerated to a feel-good system. I've never built much beyond a free texture box and yet I get a positive building rating? Why? I'm very conservative on my use of the build rate function and only award it when I see somebody has actually done a job.

People fear negative campaigns in a game like this -- everybody wants to "get along". I'm less fearful in that way. I see it as an important social interaction. Everyone I have given a negative build rating to has entered into some kind of interaction with me. Some have changed. I've reversed it then. Others might boot and ban me -- so be it. It's a social interaction and in a game where everybody is in build or script mode half the time doing extremely picky solitary work, it's nice to have a little social interaction sometimes with meaning.

I'm not afraid either of seemingly endless subjectivity being the enemy of the discovery of a public objectivity. I do believe that if a certain core of like-minded people get together and begin to use the negrater, they could begin to get a rough community consensus. There are some broad outlines to this consensus already visible. OF COURSE there are issues of culture, taste, style that are very different. But you can always distinguish whether something is masterful and well done even if it is not in a style you happen to care for.

When I think of ugly builds, I don't mean necessarily some amateurish newbie fugly box with mY cHiLl sPaCe stencilled on it. That at least has some heart. That newbie might come and live in that thing and decorate it and have a great time. You might gently point him to some prefabs or tell him some techniques but you wouldn't negrate him to be spiteful. That's not a good use of the negrate.

But so often what happens is that somebody gets a lot then uses it like a sandbox. They build some big ugly twist thang and then they log off and you wonder -- are they a trial? Will anyone ever delete them and their monstrosity? Somebody was just hacking around for an afternoon -- but you have to live with it. We all know builds like that. Or somebody makes a stupid box on an elevated hill, a porno-type establishment, with another stupid ugly spinning box atop it. It goes out of business within 3 days because nobody felt like coming to view these losers and their "attachments". Then it sits there with an ugly "for sale" sign while the owners wander off to other pursuits. It takes no imagination to get 20 neighbors together to negrate these types of things and try to get the owners to wake up and put the damn thing in their inventory.

The atmosphere in a game like this with only 17,000 subscribers of which who knows, maybe 5,000 are ever on line at once is like a really small town. People in that small town hate conflict, criticism, arguments. But they're there, and you have to manage conflict, not make constant appeals to group conformity. If the game grows, there will be even more widely divergent players from differing cultures and values. Many people from other countries coming into this game would find it a tasteless sprawl of American-style suburbia with rampant NIMBYISM combined with extreme abusive hedonism. Nobody wants a mall or a laggy club in their back yard yet everyone patronizes these establishments. They should negrate them and ask them to do an impact study before they plant their giant feet down.

I don't want to organize this but I'd love to see a negrating posse come into being. Each week they should publicly post the builds they have negrated on a Wall of Shame. The community can begin to gain some awareness of just how much sense of shared sensibility they do have, and stop letting themselves be victimized by a few without any sense. People then will stop and think a little bit more as they fool around on their lots, and stop inflicting pain on their neighbours.

neg rating posse. Can't say I dig this idea, nor do I think, practically speaking, that it would achieve the intended purpose.

We live in a world where social pressures keep people in line (this which has its purpose, I acknowledge), but SL is wonderful in some sense because it unfetters the participants! I'd rather accept some ugliness than sabotage the individuality we have on SL. As an artist, I certainly understand the subjectivity of the visual medium. You might HATE my artwork.

I can't say that I mind the fact that the reputation system (which serves no real purpose right now) appears to be "a feel-good system"? That lots of people aren't going around negging each other is not a problem! What does a neg rating really mean, anyway... your values are not my values... great. We've solved a lot. (and i'm talking about normal interactions, not griefing or other extremes)

So I think it's nice that when you like someone, you give them a +, and when you don't, you keep your peace and ignore them. Makes for a more civil environment -- certainly a much less judgemental one.

harbl, thought I'd chime in here.

As people have said, group owning land is the best way to deal with forming land trusts right now to enforce zoning.

As for getting linden permission, we never really did, as the lindens already "supported" lusk estates, we just made it an issue for them to get a bit more proactive

Dont force people off the land you have decided you want to use for your trust. it took us 4 months to gather enough land to make the project feasible, and myself, eltee, and michi sunk probably in excess of $50,000l into the project in order to make it happen. We just bough the land as it went to auction or came availlable. We also approached people who had partial lots (those who owned subdivided land - land was never meant to be subdivided in the estates per the guidelines set down by Lee). Most owners were either happy to sell to us, or in some cases, even give us the land as it was a good cause

The result? well go see for yourself Michael redid all the roads, and we now have residents back in the estates with their own piece of land, which is never going to get built out by a club.

Next Project: Kissling. I have been approached by a person involved with Kissling, and we are looking at turning that around too.

Well i tried to make it through all this thread...but got lost about mid way through as Profoky's posts (i thought mine were typically long-but i jsut didnt have the time to indulge) gave me that glazed over look and i lost direction. I think a few zoned residential sims aren't a bad idea, but you ever stop in at Brown lately? It's pretty baron. I am sure those at LL introducing new sims pay attention to what is being used in the grid, and continue to add what there is demand for.

Only thing i can add from my own experience, is look at yourself and your builds, and show by example. I guarantee my "CLUB" (ooh i must be a bad builder and resource hog since i have one) is probably less lag inducing (WITHOUT AV's) as most peoples homes. I have spent a lot of time learning what causes sim resource lag (sure as hell ain't particles) and some people homes have every damn wall set to Light and import tons of 1024X768 high res textures to put on them. Malls with no roofs are actually developed so that av's can move in and out quickly. You may not like how it looks, but it is done this way to assist fly in traffic or people who shop with their cameras.

What i am getting at is that we as residents need to work hard to understand what it takes to minimize resource usage. We need to mentor new builders with those proven techniques, and quit complaining about what our own opinions are without pushing them on others. Sure I am picky as hell when it comes to build quality. I do not ever neg rate stuff "I" don't like. I don't bitch either. I have sold probably 10 lots just because my neighborhoods developed into places i didn't wish to inhabit. I did NOT ever bitch, nor did i tell my neighbors that they had no right to do whatever they wanted to. You complain the sim value is depreciating with what you don't like, and perhaps your neighbors are thinking the exact same about your builds.

*sidenote (1) - I have decided that I absolutely Love Kris Ritter and her posting...damn woman, you crack me up and have a great sense of realism. We need to meet IW sometime, your a riot!*

*sidenote (2) - anytime you start posts beginning with "Speaking for the masses" you will get in trouble. Also when you follow that with an elitist attitude, you are beggin' for flamage. Just an observation as i have been lurkin round these forums for months.