Zoned Sims and Residents Associations

Yeah, ok, sure. Who could challenge that?

Then:

1. Don't ask LL to change tools under the guise that you are doing this "for the good of the public" -- you are just doing it for your little clan.

2. Don't set yourself as a "replicable model" for group living/communities when you are unaccountable, secret, closed, filtered, and smug about being so.

3. Don't proclaim your way is "the best" when no one can get to see what it really is about.
Sure, you can remove prim and CPU/assets/servers blah blah disputes ifyou have a secret club of likeminded who also get a lot of energy feeling themselves superior to others. But...then don't claim you have good field experience that is helpful to the general public.

The real challenge for this game is to devise replicable cultural norms (not zoning rules that no one can or will enforce) that can disseminate through sims and help people be better, more cooperative neighbours. This means developing a kind of "best practices" list that becomes more and more accepted -- voluntarily -- because people feel ownership of it and feel free and rational in adapting it.

If people in a closed society, smug about themselves and their "insights" start clamoring for LL changes, and start setting themselves up as arbiters of what group living and zoned sims are all about, I just shrug. They are the usual arrogant assholes you find in this game. They don't help to create the kind of liberal, tolerant free society needed to grow this game. They replicate the same features of the clash of civilizations we see in our real world.

1) Would that in any way actually make you feel better, PN? I guess we could try it...

If you assume that a closed group is unable to care about anyone other than itself in any way, and every single thing it does is only to further itself with no thought to anyone else.

I sure hope that isn't what your saying. Because it's a load of bunk, if it is.

2) Ah, but it IS replicable. Absolutely it is. It's been done several times, and will be done more in the future. There may be one getting set up or orginized right at this very minute.

3) "Closed" and "Secret" are not the same thing. Seacliff is, basicly, a "Closed" community, for example, but we're hardly secret. But even if we were, how hard is it to figure out the concept of a closed community? It's not. Anyone can figure it out. They don't need you, or me, or anyone else to explain it to them. And we, and many other closed and/or secret communities have proven that the model works. So yes, we do have good field experience. Is it helpful to the general public? Absolutely! Look at our example. Look at any other example. Get inspired! Do your own thing! That's all we did. We had an idea, and we went and did it. This is not rocket science or black magic. This is really, really easy to understand.

Well, this is a reasonable point, but, in deed, it *is* what I'm saying

That is, sure, a closed group might care in some general way about the whole public space, but want to do its own private thing without interference.

But I am for questioning such private groups who arrogate to themselves a role of attempting to influence Linden Labs to do what they want, to enable their world. I want to demand some accountability for those who enter a public discussion with the premise that others should follow their model.

I don't think a world full of little private grouplets who think they are special is necessarily a good thing. It's their right to do this, it's understood, but it's also my right to question the proliferation of such entities creating the building blocks of a closed, fascistic, corporatist society which privileges "the aesthetic" or "the elite" or "the intelligent ones" and demeans "the mediocre" or "the troublemakers" or "the people I don't like".

If you were to make a gated community for white people only, and keep out black people, it would be instantly clear that you were racist, and violating the TOS, and you couldn't expect to go on doing that in a publicly accessible game space/virtual world especially one with the kind of TOS SL has.

Yet, there are those who think that it's ok to create closed, gated communities on the ground of "aesthetics" or "the right-thinking people" or "those who make decent builds and have to set an example for those who benighted ones who make crappy builds". That rots. And I will give a big fat push-back to that sort of thing, because I don't feel that is a good building-block to have in a virtual world. That's why all those people who think I am for judging experimental clumsy newbie builds just don't get my theories. I know *exactly* what it is like to be in a group where you can't put out a build because you're believed to be incompetent.

In another forum, Maxx Monde laments how SL is "going suburbia" and there are no "artists' enclaves". Indeed. Like um...the artists' enclave in the suburbia of Boardman ROFL? The best sort of artists' enclaves in RL were those that were free, open, experimental, and didn't set up membership secrecy and walls against creativity, spontaneity, and just general tolerance. Maybe the "artists' enclaves" started out as the "outcasts" of society, but they ended up being sought after.

.

Well, sure. Who could stop you? Totalitarian societies, and their brethren, closed societies, often get started and get replicated very fast. Democracy is harder to build, especially in its building-blocks which consists of just civil society elements like neighbourhood groups or societies or clubs.



Closed and Secret *are* the same thing, just on a sliding scale. You couldn't explain why you kept someone out. SO it's a secret LOL. I challenge this. I understand that people just want to retreat with their special buds and make their little enclaves "far from the madding crowd".

I question this. Because it creates privilege that is often wielded perniciously against other players.

I've never been to Seacliff but it might not be the sort of place you can get into if it is a ban list. But let's take Taber, just for instance. Taber is one of those places filled with good builds by excellent artists. Who could knock it? But...who do you have to know to get into Taber? There is an invisible apprentencing/networking system where you get filtered and approved for something like that. In geekworld, it's all too easy to make these enclaves because geeks already think they are "outcasts" and superior and therefore entitled to outcast others. That's the root of the problem.

But Taber isn't necessarily *all* all that. I dunno, does everybody like Tudor? I don't like Tudor. I prefer Juro Kothari. But, who cares? These are matters of taste. I do wonder about the static, deadening effect, however, of endlessly celebrating the few artists who made it to Taber, created something, and then forever rest on their laurels.

I am not for encouraging the many unfree social systems-in-the-making that already replicate in this game.

What?

Why are you saying it, though? Can you honestly believe it?



It's an interesting question I'd prefer not to see tested, to be sure. But honestly, how the hell are you supposed to know someones race in any event?



Your free to push back. It's gonna happen, though, no matter how hard you push. In point of fact, the harder you do push, the more it is likely to happen.

As far as the rest... I get to choose who I'm friends with. My friends and I can spend our money as we see fit. To use the phrase you are oh-so-fond of, who are you to criticise that? Moreover, how on earth would you prevent it?

"Sorry, I know you bought this sim, but you have to let Joe Glowybox have 1024 square meters in it. It's not fair to make it a closed community."



I think your actually giving most of these closed societies alot more credit than they deserve. Most never claimed to have these grand, nobel, free-thinking plans.

As I'll explain in a moment.



Yes! Yes exactly! Nobody said we had to be democracies! For that matter, nobody said we had to have a government! If you absolutely had to class them as anything, most of these closed societies are either an autocracy or a timocracy. Losely speaking, Seacliff is a timocracy, for example. It's governed by the people who own the land. Many - particularly those formed on private islands - are autocracies, for good reason: One person is often paying all or a majority of the bills.

In what way does, for example, a democracy in a closed society benefit us more than anything else?




Sure. I could explain exactly why we didn't let someone in.



What privilege? Name it, PN. I wont let you be vague on this one. Name it. Give concrete examples, or don't bring the point up.



We ban individuals on Seacliff if they have done something wrong - land scanners, griefing, excessive litter (A plane or a plywood cube, that's fine. 3000 tiny invisible cubes is not), etc. You're free to come visit all you want, however. So is anyone else who doesn't act like like a moron.

As for Taber, what buiseness is it of yours? You don't own the land, they do. Why should they be forced to let someone in if they don't want to?

That would DESTROY community spirit, not foster it.




You're missing the point here, PN. Just like with the stipend issue. You grasp the concept, but not the nuances.

These aren't, as you put it, "unfree social systems-in-the-making"... They are nations, with closed borders. Within the nation, they may be an anarchist paradise, or a perfect democracy, or a monarchy, or whatever else. But that's ok, everyone there chooses to live there. They just aren't letting more people in.

The 8-10 or ten people who happen to buy on a sim, or get together with their friends, aren't a "nation," they're just a group, and as you rightly point out, they are autocracies, because usually just one person is paying tier, or most of the tier.

I don't know what a "timocracy" is -- is that run by some guy named Tim? Does Tim have all the land? Is he like a latifundista? Well, I'll look it up, but I get it.

But that's my point, you can't have some guy named Tim who has all the land get the ear of the Lindens (and this happens frequently enough to become a worry) and say, "Let me tell you how it should be."

Concrete examples? Um, you can't do that on here without being banned for "personal attacks".

It's an interesting question whether I go bang on the Lindens, or screech in the forums, to get my 1024 in Taber, with my crappy newbie build. What if the Lindens auction off part of Taber and I win that auction? We say that happen with Boardman, hmm? An insane bidding war induced by somebody determined to keep others out at any price...but geez, $242 for a 1536? Geez, I'd like to feed my kids, too, think I'll pass LOL. *Somebody* has to feed the kids LOL.

But if people make a sim and a closed society, well shrugs, who cares? Do I have to come crashing in?

I'm making a more refined point than that, which is that those who make such closed societies can't mount themselves as Successful Residential Living Models and demand replication and special tools. They aren't. Because they are just filtered and self-selected and didn't face any of the real problems in the real virtual world that those in open communities solve.

I'd rather find ways of solving through problems without closing gates.

k but why bring this up in a thread about zoned sims? that was a clash of personalities.

No, it's not really about a "clash of personalities". You have to see it's about a clash of interests/clashes/civilizations.

One person believes that the way SL should go is "artists' enclave" and that "artist" is defined as "me and my kewl builder and designer friends I approve of".

Another thinks that the way SL should go is "suburbia". Or let's say "freedom of people to have suburbia if they want, and have a respectful rather than condescending attitude toward them," like not to call them "mediocre".

And the ultimate irony is that the "artists' enclave" guy ends up *in suburbia*.

I rest my case.

No, it was a personal issue. That's it, that's all. That auction would never have gone the way it did if you hadn't decided to make it your personal vendetta to bash established players and content makers. That's what happens when you treat people like something you pull out of your ear. They end up not liking you and keeping you out.

No, we're not. But the analogy works better than an "unfree community".



A timocracy is a government run by the people who own land in the area being governed. The "Government" as such of seacliff, for example, is anyone who owns land there.




Yes, you can. You can say, "I've noticed that people who fit this catagory tend to be able to get away with X", for example. No need to name names.

If you don't provide concrete examples, I'm going to assume you don't actually have any. I'm not going to let you hold up something you aren't willing to back up as a fact.




You don't do either. You simply don't get land there, because none is availible. If some DID become availible, either for open purchase or on auction, congrats. You own land in Taber. You still may or may not be a member of the "community" there, but you own the land.



Except that we ARE successful. Would you rather we present ourselves as the spectacular failures we aren't?

Nobody is demanding replication of ANY concept, PN. We're saying it works, and it would probably work for other people too. If they don't wanna do it, no skin off our backs. To be smug about it, it doesn't effect us either way.

We're as free to request whatever features we want from the lindens as anyone else. We pay alot of money, just as everyone else does. Our opinions don't magicly get invalidated because you don't like us.

We did "face any(all) of the real problems in the real virtual world". Thats WHY we exist in the first place... we DID solve them. We solved them by eliminating the problem to begin with. In a world where players have absolutely no teeth to enforce any descisions, and the lindens take a hands-off approach, we took the most efficient, simple, and effective solution to the problem. We eliminated it.



I'd rather not have the problems to deal with in my game and free time than play model UN in a house of cards.