A Zoning and Player Government Experiment

Many people have thrown around the idea of zoned sims and player governments to varying degrees of success. Personally I have never been one for the whole "government" idea, but James Miller and I, on a random IRC session for a Linden endorsed Zoning and Government project.

The idea would be for the Linden's to make a group of sims, preferrably around 6 and perferrably seperated from the mainland by some water sims. Water sim/void sims are hosted on old hardware, so they wouldn't really set back Linden Labs. These sims would be parceled up and have roads and maybe even trains and other neat extras added before going to market to give the sims a truly real world feel.

Zoning would then be established for user who buy parceled land. After a month or so, when zoning regulations are in placed and a general document of procedure is written up the government would hold an election for residents to take place on a council. The purpose of this council would be to decide who has broken zoning laws, what laws need changing, or if exceptions or changes need to be made. They could then also be the intermediary between the project and the Linden's(incase someone refuses to follow the laws and need to have their land released to the public -- likely after many warnings).

The idea a general conhesion could be added to the world -- having groups of homes located on nice neat streets or having a mainstreet filled with shops.

Now, some will likely argue that such things have been attempted and have failed, such as Ulrika's little experiment. Such ideas failed because they were ultimately too restricting. N'Burg had a primary build and theme that one could only add to if you rented a home. One had to stick with a theme. In this project, if it ever gets picked up, would have limited restrictions... For example.

"No builds over 50 meters and no large objects within 5 meters of the parcels boarders. Area is designed for Homes. No shops allowed." ... While another object, say a city sim, could be where all the shops in the area could go. The council could also decide if a build is simply too hidious to remain and perhaps offer free prefab homes to residents. The government could also help resolve land and money conflicts.

Said government would not pass moral or social laws, if only because they would be unenforcable and likely unnecessary.

If the project is to fail thent he land can simply become normal unzoned sims that could be handled normally. Buying sims is out of the question due to the initial investment and the large challange of payment colleciton. Linden support would also add credibility to the system and could adjust its size if demand increased.

The purpose of this post is to gauge the interest. Miller and I wouldn't want to waste LL's time and money on an idea that has little interest. Hell, we still have to convince them this is a worth whiled idea. So give your opinions.

So tell us your interest or your questions or even your percieved problems such a project could have. Try not to get too deep into ideas for policy or such. Lets start with a simple project to try and convince Linden Labs of trying. This is just an open idea and nothing is set in stone.

Just to clarify this idea has nothing to do with spreading government onto the main grid and is not interested in meaningless bureaucracy.

Please don't hurt us.

A great many SLers dislike the idea of another player dictating what they can or cannot do. The problem with a voluntary experiment in government is that it implies that, if it works, it will be expanded beyond the volunteers into the non-voluntary. Unless you're willing from the start to impose your will on a large segment of the SL userbase in the end, what's the point of an experiment?

Here is an excerpt from a post I made earlier in the Neualtenberg #2 thread
(/120/97/38011/1.html#post408319):

...I would however, eagerly welcome portions of sims, entire sims or groups of sims, be they main grid based or otherwise, that would operate as areas of localized, governmental self-determination. Complete with theming (zoning) and other aspects of local civil cooperation. I may even join one, when and if that day comes. If I find a good fit...

So, if you can find Linden and or Player support, I may well be interested in participating.

I'm definetely interested...

This may seem really trivial, but it'd be kinda neat if you made the sims connecting the "continent" to the mainland no-fly. This way, there would be somewhat of a social experience using scripted transportation (trains, subways, planes, cars, etc) to get to the continent. Just an idea.

Cubey,

Why must everything be so two-sided? Maybe this fellow is as fed up as some other SL players who think there needs to be some control at times. He's talking 6 sims, not the whole grid. Just because it's successful doesn't mean that the whole grid will adopt it. Oh, and it's voluntary. Seems fair to me. Not interested? Put your griefer builds in a non-zoned sim, then.

I know that, had Anshe not been the proprietor of the recently-zoned sims, I would have tried to buy in one of them.

Expanding to the main grid wouldn't be the goal, but perhaps expanding out it's own continent? Certainly. It is my belief that the main grid, unless SL changes radically, should remain untouched in this respect. Simply grow it to meet demand. I'm sure land prices for the regions would give a good idea of how much more land would be needed.

Hiya, Cubey.
One of the key parts of this experiment is that it'll never expand into the mainland. The point of the experiment is that, if it's successful, it'll stay as a permanent fixture in SL. If it's not sucessful, the sims will be de-zoned, attached to the mainland, parcelled by LL and auctioned off like normal, completely government free.

Nolan, glad to hear you'd be open to something like this.

Anshe's project is nice but one thing is that a sim is a relatively small place and its under Anshe's complete rule(be it fair or unfair). This is a larger project that would be seperate, allowing for the region to have its own feel stretching several sims. Cohesion is a large part of this. Even good builds put in the same area can look bad due to lack of cohesion.

Rounds, parceling and other such things would give such a region the feeling of a "real" entity which I think would go a long wya, even if the builds were varied and of varying quality.

Also, be nice to the Cubester please, he brought up a valid concern, even if it wouldn't be a problem with the current plan.

I have long been a proponent of this and have tried, in many ways, to manipulate this outcome.

My suggestion was simply that LL should auction of a SIM with the idea that someone ran it as a 'zoning overlord'. Simple and clear without all these annoying technicalities people dream up.

However -- I believe there is another solution: build it and they will come.

1.6 may create this opportunity. Hopefully it will be released soon.

what's with the Zugzwang name and government? it's like the Kennedy of SL.

Hahahah. Great observation! I totally didn't realize that 'til you said it.

Uggghh...

I don't consider my self a strong government proponent. I just saw it as fitting for the current situation. Unlike that Ulrika. She's a damned commie. Red as the devil.

I am very much in favour of such an experiment and even would be willing to invest. I don't think, that the friendly anarchy that now is the rule with SL (with the Lindens watching from a distance) will 'work' for ALL of SL and FOREVER.

I don't share Cubey's fears that this experiment - if successful - would necessarily spread out to the rest of SL. (It's good that he raised the point, though.) Why should this be? No such system can be installed effectively even on a small scale without cooperation of the Lindens. Anshe's zoned experiments in Midge and in her new national ghetto-sims for the french, the dutch and the germans do show this. And SL is a business for Linden Labs. They never would install something for all of SL which the majority of residents do not like.

Why should they? SL already is big and growing larger day by day. Why can't we have a friendly anarchy in one region, a kind of democracy in another and feudalism somewhere else? If residents would like that ...

SL is based on volontary aggreements and contracts between its residents (a lot like Stephensons 'Snowcrash' universe or Vinges 'The Ungoverned' ). If residents volontarily agree to give up some of their rights - and get something else for that. Why not?

And ... Blaze: No, I don't think that 'build it and they will come' would be very effective with the current mechanisms of SL. This experiment would need at least some of the administrative rights that just now ar in the hand of the Lindens only. So, if they dont buy into the idea ...

Our continent has 7 sims sofar and we keep adding one sim per week on average.



I only enforce zoning. I don't "rule" any sim. I am acting as service provider to provide nice environment my customers ask for. Customer is king and I am servant of my reputation.



Now this sound like more strict ruling and more government than what I do sofar. In current Chung-zoned sims I take rather hands off approach. I try prevent the terrible, nasty and killer laggy but not telling people what style of house to build as long is not skyscraper or mall or ugly shoe box etc. But if some people come to me with building theme I could also buy sim and zone it as e.g. Japanese architecture. In that case would be up to initial residents provide me with proposal for sim zoning guidelines.

While I agree with most of your post, this statement is an insult. All my sims are international and open to residents from all over the world. Petite Gaule, the French language sim, is as little a French ghetto as rest of Second Life is one American ghetto. Trying to impose English language and culture on everybody else on this planet is cultural imperalism and lack of tolerance.

As it stand now, Second Life as one whole could be called "Anglo-Saxon ghetto" in the internet. 95% of residents come from English speaking countries. Please support us and help us grow Second Life where it is still greatly underrepresented. We need alternate language spaces to attract majority of people from non English speaking countries. And we need cultural diversity to make Second Life world even more interesting to explore

Sorry Anshe, I did not mean it as an insult (it was just 'sloppy language'). But you are right: It could be taken as such. I apologize for that!

As someone from a non-englishspeaking country myself (therefore the sloppy language), I think projects like Friesland and Petit Gaulle are a very good idea. They can help in bringing more people into SL which do not feel all that well with 'talking' in english all of the time. And that's important.

Sorry, I really did not want to attack that - or insult you.

Besides the unneeded slap into Anshe's face, I couldn't aggree more, Kim.

What I find especially interesting is the reference to Vinges "Ungoverned". I often wonder why Vinges Stories are not referenced more in the forums. His were the first stories I read which offered a reasonable scenario for an "organized anarchy" in a technological age. The worlds described in "The ungoverned" or his "Realtime" novels showed me a plausible model for a society or a group of societies in different sizes based on contractually organized anarchy (while in other places more organized societies and even centralized states still existed).

I think SL is heading in that direction. And Kayin's suggested experiment maybe a very interesting step towards a sub-society for those residents, who like at least "some more rules" and a greater cohesion for a group living together.

You could build a big church in the central government Sim. Then ppl can be detected by the church's visitor counter as they come to regular Sunday Morning worship. If a certain character fails to show up on a regular basis then things can be done to bring them back into line. Maybe ppl can stop speaking to them, or maybe even a burning cross placed on their front lawn.

Also ban all sex anims, as in the tight confines of suburbia a neighbour might accidentaly pan their camera around in their house and go into next door, and see something they'd rather not.



























You know I've always found it hard to imagine what Hell would be like, I think I've just had it described to me in the opening post.

Uh...was I left off the mailing list? When did Neualtenburg fail?

I don't even think it has BEGUN all the way, yet.

Right now, as far as I know, there are too few people involved, the leaders are rather over-occupied (this happens in experiments like this, since the people who get involved are the type of people who tend to get involved in too many things - sometimes even in RL), and the constitution is still a bit too complex, but that doesn't mean it's failed, does it?

Id say more along the lines of unanimous abandonment.
When the upper crust of the societal structure looses intrest or becomes othewise involved. People are not going to sit like whimpering puppies waiting for guidance.
Thus those systems will not persey fail but fall to the wayside due to lack of intrest.

This is why I fought so vehemently before against Player Run governements is because the people that intially truly care about it will get wore down by the trolls from within and it will inevitably crumble.

Thus allowing for a Dictator style government to come in and take its place eventually attempting to suppress the masses. How? By intially gaining control via agreed upon rule sets and expanding slowly till those freedoms remaining are gone.

Oh well I am rambling now so ...sorry to hear about things Neualtenburg wish it had went better for you.

Sincerely, Shadow

Neualtenburg hasn't failed and is progressing quite well....we'll be buying a sim to expand to in the near future. Neualtenburg has not been abandoned nor will it fall to a few dictator like people. Unfortunately real life takes presidence over the virtual world and we cant all be working on Neualtenburg 24 hours a day.

The senate meets weekly and we are slowly getting the city together. Seeing as the Lindens will no longer support prjects we have to move and our efforts have been in this direction as of late. The fact remains the work of the city moves forward and people have been put in place to occupy the positions of those who are dealing with real life at the moment.

Actually this tendency exist in real-life too. And I have seen it in other online words as well.

However there exist models to address this problem.

One option is to have neutral businesses administer sims and enforce a basic ruleset for things like zoning. This is kinda what Linden Lab is doing. The advantage of resident businesses moving into this space is diversity, competition and more choices.

If you look at Chung-zoned sims you see exactly this happen. I am not too involved with the communities that are settling/forming there and I don't live in those sims. But I have sustained financial motivation to administer the sims and to do so in a way that reflect positively on reputation of my business.

I do not disagree with what you have said here as it is true real life as well. I think the thing is there are several different approaches to governmental systems.

Unfortunately ones like being proposed in the past with NBerg and others that cropped up is the leaders of those are intialy flamboyant and charismatic and draw in a great crowd but what happens when those idividuals can no longer pacify the crowd. That governmental model doesn't fail it sorta just drifts away.

Now in context to your sims. Although you have taken the "Hands Off" approach you still are there as a mediary as those sims hold value and intrest to you. I am sure that your not going to just buy 10 sims and say here people have at it and leave it to itself. To me your sims are not a Dictatorship but more so a benevolent Monarchy. Its yours by ownership and by right but you chose to allow the citizens to be self suffecient for the most part.

However, in contrast to that Anshe, I think the prime difference is player control without true vested intrest.

For instance your sims which I have eluded to and used as an example by sheer nature of being owned by you.

As opposed to a Group of Sims owned by LL and being summarly "Given" to a governmental group as an experiment. The only gain a Leader has there it to supress and survive on the backs of other players through oppression versus you own your sims and pay the tier on them so it is your right to rule as you see fit.

I hope all this made sense as I seem to have a head cold and its tearing me up.

Shadow

i don't get it, Loethe. do you mean that just because you don't like the scenario you've described (and 'read into' Kayins suggestion), no one and no group should be allowed to live that way?

what is so bad with a group of people coming together and deciding on some rules about how to live together - especially if no one is forced to live in that community? the beauty of SL (one of the beauties) is, that it would be possible to have different communities living by different rules side by side; united under the very wide and very thin umbrella of basic rules enforced by the Lindens for all players. you may despise what the neighbours are doing. but you should not deny them the right to do it, as long as it doesnt hurt you - even if they like to check who's going to church on sundays. (this response written by a certified agnostic )

Anshe: Enforcing zoning is stilli keeping something under your "rule". You set the zoning laws and enforce them. At the end of the day thought you still hold absolute power of Midge since you own all of it. As for the "Ghettos", I didn't know they existed until this post. Very interesting.

Still, all I was meaning to do was to highlight the differences between this idea and similiar projects. Not to paint you as an evil, tyrannical ruler. Even if you know it's true.

As for N'Burg -- the general opinion about N'Burg is thats its failed/stagnant. I wish the project the best of luck but considering when this idea came up on IRC Miller and I continuously got asked "Why would this work when N'Burg didn't". So perhaps you need to try and dispell that image. It's nothing personal. Again I wish the project all the luck in the world.

So yeah, the idea is to make a several sim actually feel like a place or a town. Even if its a strange down with a mad scientist living next to a samurai.

Edit: Yeah, I'm not sure if Rockwell is joking(well, obviously to some extent he is) or if he truly sees this sort of stuff as possible/likely.