We need a gouvernment

How many of you are searching for a nice little piece of land for your new home? How many of you have been frustrated, because most of the times you will your house would be somewhere in the hinterland, 6km away from the next road (what would you do, if you want to drive your new car?), surrounded by casinos, shops and "no entry scripted areas".

We need some sort of regulation. Some sort of gouvernment. A system without any laws and regulations (that is anarchy) simply won't work. Ok, this game is all about creativity and some people would call their building, growing out in the middle of nowhere, a piece of art. But we are humans. We are seeking for familiar patttern we have in the RL. Our way to perceive our RL environment forms our sense of beauty.
In my eyes, seeing a town with roads, calm residential areas, exciting commercial areas, parks, educational facilities, is more appealing than a wild mixture of the above.

Ok, owning such a large piece of landmass is impoosible for a single person, except this person is a millionair in the RL. But how about this:
you have several sim owners next to each others. Together, they form the parliament, deciding where to build next etc. They build up a network of roads and assign skilled construction companies to build houses next(!) to the road. Those houses will be set up for rent, which you can see as a tax payment. With that money, they can pay their fees, invest in the downtown area, where the companies will be, open up virtual educational facilities, building parks (so tourists from other towns will come and stay a night in a hotel). By that, the money will circulate between the "local gouvernment" and the companies/residents in that town.

So you have areas with bigger houses for the rich ones, areas with single roomed appartments for the "poorer" ones, here and there a supermarket. Office buildings, casinos, malls in or near downtown. Parks and forest areas between them. You have cars on the street, planes full of tourists at the airport. Some kind of Public transport system bringing them into town. You can have museums and schools for those who want to use SL as an educational platform.

This is how i imagine the world in SL. And the name of the town would be "Wambodia"

What do you think about that?

Hello Mad, I dunno if you're familiar with Neualtenburg... It has it's own entire forum over here: Neualtenburg ... and many of the governmental aspects you mention.

Oh, and "Rabid Wombat" was one of my favorite Magic:TG cards.

I wish to be able to give land to LL to make them "protected", with LL aprobation.
People seek for land near protected land, and there is simply not enough protected land.

Let's say, i buy an half sim on mainland.
To sell it with profit i want to make it nicer, it will raise the price.
I can do some landscaping but i can't guaranty the landscape will stay "as is".
I could create some road, and sell the land around the road as a "really nice and managed residential area". I can support the loss of the land not beeing sold (10% of road and garden on an half sim is 3200sqm) but i CAN'T support the land fee LIFETIME.
I could do that with rented land, but not sold land.

If i can give thoses roads to Linden Lab, i still support the loss on the land not sold (the road and garden and ...) but not the land fee.

Same problem with odd size near protected land.
It's easy to sell a 512sqm land near a protected area. It's a lot harder when the land size is 512+16sqm.
3 choices here :
- sell cheaper
- sell "normal price" but it's slower sell (and cost me more because of the land fee)
- sell the 512sqm plot AND a 16sqm plot. the 16sqm plot will be probably sold to an advertiser.

The 4th best choice would be :
- Sell the 512sqm plot fast with normal price.
- Add the 16sqm in the protected area. (given to Linden Lab, as i said i can't support the monthly fee of a "dead/protected" land)

no

It would never work. It's been tried countless times in many games and failed because those involved actually think they have power.

If you want to get a group together, buy a private sim, set up your own structure of government and roleplay, then you have my full support in doing that.

However, once you start to try and force your way of doing things on other players who do not wish to play that way, you can forget it. People won't respond.

Whilst I understand - and indeed support - some of the things that you mention, unfortunately it does step on a lot of people's freedoms within the game.

By the way, you don't need to be a millionaire, a whole region is $1200 plus $195 a month land tier.

Lewis

Great name

I can see the headlines now; "Mad Wombat Paves Way For Virtual Government"

It's all about choice. Don't impose your wishes for control over me.

Ironically, I happen to be involved with Neualtenburg myself, but I chose to do so, and that makes all the difference.

I'm going to check out Neualtenburg. Thanks.

I didn't mean to give you the impression, that i want to impose something on you. No one can force you to live in that town.

Figuring out Neualtenburg's complex governmental structure can be a challenge if you just visit it and read its source documents. The Law Society did a Case Study of Neualtenburg which you might find a good starting point.

If you are serious about your proposal, Neualtenburg is looking at opening a second sim and interested in volunteers with varied skills.

"We need a government"

Well you might - I already have one.

On my land I am 'Emperor Siggy I'
I am lord of all I own!

Other than that we have the Lindens - which could be said to be government too..

And that's all I need.

İf u need a goverment, form it.

I think the original poster might do well to try renting land from Anshe Chung, Prokofy Neva, the Azure Island people, or the like.

We don't need a government in SL.

The Road To Serfdom

-Ghoti

Nice post, Ghoti.

I'm probably a fool, but I'm going to try buying an island sim.

Most things are figured out, but try as I might, not the government. I've given up.

For residents, the tyranny of a voting majority might be worse than the tyranny of me. So it will be a monarchy, unless someone's got a better idea.

But still, people can vote with their feet and walk away.

I'm guessing it costs a sim owner 195 USD a month to be a jerk, and somewhat less for being reasonable and having residents able to live there.

When a single individual is the only person paying for the sim, then that individual is the sole government of that sim. It is their right as 'owner'. Makes sense to me.

I am not sure how Neualtenburg handles paying for the sim. Is there a single individual ultimately responsible for paying tier? Surely LL is not holding an entire group responsible for payment, I don't see how that could be enforced.

-Ghoti

Wow... a government, turning SL into a beautiful suburb, with properly zoned areas and row upon row of nice, sparkling homes, each designed to the affordability of the resident, with nice roads and supermarkets...

I would hate it so badly. I think this kinda government is the last thing we need. The whole point of SL, to me, is to flee the stifling airs of reality and try to be creative, try to be myself! Having to live in a nice little suburban house suited to my price range would make me cry.

I already do that in real life. Coming into SL to do it would be a waste of time. XD

The island is technically owned by the alt of the treasurer, Sudane Erato. (The alt is Rudeen Edo). However, we all pay Sudane on a monthly basis our share.

This involves some trust, obviously, but on the other hand LL is certainly aware of Neualtenburg's status, and I doubt Sudane has the slightest wish to pay that $195 by herself.

The thing is, no two people are going to want exactly the same thing from their "government." What makes the most sense for me is for a landowner to become the power behind the throne, so to speak. They can run the government anyway they want, but a government has to have landowner power or it is no gvoernment. That way residents can choose whether they will live in a democratic sim, a tribal sim, a benevolent dictatorship, monarchy, whatever.

See, that's the thing that had been bothering me.

Is there really a choice of methods, or is it only 'democratic' until push comes to shove with the sim owner?


Conversely, the bad thing about 'democracy' in here: there is always someone 'on the outs' with their neighbours.

What was the old expression: get any seven people together and two are bound to hate each other passionately? I don't want decent, paying residents trampled if a majority clique could use 'the system' to drive them off.


Also maybe, if there was a resident that absolutely everyone liked, I could try to talk that resident into being the King for dispute resolution purposes. Gee, I wonder if I could talk Torley into moving in...

Government, groups, voting, trust... I've been thinking about all this and the resulting drippings are in my blog.

(Figure it's better to link than to copy-paste in this case.)

The latter. In the case of Neualtenburg Sudane (Sudane's alt owns the sim) is a good example of someone who is in SL long-term, building a reputation as a level-headed, constructive and trustworthy individual. When push came to shove in the recent personnel crisis in Nualt, Sudane offered no public comment, even though the opinion of the sim owner would obviously have some weight.



As Tiger discusses in his blog ---> link to Tiger's blog , those with NO desire to be marks are likely to use a resident's long-term reputation as a guide, and to defer financial committments until we've had time enough to make a reliable assessment of character. Hey -- it's the internet!

But this practice is unsuited for assembling project teams for working to deadline on larger-scale creative projects. A system of contract law is needed. We already have a notary and even a Law Society thread where people can contribute contract templates they've found workable in SL. That's half the pieces of the puzzle; the other half is enforcement. Ideas? Suggestions?

enforcement is bad

Glad you're still following this topic, Kyrah. Personally I prefer passive systems like an individual being able to mute somebody (for example muting somebody who is IM-stalking me despite my warnings to back off). That's very different from trying to get Lindens or residents in authority to clobber the perp using some in-world enforcement system. We have to examine any proposal for an enforcement system skeptically -- could an ill-intentioned person could use it as a griefing tool? In my opionion the mute system is not something that could be used as a griefer tool.

We need to figure out passive systems like that for individuals to protect themselves against serious perps like people who steal IP from the legitimate creator, scamming and fraud. Any suggestions you have would be welcome.

I am the government in the 2560 sq m of land that I own.

I have all power over what goes on at any place in the land that I own, including restricting access. I am good friends with the neighbours on 3 sides of my property, and the 4th side is a Linden road.

I don't need anyone else to tell me what to do on land that I own.

There are frequently people that come along in Sims Online who tell us all we need a government - and that is usually followed by "I will be president, and anyone else who wants to work for me is welcome to apply". I have no problem with roleplaying governments as a principle, who enforce their roleplay on their own property and amongst their own members - and abiding by their rules when I choose to visit their land - but when they try and get others to comply with their rules on other property, sorry but no chance from this player.

Lewis