Experiment: One Sim should have a Zoning Manager

There are over 500 sims.

We have many experimental sims. We have Jessie, we have Boardman, we have sandboxes, we have Linden Sims. We have telehub sims, we have no telehub sims. Plenty of different experimental sims.

We should try one sim which anyone who buys land in will be invited into a group (and excluded from the group once they sell their land).

The group then votes, once per 1/2/3 months the officer for that group.

The officer has veto power over any content in that sim.

We're talking 1 sim out of 500.

No real changes need to be made to the system. Someone just needs to maintain the group and its membership.

The key point to this is that whoever buys into the sim should be carefully forewarned that there is a Zoning Manager.

And yes, I know all about groups, I know this could be done by someone buying an island, and all the other obvious things people will feel the need to bring up.

I would however like to see a system that is easily marketed alongside the rest of the land and a user doesn't need to be paying close attention to the forums to find out about.

In order to reduce load on Linden's helping oversee this, the issue would be that they'd only clear out land twice per week, so that they don't have to keep being called back.

Ideally the threat of vetoing land should be sufficient. No one should ever have to actually use it.

Just get some people together and stage a political coup d'etat on Neualtenburg, and you can do whatever you'd like! With voting!

Perfect!

i self proclam myself livigno's zoning manager, its a snow sim and everyone is forced to have snow on his roof!

Is that hard?

Unfortunately a test like this is completely insufficient in sample size. As a zoning manager's quality would depend highly on the person picked, it would really need a much more realistic sample size to adequately try it out.

Of which I personally think is a bad idea.

I would really like to see more experiments like this.

I think its REALLY important to have informed consent though. How would you feel if you bought land, and THEN found out you can't build what you want to build. Especially if you bought the land with your last dollar. That ain't right.



I think that's a really terrible idea. Any one person with veto power over content is a recipe for disaster. A petition system would be better, where let's say 2/3 of the land owners in a sim have to agree, and if they do, THEN the content is deemed unacceptable.

Personally, I would rather have very clear litmus tests , such as

(a) height limit
(b) how tall things are allowed to be relative to distance from property lines
(c) terraforming property edge
(d) no for-sale items
no events or find places listings
(f) no particles that cross property lines

These would be easier to enforce than "must look like a victorian house".

Many people DON'T WANT rules like this. Fine, there are hundreds of simes without any rules. But I think some people DO want rules, especially after having a cube of death right on the property line.

Some people want to "play house" and spend a whole month trying out different kitchen floor tile. Those people go shopping for furniture, clothing and pre-fabs. GREAT!

We need to ATTRACT PEOPLE WHO LIKE TO GO SHOPPING, and make them really happy and comfortable. That makes life happier for other people who like to make things and sell them.

[SOAPBOX]

Set aside "how things ought to be" and think in macro-economic terms. Just like RL, SL is a sectored economy. While there are "laws" such as supply and demand, there are also demographics. Different people want to get different things out of life, SL or RL.

Pick a constituency, and get inside THEIR heads. What do THEY want. Why do THEY play SL. What makes it more enjoyable or less enjoyable FOR THEM.

Don't say, "If I were them ..." -- that's an opinion about what you think they SHOULD think. Forget about what people SHOULD think, what people SHOULD want. Facilitate the pursuit of happiness, without insisting on being the one who defines happiness. I wish more people would say, "Hey, whatever rings your bell" instead of "If I were you I would blah blah blah".

Let's give everybody what THEY want, and stop trying to give everybody the same thing.

[/SOAPBOX]

Buster

I am for Linden Labs listening to the enormous frustration and angst of many subscribers about the problem of griefers, sim-laggers, and view-blockers, and trying to experiment with zoning or functions like blaze is suggesting as a way to acquire field-tested experience to try to address these vexatious issues.

They funded one social-democracy toy which led to the usual socialist squabbling, censorship, purges, executions at dawn, etc. Player governments, organized by players or encouraged by companies, seldom work, because what people need is not a player government, like a giant world with rules and controls and courts and police as they have in the RL, but just a little group that figures how not to have 1024 textues, no bouncer scripts, use of the light-kill script, and an elimination of spewing particles for ever, and ever, amen. That's it. No world domination or govrnment, just a few little housekeeping chores.

I think the biggest problem we face with blaze's idea is the arrangement of the voting. First, I would never embark on this project unless they completely remove the officer recall function achieved by 2/3 vote, which isn't the vote of those who paid for the land or put tier on it, but just rank-and-file rogue members who want to harass or steal. If that function is gone, because it never leads to a function that ends tyranny, and always ends to mob tyranny against investors who paid for land, then I will look at it.

Next, I worry about something with such high maintenance that you have to trigger it and make it work every month, voting constantly as people move or get busy or leave the game. It's too much work.

You could set it up that whoever buys the most land on a sim becomes that Zoning Dude. Of course everyone will loathe and despise him and assume he is ebil. They always do in their childish ways when they are sitting on a 512 spewing particles and installing bouncer scripts, and the Zone Dude is trying to set up houses neatly on his 16k. People will get very, very VERY angry at the idea that the largest property owner can dictate content, i.e. the nature of the builds on those 512. It's not going to fly.

Yet it is almost impossible I find to get people together in a group and get them to function on a vote. Sometimes this automatically happens when you get a few well-educated adults who happen to be likeminded and found each other on a sim. They have all kinds of shared cultural cues and get it done (this BTW can lead them to think everyone else are idiots that they couldn't do this, but that's not always the issue).

Civics are no longer taught in schools in some countries, the rudimentary tools of democracy are not encouraged, and I actually find that some people pressing officer recall either did it by mistake or actually have trouble walking through all the steps involved in a vote, with a 2/3 majority, that is going to decide something. If you think civic activity is not becoming a rarity and an exoticism, I think you haven't examined over a lot of sims the effect of mass culture with mp3 music, malls, large schools, absentee parents, etc. etc. on the recent generations. Their mass, streaming, entertainment-based, entitlement-moded existence in the malls, the Internet, the large schools, has not led them to hunker down and understand how Roberts Rules of Order applies in helping a group of people to function for the common good. We were routinely taught Roberts Rules in high school and college but this can tend to be a more British and Canadian cultural feature than American, and I honestly don't think people are taught about group procedure and consensus functions and effective ways to conduct democratic meetings any more.

In a way, the Lindens already created and allowed the Zoning Dude system, blaze. It's just maybe we didn't notice it? Anshe and Nexus already just bought sims, or most of sims, decided they'd zone them as "zoning dudes," parceled them up, put up some benches or public spaces, and put them on the market. People are filling them up fast, and gratefully, happy to trade away their actual ownership rights and that sacred "right to do WTF I want on my property" *in a heartbeat" when they think it will involve safety from all the other tards doing "WTF I want on my property".

That is what is truly amazing to me. The happy, easy, instant letting go of that awful feature on so many sims that is summed up "I can do WTF I want on my property and screw you" in exchange for that pearl-beyond-price, that Holy Grail, the willing ceding of that *same* "I can do WTF I want on my property and screw you* in their neighbours. Once they have safety from the very thing they insist on for themselves and wreck such havoc, they give it up.

Isn't that an amazing lesson? I find it astounding. It suggests that even without buying up expensive sims, even without imposing voting and civics lessons proving too complex for the average mall and Internet user, you can make a sim look better.

It's kind of a sad commentary on human nature, and explains why fascism and communism takes hold -- people will give up all their rights in a heartbeat if you can succeed in promising them security and happiness, even if limited, and then actually deliver on some of that, even if if it means execution of a minority of them.

I guess I personally prefer to see if a flexible combination of sharing tier in land groups and having rentals rather than sales with lots of freedoms, encouraging homesteading with more planned rent-to-buy for theme-related customers, open market that is marked visibly as residential, formation of community associations, etc. can't be workable.

Oh, definitely I agree with everything you say 100%.

Except that I think there are a few people who want to be in a zoned build but it's pretty hard for them to hunt them down and the land tools really suck right now for zoned builds. Buying/Selling zoned land doesn't happen on the open market, so it's kinda hard marketing to buyers and for buyers to find sellers.

I think you're overestimating the general population's level of discontent.

Totally against this but I appreciate your bringing the topic up.

I do not want anyone having any special powers beyond the dictatorial control the Lindens already have. I pay my fees each month with an assumption that they are going to do the right thing when I need help. However, some yokel who suddenly fancies himself Mussolini should not have that kind of control over anyone. Even perceived or potential threats of a veto do make it for me.

The solution IS to buy private islands and sims as others have done and do whatever you want to do.

I imagine the general population comes on basic accounts and just floats around or rents or hangs out at friends' houses or go to clubs. They don't feel the pain of griefers and view-blockers.

The population of premium account holdiers above the $5 of tier-holders, however, are a population I see is filled with angst, stress, anger and dismay that their purchases are meaningless in this chaotic game space due to griefing and idiocy.

The ease with which Anshe Chung and Adam Zaius instantly filled their zoned sims, the existence of many obviously zoned, or quietly zoned sims and "steering" by oldbie networks and real estate agents to silently establish zoning; the ease with which I, a newbie knowing nothing about real estate (and still needing a lot to learn) was able to sell or rent an entire sim within 45 days, suggests to me that there is a huge audience of people who want zoning. Huge. If you don't hear the discontent in your little circle, fine, but I deal with many people from a variety of situations and they really, really are discontent, believe me.

Believe me, I wouldn't dream of comparing my sad little circle with your obviously much superior circle. I just "really, really" think that you're overestimating the general population's level of discontent; I don't believe there's enough frustration to compel the Lindens to make a technological change. They're gonna leave it up to us to find a way.

Your circle doesn't sound sad, and I don't have a "superior circle" of any sort at all, neither superior, nor circle. Mainly what I deal with, are just big land groups of lots of tenants. So I hear their concerns. I see why they move, what they move from, and what they move to. That's it.

Read all the new posts from newbies every few weeks that say to the effect "isn't this rude! these people are building stupid and ugly in front of me!

This is very very VERY widespread.

Pol, why do 99 percent of the people in the game no longer possess their first land.

Why does most first land get bought up by land barons, then resold to just a few people with estates or malls?

Because when you get your first plot of land you don't know what you're doing. I bought my first plot of land before the formal "first land for newbies" program, just because I found some fallow public land sitting around (remember those days?). Later, I sold it and bought something better. Pretty natural course of events in the life of an avatar.

I moved, ironically, because the sim had became sort of barren and someone made me a good offer.

Pol, many people actually do know what they are doing, they actually spend weeks shopping before they buy their first land. I know, I was one of them, and I know, becuse I help many people do this who take weeks and weeks to shop for a good first land.

Pol, I don't know how to say this but I will try as gently as possible.

The game has changed. The game has changed. The game has changed. The game has changed.

Since you were a newby, since you bought land under wildly different circumstances, since you established your firmly-held and tightly-clung beliefs.

Please contact me for a tour of today's new modern 512 postage stamp hell for newbies on all the new sims. See them. Talk to the people in angst there. Buy their land. Or don't, just watch in pity. Then we'll talk.

Its an obvious conspiracy by the PIC, Prok'n'Beans-Inner-Core, to make sure that those who buy their land sell it immediately thereafter. Look at the statistics, they don't lie!!

WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THE SL EXPERIENCE PIC!!! WHY WHY WHY!

Hmm when you buy your first 512m2 now, you are at least guaranteed to be able to build on it. Sounds better than when I got my first land, and some guy next door could rez some 144-prim bookshelves and completely lock me out of building.

It has changed!

Edit:
As for being on topic, buy a sim, start a group, and zone it yourself. You don't need the Lindens to experiment on this. The better communities are already doing it without you, you're late to the party.

Use long, dense paragraphs.


Has the game changed? Holy mackerel! I really need to expand my circle.

Point is, I sold my first plot of land pretty quickly, under "wildly different circumstances." People still ditch their first plots. People will always ditch their first plots.


Remind me, what are my beliefs again? I assume you have them on a 3x5 notecard that you stole directly from my skull.


Hey, you want better first land for newbies? Defang the land barons. That's the big difference from when I joined and now.


Now I know what a night out with you is like. You have to buy me dinner first, though.

#1 reason IMHO is that 512m2 is too small.

Buster

I actually do rent on a private sim, and would have an extremely hard time considering going back to the mainland. I've tried looking, several times, and cannot find anything better for me - and probably will not either unless I go get my own sim.

The issue for me is not zoning per se, but privacy. Island sims are (normally) isolated, so that lag, when it exists, is generated purely from the contents therein and not from adjacent ones. Plus they'll tend to be quieter overall in a residential format.

One thought comes to mind. Has anyone floated the idea of a truly *private* residential island? One that is not even available on the grid unless you're in the group(s) needed?

I bought my first land with the full knowledge that I would sell it as soon as possible. I didn't care to wait and see if my new neighbors would want to sell theirs. I thought it made more sense to buy the first land, look around to see where I really wanted to live, then sell for a small but reasonable profit when I was ready to buy that larger parcel.

After all, it takes about half a minute for a new landowner to recognize that 512 sq.m. is not going to be sufficient.

yes, it's been in effect since the advent of private islands. I.E. there are islands out there that we don't know exist because they do not appear on the grid.

I think we all speak the same language but need to start thinking like a community instead of individual idea-generating machines...

we all agree that managed sims can work. We all agree that managed sims are an option and nothing more.

My site, Infinite Island will soon showcase my plans for a managed zone in SL. Ideas can soon be generated there.
http://www.infinite-island.com

Boardman is a pleasant little experiment and I now understand that the citizens of SL would like to take things to the next level.

The Lindens are very smart people, they require good, solid information before commiting anything. This is a very good thing.

I am confident that we will find a way to begin zoning a utopia that generates money, provides a new standard of excellent living and brings people together. A real second experience. After all, what is NYC but a large, managed clusterf*ck that never ceases to amaze?

I could get the website to work for me. It just has the default index.htm in place.

And I think boardman is very cool.

I'm having update issues with the site. I've contacted the hosting service and submitted a tech ticket. This will be a great experiment to find out how good tech support is on a $0.45/month hosting account

~Lefty