Anti-Bush signs

Indeed! They finally let me out of the funny farm!



My point in the previous post was simply (though not worded as such), that if people don't let jerks bother them, the point is moot. But then again, I enjoy taoist philosophy.

I think LL is handling this correctly. They are asking people how they should adress it, in effect asking where they should draw a line in the gray areas of the rules. And the opinions are all over the place. Is it possible to be fair AND just at the same time?

I'm of the opinion that if the way we're going to deal with jerks is to run crying to the admins everytime, this virtual world experiment will be forever limitted by the size of LL's support staff. We have to help LL find what tools we need to sanely deal with issues ourselves or just deal with it.

I've finally had my say on this. If you really want to read it you can find it here-
/18/66/80489/1.html#post831355

i believe he's probably doing it for attention...and its working very effectively!

hmmm...maybe just IGNORE him and he'll go away..may take time but...

In the real world, property rights would handle a situation like this. Unfortunately, those laws are rooted in zoning laws and a plethora of public nuisance laws that SL simply does not have. Without zoning laws, it is not possible for LL to restrict the size and elevation of signs, for example, since commercial properties have a legitimate need for large extravagent signs, whether or not they're across the road from a residential property. The best solution would be to implement zoning laws--and by extension, public nuisance laws--but I cannot for the life of me imagine the unmitigated chaos that would cause at this point in the game's history. Better, I think, to simply limit the number of signs-- advertizing and otherwise since I don't think that targeting one specific person's political statements is a good idea AT ALL--that can be put up in the game. (An exemption could be granted for land sales, I suppose.)

Frankly, though, I don't think LL will do anything and just tough this situation out for three more years with the assumption that they'll all go away after Bush is out of office. That may be true, but personally, I won't be surprised if they're all replaced with other political advertising.

--Kam

New zoning and nuisance laws are not necessary. What LL has in resolving existing TOS issues is judgement. What is in the TOS that LL felt compelled to buy back teleport land? They make judgement calls every day. They could do the same on this and I find it is unconscionable that they haven't thus far.

Kam, this is not a political issue. For what they are being used for, the sentiment on the signs is completely immaterial - any somewhat controversial message will do. Even a blank cube for that matter.

Covering the signs with boxes or walls is what I've see most often.

It is an issue that needs to be paid attention to. I doubt most users are even aware of forum topics or propositions on it.

The best idea I can come up with is for everyone to just copy him, plaster the entire SL world with ugly controversial signs on every little piece of land that exists to the point the Lindens have to act on it.

One guy isn't enough of a problem apprently for them to take notice.

I think they need to be removed, or at least be made less obtrusive. His ugly signs have prevented me from buying more than one piece of property. Sure it's nice land, but who wants to look at that sign coming at you from all sides all the time? It seems that almost everywhere I go these signs just pop up and scream "Look at me!", it really is to the point of harrassment. Just my 2 cents. ;D

Ok folks, I think we've finally discovered something in the forums here.

Definition of Forum:

A place where people argue incessantly over whether or not their ability to enjoy themselves without thinking pre-empts the right of others to express themselves and therefore think.

I personally think the guy is a bit overboard with his signs, I also don't enjoy trying to fly a perfectly good and well scripted plane that I paid good linden for over a mall, or worse a nightclub, casino, or tringo parlor and have the plane crash or worse, my client crash. I don't like it when I walk into a sim and everyone's bling makes my computer want to commit suicide, I don't like it when people wear poorly designed avatars, I don't like prefabs, and I'm becoming convinced that most people in SL have little to no desire to express any sort of creativity.

Therefore, following the logic of this thread, I propose that all those who want to participate in SL must buy land and construct a build, or at least design a creative outfit that must be judged by a senate of 15 lindens who then decide whether it meets criteria of political neutrality, creativity, prevention of personal offensiveness, reduction of lag, and good graphical standards. All those failing the test will then be confined to three island sims so the rest of us can enjoy our days interacting with only those who meet our specific criteria of whom should exist in the world. This will eventually result in approximately 100,000 grids (one for each av) with a population of 1 each.

In other words, no matter how far you stretch the TOS, you will probably not get this guy banned because your request violates a fundamental principle within the concept of free speech. If you don't like it, talk to Anshe Chung, she has a lot of pre-planned and zoned sims that don't have the signs in them, and I'm sure she'd be more than happy to conduct business with you.

If your not being affected by something then I think its easier to say "Hey whatever, let people do what they want". But when it affects you directly its a different story.

Unfortunately we cannot police SL ourselves because there is nothing we can do as players but make our voices heard. Ultimately that leaves the policing up to the Lindens.

I think the situation is quite simple when viewed this way...

You are free to do what ever it is you want in SL as long as it doesnt infringe on the rights of others. In this case it does infringe on the rights of others.

take my case for instance. I have over 4000M of land that I cannot sell because these signs are everywhere! This is prohibiting me from conducting business.

This by the way has nothing to do with the way I feel about the current man in office. You could have my favorite band posted everywhere and I would feel the same way.

ok I will get off my soap box now

so ... um... It looks like the majority of posters are against the signs. so... Can you please remove them

Thank you

-j

Leading a very limited SL means that I haven't seen any Bush signs but I have skimmed the forums on the issue. When I logged in at home yesterday I saw that my neighbour has a sign erected that says "LL get rid of the Bush Guy" which is now the one main thing I notice as I sit and look over my balcony. It's right at eye level. When does it end?

Ren

By that logic, the Lindens have no business telling people to remove their Nazi builds, either.

coco

The difference is that none of those things you mention are obviously and intentionally made to annoy people and extort their money and they aren't all produced by one person who demands a huge price to remove them.



Your not following the logic of this thread at all unfortunately.

It would be simpler for the Lindens to just police people who intentionaly annoy(grief) and extort others with signs that have no other purpose in SL. There is no guarentee of free speech here, they already draw that line and remove objectionable content. This guy is over that line as well and needs to be dealt with.

i'm sick of this crap

yes me to.

Well, we have a healthy one-quarter believing his signs should be left alone. Most, if not virtually all of those voting that way, I believe, would be taking that position on the basis of a free speech argument.

We have over half wanting them all removed, and over 13% wanting some of them removed. I would imagine many of those in these groups don't consider this a free speech issue at all, and probably many don't care whether it's entirely, somewhat, or not at all about free speech.

With stats like these, though, looks to me like one thing it is about is the Linden's bottom line.

coco

of course it is! LL is a business and a business exists to make money. Let's extrapolate here, if SL and worlds like SL grow in popularity, eventually corporations will pay to advertise in them. Being known as the virtual world where the players run the show wouldn't allow for multi-national corporations to shove their products down your throat the way anti-bush sign guy did, and multi-national corporations have waaaay deeper pockers than one lone griefer...

i dont like the bush signs anymore thin anyone eles but yes he has the right to have thim sadly enough i try to putt up larg trees to hide thim from my land he raises the signs i realy think for that action alone is harassment of some sort there for i think the limit of size and how far off the ground would be the direction to take with this

Ok yes maybe ignoring him would work but in the mean time what we consider a nice peaceful area where we have our home is now flooded with them. No matter what we do we have them in view and this isnt just our area but several areas where ppl have nice places. We have tried to make our sl home a beautiful place and it really makes things difficult when someone isnt being considerate. I am not saying he doesnt have his rights he does but i feel he needs to be more considerate of those around his stuff. This is suppose to be a fun place not a place where we should have to deal with these issues. If we are gonna do rl issues here lets find some that are helpful to others not ones that cause more issues.

I hadn't seen your comment here earlier, but yes, I just figured out exactly this tonight, thanks to Invect Hasp's necroposting with this main idea, and I just got done posting in General about it.

It is paving the way for Coke.

coco

And is also why we will never have the "technical" solution of filtering in world content.

It's old, already, it's boring, it's effecting land sales, even people who don't support Bush think they are annoying. Time to give this litter the heave-ho.

While free speech is important, there are always going to be those who take it to extreme and push the limits till it infringes on someone elses right of the pursuit of happiness. A sign is fine but when they get excessive and start damaging the serenity of SL, that is a problem. I think protest signs should be limited to the property of your primary home as determined by your personal"TP Home". If the person making the "statement" doesn't want to live with it, why should anyone else. Of course this creates an enforcement problem with no solution.

How about giving landowners a function to change , or even render invisible, any offending
signage when viewed from the perspective of their land? In other words, allow land owners to edit certain aspects of their personal view, without actually changing the floating eyesore (whatever it's content!). This would preserve the free speech rights of the sign floaters, while respecting the traditional property rights of the land owners. This would have a secondary benefit of improving the percieved value of a lot of territory in congested builds.

This wouldn't take a lot of coding or storage overhead, and everyone would benefit.

had a similar problem with signage popping up in land next to my store... long story shortened... the guy who owned that land couldn't find a way to get the price he wanted, offered it to me (and I didn't need it) so decided to sell it as 'prim land'. Tiny plots sprouted up with all sorts of things... signs mostly... then a vendor that the owner has not quieted down (obviously unable to connect the message and landmark I sent to him after asking him to do so)... then a skybox... then an adult club sign...

My shops *are* eyesores, but I consider them to be both artistic and worth any builder's time and effort to look at and examine. So, what do I do? I spend much time and effort, of which I have little left these days, getting that shop up and running. I refuse to move... my money investment is small but my time investment is large and that matters to me. Then the thought ocurred to me...

My futzy big prim! The poor thing had been sitting in my prim library for months after discovery, a nice thing to show, but totally useless... until now... I really, really didn't like having an adult club sign next to my artistic and abstract designs. But a futzy big prim, or in this case a few of them, totally cuts off the view in that direction. The scripts I put in are all client-side and the texture on my side is a pleasant swirling gold. I consider the swirling alpha spirals to be eye catching on the opposite side and heavily distracting from even the adult signage. The prims are phantom, of course, so as not to impede flight... and anyone coming in from *the other side* can see my shop behind the big prims.

I get an end to an eyesore... and the other side? 'Fences make good neighbors'

It is *artwork*. It pleases my eye, at least and does not advertise, espouse political views or otherwise do anything except look pleasant.

And anyone wanting higher signs gets into the cloudbank... and will be next to the skybox.

Time spent: 30 minutes
Prims used: 8
Cutting off an eyesore: PRICELESS

Enjoy!

-Diana