Dept. of Public Works: Full Speed Ahead

3 camppads, lol. I am talking about 32 people in the infohub hanging out for hours. And you said campbots -which there are none. The radio station that sponsors my school has three dance pads aganst a wall there that I have seen one person a day use.

LL has all of abuse reports when the access to the sim was denied to me and to people I teleported in - along with the screen shot of all of the little green dots in the infohub.

Tegg your trying to agree with the issue and yet turn it into some isolated grid issue or some personal issue with me.



Whatever. The fact remains that this is a grid-wide issue that many main-land parcel owners feel helpless about (since the offending parcels across the grid are owned by our service provider). For Linden Lab to develop many more of these areas in mainland sims with no plan in place to curb the regualr Linden Land abuses that occur is short-sighted and bad planning.

Surely this isn't meant as stated? Of course The Shelter is great, but not everyone is gonna want to spend all their time there. Indeed if there were no InfoHubs, people would congregate at road crossings or *somewhere*. If the claim is that the Lindens shouldn't provide any infrastructure to the Mainland without policing it full time, that's just a non-starter.

I've spent some time at Welcome Areas and recently a little at a couple InfoHubs and at least when I visited they were mostly pretty calm and people appeared to be enjoying themselves; I didn't find the banter terribly witty, but the participants seem engaged enough. If I owned land in a sim with one of these places, I'd be pretty happy about it for most purposes, and if I had purposes that conflicted with the Linden use of the sim, I'd just find different land somewhere else.

I think the difficulty is not that such unsupervised places exist but rather that when problems arise and ARs are filed, the punishments just aren't severe enough to deter future infractions. There's the problem of infinite alts for determined asshats, with the technical complexities of IP spoofing, etc., that make enforcement more challenging--but again, if punishment included a ban on any alts accessing the grid with very severe penalties for violating that, it would be worth the considerable effort to chase down a few of them and permaban all associated accounts, as deterrence. But all that is predicated on getting serious about deterrence.

I quite welcome anything the Lindens do to try to improve the Mainland--very much including adding new infrastructure.

Full-time is hardly not at all Qie.

Really? everyone that had land in a area that a Linden decided to put an unsupervised infohub and then allowed them to turn into gathering areas should close up their business and relocate? I suppose everyone in a area with adfarmers should leave also.



Wow. Another one speaking with forked tongue.
You admit the issue exists - but instead of bogging down the ineficient AR system - why not put something in place to make these places useful for everyone? That would vastly improve the mainland instead of creating pretty projects that compound an already existing issue.

I agree ther's usually only one or 2 campers there but I have seen 3, why would you need 3 pads otherwise, they only cause unnessary lag if seldom used. And there's no real people on the other end of the campers, they never reply when I say hello.
Maybe on those few occasions you find a person can't get into the sim, they might have been able too if you didn't have camppads occupied.
And no I don't have a personal issue, it's just you seem to be trying to make the builders doing works all over the grid into a Bear Infohub issue.
The campers rezzing at Bear then walking to and from the campfarm in the next sim are one reason Bear has high traffic, so maybe you should be campaiging against campers too, at least infohub groupies are real residents, not traffic processors.

It's all sl needs, more scenery. Instead of fixing everything that's wrong, all the many problems that affect everyone on a daily basis they rather add more structures more bells and more whistles. This is just like the Windlight. Why continue on this path instead of concentrating on what's really important, like fixes.

But this shouldn't surprise anyone, this is the way it normally is in sl.

Well no point suspending all the project departments, so we can keep Commodore 64 graphics and physics for the next 3 years while they fix teleports and sim crossings.
And if we don't keep introducing new features like sculpties, windlight, and Havok4, no one but bots will stay here to buy stuff limited to 2004 features we could be overtaken by active worlds.....

Unbelievable. When the infohub is full then just eject ban 3 campers and stop complaining. OK.
YOU mentioned Bear InfoHub. Not me or anyone else responding to this thread. This IS a grid-wide issue that negatively impacts everyone owning land in mainland sims where there are these unsupervised Linden owned parcels.

Utter nonsense. The traffic on the InfoHub plot is 7 times higher than any other plot in the sim. Your just making things up now. You sound like the excuse-making Linden Governance Committee. The problem exists, one-sim InfoHubs are not for community gathering, abuse report it when it happens and we will not do anything about it.

I think the campers in Nepessing sim next door are real people - the names change regularly. The owner of that store has just sold me back large chunks of the sim I am in (that he bought from me in 2006).

If his camping were in a sim and a landowner had a problem with it at least they could have someone to talk to about it. Linden Lab has responded to mainland resident's ARs when their neighbors had too many camping spots. Having the untouchable Service Provider as the culprit makes the issue frustrating and borders on breach of contract.

I doubt that will ever happen again, since each time they tried some members end up abusing it to contact any online Linden for personal, trivial problems.

ARs filed from OIs/HIs/WAs/etc get a priority boost with the abuse team (as far as I know due to much, much prompting from volunteers) and that's really all that's needed (beyond having a well-staffed abuse team obviously).

Having a volunteer be able to eject/ban/freeze/return prims on certain Linden public builds has been asked for and discussed to death countless times at monthly meetings, office hours, small impromptu groups, etc. It always comes down to the fact that they really don't ever want to give one resident more "power" than the next.

Yep, that's what I'd do, if I needed to get 3 more paying customers in, banning them is your idea, better off removing the camppads to keep them out.
Put it this way 3 camping pads gives every other business in the sim the right to have their own 3 camping pads to up their traffic too. Great news for a overpopulated sim.
Maybe you should be asking for a class 5 server upgrade that can take more residents in the sim, rather than kicking residents out.
It could be worse you could be trying to run a business in a dead sim no one ever comes into, and having no walk through traffic or people reading your advertising.

They need them to find a balance between the 2. Yes, the game must be developed and improved constantly, but it also has to work. All the latest doo dads and thingies are useless if the game doesn't function as intended. It's a matter of deciding which improvements and fixes are must haves for the overall benefit.

Better off throwing in all the improvements the real gamers want. That way you might keep them occupied for 15 minutes while they are taking a break from Bio-shock.

I've already said in this forum that I'd be happy to swap any of my property with the Lindens if they found an infrastructure use for it. I have no idea what adfarms have to do with any of this--if there's an analogy there somewhere, it quite escapes me.Ummm. Huh? I've been saying the same thing all along: there's no way I want my tier payments to go to hiring a Linden police squad to round up hooligans from InfoHubs, when ARs could work just as well if only the penalties were severe enough to deter anything.

Maybe I just don't understand what's being suggested here, but if the idea is that all unsupervised Linden infrastructure should go away, I really think that's not the Mainland people come to SL to experience.

It isn't them that are doing this in any case, is it? There is a small Linden time outlay to co-ordinate things, grant permissions and so on, but for little or no money they get a whole load of free content exactly where they want it.

Tegg you talk in circles and border on personal attacks. Compounded with your lack of facts - and your refusal to remember points already made - it is nearly useless trying to respond to you.


There are only three business' in this sim - so if we all had three camp pads it would be a very small impact. The t-shirt shop across from the infohub has a camping bench with three spots that no one uses. The tier paying residents of this sim are responsible enough not to destroy each other's business.

The sim is not overpopulated. The unsupervised infoHub is being misused as a gathering area. I posted the official Linden definition of one-sim infohubs for you earlier in this thread. These sims were nver set up to be gathering places. I spoke with Torley Linden several times while the hub was being built before my very eyes. What the hub is being used for now is not what was greed to with the mainland residents. Scroll up.

Upgrade to class 5? Absolutely no impact on mainland sims. Mainland sims are set to hold about 40 avatars - period. That is the standard.

I made enough Linden Dollars from running a business here to buy a island in 2006 - before infohubs were in existence. Infohubs are not the only reason business' make money. Your logic includes abandoning your parcel once a adfarmer moves in or a store with massive camping sets up shop. Just roll up the rugs and leave. Or are you saying there is a double standard because the parcel is owned by Lindens?

So if the 3 businesses each ran 3 camp pads..........that would be 23% of the sim capacity taken. That is more of a legitimate use of resources than people gathering and talking?

You have a Linden road right in front of your school. If these people from the infohub decided to gather and socialize on the Linden road, would you be upset? Would you AR them? What would you charge them with?

These infohubs are public property, a concept I despise, so if the public decides to gather there how can it be misuse?

Dunno if Tegg is, but I most certainly am. If the Lindens provide infrastructure on a sim that gives enjoyment to visitors, that's a *good* thing for SL. If an adfarmer dumps sewage and scam prims all over a sim, it's bad for SL. If that's a double standard, so be it: I like good better than bad.

But yeah, if I had a business threatened by adfarmers, you can be sure I'd move the business. I'd still fight the adfarmers because they were bad for SL, but I wouldn't make business decisions for emotional reasons. I mean, this happens in RL all the time: a business sets up in one location; the neighborhood changes or maybe a highway gets built: the business moves. It's just business.

One more time - so you can perhaps understand.
When Telehubs were torn down the Lindens came to us and asked if we would like a infohub for new player information or should they just set the land for sale. We, the tier-paying residents in the sims said that - based on the use of the land - Yes- build infoHubs for new players that leave Help Island to continue to get information. And once again the definition of the ONE SIM INFOHUB IS:


I will ignore your silly road comment. There are not 9 camp spots in the Sim - so that is just some more nonsense.

The Infohubs were to have a real purpose that served the community. Not a vacant lot for greifers and loiteres to gather in uncontrollable numbers. Why would any of us agree to have these structures in the sim we pay to support if we were informed we would be paying for Linden Lab's unsupervised gathering area? If another parcel owner in the sim had 36 people planted on it for 10 hours a day I would be able to negotiate with them and make some arrangements (as I did with the Casino Owner in 2005). Yes, even casino owners would comply.

Linden Lab says that thte infoHub is for new players to gather information - not for mass gathering. If the sim could support the crowd then it would not be a issue. The sim cannot support these unsupervised mass gatherings and therefore Linden Lab needs to comply with their own definition and make the necessary changes to make the infohubs (and these new 'folly builds') assests to the communities and not more greifer paradises.

Lias you said that all 3 businesses could run 3 camp pads with small impact on the sim. Are you backing away from the statement?

Answer the road question. Linden Land is Linden land. Would you AR people gathering on the road outside your school? I think you chose to ignore it because it shows how ridiculous your position is.

Tell us Lias, what changes should they make to infohubs to make them acceptable to you?

Wow. So everyone was supposed to just move thier business and not rally for the positive changes? Just let the mainland turn into a billboard hell. Every business was suppose to go run to a private island and give up.

Thank goodness for the people that refused to be bullied to move and for those that constantly, for two years, let Linden Lab know that this was not something that the tier paying mainlanders wanted - no matter if it was becuase "the neighborhood changes".

And since this is not what Linden Lab told us these parcels would be used for - we just need them to figure out a way to comply with their own definition of the one sim infoHub and the issue is resolved. To pretend it is not a out-of-hand situation that is going to get worse with more of these unsupervised 'folly builds' being placed anywhere they want - anytime they want - on the mainland is just sticking your head in the sand until the situation actually effects you.

And really, those of us that have had the same landmark for several years are not going to jump from sim to sim to assist our service provider in accommodating thier free accounts.

One could note, too, that the "latest doo dads" in development right now do, by and large, also positively affect how the world works.

* Windlight provides a really pretty sky an some neato water *but* also helps present a more robust graphics engine for Second Life that seems to help with overall fps and such, while also providing (agruably, of course) better overalll lighting.

* Havok4 is a neat new goodie *but* also makes for a more robust system that will potentially lead to less crashes, better border crossings, and will also take away a lot of the griefer's toolbox.

* Mono will allow for some new scripting features and other goodness, *but* will also provide a potentially stable-r scripting platform for SL, supplanting the sometimes difficult LSL.

To me, the biggest issues lately seem to be rolling out code -- designed to increate the robustness of the world -- that breaks more stuff than it fixes.

Mari

Me, I like the LDPW idea. I feel as if the mainland has been ignored for some time. How old are the newest Linden-sponsored goodies: the railroad stations of a year ago, or earlier? Certainly some of the more involved landmarks go back to the Herteocera Atoll's main landmarks, with Nautalis, Corsica, and the other two only-sorta-named continents largely lacking in content designed to give the places the feel or little more than endless suburban sprawl, Metaverse style.

I look at the LDPW as part of a larger picture. I know that the Mentor program was heavily expanded a handful of months ago, leading to a lot of new folks. I would like to think that, from this pool, some staffing could come to the info hubs and other locales.

I personally feel a LOT could and should be done here. Judging from some of what I've heard recently as some Linden office hours, I also suspect much is in the works. Not only in the larger issues of platform stability, but with the Achilles' heel of Second Life, the "new user experience." Orientation Island, Help Island, and the Info Hubs are, of course, the key to solving that issue.

The LPDW works with such, providing engaging content that is clearly designed for everyone to use. Can this content be abused? Of course -- but I don't think the answer is to not seek compelling Linden-sponsored content if its available.

I think, too, the crack down on the ad farms ties into this. Like the LDPW, this will mean a more appealing mainland. The spinning ads are far from "desirable content."

Al this said, I suspect this new move to "beautify the mainland" is not going to be without its learning curve. LL is, shall we say famous for such. Yet I'm going to hold on to some hope. I'd prefer to see something like this than nothing at all.

Mari
(Who'd love to see a LL-sponsored Mariana not far from her mainland plot)

Of Course. I wasn't referencing those specifically, I have no idea what they mean to the game technically. I was making a general comment of investing all resources into new features at the cost of fixing ongoing issues that may be impacting the performance of the program.

I think more public spaces is a good thing, because it will spruce up the mainland and spread people out in SL. If there is a way to easily find them from one to another, then yes, they should be implemented even if they are unsupervised. The amount of griefers is a finite number, although their alts are not. If you have more places to go, you can have a thinner concentration of these people wreaking havoc and the experience won't be as constant. You'd need a proportional growth in the griefer population, and I don't think that necessarily follows the increase in public spaces.

Oh, of course. Iw as not disagreeing with you at all - jes piggybacking.

Mari

That's confounding two very different things. Some of the most vocal and effective supporters of the anti-adfarm cause owned not a square meter of Mainland. And while I am still on the Mainland through all this, I definitely worried that continuing to pay tier on it was sending the wrong message.

But I really think this adfarmer analogy is just making the logic of the case even more difficult to follow. As far as I can comprehend it, the basic problem seems to be that there's a popular InfoHub that interferes with a business. Some folks will be sympathetic to the business in this scenario. But then trying to generalize that situation to all unsupervised Linden infrastructure is harmful to the argument: it dilutes it, and creates opposition from everybody who's ever had a good time at an unpatrolled Linden venue. And then further generalizing it to the current attention the Lindens are giving to improving their builds on the Mainland? Well that just further reduces the support for the original argument by alienating everyone who has a vision of a Mainland with builds on a scale that only LL can do.

Admittedly, I personally don't agree with even the basic argument, but the circle of potential support shrinks as it makes more enemies by expanding that which it condemns.