Please help: A question about covenants.....

Hello all,

I am not much of a writer. That being said, what I want to know is how all of the landowners come up with their covenants. I can't believe that every estate owner sits down at their kitchen table and writes one up, so my question is:

Is there a template that has all the basic covenant principles already written up and estate owners can edit the covenant to suit their needs or do they just copy someone else's covenant and edit it that way to suit their needs. I'm sure they all pretty much say the same thing as far as the rules to live by.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

I'm leaning toward the kitchen table theory.

Remember, it can be edited later if something changes. Also, these are not legally-enforcable agreements, so there's no reason to get too involved. I've seen some as simple as:

"No ban lines.
no reselling.
no shouting
no soliciting
no shouting objects.
no skyboxes.
no TOS violations"

It can be simple, or it can be as complete as Caledon's covenant.

Go to a Caledon sim and check it out. It's the most comprehensive one I've ssen, and even so, it's entertaining reading.

You'd be surprised Dartagnan

Most covenants are pretty exclusive to the owner's wishes. You're not gonna get that out of a template. It is a business, so my suggestion would nudge you to create your own and be specific about 'do's and don'ts' The last thing anyone wants is a covenant that works off the premise of 'There are no rules, but I will let you know if you break one' -- that rule is specifically reserved for women

/Me shouts "Oi! get out of my place unless you are a punter who wants to use my skybox to vialote some TOS conditions!!!!"

/me waves at Lindall

as a fellow Caledonian, I agree with LIndall, Check out the Caledon covenant, Avondale, New Toulouse, and Winterfell all have fantastically comprehensive covenants as well. But the main thing is, are you doing a themed sim? what types of building or play do you not want to have going on? do you want to inspire an artistic community, business community, residental community? Basically all that fun stuff that you've probably already figured when you opened the sim, or collected your land. Just make a simple list like the first responder did, and then make it fun. And yes, like they said too, you can always change it to accomodate any new things that come up

Yeah you can rip whatever you like out of mine, if you want - go for it

Caledon's has been a constant evolution, predating the 'covenant' tab and once existed just as a notecard.

I personally really like Steve Mahfouz's covenant too - it's a bit different than mine, but really nice.

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One point about the 'watch out for extra rules' stuff... basically there are a zillion ways to grief a region, extort, or be a tard in general - nobody can think of them all.

For instance, I don't have a ban on punk rock prim rhinos with digestive problems.

I don't think anyone has covered that one, any more than they have covered 'giant hammer houses that whack passersby at random.'

Or screaming fruit trees. Glaring omission, I know, but I simply left out screaming fruit trees.

Does that mean screaming fruit trees are okay? Well, no. Just one howler apple, or wailing pear will drive residents and visitors alike bonkers.

It means that anything truly whack and annoys the crap out of people will be subject to discussion. It's either that, or putting 81,000+ of tier payments in the hands of anyone who wants to be a total dweeb and get all technically argumentative about it.

For people like that, there's the anarchy of owning land on the mainland. If anyone *really* wants to put up a 50 meter high wall of raw, dripping meat they can do it over there.

Of course, reputation is the other side of the covenant coin.

It's hard to maintain an easygoing reputation - you have to land somewhere inbetween 'tyrant' and 'absentee landlord' to get it. Make a few wrong calls, and you'll have a tough time shedding that reputation - just one screwup carries more weight than 100 right moves.

* * * * *

A few things left out:

I don't have covenant regulation over temp rezzers or 'certain scripts' I won't talk about here.

The reason why is that I know everybody, and if someone gets out of hand with something I can personally talk to them. There is such a thing as responsible use, and 99% of the time you can give people the freedom they need without crushing their dreams.

Yes, temp rezzers are pretty much over the foul line but if it's a rare blooming flower or very low impact "one prim an hour" kind of thing, I won't take that away just because someone might decide to temp-rez 1500 prims of McMansion. That situation I'd deal with separately.

Thanks for all the replies guys. Very informative.

I have mainland that I rent out besides the new sim I picked up and I am a pretty easy going guy. My main rule is be respectful of other people on the sim. Follow the rules and we won't have problems.

I will definitely have a look at you covenant Desmond, thanks.