The Answer is "NO"

OH! Okay - boy this must be one of my slow weeks. I understand what it is your parcels and scripts do now.

While the scripts don't collect masses of data, the small bit of information they do collect needs to be timely, which means the script does have to be continually running. But a continuous listen doesn't -have- to cause lag necessarily. I'm curious - did you develop the scripts yourselves? Perhaps it would go a long way to reassuring people if you hired a professional scripter to lean it a bit? Or perhaps you're good enough on your own - but for the sake of PR it might be worth considering having it done by a third party of some reputation.

Only seen it twice in the office hours so far this year, so probably 1 in 5 office hours. Elanthius has been a fixture at them for the most part this year, too.

Am I the only one that is bothered by this?

He/she bought the plot with full knowledge the hole was in the middle prior to purchasing it.

Perhaps they should have contacted the owners of the 16m plot and asked if they would be willing to trade prior to purchasing the land.

If the answer was no, move on and find something else. Last I looked there is no shortage of land for sale out there

How would that reassure anyone? IF anyone feels that 16m plots running a data-gathering script all over SL is somehow creepy, they aren't going to be reassured if the owner states that it was written by a pro. Whoever wrote it, it's still a set of 16m plots running a data-gathering script all over SL.

Our scripts don't use listens or sensors, not even in subroutines for maintenance, debugging or setup. Our scripts sleep within a single state and are controlled by intervals. As I mentioned in an earlier post, because of some recent changes on the grid, we should be able to lengthen the intervals, considerably.

Only one time, did a Linden ask Weedy about the number of polls. She had them revisit the script to "do the math" and then agreed, the polls we minimized for maximum efficiency.

Weedy wrote the code. Her scripted objects, especially her radios are very popular and stable. Our code has been scrutinized by some of the very best scripters in SL (who are also under NDA) and the Lindens themselves on numerous occasions. The Lindens don't rate or otherwise comment whether scripts are "approved or not approved" They leave it to the individual to be proportionate.

To be completely honest, the greater portion of scripts in SL are poorly written. Those scripts never get the scrutiny ours do. Again, we get singled out because of perception, not reality. Even if I posted the code here for all to see, that would not be good enough for some.

Ignorance is not an excuse for assumption.

Phil's right.

Some people don't like what we do. That's fine. Frankly, I find ALOT of other things in SL are DEEPLY creepy, but that does not give me any rights to wrongfully defame them, just because I don't understand or dislike it.

Intolerance is the worst thing on the grid.

No, but you DO have the right to explain how you feel about them. Defamation is a very specific thing. Saying "I think this is a bad practice and I disapprove of anyone who does it" is not defamation. Calling you a landcutter may be defamation; pointing out a similarity between one of your activities and a landcutter's (correctly or incorrectly) doesn't have to be. A false AR could be considered defamation.

That aside - yeah, I chose the wrong word when I said "listen", as that's actually a routine in LSL so it's probably a confusing reference. Your script has to ask the sim for information at regular intervals. Technically, a script that asks for the requisite information once every, say, 5 seconds is indeed spending most of its time in a sleep state; but this interval can still cause problems if there's a lot of scripts on a sim. And the information you're gathering, as I said before, needs to be timely so it's not as if you can adjust your interval to once an hour or so - you risk falling behind.

The point behind my suggestion was that if a scripter is very well known and has a good reputation, having them make a script for you is tantamount to a reference or endorsement; the scripter wouldn't tarnish his image by making a script for someone who intends to grief with it. But if your own rep is already bad enough, yes I suppose something like that wouldn't help. If that's the case, then as I said a while ago, the rep comes with the business and you're just going to have to put up with the fact that some people won't like you no matter what you do - kinda like a lawyer.

As I mentioned earlier, we've done that. Many times over many years.

Please don't suggest we have yet to do that. Each of these times, they commented favorably and didn't see the need to change anything.

Our reputation isn't bad. Our reputation is very good actually, but it only takes a handful of self-rightous zealots to piss in your conflakes and ruin your day, after day, after day.

Depends on where it is. If it is in the same sim where they own a much larger amount of adjacent land, "going elsewhere" might not be financially feasible.

Thing is, with the attitude of "well, if the microplot extortionist won't sell or trade it, go elsewhere" being shared by everyone, that donut plot will sit there not gathering tier until the end of time. I mean, who the hell wants to buy a donut with an extortionist parcel in the middle of it? As such, it is in LL's best interests, as the Estate Manager, to "fix" those problematic plots.

But Dave and Weedy are not microplot extortionists, they just wouldn't cave in to a bully. And LL decided to move the plot without first consulting Dave as a courtesy, treating him like one of the extortionists. That was wrong.

If Dave and Weedy (or, indeed, anyone) can be made exceptions to the rule, then so can all the microplot extortionists.

Leaving the barn door open for one leaves the barn door open for all.

Let's not forget the "3-sides to every story" rule, OK? Neither you nor I have enough evidence to judge who is in the right or wrong here. Ewan may have indeed done as the Lindens suggested he do, and got nowhere, prompting the resultant action. I think the Lindens, of anyone, have the resources to know who is telling the truth, and make their own judgment calls on it.

In the end, no damage was done, because the result was the same as if BBH's policy had been acted upon. BBH did not lose their parcel in the region. The rest of this is posturing and drama-mongering, and neither side is blameless in that.

True. It did happen alot last year. Otherwise ordinary people got so frustrated by the hands-off attitude of the Mainland Estate Manager toward the cutting going on next to them, that they cut their mainland into 16s as well and fled to the private estates or from SL completely. And they found they could sell their mainland quite easily at 4-5L per m within a few hours by doing this.

It had to stop and it has.

I'm not saying that LL shouldn't have rectified the donut situation, but the point is it is a resident dispute that does not involve a policy violation on the part of Dave and Weedy. LL could have handled it much better if they wanted to mediate the dispute.

But that would be too easy and not cause enough drama.

Well, actually, now it does. An important part of the new landcutting policy is the post-extortion-era cleanup, which includes fixing plots which are damaged by the existence of these microplots. As such, like it or not, any/all of these plots, regardless of whom owns them, or how they came about, are now subject to this policy as part of the cleanup effort.

Could LL have handled it better? Maybe, but we have no evidence that they handled it badly, outside of one person's story. What are they expected to do? You and others keep harping "it's a resident dispute; LL shouldn't have gotten involved". OK, they didn't, initially. They expected the RESIDENTS to work it out. They only acted when the RESIDENTS couldn't work it out. You can't have it both ways. Either they get involved and mediate from the beginning, or they come in as final arbiter and apply the proper remediation.

Personally, I think the RESIDENTS SHOULD have worked it out, so that LL could have gone on to attack real problems, but since both sides involved couldn't act 1) professionally (as in business), and 2) with maturity (like responsible adults), they left it to the Judge (ie, LL) to sort it out for them. It was sorted out. It's done. It's over with. Finite. Anything further beyond this point is just more immature posturing over something which should not have gotten to this point to begin with. Dave knows this. Ewan knows this. The only thing preventing either of them from accepting it and moving on is their pride.

News flash: There's no face to save here. It's all disgraceful, all the way around. The only winning move was not to (continue to) play.

Ewan was only the last straw. There is a bigger issue here.

I didn't come here to point a finger at Ewan, Had Ewan not jumped into the thread, there would have been no quarrel. I came to point a finger at LL.

Harmony Linden met with Weedy in world. At that time, she explained some basics of our business and some of the concerns we are dealing with on a daily basis. One issue that came up was our expansion. For years, we added one, two or three plots per day to our network. The nature of our business is access to regional data at a global level and as such, we will always be expanding, so long as the mainland is expanding.

Harmony appreciated we make alot of effort to trade plots and expressed some hope that we may co-operatively continue to clean up the mainland.

She also asked us to suspend our development, until she could get back to us in a week. That was in February, and despite repeated attempts to re-connect with her, that meeting has not happened, to this day. While they sit on their hands, we have NO idea whether we can expand, sell, change codebase or anything.

They left us hanging, we are getting the impression they are doing this intentionally to sqeeze us out, otherwise they should have at the very least, had the decency to re-schedule, tell us to stop or continue. Instead, we got nothing.

Please understand our standpoint. We are all for fixing the mainland. That's no secret and our reputation proves that. Had will happily agree with LL, that arbitrarily trading land might be needed in some cases because of unresolved issues.

Ewan is not our first griefer. There have been many just like him. What the Lindens did, was offer another plot. We always accepted , and we set our land back to either the Linden doing it, or the land owner. (Whichever they suggested)

We are not opposed at LL doing this, but we find it objectionable, they do it without proper notification. To us, while we continue under voluntary suspension pending this meeting, taking our land without notification is acting in bad faith, especially when it has the appearance of placating griefers.

Once possession of land is gone, LL is almost always unwilling to return it. Arbitrarily taking our land, leaves us no recourse for appeal (admittedly knowingly denied) and interrupts our operation. When no rules are broken, that is unfair at every level.

Despite both our efforts to clean up the mainland, LL has not been acting in good faith with us.

Re: the deployed script orbs on the microparcels: it wouldn't take much to make a *completely lawful* comparable system with no parcels at all.

Consider: most regions have plenty of parcels with scripts on, autoreturn off and nobody really paying much attention. It is *not against any rules* to simply rez a prim on someone else's land! It's done all the time. People can prevent it if they so desire, easily.

Sure, eventually that prim may get bumped off. But so what? It's nothing to redeploy another prim with a bot, periodically. Worried about loss of data? Deploy two or three here and there.

Plainly put, if someone dumped a dozen low script impact prims in each of my 49 regions... I doubt I or anyone else would even realise it, and yeah I check my script debug window quite a bit. Only a few regions have autoreturn on completely; and most estates are similar.

Occasionally it's time to go hunting for a chatspy or something on 'probable cause' but other than that or tech issues, I have this weird sense that it's nobody's business what scripts run on individually controlled parcel. And the individual's responsibility to allow or disallow what they wish, excluding maybe a few known egregious scams. It goes back to rights, and protections against unlawful search and seizure.

What mainland rights are there in regard to this? My covenant is fairly clear on the matter (avatar rights, yeah, I know a lot of people laugh at that) but what of the mainland? Are there presumptions that scripts must be inspectable on demand? I've never heard of such a thing, but it sounds like that happened.

This says a great deal... and honestly, I don't find it terribly creepy; at least not any more so than what goes on constantly. We all get data scraped every day by dozens of far less informative, far more secretive organisations. For commercial purposes.

Those organisations don't stick to mainland, either ~ I see the bots come and go on my estate all the time. Too many to ban them all and no way to ban them as a class. I can't imagine too many of those bot runners coming in here and discussing anything *at all* on a relatively open forum. Weedy and Dave don't worry me. It's the ones I don't see, that do.

a) What Weedy is currently doing is completely lawful.
b) I shudder to imagine the outrage if Weedy tried to operate a business based on this premise. It would be way worse than the current harassment they whine about.
c) I've often dreamt of writing a flower script that has floating seeds. The flower would go to seed, the seeds would fly off and land wherever they land. Those that fell on script allowed, no auto return parcels would grow and flower again and the cycle would continue. The whole mainland would be blooming with beautiful flowers in no time. Throw in some genetic algorithms, and maybe you'll get a plant that evolves to optimise it's ability to spread across the grid.

>>a) What Weedy is currently doing is completely lawful.

Never said otherwise. I was referring to the suggested way being lawful as well.

>>b) I shudder to imagine the outrage if Weedy tried to operate a business based on this premise. It would be way worse than the current harassment they whine about.

I'm pretty sure a good number of people already are, and are simply undetected. There used to be swarms of microprim landscanner scripts all over the place back in 2004 or so (although these are kinda pointless now). Invisible, very high speed so you couldn't net~edit them, and rerezzing from little oarcels here and there. I'd be amazed if every last one of those swarms were shut down. I could say more, but I don't want to name names in the forum. I know at least one of these parcels still exists on the mainland and probably dozens more.

>>c) I've often dreamt of writing a flower script that has floating seeds. The flower would go to seed, the seeds would fly off and land wherever they land. Those that fell on script allowed, no auto return parcels would grow and flower again and the cycle would continue. The whole mainland would be blooming with beautiful flowers in no time. Throw in some genetic algorithms, and maybe you'll get a plant that evolves to optimise it's ability to spread across the grid.

That sounds really cool. I can bounce this off Caledon people, and if they generally like the idea, want to try it on a 3 million square meter continent? If there were a way to breed the flowers or collect the seeds, you'd have a ravenous crowd of collectors and breeders in no time.

/me PIE!! <shout>

That is a neat idea. I'll script the bees!

Probably best not to. With my building skills the flowers will end up looking like two cylinders on top of a cube and textured in plywood.

Didn't I read that Desmond makes a mean flower?

Then what was all that "The Answer is 'NO'" crap all about? If it wasn't about Ewan, but about LL, why kick everyone else in the shins?



Never mistake for malice what can adequately be explained by (sloth/stupidity/incompetence/ignorance/etc). Be proactive and bug the hell out of everyone involved, most especially Jack, at his Office Hours. There's plenty of room and time for you to go there and rock his world. Don't sit idly by, or the Lindens will let you sit idly by for as long as possible.



I understand your standpoint just fine. I know your history, and that you and Weedy have done a lot of good. I also know you get a lot of unwarranted grief over your business, just like Elanthius does over his. However, I will be honest with you here -- you and Weedy tend to bring some of that grief on yourselves; you both tend towards reveling in drama. It may not be intentional, but this thread (and others) exemplify it.

The thing is, you DON'T HAVE TO respond to it with MORE drama. You don't have to let it get to you. Yeah, you get it all the time. So what? You're not alone. Lots of people, venues, and businesses get griefed all the time. It sucks. Griefers are lemons. Learn to make lemonade out of them. Detach and throw professionalism back at the griefers. It is the second most effective thing to deal with them. When they see they can't get a rise out of you, they go away. The most effective thing to deal with them is to demonstrate just how much they entertain you; that's when they go away mad. However, you don't have to bother with that; just play the recording again. Let them rant and rave at the hand.



Oh, come on, Dave. The only reason why LL SWAPPED (they didn't TAKE) your land is because you wouldn't respond to the requests for trade from Ewan (because you had him on ignore/mute/whatever). There's not some "big conspiracy" to deprive you of your land or your business. Even if Ewan started out demanding you "give him land", at the point where LL got involved, they instructed him to offer trade, which he apparently did. When that failed, they followed through on applying their policy. It is highly unlikely they could have known the prior history between the three of you.



Again, they did not TAKE your land; they SWAPPED it. You aren't out anything. You still have the same amount of land you had before, in effectively the same place. Yes, you have to come in and claim it, and put your stuff back out on it, but you would have to have done that anyway if you would have followed your own policy and swapped the parcel in the first place.



If it were me in your shoes, I would be at Jack's OH every week until they resolved the situation with you (the Harmony issue). That you don't want to do that because "you wouldn't get a word in edgewise" (despite the fact that such is pure BS) is purely your choice.

In the end, lesson learned, take it upon yourselves to be proactive, especially with LL, and keep in mind no harm was ultimately done. Ewan gets to gloat or whatever (he still doesn't get your plot out of his sim, though, so he can't gloat too much, right?); big deal.

Bugger !!! =)

I was thinking about a making a rideon lawnmower when I read this. Well half a one anyways. Maybe if Mr Shang do it in Caledon himself then there be a whole new gardening industry spring up with jobs even for new people just to keep the verges and parks tidy around all those flash places over his way =)

Hmm! maybe LL can do as well in their public places. So when youre nawti you not get banned for some hours or days. You have to do community service instead. Mowing lawns and raking up dead leafs and wildflowers and stuff. Probably stop most of the drama and griefing in SL. Be really uncool to spend the next 4 or 6 hours of your time in SL in a public place wearing a orange jumpsuit and a title over your head saying "Property of the Governor for the next 4 hours and 3 minutes". And you not get any choice. When you login there you are on the chain gang with a rake in your hand. Is no escape until you done your time. lol