Another Go at Ban Lines

If you completely surround them it's against the TOS to ban them. They can AR you for that.

Your edit-fu is better than mine.

I question this.
In ancient times, when people had to walk or bicycle from hubs to their land, this could have been the case.
Now they can simply TP into their land.

It might depend on the background story and-or the particular Linden looking at the AR.




My opinion:
A polite IM or a chat if you see them is the best first step.
If a neighbour is aware that the banlines are a huge visual intrusion but continues to use them, then I say give them as much negative feedback as is possible under the TOS.

Ban lines in their current form are the tech creation of a soulless geek with the soul and social awareness of a dead slug.
Anyone who continues to use them despite being aware of their effect on neighbours is to be treated as the sociopath that they are.

Ban lines are grief.
That's why ad-farmers switched to using them after the first ad-farm ban.
That's how Czari's paranoid ex-neighbour used them. That one banned Czari for a common mistake and banned me for having the temerity to ask her to move her build out of my land.


It's not good enough to say that it's down to LL to fix the situation.
While we wait an eternity for them to move on something, we still have to live with each other.
Yes it can take a bit of thought to set up a security orb correctly, but that effort is worth taking on out of consideration for others.

I'm not talking about "what makes sense", I'm talking about what Linden Labs abuse team will actually respond to. Yes, really, they will.

They've gotten on people's case for even putting phantom prims around a parcel, for Cthulhu's sake.

I'm not saying anyone's a bad person for doing it.

I'm warning that it is dangerous.

OK. As long as there is a completely illogical and arbitrary process involved, I'm cool with it

Just like RL!

BanLink (http://www.slbanlink.com) is free and open source. However, its not for everyone, and there are restrictions on signing up that make it not a good choice for residential or small-store landowners.

To be eligible to use BanLink, you have to either own a full sim, or a busy mainland venue. Its also a lot more than simply a security-orb: its a ban management system.

It doesn't completely surround them.

The majority of my land is one large parcel. On one side of it is a parcel of land that was cut up into pieces to sell (remember the photo I posted of the 6 twirling yellow & black for sale signs? lol). Two of those parcels (the ones directly adjacent to my land) are still for sale (now with flat for sale signs on them.)

The next parcel to the south is a 512 purchased by my former landlord on the same sim, I'm assuming for the prims as he owns land elsewhere in the sim as well.

On down to the final parcel cut up by my selling neighbor is the 512 where the people with the banlines live, also on a 512. (Cute little house I must say.)

Now continuing south is the other parcel I own - a 1536. So the only parts of our respective properties that join is that edge between one side of their's and one side of this one. I'll have to go double check if any of my 1536 is in back of their land (I purchased it for the prims too) but no banlines would be in front of them or on the other side. They might "see" my banlines on my large parcel, but it would be at a diagonal with another parcel in between.

Pretty soon they're going to be seeing the back of my shop.

Hiya Sling!

Yeah, those were fun times with that former neighbor you and I had. I liked how you dealt with it too *grins*

Goreans don't generally live outside of "Gorean territory" so I'm thinking these people won't be here long...but at any rate, it's really not as big a deal as this thread sounds. I was more surprised than anything, having gone a LONG time in that sim with no banlines since our former *cough* neighbor left.



That's what I originally tried to do. Not being sure of the owner as it was group owned, I sent a very nice, polite note to who I "thought" was the owner from the access list. I think I spent the first paragraph saying basically "Welcome to the neighborhood."

The response I received from that person was very nice and cordial, although didn't have a clue (he "said" about where this land was as he doesn't own land. After I told him, I received the response from the owner (as quoted in a former post). My main annoyance with her now is not as much the banlines as her attitude that I was trying to tell her what to do with her property, etc.

Heh. I've had Gorean neighbors. Nice people, actually, except for the handcuffs they kept leaving on my parcel.

LOL! too bad they didn't leave a few collars laying around too!

Czari, you certainly are a busy neighbor. Quite interesting reading I must say.

In my 3.5 years on SL my partner and I have owned all sorts of land, from mainland, to full sims, including a very old and well known Gorean city, one of the first ever built. Orbs have caused multiple problems over that time span. Not putting up ban lines resulted in strangers (usually newbies) wandering in, acting childish and obnoxious, ranting, chat spamming, trying to grief with various objects, scripts, you name it. Sometimes its not newbies, and someone who actually knows what their doing who is bored, and wants to harass someone else. This especially happens to us as people who have RPed in SL Gor for 3.5 years.

Our group is a mixed group including 4 Goreans, and 2 non Goreans who are nekos. Thus the house that you see on our plot Czari is a landing point for anyone in our group, Gorean or not. We aren't Gorean in real life (lifestylers). We are rpers, and that we do intermittently, so there's no need for us to have a Gorean house on our private land since what we do in SL is as varied as the avatar choices all of us have to pick from.

BTW..had you brought up the group the land is assigned to, you could have found the owners of the group and thus the owners of the land. Just an FYI for you.

I am not an unreasonable person. Nor am I ignorant to the uses of orbs. There are some decent orbs out there which my partner and I have been known to use in the sky when we have a sky box. Since we won't be using a sky box on our 512 plot, we have no need to add lag to our plot, or an additional prim (considering how few you get with a 512). I would be happy to add you to access so you can fly across the plot. However I will not be adding anyone else except our direct neighbors to the access, as I am unwilling to deal with anyone else landing on the plot.

We are very aware that there is really no privacy in SL. Sometimes I have used privacy screens to control my view around me, with transparent backgrounds to my neighbors. But since our 512 is for landing and doing small things, we see no need to do that this time around.

Czari, I will add you to access, let me know if there is anyone else you want added. Feel free to keep up your banlines on us if you want, it truly doesn't bother me, we aren't around that much.

My best to you,

Avalon

Darned long reply. It's only good manners to add all neighbors if you plan to use ban lines. they should not have to beg. Still a nuisance when you have guests over, and they see the ugly things.

Still wonder at this strange need for security along these lines. Set no create objects, no object entry and no run scripts if you are paranoid. Works all of the time for me (although I do allow run scripts) and I am never griefed.

Most intersting is the part about Goreans hanging with Nekos. That boggles my mind just a bit.

Jannae

Hi Avalon - great to see you on the forums Now this is the type of resolution I was hoping for and so glad to see it offered.



Not sure if you read my initial note to T., but I RPed Gor for 12 years, beginning on IRC. (Even did my Master's thesis on "Submission and the '90's Woman" - long story, but we can chat over some kalana someday if you like *smiles*) It was actually a Gorean from SL who happened to wander into our IRC Gorean channel one day, told us about SL and invited us to come check it out.

I came to SL intending to totally continue Gorean RP with my friends of many years, but then met my Partner. Tried to separate my time between Gor and "Earth" but never seemed to be enough time for both.

I said all that to say that I can relate to people coming to Gorean sims with the sole intention of griefing. (The first Gorean sim - a rather large one - I lived on when I first came to SL had a griefing attack that literally destroyed the entire sim. It looked like the aftermath of nuclear warfare.



Sounds like me and my partner - I still have close friends on a few Gorean sims, so once in awhile I don my Robes of Concealment to visit. I also enjoy the Medieval period, Caledon, going to IoW, etc.



I tried that but couldn't find it in group search so I assumed it was a hidden group.



I really appreciate that, Avalon, and hope to be good neighbors. My partner is the only other person that I would like added to access list if you don't mind. Going in world now to remove you and your partner from my ban list.

I'm glad that ended well - I prefer living in harmony amongst neighbors.

They may have, they just happened to be handcuffs the times I looked. I didn't bother flying up to see what was hanging over the edge of their skybox every time, I just saw there were a bunch of prims owned by them and hit the return button.

What you are saying isn't what you are saying 8^). The easiest way to keep your community friendly is to accept that this is what they want to do and leave your property unchanged. Long term, probably easier on the psyche.

I tried to buy a property at auction - very small, but my parcels surround it on three sides. Someone bid against me and while it was especially of value to me because of the location, I dropped out at L$ 9990 (for 1024 - this is his only property and about three times what I would have paid nowadays for random property). My parcels are completely open to the public and he immediately put up ban lines. I could make his life miserable in a way, but feel bad enough that I triggered his auto bid up to L$ 10000. Anyway, I'll leave my borders down and maybe he'll realize that there is nobody around anymore anyway and the borders serve no real purpose. 'Course, he doesn't see them himself, so maybe not, but I at least know there is no dynamic left in the situation. More relaxing that way...

Thank you for telling me what I'm saying (or thinking for that matter) when you don't know me and probably haven't read most of the thread to see that the situation indeed did get resolved.

As for the psyche comment, I got my degree in Mental Health Counseling from the University of Central Florida. Where did you get yours?

When I first joined one of the features of the world most touted was exploration.Ban lines are the antithesis of that notion. Maybe in those days privacy freaks didn't have the options with private island rentals that they do today, so as the Lindens come to view the Mainland as their estate it is time to:

- Remove access restriction option entirely from the Mainland... individual avatar bans could continue

- Ban security orbs, require explicit confirmation for eject/unseat LSL functions, and any other device/command that restricts casual personal or vehicular movement through the Mainland

- Remind people that the Mainland is the open and free first destination for all new residents and as such should allow unfettered exploration

As the rental market exploded off the Mainland where sim connectivity is lacking thus discouraging exploration the Lindens should have turned their attention to this blight. With the ad farm controls well under way it's time to turn attention to this, minimum parcel size and other elements of their estate.

Czari, why such a callous & arrogant statement? I read his statement to mean, don't put any energy into such situations. Live and let live.

Czari wrote: "My approach was trying the "good neighbor policy" and see if at least the new neighbors next to my parcel and I could come to a mutual agreement since we own parcels next to one another. (Mine actually surrounds theirs.) The new owner has stated her view, I respect it, she can now respect my right to ban her from my property in the same manner."

Czari, in all honesty, your putting your ban lines up displayed a personal vindictiveness against us for not having taken ours down. As you know (since you were looking at the access and saw Tarl & Talena on access), at no time did I personally put up ban lines against YOU (your name was never listed under BAN). The land was set to group access, clear and simple. Which means it was set to block anyone except our group from accessing the land. In no way was our setting our land to group access personal, unlike the personal tactic you took to intentionally put us on ban to try to make a point. A point that was meaningless to me, because I don't care what other people do on their property as long as it isn't on mine.

What it all boils down to Czari is you have a definite issue with ban lines. You have such a big issue with it you not only notecarded a friend of mine which was sent to me, but felt it necessary to quote what I said to you in private IM right here in this thread and bring this issue to a public forum. hmmm... some where I read in the Terms of Service that sharing private conversations was against LL's Terms of Service.

Did you study your "good neighbor policy" in school while studying at the University of Central Florida? If you did, then you must of pulled it out of a cracker jack box, because your stance and behavior has been nothing short of manipulative, arrogant, whining, and full of a wrong sense of entitlement.

Ah but!
You can't "keep the community friendly" if it is not friendly to begin with.

If people want to keep others out of their land, then that is entirely their business.
However, the methods they use are not solely their own business.

Ban lines are an aggressive defence. The butt-ugly things shine 7 or 8 metres into neighbouring space. They will shine right through your windows even at that range and due to the alpha-rendering bug/feature will appear to be physically inside your house.
They can not be simply ignored. Those ugly glowing (and sometimes flashing) red lines will burn the retina of your soul.

If a neighbour puts up ban lines there are three options.
1. Convince them to remove them
2. Move out
3. Build a solid barrier to hide the lines.
Ignoring the lines is not an option unless you have enough land that you never have to go within 7 metres of the boundary.

If the neighbour will not remove their ban lines then they are forcing you to either
a. sell up and move out
b. build something on your boundary

A person who maintains ban lines despite being aware of the effects on people beyond their boundaries is an extremely inconsiderate and selfish person.

And I read his statement to be telling me what I'm saying and thinking without his knowing me and probably not reading the entire thread because I thought you and i had reached a resolution. I was happy to see your post and offer and pleased that all worked out well. It seemed to me that the previous poster was trying to stir things up again.



Wrong. I had not encountered banlines since the incident Sling referred to within this thread and was surprised to see them again within this sim after such a long time. From reading the thread, you can see that many people dislike banlines and recommend doing just what I did.



I'll say this once more - the ONLY reason I contacted Tarl was I looked for your group within group search to find who the owner was. I did not find it thus Tarl was the only point of contact to speak with that I had. This is the first land that I have owned, so I admit to being naive about him being on the access list didn't necessarily mean he was the owner. On one hand, when I received your IM, I was glad to know who the owner was and would have contacted you directly had I known that prior, but on the other, the tone of your IM, to me, seemed arrogant and tried to put words in my mouth that I did not say nor intend in my note to Tarl. I apologize if they were taken in that vein.

If I had meant to be vindictive, I would not have tried to contact anyone and just put banlines up for who I thought the owners were and not make an attempt at contact.

As for quoting a private IM, you'll note that I did not use your name which to my knowledge is what is against the TOS. You were the one who came to the forums to identify yourself.



Now who's being arrogant and vindictive?

I'm very sorry you feel this way, Avalon. I truly thought the matter was resolved between us. Anyone who knows me well knows that your assessment of me is totally off-base.

I'm not quite sure after our pleasant exchange why you felt you needed to go on a tirade based on another poster's comment. (Unless you know each other *shrugs*)

At any rate, I know that I tried to do the right thing. You believe I didn't. I'm not going to continue this matter any further. I did really appreciate your former post and adding me to your access list. If you choose to reverse that, it is your prerogative. I will not put you on my ban list and you are most welcome on my property.

Pot meet kettle....

Czari, your the one who felt the need to dramatize this thread by getting sarcastic with the last poster. You also felt the need to dramatize this situation by bringing it to a public board instead of just dealing with the owner of the plot you had a concern about. Personally, I resented your notecard at all. You are quite presumptive and immature to think you had a right to even contact me about anything, much less trying to manipulate me into using security orbs that cost money, use prims, and are quite laggy. The land is mine. Not yours, you don't pay the tier. End of story.

What I see in you Czari is a self righteous, self entitled little girl who likes attention and drama. I frankly don't have time for your attention seeking behaviors. So have a nice life, and stay out of mine.

As for the poster saying that ban lines are inconsiderate, take your whine to the LIndens, they are who put up red ban lines. I didn't ban anyone. I simply restricted access to my land using the tools that the Lindens provide in the land tools as poor as they may be.

QFSB


(Quoted For Spiritual Bankruptcy)


You know the effect of the lines on your neighbours -- Yet you leave them there.
IF you really have been plagues with unwelcome visitors, then spend a little time in setting up a security orb properly.
In nearly two years in SL, I've only ever had to eject three avatars.
My parcels are open for people to visit and rezz boats and vehicles. I log visits to my private spaces. If I ever see a pattern of regular abuse of what are clearly non-public spaces, I'll ban and/or security-orb.




OH!
Me bows down in your sacred presence. We are UNWORTHY to even contact you about anything!!
Jazus Lady - get a grip. Warbluster is not Gor.


What is is about Warbluster sim??
We had one card-carrying freakoid with an overblown delusion of her own importance in the past. She departed the scene following abysmal failure of her project - entirely due to her self-inflicted drama.
Now it seems there a new queen on the block.

"You are quite presumptive and immature to think you had a right to even contact me about anything"

Hilarious!!

Ban that Queen to hell and back I say!

I think she just wants to be left alone. There's really no harm in that.

I absolutely and unreservedly agree with you Conan.

The problem is that in her efforts to ensure her aloneness, she is visiting visual blight on her neighbours.
There *IS* harm in that.

I was meaning her comment about contacting her - any unsolicited communication about anything is basically spam. It's all in the interpretation. As for the banlines - how they are represented visually is LL's fault, not the residents. I think we need to stop criticising people who use banlines and focus more energy on lobbying LL to change how they appear. People who actually use them are doing nothing wrong.

The technical description of spam is UBE (Unsolicited Bulk Email)
This has been extended in most jurisdictions to Unsolicited Bulk Electronic Messaging.

Some jurisdictions have a concept of UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email) - and Messaging.

An IM and/or notecard from one resident to a neighbour concerning a neighbourhood issue can in no way be interpreted as spam.


The people who are using banlines are doing "nothing wrong" only in that they are not contravening the TOS - unless they are ad-farmers.

They are doing wrong to their neighbours however. It is a cop-out to say that the issue has to be resolved by LL.
We all know that LL are pathetic at fixing all sorts of problems. Until LL do the decent thing, we have to live together with an awareness of the effect of out choices on others.


Until LL find and implement a solution that addresses privacy concerns (whether 'physical' or cam-based) , it remains that the setting of ban lines is a huge imposition on the spaces outside of the parcel.
Anyone who opts to impose that visual blight on the outside is behaving in an extremely selfish and inconsiderate manner.