Are some people really so stupid as to expect privacy in SL?

Gordon, I wasn't putting words in your mouth. I was asking a question. You agreed with Argent's self-entitlement comment. I asked for elucidation. I never said that you said anything that you didn't.

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Argent,

Evade much?

If that's not what you're saying you want, what is?

You were the one bitching about banlines blowing up your plane or whatever.
If the argument isn't how I described it, how is it?
Are you denying that your argument can be boiled down to "My wants should supercede your rights?" (as we have all defined "rights" in SL.)

I want people to show common sense and courtesy when they put up ban lines, and not do it when they don't need them. That's all.

Don't misquote me again please - I never said that. What other people do on their land or with their land, within TOS isn't my concern. Aside from spinning bright lights which cause physical pain when I see them...Yes I can turn off particles and things like that but then I miss all the good parts.



Never seen you sidestep so often as in these threads.

I know the topic. I was saying, just don't misquote me. I wasn't talking about privacy and planes, I even took pains to specify that more than once during the posts. Also, threads never stay on topic for 40 pages, if you mean strictly answering the OP.

But, I know you've been replying to multiple people at once, and it gets hard to keep track eventually I'm sure.

By whose definition, though? Yours? If so, why?
Who gets to define whether or not they need them?
This is what I'm talking about. You don't get to define someone else's needs.
It's just not fair.

Yes, you have no dog in the hunt, I get that. That doesn't mean other people don't. And planes are not the only reason, but they're one that should be fairly straightforward and easy to understand.


And I don't see where I misquoted you. You wrote "I read your post as stating that people on the mainland should not expect privacy." I agree, that's what I said, but I also have said over and over again that this is NOT a good thing. I can't see how you could have missed that, given my previous posts on the subject. I don't know what kind of solution is possible, given how Linden Lab operates, but I can't imagine what else I can honestly say.
I'm not sidestepping, I'm staying on topic and trying not to be drawn into topics I have no concern with. I'm interested in privacy in SL. I'm interested in flying, and driving, and boating. I'm interested in enjoying our group's land even though there's these invisible barriers spotted around inside it.

Mine. If you want to start talking about why my opinion of what's courteous is wrong, I'd be happy to discuss that. Moving things from the arena of "rights" to the arena of "courtesy" would be a wonderful improvement. I have no hope of Chris Norse being willing to take that tiny step, though.

So you're ok with imposing your set of values on other people.

Got it.

(BTW, I never said your opinion was wrong. I just don't think it's your place to impose it on others.)

No.

I haven't imposed my values or opinions on anyone. I have neither the power nor the inclination to do so.

Talk is not action.

YES!

Why is everyone so stuck on their "rights" and on what they technically CAN do, rather than on responsibilities, courtesy, respect, and what they OUGHT to do?

Because, as other threads have proved, no-one can agree on what "responsibilities, courtesy, respect" and various other concepts actually mean . . .

Pep ( . . . much less what they entail in terms of positive, negative or neutral action.)

Bah. Semantics. What we are talking about is how we respond and relate to other people. I will agree, however, that there is a vicious circle here: we are so busy being nasty to each other sometimes that we can't even begin to engage in a discourse about how not to be.

capitalism.

Don't get me started . . .

Argent, I have no real reply to what you said there. I don't know how to respond to that.

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Scylla,

"Why is everyone so stuck on their "rights" and on what they technically CAN do, rather than on responsibilities, courtesy, respect, and what they OUGHT to do?"

Because you don't get to tell others what they OUGHT to do. It's not your call.

If you want to talk responsibilities, courtesy and respect, how about all the "explorers" take responsibility and show some courtesy by respecting the landowners by not demanding or expecting that they, the "explorers" should be allowed access to something that is not theirs?

The only disrespect happening here is from the "I WANT TO BANLINES DOWN BECAUSE THEY BLOW ME UP WHEN I TRY TO GO ON OTHER PEOPLE'S LAND" front.

You are of course right. And that's the whole point. What we "ought" to do is determined through dialogue and discussion, not imposed by one side or the other. It's the fact that it reflects something like a consensus that MAKES it "what we ought to do," not some sort of preset and immutable belief system.

What I don't hear in this thread or the others is any sort of attempt to reach agreement or consensus. It is instead all about taking hard positions on one side or the other.

I really think you're misinterpreting things, and misstating many many people's opinions.

While I agree, there's also the point that responsibilities, courtesy and respect are two way roads. There will always be people who abuse these as one-way roads, "gaming the system" so to speak that they're always on the receiving end.
Run into enough pricks that see things as a one way road to their personal advantage only, and people will build up brick walls again, stopping everybody dead in their tracks. And then we can start this thread all over again. It's one of the simple facts of life: history always repeats itself, there is some variation, but, sooner or later, the same basic issues always return.

We're all only human, peace and freedom exist, but neither gives reason to abandon the army. The reason for maintaining an army simply becomes keeping control over means of violence to let loose once the chips do hit the fan again.

Back to the issue of banlines: I wonder if anyone ever thought of a different kind of suggestion regarding these things: Linden Labs could simply make them expire after a given timeframe, possibly require the owner himself to refresh it manually (so not allowing scripts to refresh them). A maximum of 2 months sounds pretty fair, if a banline wasn't refreshed during that period, then it obviously didn't matter that much to the land owner anyway, or he's a resident who never logs on anymore. This would only apply to the generic bans, not to the personal bans ofcourse. People can surely think up systems to remind themselves to refresh banlines, like a warninglight at their front door turning orange a few days before the line expires, simple things like that.

Agreed, to some degree. But there is a tendency to take armed preparedness as the default position, which only leads, if you want to continue the analogy, to a sort of neighbourhood Cold War and arms race.

I live in the heart of a very large city. Yes, I lock my door and my bicycle. But 99.9% of the people I live around would never violate my space. I don't need to live in a gated community to keep the 0.1% out. And were I to chose to do so, it would diminish my quality of life immeasurably.

Maybe thirty or sixty days after a resident's last login. That doesn't place a burden on residents who use their property, and eliminates nuisances left by those who have effectively abandoned it.

Please explain how I'm getting it wrong?

You've said in the past that you don't want banlines because they blow up your plane when you're gliding in for a landing, didn't you?

What part did I get wrong? How am I misstating or misinterpreting?

And the only lock in SL is a pre-emptive banline. Scripted locking doors mean absolutely nothing, they're not even 1/1000th as effective as a RL locked door which also can be broken through. If every avatar on the grid used common sense and would not enter homes where they don't belong, the need for banlines would be a whole lot less. Until that day I will continue to support pre-emptively banning the idiots, regardless of how much chagrin it causes the anti-banline crowd.

But "that day" is not going to arrive so long as the default position is to use ban lines to signal a desire for privacy.

In fact, ban lines are self-perpetuating: if everyone uses them as a means of establishing the desire for privacy, that is what they come to "mean." And by analogy, an absence of ban lines comes to mean "come on in!" which may, of course, not be the intention at all.

EVERYONE has to retreat somewhat from their hard and fast positions: both those who are defending to the death their "right" to use ban lines, and those who are equally adamant about their "right" to go anywhere they want.

(On the whole, btw, I am pro-privacy, if only because I think it is necessary to establish the right to privacy in order to safeguard people against harassment, stalking, etc.)

Where the misunderstanding comes in is that the former is legitimate (and paid for) the latter isn't.

Maybe. I'm not going to get into the ins and outs of that, because frankly it doesn't much interest me.

My point is that this unwillingness to concede any ground -- whether that ground is based upon established "rights" or not -- is the source of this conflict.

I have the "right" to do a whole myriad of things I choose not to do. And in a civil society, we often give ground on our hard-and-fast "rights" as a concession to others, to make the community work. A culture that insists instead upon a rigid exercise only of "rights" is no community at all, but rather a grouping of individuals at perpetual war with each other to defend those "rights."

How can you have a discussion on it when you're not willing to define whether or not someone's "rights" are legitimate?

It's less a "rigid exercise of "rights"" than it is one group demanding "rights" that aren't theirs, at the expense of others who DO have a legitimate claim to it.