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

Really? If you don't limit air travel to there, how is it going to keep people from "buzzing houses" above the banlines?

Again, I'm not demanding anything. I'm describing the status quo. The status quo is that people's rights over their land is not unlimited. There are even situations where you're not allowed to put up ban lines on your own property. That's why I think even trying to discuss this on the basis of "rights" is pointless.

Argent I have never once said that people's movement should be legislated.

In fact I think a person deciding simply what can happen on THEIR own land is a neat solution, rather than restricting or legislating everyone else in SL.

I also try to use the word perogative or privilege rather than "rights" when I am discussing my own feelings on the matter. If I use the word "rights" I think it's only (not sure, offhand) been when I am talking others' point(s) of view.

(As for 'buzzing houses' I think I mentioned that once or twice in passing but it seems to have hit a nerve - I did not mean purposely dive bombing, but was trying to point out that people do not like other people flying low overhead on their property. Not all do, at any rate. But whether or not I think it is a polite thing to do does not mean that I am going to campaign to stop people from doing it. I wish people would feel that way about what others do on *their own land.*)

I can't get past the sense of entitlement to any and every square inch of SL, whoever pays for it. Sorry.

(ETA: This reminded me. I asked before, but I do not recall your answering it. As seems to happen if I hit a (in my opinion) salient point. I'll ask it again - "If ban lines do not even go up 100 feet, then *in what way are they bothering you as you pilot your plane?*" Or did you want to see the color of their eyes?)

Because you keep complaining about something I didn't write.
This proposal wasn't about visitors, it was about privacy. It was about "this is the kind of thing you'd need to add to the grid to get real privacy".

It wasn't about replacing ban lines with private parcels, it was about making them actually meaningful.

You still don't seem to understand, because what you say you don't want isn't something I've proposed.

OK, let's take it step by step. Let's say you set up a ban-lined private zone around your house, and you mark all the prims inside the house private (or they're that way by default and you mark the prims in your house's structure itself public). The guy outside your house cams in and sees your avatar making whoopie on your invisible sex bed. I don't know about you, but that creeps me out. So what I said was that avatars in that parcel would ALSO not be rendered to people who couldn't enter it. Information about the avatars other than their position wouldn't even be sent to the client. That means they would appear as clouds, because that's how undownloaded avatars appear.

No, now we're in a situation where the ban lines actually provide privacy. This creates a benefit to having them that possibly justifies the costs.

Argent. Again.

I understand what you said!

It would creep me out just as much to SEE the guy, whether he could SEE ME OR NOT.

You didn't understand ME, I think. Aaarggghhh. Lol

I never said it was "about a visitor" - you are once again purposely or not, obfuscating the issue. But there is clearly a visitor IN the equation, both in the point of the change you proposed and in the example you gave!

So please stop saying I didn't understand you!! Thanks!!!!

Depending on where you're driving, conditions vary. The original roads in Zindra, for example, are completely useless.

Your computer makes a difference, too. If you're outrunning the road, your graphics settings are too high.

I feel like this too, even if some of the ideas are ok, like if I were boss, we'd all have to use a 3rd of our prims on trees and keep a 3rd of our land empty of builds! While it is good it'd suck for some.

With the flying thing, like the sailing, I do think it needs support, SL has the sky and scripting to do it...

Ban lines aren't going to be taken away.. by the public or SL, as mentioned before the mess of it all is what makes the islands sell and there is the my land my right to stuff that won't ever go away.

I read somewhere that there was talk of estate owners taking over large bits of the mainland for LL, maybe a better flying thing might come out of that if it happens.

It sure sounds like it.

It's an incomplete solution, and Linden Lab recognized that by limiting what people can automatically enforce using the tools they have available.

It doesn't matter if you call it "rights" or "privileges", the fact is that the scope of these rights, or privileges, or mugwumps, is limited by Linden Lab. Linden Lab considers the ability for people to travel to be an important one, they want us using vehicles to get around, they only reluctantly opened up free teleporting because of the technical limitations on the platform, they grant vehicles abilities beyond normal prims. That's the status quo.

That sense doesn't exist. I don't buzz houses, invade houses, cam in on people making whoopie, or feel I have any right to intrude on private space. I simply don't consider an empty field to be "private space" in any sense of the word. I can't wrap my brain around the concept.

Planes land and take off. The incident that I mentioned that spawned this whole side thread about aircraft was simply an example of how ban lines can be a problem for people who are NOT trying to intrude or invade or trespass. Suddenly clipping the edge of ban lines on landing was being thrown back at me as evidence that I was deliberately trying to invade people's privacy.

WHAT GUY?

There's NO GUY ON YOUR LAND.

You have BAN LINES UP.

He can't get in. What I'm saying is "here's a way to make it so he can't SEE in from outside your protected zone either".

Do you understand me yet?

I'm sorry but I don't think you did. You are talking about seeing visitors that would not even be able to be there. Have you read Argent's JIRA on privacy zones?

The status quo includes land owners putting up ban lines, which you seem to object to. For there to be situations where a land owner is forbidden to put up ban lines, you have to explain how that is relevant, i.e. how that pertains to the situation in question rather than the specifics of when ban lines are not allowed. Otherwise it is just a red herring.

And as for preventing buzzing houses above ban lines, I didn't think that was even on the table... isn't this thread discussing who should and shouldn't use ban lines?

The privacy zone jira (which isn't mine, I just support it) and the skybox zone jira are separate proposals. The older ones that proposed the kind of "phantom zone" effect Clarissa seems to be thinking of have been ruled out by the Lindens in earlier discussions on the forums... back when we actually had Lindens here.

Landowners can't put up ban lines that rise to unlimited heights. They can't even put up the 100 meter ban lines that they talked Linden Lab into at one point. That is a limitation on ban lines specifically to allow free flight in otherwise unobstructed areas.

I don't see "ban lines" in the subject. I'm talking about privacy. Buzzing houses came in when someone objected to low-flying aircraft as being an invasion of privacy, and that's the context I'm discussing it in.

Sure the ability to ban other users away from the resources one is paying for, is important for some users. But may be it isn't among the most important things for all.

I just downgraded my tier from USD 75.00 / month to USD 8.00 / month because I feel that SL isn't anymore as it was, when my first incarnation was born. I have the feeling that at that time the prevailing attitude was more "Hi, come to look what I have done!" and now it is more and more "This is my, I paid for it. Stay away, jerk!"

(I try to keep myself away from places which I suppose to be private homes as much as possible, and if for example an old landmark throws me to somebody's bedroom I will leave immediately.)

What is special in SL when comparing it with the WWW, is the possibility to explore and wander around and find things you didn't even know to exist. If only reasonable way to move in SL is teleporting to known landmarks and using search, loses SL it's uniquity. In WWW you can use the html-links and search-engines as well, but you can't go to the neighbouring place to look what there is, so in WWW you mostly can find only places what you already know or understand to search.

The more banlines and securityorbs there are in SL, the less there are possibilities to move around in meaningful way by walking, flying or using some vechile, and the less there are opportunities to find new interesting things about which you haven't known anything before.

I'm not sure if I'm going to pay anything any more when my one year premium membership next time ends. May be I'm not the only one?

You know... I really haven't been around that long... but I have seen enough in my time to feel like I can say this is a very true statement.

Did you ever notice that almost all private estates that rent out residential parcels do not allow banlines and instead require people to use orbs with a reasonable time delay?

A properly-configured and zoned security orb system would take care of a lot of that.


Any unknown avatar appearing inside a structure that is not public-access is very eligible for zapping in my view.
There are reasons for a non-abusive arrival. Search listings lag behind land settings. Twice in the past month I've TPed from Search only to find that the parcel has been sold and is now a private residence. Old landmarks can give much the same outcome, although I tend to look at the LM using "About Landmark" and map first to see if the place 'looks right' if the LM is a bit dusty.
LL require a minimum 10-second warning I believe, but in that sort of situation I wouldn't be bent out of shape if I got insta-zapped before even having time to rezz.
As for as I'm concerned, insta-eject is appropriate for a stranger arriving into a sensitive space - whether or not that space is occupied at the time.

For some people apparently, the furthest 0.01 sq.m corner of their land is equally as 'sensitive' a space as is the interior of their house. I think that's extreme if insta-eject / no_entry is on the cards.
If someone lingers for more than 10 seconds or so in a parcel, they are eligible for a polite message if the landowner doesn't want people to linger, and eligible for eject if they don't move on.

I just wish that security orbs didn't by default spout crazed securocrat speak.
"YOU ARE NOT AUTHORISED!! YOU WILL BE EJECTED!! STAND AWAY FROM THE VEHICLE! RAISE YOUR HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM! CRAP YOURSELF! HAVE A NICE DAY!"
Jeeezze. What am I ? a burglar? OK,OK I'm going already. I've been moving all the time and never had any intention of stopping.... idiot!

How about toning it down to something along the lines of. "Hello. The landowner desires privacy and would be obliged if you would move on."
If they don't move on soon then fair enough for something more along the lines of "LOOKIT ASSHOLE! GET OFF MY LAWN!" and eject.


All this was a long way of saying that a sane system that encouraged mutual respect would be far better than the gratuitously unpleasant extreme nuke-type systems so common now.

With due respect, go back and re-read the OP if you do not believe this thread was intended to be about ban lines. Go re-read most of your own posts for that matter.

And if ban lines are not allowed at normal flight elevations, why would they bother flyers? Based on what you say, any line that would affect a flyer should be ARable for being too high.... unless of course the flyer is flying low enough to be affected by the lines, in which case what is your objection?

And if it is only the upper elevations that you are concerned about, why all the concern for drivers?

Btw, IIRC my objection to your JIRA was that it was only applicable to skyboxes, despite most of the privacy concerns being at ground level. IIRC your response was that LL refuses to consider additional privacy protection at ground level (which brings us back to ban lines and/or orbs).

Regardless if you are serious about your JIRA, perhaps link it again so that any related discussions in this thread can be in context? Or at least re-post the title so people can search for it?

well...

been there.

my wife had a stalker when we first met.
got that resolved without visible banlines... it's nice to have estate manager access
but i digress.

in my opinion, a psyke that is inactive when nobody is home is the best option (if you don't mind strangers poking around when you are offline or elsewhere).
second best option: a psyke that is always active.
banlines are the least favorable, since they have too many negative impacts on people who arent even on my land, or are really just passing through on a bike/boat/whatever.

Google this

Side effect of modern communities and increased population/traffic. I am old enough to remember a time when it was considered safe to leave your doors unlocked, especially in smaller communities. As populations rise, there are more people who will take advantage of that openness, forcing people to lock up and/or be a lot more careful who they invite.

The griefers and idiots are a smalll minority, RL or virtual, but they are still annoying enough to make people hide.

In virtual worlds where anonymity is a lot easier and consequences a lot less dire there are fewer disincentives to griefers too.

Well, that's not quite what I was getting at. I think ban lines are "unneighbourly," in the way that seeding a minefield along a mutual property line, or setting up a machine gun nest on my front porch is "unneighbourly." That doesn't mean that I think people should be allowed untrammeled access to your land (if that bothers you). Really, it just means that I think that ban lines are a kind of extreme last resort. People who trip gaily across your land with no consideration for you are ALSO unneighbourly.


Actually, I think it's a pretty keen idea. I'd like a place where I could take my Vespa for a real spin. But I think it is at best a partial solution: it does nothing to abate the fact that much of SL looks like Italy in the Middle Ages: a motley collection of petty principalities and fiefdoms, all armed to the teeth.

I have a little island on gaeta.
on the sim to the north-east used to be a sex club (i guess they moved to zindra by now).

I have between 1 and 15 of those "they's" per week, according to my psyke status messages. thats on average ONE per day.

The original post was about the fact that Linden Lab has done bupkus to provide meaningful privacy in SL, and how ban lines don't provide privacy. It's also got a bunch of stupid stuff about people's reactions to thoughtless demonstrations of this fact. I'm talking about privacy. It's what I'm interested in.

Planes land and take off.

Linden roads are public land. Ban lines on the edge of linden roads reduce the value of that public land. That is a cost of ban lines.

These costs of ban lines (for planes, for ground vehicles, and for landowners adjacent to them) might be worthwhile if it was possible to actually GET meaningful privacy from them.

once upon a time, maybe. Most of the things people want real privacy for have migrated to skyboxes long since.
Yes, this is called acquiescing to reality and trying for at least SOME crumbs of privacy from their table.

The Jira that I am promoting as an alternative to ban lines these days is Gigs Taggart's "Privacy Pocket" proposal, now that Havok4 has raised the build height:

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-205

I'm not going to link the privacy enhancement Jira for the same reason I created a separate thread for it, and didn't mention ban lines in that thread or the Jira, because it's not an alternative to ban lines.

This is a virtual world. As you point out, these are not real planes. All SL planes are VTOL. They can also fly straight up with no consequence. If you want the advantages of a full virtual runway, with room to gain appropriate elevation, shouldn't you have a large enough sim to accomodate that without having to fly low over your neighbors on your way out? Unlike a RL airport, what community needs do your flights fill that compensate your neighbors for any annoyance they might feel?



I was not aware that there was any great concern about the property values of public land. How does that override the needs of those owning the adjoining private property?



Again you, the one arguing against the use of ban lines are the one claiming that they are not worthwhile. We know that you do not consider them worthwhile, but that does not mean those using them agree or feel no benefit from them. Can you point out a thread where land owners are complaining about their ban lines not being enough? There are many threads complaining about other people putting up ban lines, but do not seem to be many if any from those actually using them. If they are so pointless, why aren't the people using them the ones complaining?



Well your other JIRA seemed to apply to elevations where (as I understand it) ban lines would not apply. Thanks for the link though.. will take a look at it.

Are you seeing that rate even with the local attractions now gone?

Do you have any guesstimate on how many of those were fly-bys detected by the Psyke rather than people coming in to use your microwave?
Or is that count the number of people that the Psyke ended up ejecting?

yet, the ones who are invalidating others experiences aren't doing the same? aren't the ones who are demanding that the banlines come down being just as spiteful and FU ish?

@ Argent: actually it was the actions of the OP afterwards that kinda sparked this.