All Sticks, No Carrots

Zoning.. I hope it never comes to pass anymore than has been done in the past.

"6. Zoning is another thing I would like to see. A way for people to have some control over their environment. "

People have every control over thier environment... and their environment extends to their border and no further.

I have absolute control over my environment - in fact that was my EXACT wording when I spoke to Jonquille about extending how much land we held in Gallinas.

Her (quite valid) argument: 'We have more prim allowance than we'll ever need for quite some time - why by more land?'

Me: 'True - but look at it as having more control over the environment. The more we own, the more control we have over what is built here - we get to say what's built or not built on our land'.

We have 'zoning' already.

Ok, but to bring back to the original point.. neither of these attitudes will lead to a player wanting to hand over US$ to LL. To say that any player who would want to avoid paying US$ would never contribute to SL ignores those who have the genuine success motivation.

This kind of trashing another member is really unnecessary isnt it? I mean cant you make a point without dragging in comments about coco and her husband and suggesting he is a cheapskate?

You dont have to like coco, or agree with her points, but damnit stop the personal insults, its a real turn off.

I wasn't trying to turn you on, kiwi.

I was actually referring to the SL cheapskate culture, though, not to hubby.

DAMN!! ooops..can I say that?

Biggest prob to that unfortunately seems to be the 'entitlement mindset' - no offense to anyone but how many times do you see a thread on 'player x bought land and made a HORRIBLE build that RUINED my view?'

I strongly beleive that if you want to control the view you have to own it.. until then its not 'worth' anything.

You know that from Stillman - I know that from Taber.. You have to live through the horrible sometimes to appreciate the nice... you can get together with likeminded people and form 'community' and 'zoning' amongst yourself... taber for instance did that long before private islands and renting of property.

I think if 'community' is forced on people - they will reject it. Out of hand - just on principle.. OUR world OUR imagination.

LL has a pretty good thing going - they churn out the canvas and we paint it - they get enough cool painting that they can use that as advertising getting more people to come and make more stuff...

--- To turn around and now say 'ok you built the world - now we're gonna tell you how to live in it!'

Wouldn't that just SUCK? We made it this far - we have to make it the rest of the way or it won't be 'ours'.

You know, the answer is obvious:

All I see is a red x for the image. However, as I'm typing I see the link in your quote and will copy and paste to see it

Edit: That didn't work either..just got a page cannot be displayed..blah blah blah.

Edit #2: Maybe I can't see the image because of this?

In my suggestion about zoning, I said it would help if NEW sims were designated residential, commercial, or residential/commercial. Those are pretty loose designations that have worked well in other places. Azure Islands, for instance, has areas that are commercial as well as areas that are residential.

And I did say residential/commercial, which is actually shorthand for anything goes. So no one would lose that, either. But those who want to be in residential would be, and perhaps the commercial things would be more organized in one area, especially if you look way out ten years in the future, if SL is still around.

It would prevent people from putting their little houses down and suddenly being surrounded by giant clubs - unless they WANT that, in which case they would select land in a commercial/residential area.

Such a design wouldn't actually inhibit anyone's freedom; it would actually give us more distinct options from which to choose.

coco

Do you have any proof that LL is in financial trouble? Please don't repeat rumors like this; they do scar LL reputation if they prove untrue. I wasn't aware that their financial statements and tax records are public knowledge. If these papers are available please provide the link I would be very interested in reading them.

I hear these rumors several times a month these days, from different sources. Mostly however just from other players. I think LL is doing very well financially. What have you heard from the Lindens?

Also Robin or Philip can you comment on LL financial status? Thanks so much

The OP has valid points and concerns IMO. Some perks would be nice every now and again

Cat

That's all debatable, Cocoa - it does inhibit someone's freedom, surely. How do you handle sim zoning borders? What about the poor sap that buys into a sim thinking it's 'residential' only to find out that just 5m to the east is a nice, laggy 'commercial' sim.

And the loose zoning of residential/commercial wouldn't stop the ugly and/or extorionist-type builds.

But it kinda leaves out that SL is very transient in its nature.. The ability to change your mind on a whim and spin 180 and do something different the next day is a very powerful and positive thing in Second Life.

If a person owns the land they should be able to spin 180 the next day and say 'good bye cottage - I want a Taj Mahal today!'

Saying 'well thats very nice - but you we have to put that to the committee' or however it's to be enforced - or they have to move and sell then buy elsewhere that has something 'sort of like that creek I had near my old place' and suddenly it's just too hard.

Bye bye what could have been a great place and a turning point for Mr X before it even starts.

Whereas if a group of people sit around saying 'damn I hate these bling clubs - lets buy out the whole damn sim and do it OUR WAY' are not impeded at all (this HAS happened numerous times in the past - hell even *I* was a part of one of those experiences)

And as the world gets bigger - more people join - more land is available - it becomes EASIER to do.

Community - self moderated zoning CAN exist without forcing it on anyone - impulsive creativity can certainly be stifled by the reverse.. and that impulsiveness is one of the things I love about SL and I think produces some of its greatest acheivements.

THATS why I seriously don't like zoning - that's why I will oppose everytime it comes to discussion.

She didn't say they were iin financial trouble, she said that if they continued to give away free accounts without any reason for people to upgrade, they would be in financial trouble, which is absolutely logical. Bandwidth, rent, wages, electricity, etc don't come free, or even cheap - They have to earn money somehow.

I bought all of Mavericks (and half of Kelham) all out of a desire to never have happen to me in Federal with Club Elite happen again, and the strategy has paid off. However, I am not opposed to zoning on a sim by sim basis, if some sims are specifically set that way, while most remain unzoned. I don't think it has to be an all or nothing thing, or that you should have to go to a private island and deal with that land "ownership" situation, or buy out an entire sim just to hope to live in an area that does not get destroyed by a club or a casino or the mall of doom.

I would not mind seeing light zoning enforced in some sims - by light, I mean - ok, you have a residential sim - only homes allowed. No forced style or anything, but I think it could create an appealing area for some people. It may not appeal to you, but then the random chaos also does not appeal to some people. That is why it would be good to have options - you know in advance if you are buying land in a standard or zoned sim, and what the restrictions are. To me it is no different than some sims having full terraforming, and most not having that. If you need full terraforming, you look for land in a sim that has that - if you want to have no zoning, you find an unzone sim.

There's another problem with not having zoning, though.

Suppose you have a big block of land to sell. You divide it into smaller spaces and set them for sale. Before you know it, someone has bought the center parcel, thrown up an Impeach Bush or similar, and set that land for sale back to you at 5x what they paid because they know nobody will buy any of the other plots while their sign is there.

All the arguments about "you have no say about anything beyond your property line" etc. fall apart in this case - because it is all your property, that being while you're selling it. Or "it's part of the inevitable risk if you parcel your property" - well, do you really want to discourage people from parcelling?

Heres the hole you can drive a mack truck through:

Once Nimrod X bought the center parcel - it's no longer your land.

It *isn't* all your property - you no longer own that bit - you sold it!

Aesthetic is an individual thing. Somewhere - someone - is gonna build something that pisses you off... deliberate or not. Zoning or no.

And if you say 'well mild zoning - like residential / commercial' you'll still have builds you don't like. Thats the way of the world.

The day some bright spark says they represent the 'sim homeowners association' and come to tell me what I can build ... better have some linden calling cards because some motherfuckers will be going skyward really really fast.

And i'm not saying you have to - buy as much as suits your needs - as much as creates the environment you want and are comfortable paying for.

If you wish a greater community - get together with likeminded people (as many many have done from Luskwood to Taber) and form your own zoning and rules.

People are setting up rental communities too - pick one you like - buy into what appeals to you.

But when I see some of the folks that promote this - I also know in my heart of hearts that even if you said 'This sim can only contain brown brick houses' - SOMEONE will bitch that one has a slate porch and natural rock fireplace.

So you should never sell land in divided parcels?

Show me where I said that, or even implied it.

Disagreeing with your extremist argument doesn't mean I automatically agree with your conclusions that border on fallacy.

You own land after you sell it? This is what you seem to say in your post. Would zoning enable you to stop someone putting an ugly for sale sign on it and jacking the price up? I think not.

Once you parcel something off - and sell it - it's no longer yours to dictate what goes on it or not - I dare say such would be true under 'zoning' as well. This seems to be your argument for it - you wish a say over what someone else builds on land they own.

If it meant so much to you - why did you parcel it up and sell it to begin with?

Can't eat your cake and have it too.

What you seemed to be implying was that, if you parcelled land, then you were accepting the risk of this happening because once any particular parcel was sold it was no longer yours and your ownership of the surrounding parcels meant nothing, nor did your original intent to sell the entire area with the parcelling just being a means to an end.

So, if I have a large area of land that I want to sell, and I don't want to take that risk, what can I do other than not parcelling it?



It means L$ to me, so obviously I don't want its sale value reduced.

Speaking as someone who makes a RL living through teaching adults I'd like to point out that when teaching adults, except in the body-processor system of undergraduate education, the commonest single approach is individual goal setting by negotiation between the learner and the teacher. The learner sets their own agenda and the teacher helps them get there. This is usually done in group settings as well, which might mean there are some detours, but that usually works well too. The teacher might, indeed usually does, guide the learner in the setting of goals - to fit to available qualifications, needs of others, learner's current skill set and such other considerations, but the important thing to remember is the learners set their own goals to a reasonable extent.

Second Life is not specifically a teaching environment (although I and many others do teach in SL). Just like that cold place with no tp-ing unless you're into life mentoring or similar you set your own life goals IRL, and you set them here. Why should SL impose them on you? SL is often a learning environment - since coming here I've brushed off my rusty coding skills and become a reasonably competent scripter. I've brushed up my previously rather limited photoshop skills to become at least able to make textures including odd bits of clothing, building textures etc. I've gone from zero 3D modelling experience to prim gluing quite happily. I've started learning Portuguese. I've learnt quite a bit about some sides of life that aren't PG but are part of me. Because of things in SL I'm learning RL skills like php coding and MySQL.

Some of those I regard as 'core skills' - using the building and texturing skills for example the vast majority of residents play with. Making your own textures in PS is rarer. Scripting seems to be rarer still. Portuguese lessons, I might just be the only one learning this way... How is SL supposed to cater for all of those? In what order? To what level of detail?

If I act like a typical school learner and expect everything to be laid out for me, then I'd not have got anywhere. If I act like a typical adult learner I choose what I want to be able to do and go about building up the skill set to do it. For my investment of money I don't expect SL to spoonfeed me, and they don't. They provide fora, wikis and tikis to help. There are residents that will help (including me in the opposite direction now) and certainly residents that helped me in my early days, and even now there are people whose advice and support I seek. But just like RL they let us set our own goals and go and look like we're adults. Kudos to them!

Uh, I never said LL was in trouble. I said the people who pay tier are the ones who generate revenue for LL.

This is how rumours are started. Please read more carefully next time to avoid misinterpretations. You do quite well at LL bashing already without adding this to the list of ways to do it.

Unless you explicitly set it to sell to a person specifically - yes you are taking a risk because you have no control over who you sell to. This is how it is right now - how this somehow changes with zoning is totally beyond me and utterly irrelevant.

Now let me refresh you, or perhaps go back and look over what you wrote.

What you said is this:

If you are aren't for zoning - you don't beleive people should parcel land.

This is what YOU said - you brought it up - attempted to link what I wrote back to that point, and failed to - and used that as the sum of your reply to me.

Let me see if I can get this through to you - if you sell land it is no longer yours - you don't have a say on whats built there - nor should you..
If you sell ANY land - large or small you reliquish control over it - the owner can now build what he wants there.

So please Yumi - explain to me how any of your argument pertains to parceling - zoning - and what rights you have to land you have sold.. because I don't see it

You're going to take that risk whenever you sell land not to a specific person - if you want no risk - I suggest releasing it, tiering down, and quitting - because thats the only 'sure thing' you can do.