Wait, we're paying money for what?

First post here on the forums. Greets. Signed up with SL about two years back, played a bit, didn't get into it. Came back recently, now I'm hooked. Signed up for a year primarily for the cash. I can own land? Oh now nice. Something else to do. Let's see if I can get some first land. Alright, none available. I'll wait around, some will come up I'm sure. Tonight it did (or rather, yesterday night since it's 3 AM now). Cool. Little postage stamp to call my own in the woody hills of Spamboxburg...wait, what?

BUYING FIRST LAND! 1500! BUYING FIRST LAND 2000! BUYING FIRST LAND! CONTACT BLAH BLAH! PAYING 2100!

First, I know it's worth more than that. Second, these things are EVERYWHERE! What's the point in having first land and neighbors with different houses and whatnot when the skyline is simply filled with spinning spam boxes? It figures I had to pay money before being disappointed in SL at all, but it seems so obnoxious to be legal. Why aren't areas zoned off as non-commercial locations? Where advertisment is prohibited? Instead I'm going to have to make a skybox and teleporter, Jetson style, just to avoid all the pop ups floating around my property.

I'm sure something like this has come up before, but can't something be done about this? No one who wants to live there enjoys it, no one. It's human nature not to. Regulations exist in place in real life on advertisements on residential property, why not in SL? Anyone who can buy and own land is clearly a paying customer and will lose money if they were subjected to an abuse report so it's not like they could just create another account and waste the Linden staff's time. Or maybe make first land unable to be sold, but only abandoned. Something!

I suppose I'm just deeply disappointed in the environment and the fact that this is permitted to exist. Christ, Congress passed a law against spamming, why can't LL?

--Fox

Dunno, Fox. Mebbe some Lindens are turning a quick buck using alts as property speculators / sharks. Nothing is quite what it seems to be on the surface in SL... that much I've learned in my time here.

Call me controversial, but I have a feeling that Second Life is all just a big game.

* looks around suspiciously *

Have you been to Ginko island? They have a nice little city there where u can even rent an appartment or shop. There are other great looking places, mostly on private sims.
You are right, most of the mainland sims look like someone barfed on the map. People are building for themselves. There is no coordination, thats the problem. I even doubt that neighbouring people talk with each other...

Hi, Contro!

You are wrong about Second Life being a big game.

First it's not that big.

Second, big game would be things like lions and tigers and bears, wouldn't it?


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The dissatisfaction caused by unhappiness with the effects produced by those surrounding one's land is built into Second Life on purpose.

If the intent had been to have people's resources affect others only in a mutually agreed upon way the "land system would have been designed to confine the effects of a landowner's use of their land to that parcel they paid to control, except as arranged by aggreements between users.

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You can (and should, in my view) should abuse report those who send unsolictied commercial messages.

It's wild out there. I went yesterday and saw people actually living in boxes. I saw women being forced at popgun point onto sex balls. Prim babies being stolen and resold with modify and copy enabled.

Yes, or a great white elephant.



I take that back!! I do value Second Life immensely!! and all those Lindens!!

I was almost trampled by a herd of stampeding buffalo!! Then, run over by a train.

I fully understand that the size of the lot of land you own is really what power you get in the neighborhood, but I don't believe it would be completely unheard of to designate zones into something more specific than "PG" and "M". Simply residential and commercial would work out wonderfully.



Are you saying we can AR spinning spamboxes? (what's the harm in trying I suppose)

That is what you get for asking Starax, "Is that a wand in your pocket or are you happy to see me?"

Fox, you may want to reply to my poll:
/108/37/90007/1.html

That would actually be very problematic. What constitutes residential or commercial? You'd have a hard time pinning that down. Does someone's house become a store the moment they decide to mark something they made for sale there? Would they then have to move? Does a home become a club when you have more than X number of friends on your land at one time?

Not quite no-one, I quite like all these bits and bobs floating about. I expect I'm in the minority though, possibly a minority of one.

I'm with you. Love it. Loooooooooove it!

Good point Chip. I've pondered this myself. I rented some commercial land so I could film my soap opera. But do I need commercial land for that? Plus the commercial land was more laggy. But am I okay to film in a residential area? Yes it's work, but I'm not doing anything more laggy than anyone else sitting around their house.

Also, what if you want a workshop on residential land and you start experimenting with scripts? Maybe "lag inducing" and "lag minimal would be a better description.

I would like it if they zoned all new land residential, commercial, and mixed residential and commercial.

coco

But then I'd have nowhere to have my land!

As for the other two saying they liked the bits and bobs floating about, I'm having a really hard time believing you enjoy being spammed with floating ad grief cubes around your property. If you do, hey, great, but you really make me think you're just one of the spammers I'm complaining about trying to justify your actions. *shrugs*

I've a few ideas pertaining to fixing up the system in an attempt to remove ad griefing, but I believe I'll put them over in Hiro's post instead as it's more pages at this point anyway.

On a side note, the first land I'm in now has a Civic Association and we're making an effort to get some guidelines on the land in the area. For those wondering, we do have businesses as well as homes in the zone. The guideline is simply that you have no advertisements for your business or other floating signs of any type, no land based barred entry and no tolls. Obviously you've a right to privacy, but we encourage land owners to script such features rather than disrupting the flow of traffic.

Actually I do like the floating stuff (and they're not mine - mine would be far prettier). Admittedly the ad cubes aren't my favorites, mostly because they're all so badly designed (I mean - text on a coloured backgound? Not very eye catching, is it?), but I don't do any kind of suspension of disbelief or anything - I see SL as what it is and revel in the whole cyberpunk-ness of the cluttered landscape.

Starax for presid.....ummmmm Resmod!

My view exactly. I love the surreal juxtapositions and chaotic nature of the SL landscape.

i believe that linden has a vision of internet interactivity. im also pretty sure the company must be losing money left right and centre in order to pull off this vision in time.

Like I said -- SL is supposed to be this great "place" where you can own your own "land" and create what you want... the down side is the neighbors, who can _also_ do whatever the hell they want on their own "land".

This is where LL could come in with ZONING -- just as they designate sims as PG or M, they could also designate a sim with "subzoning" as:
-- C (commercial)
-- R (residential)
-- S (permanent sandbox - public land, not individually owned)
--TS (temporary sandbox - also PL, which may be slated for other use in future)

Those who own their own sim would get to choose in the LAND OPTIONS menu how they want their land zoned, just as they currently can choose whether to allow third-party scripts, or designate the land as "safe" -- and could grant zoning exceptions to tenants who satisfy their requirements on a case-by-case basis, whether that means no spinning signs in midair, no political signs, no casinos, no continuous music that can be heard beyond the border of their rental plot. Records of rental agreements would be required, of course, and for that there would have to be an email record of the conditions the owner places on the tenant, and the tenant's agreement to those conditions. Maybe someone could set up a website (or LL could dedicate a server/db for the purpose) where such "contracts" could be archived for future dispute resolution.

Regarding SANDBOXES -- I think it'd be a great idea for LL to reserve a central section of 2048sm IN EACH SIM as "open area" or public land, kind of a local park... particularly in the NEW LAND sims, in order to preserve "green space" and to prevent massive land grabs for laggy resource-hogging usinesses like casinos.

Some owners will scream bloody murder at this (thinking of a thread in the LAND/ECON forum about a casino on 1024sm with 40+ camp chairs), as an infringement of their right to use their land as they damn well please; however, ALL SIM LANDOWNERS have the right to enjoy their own land and to utilize server resources IN A REASONABLE MANNER that does _NOT_ prevent others from doing the same thing. In the specific case of the casino/camp farm, the Lindens could require the casino owner to SCHEDULE "business hours" and limit the amount of time and servers resources this one property/business could operate/consume.

Some kind of zoning control is damn near inevitable in SL, as far as I can see.
Otherwise, I don't know how you're going to coordinate the building style or usage of the properties in any sim, unless you own it, rent it out and limit your tenants to _only_ particular types of building/businesses/activities. And tenancy agreements are going to be sticky as hell to mediate in SL, just as in RL.

I still don't see how zoning makes your neighbours have houses that you like.