Wait, we're paying money for what?

It is actually very eye catching.

I would also like to see zoning, as well as more restrictions on the dimensions of things you can design/build.

Pure residential areas that wouldn't allow anything over say 30 meters high, and you could only own a max amount of joined land, enough for a large mansion/residential apartment complex. You could also zone small commercials that would fall under similar restrictions (to minimize lag)
then allow larger commercials for whatever the heck people wanted.

I'd also like to see certain restrictions on what can be publicly displayed in each area as well.

I see no problem with allowing people to put up whatever they want so long as it can't be publicly viewed, but things like offensive signange, adult content, etc shouldn't be on outside textures.

There is nothing wrong with enforcing some community standards, and people are of course welcome to start and moderate sims however they chose. Though any rules that differentiate from standard community rules should be posted and be made available prior to land purchase in those areas.

If we don't have the power to effect others, then LL needs to take the responsibility and make the place friendly for all, not just those looking to offend others.

You want people to enforce zoning who can't manage to moderate a BBS or make a release that doesn't break more than it fixes?

It is not how well the bear dances that is amazing, but that it dances at all.

Or provide us the tools to do so ourselves. I'm good either way.

It would be a lot easier for community volunteers to enforce a set of rules though than it would be for them to try and balance tools for us to do it on our own.

with properly written rules there should be very clear distinctions about whats permitted and not permitted (lot size, build height, etc would all be hard coded). LL takes on some volunteers under contract to behave appropriately, penalties would exist for abuse of power (account cancelation, etc) and give them the ability to remove offending prims/textures from lots that violate rules. Repeat offenders could be passed up the food chain to be dealt with on a more permanent basis, and people could be given the opportunity to automaticaly appeal any moderation of their land, however an appeal that was unnsuccesful could be penalized in L$ (appeal is free in itself) and depending on the transgression and repeats they may find themselves out a lot of L$. To prevent abuse of the appeals system by bitter people

Its not a new system, and websites have been using community volunteers for a lot of years to moderate their systems, usually to quite a bit of success if they're managed properly and given the right combination of directives, power, and personel.

I used to be a community leader for geocities in 1999, and I'm aware of the potential such a system has to improve things. While they had the program, geocities was a much better place, since they killed it, its nothing but a festering porn hole.

As you appear new here, the customers have been begging for the tools you mention for over two years. For some reason that no one has yet been able to plumb, Linden Lab seems hell bent on taking no stewardship of their world and strong distaste for affording anyone else even marginal ability to do so.

I don't even know you, but given your statement that you have successfully run a community you'd get my vote for mayor (if there were mayors or voting).

Do a forum search on "leadership" sometime and you'll see a customer base crying out for such.

I was part of a group, I wasn't the leader of the group, we were all community leaders, it was my job to monitor a certain block of sites on regular (usually daily basis) for questionable content. I was heavily invovled in learning and exploring how it all worked in addition to that. But there are easily competent volunteers out there, those who are of good character and are well experienced in the ways of SL. I wouldn't see the need for a mayor style system, however I could easily see more than one tier of volunteers. Initially a cadre of those who just remove textures/offending prims (say in the event of an offensive shape) then after time those that prove themselves through service will be graduated to a seconed level to continue that work and be given an opportunity to respond to appeals. There would always remain an objective LL check and balance, but they could help take the inevitable load off the LLs. I would suggest assigning public sims to a certain number of individuals to patrol and check on a daily basis. Volunteers should be able to commit to say 30 minutes a day or about 3.5 hours a week of flying around and checking and an average size sim, should have a couple volunteers. A system should be in place to compensate when people are away (i.e. if a sims volunteers don't log on for both 48 hours each, an alert is flagged so that someone else who has spare time can pick it up and check the sim).

Ya know when I was building arabian spires in Taber someone ARed me for making a 'giant plywood cock'

I think if you give any resident the power to remove a texture or 'offending shape' from someone elses land you will see some seriousl pitchforks and torches.. probably in Real Life....

Thats why its much easier to have a group of trusted volunteers as the only ones with those abilities, and an appropriately designed appeals decision.
It was probably quite clear once you were finished that you weren't making a giant plywood cock. which wouldn't be against the rules, and which wouldn't have caused you any grief.

We could also include a process so that people who want to grief by going around flagging stuff that obviously doesn't need flagged would get charged L$ for the abuse of the system, and perhaps lose their accounts if they really want to be pricks about it.

There's a section of the community that would kick up an almighty stink if there were resident volunteers put in charge of public sims - look at how much they've got their knickers in a twist over the resmods.

Leave zoning and stuff for private sims, if it's advertised well enough and enough people want it then the people running those sims will have more clout to get LL to update the estate tools.

The only reason I can see them causing a stink is becuase they have a desire to break the rules and know that a group of volunteers would get to them much faster than LL would.

I'm sure all the people making throw-away porn sites on geocities hated that there were community leaders there quickly taking them down, everyone else appeciated it because it raised the quality of the community as a whole.

They'd only be responsible for patrolling the exteriors, if you don't have anything inappropriate on the exterior of your building, then I don't see the problem.

Here is the problem though. The toss away porn sites were based off of free accounts that you used to be able to sign up for, ahh I miss those days of free webspace. The current situation of builds is totally different. The residents that are building them actually pay to use the land. If I were using free land to build stuff that was deemed an ugly build or one that causes a stir in the community then some sort of building "inspector" would have ground to stand on. The problem is that the residents are not using free land, myself included it may not be much but since I am shelling out about $90 USD a month for fake real estate I will not take kindly to someone telling me what I can build there.

Also, the definition of inappropriate is different for everyone. Some would see a pentagram as innappropriate while others would see a celtic cross as inappropriate. To place a small amount of people in charge of deciding what is appropriate and what is not will certianly lead to narrow minded views with a limited "ok" list based off of a strong bias towards one thing.

And like the days of geocities, the other users were free users, not paying users. In this case we have paying users being offending by paying users. They are the same class of user.
Your right to be offensive as a paying user is no more valid than my right to not be offended.
Its called working together. You're party of a community, you do not live in a bubble. If you want to live in a bubble, take out an unconnected private sim and restrict access.


Then don't buy the land there.
For existing users I'm sure an amicable solution can be reached. Those who do not wish to abide by the public lands rules can be put through a type of land exchange program to move their property to a private sim.


To a certain degree yes, but its not hard to come up with a basic definition of what is and isn't offensive and borderline items can be passed up the chain if deemed necessary.

This listed would be created by LL with the input of community members. The volunteers would only be in charge of enforcing that. The vast majority of the time, its going to be very clear-cut as to whether or not something would violate any rules. For those things that are maybes, the volunteer could either decide to pass it up the chain, or remove it, and if you disagreed you could file a free appeal. If LL agrees that it shouldn't be removed its put back, if they do agree, you're charged a fee for the wrong appeal and you're not permitted to put the object/texture back.

No one is attempting to moderate the interior of your construction. This is more of creating public communities where people can buy land, in low lag areas, and create homes without the need to worry about looking out the window and being seeing something inappropriate to the type of area they're in. If they're in a red-light district, they can expect more adult themed content. I shouldn't have to look out my back window and see a 10 foot gaping vagina on the next lot.

The only reason I can see anyone concerned about this is if they're creating obviously offensive material in public space and just don't want to go through the hassle of getting into a private sim. Nothing here makes you or anyone else anymore special or important. Society has always had standards though, they've varied through the years, but they existed for a reason. The beauty with SL is that we can have different areas with different standards, but those areas need to be created and laid out, and people need to agree to them before being allowed to purchase land in them.

Agreed on the first point.
Please take note next time, I am well aware I do not live in a bubble. It would be rather nice to work as a community, it just isn't going to happen except in rare cases such as the themed community type sims or the right group of people coming together. I have tried pulling resources together and pulling in friends to work on larger more community like builds/structures/projects, no one really cares, no one was interested and they were all to busy doing their own thing.




A solution is already in place, they are called themed sims or planned communities.



While something like this would be nice for extreme cases, as we have witnessed, it will never happen for less offensive cases that did stir the populace. LL has stated their case though, free expression that involves tolerance and abiding by a rather simple TOS and list of community standards.




For the record, I actually stray away from offensive material as my major SL hobby is aircraft.

Creating offensive material is not the only reason to be concerned about enforced zoning and building rules. The problem is, if this actually works, what next? What direction could SL go in? Only Human Avatars because it is more socially acceptable?



I agree but this type of thing is a stalemate condition, as neither side is correct nor incorrect.
And society has evolved over the years and continues to evolve, take a look at history to see how society continues to evolve, without any sort of major influence other than the laws written. Not just simple variations but pure evolution of ideas and ideals, each of us working on our own visions yet somehow managing to work as one. SL can become that way, but not by force. Areas in SL have already evolved that way, Abbotts Aerodrome is a prime example, people with similar interests merging together on their own, without extra outside rules and regulations to create one of the coolest places in SL that is freindly, well themed and very abiding by the community standards.



We have that in RL too, they are called countries, each with their own set of rules and regulations as well as societal norms and acceptable community standards. Heck, many of the states are that way, having their own culture, mannerisms and socially accepted norms.

SL has that setup as well, they are the themed sims, the ones for Gor, for Victorian themed living, Furry living and the list goes on. Anyone wishing to live in one of those themed sims has to agree and abide by a set of rules and standards as well before purchasing/renting land in them.
Creating standards like this that go above the TOS and community standards should be left up to individuals or groups for their own vision of a community on their own land or sim, not for the grid as a whole. To voice out against obviouse offensive material is one thing but to outcry against someone with a puple with pink polkadots house is another because it doesn't fit a small group's list of ideals.

SL is indeed a community, Perhaps there is a standard that we already abide by? What if that simple standard is chaos? What if that standard is exactly what SL is advertised to be, your world, your imagination?

No one can guarantee that you're gonna _like_ the HOUSE next door... but since you don't have to live in it, that's not the point.

The point is not having some BUSINESS (a massive casino or loud nightclub) next door that lags out the entire sim with all its scripts/poseballs/etc and/or blocks anyone else from getting into the sim when they've got 40 people in the place (which appears to be the limit on the number of avatars which can co-exist in a sim at one time).

I like dancing at BAd Girls' once in awhile, but I have no intention of ever trying to buy land in that sim, or in any sim in which such a business exists. Nor will I ever sell my First Land to anyone who intends to build such a thing; I'll pay my monthly fee and keep my FL until hell freezes over or LL's servers blow up, whichever comes first.

Is it? Could you explain the rules to me, then?

To me this posting exemplifies why any kind of player government would be an utter disaster.

Sorry - duplicate posting.

The rules of this game are to avoid getting into a never ending argument. I'm going to win this!!!

If you take the score out of a space invader game then alot of people will still call it a game. Now whether you think they're right to do so is irrelevant!!

But really, I don't care what people call things. I sometimes call Second Life a game. If somebody wants to call Second Life a platform then I don't mind. Just aslong as I know what they're talking about.


The truth isn't out there. It's in here. * Points to my head *


Now deal with it!!!

Everybody knows Second Life is a boiled egg.

I never recommended a player government did I? I recommended LL use player volunteers to moderate content for abuse based on guidelines LL creates. If you've got a point to make, make it. Otherwise baseless comments tossed about add nothing to the discussion.

'Player volunteers' enforcing what we can and cannot do seems pretty much like player government to me.

No its player policing if you want to call it something. Last I checked, most of us don't live in a police state, so they're not the same thing. Enforcement is done by police, creation of the laws is done by the government. LL is your government, the volunteers would be the police. Ideally you probably wouldn't even know they existed unless you broke any rules outlined by LL.

They would still have to follow conduct rules, and they wouldn't be above them. As I outlined above, a procedure would be in place to ensure they didn't abuse their powers. This is a common practice in many large web communities and usually works quite well as long as its maintained properly.

I don't see what makes SL so special that they couldn't work with such a system.

I don't want any police volunteers.

coco

Well LL likely doesn't have the personal or money to do it, so you'd rather just have chaos? That doesn't exactly encourage growth. Again I'd have to ask:
What makes SL so special that they can't have what hundreds upon thousands of web communities use perfectly fine?

No doubt, we have enough of those on the forums.