How To Make Group Privileges Work?

This isn't really a technical question although it involves some technical faculties in the game. I've been to live help a number of times and they've helped me and my friends as much as they can but we're stuck now.

It seems this game isn't really friendly to group projects seeking group-only building and editing privileges. At least, not yet, because I haven't figured out how to use what features it has.

Our expectations came from The Sims Online, where one lot owner can form a lot and a group of people, and award the "roomies" on that lot "building privileges" or not, and they also then share in paying for expenses incurred in-game on that lot. The group owner can build out a bigger plot of land, and the more roomies he has, the lower that cost of build-out will be, so roomies are advantageous discounts for him. There aren't tier fees in TSO, but there are subscription fees obviously.

In the same way, we reasoned that you could form a group in SL and create officers who would be the main friends/decision makers/privileged. Two or three people would buy contiguous plots or lots in the neighbourhood and pool their parcels. (Our understanding is that we can also bring in a group member from that same sim and have his prim allocations work toward the group.) That way, the tier fees would be shared among people. Then they'd all donate their land to the group as a collective project.

The function of "512 allocation" in SL is a boon and also creates confusion, however. On the one hand, group members can donate 512s to the group (their first 512s for free, or more if they have it and don't own land yet elsewhere), and that way, they both get a "group discount" (actually reflected as MORE allocation for the whole group, not a lesser tier fee) and they also lower the whole tier fee for that property-owner buyer-for-group.

We understand that there is no such thing as true group ownership because the members of the group aren't mathematically splitting tier fees, the buyer-for-group pays the tier fee, and the best the group members can do is lower that tier fee for him through their land allocations, but there's a limit on that. (I understand that land ownership and land allocations are two different things.)

Now the problem comes in actually trying to consolidate the land. We're now motivated to do that because the group building privileges just don't work as advertised. We thought that if we had a group, and the group was activated, and all the group built and made objects deeded to group, that every other member in the group would then be able to modify/edit/etc. But they can't. Some can, some can't, it's strange. And the workaround we were told is to have everybody exchange calling cards with everybody else, and then click off "modify objects". That's nice, but there are still problems, and some people have told us these are "bugs" or it "isn't supposed to work that way" or whatever, but we can't figure it out.

The problems are that the two contiguous properties, even being in a group, don't create one seemless piece of land with build privileges for the whole group. The owner of the one property tries to build on the neighboring property owned by another member of the group, and can't, unless she clicks off "build/edit" for everybody, meaning any passerby could come in and modify the group's structures.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that nothing ever works the same way twice. Like go figure, how one panel in a joined object couldn't be edited on by one member, but another panel in that same object could be.

We were duly warned that any member of the group could sell out from under the original buyer-for-group but that doesn't bother us as we are friends who already have experience working together and trust each other not to do that.

What is our main problem now is that if one member donates a larger parcel of his or her land to the group, it asks if the group has the tier to cover it. And that tier comes from the tier paid for by the original buyer-for-group. And he doesn't have that level. So maybe it makes sense for two accounts to be paying tier separately so as not to stick one person with a huge extra tier fee. But then the group build permissions issue begins to hobble things. One member of the group is willing to sell the land for a $1 to the group to unite the parcels and make even a new group to hold the land for the group if that will work. But starting that message delivers the "tier fee upgrade" message.

In short, what is the best way for a group of people, 3 officers and 6 or more members, to run a group project, with all of them being able to build on 2-3 contiguous properties, such that only the group can edit and build? And how best to ensure that not just one person is stuck with a big tier bill?

(Please don't reply "deed all objects to group" because that's NOT enough of an answer. It doesn't keep prims from returning, it doesn't open up editing WHILE something is being built, before the object is completed and deeded to group.)

It sounds like these two pieces of land are just 'set' to the Group, and not actually deeded to the Group.

Once the land is deeded, it no longer shows as 'belonging' to an individual, so there are longer 'owners' of a property - it is owned by the group.

When land is owned by the group, any Officer can edit the land. Members cannot.

As far as creating objects, this will work whether the land is just set to the group, or actually deeded:

1. Check 'Create/Edit'
2. Set the Object Return time to a low value e.g. 5 minutes
3. Make sure everyone is wearing the Group Title when they build

Although this does let anyone create or rez on the land, whatever they leave there will be gone within 5 minutes at most. Anything created by a group member with the group active will be immune to object return.

Checking off 'Create/Edit' does not let anyone have permissions to modify any objects on the property. It only lets them bring in new objects they own themselves. This is in contrast to the 'Edit Land' checkbox which does let anyone terraform. This box should only be left on when necessary for non-officers to terraform.

Hope that helps.

A little update here after experimenting. Everybody building has to make double-sure they never click off "lock" on objects. Even if objects are linked together, that original piece/prim stays locked if once locked. And no other people can work that object even if they are in the group. In other words, if you lock your object, you prevent your group members -- or anybody else -- from opening it even if you clicked off "modify/sell" etc. and even if you deeded it to the group. It's like an override.

I'm wondering what the advantages are in a group situation then to keeping an object locked. I guess it could prevent accidental delection or modifying the wrong thing when you grab it from a distance.

Probably just set the land to the group, and follow the guidelines above so that any group member can build and leave objects anywhere on the contiguous properties. That way, the owners of the land retain ownership, there's no problem with officer trust, and everyone pays the tier they can afford.

The only reason to actually deed the land to the group would be to ensure equal division of dwell payments, and allow any officer to terraform any of the lots. (Also if you needed to actually join the lots into one big parcel for some reason).

Even if you do decide to deed all the land to the group, members and officers can all donate the tier amount they can afford to support the total amount of land. No-one would be paying the tier bill for the whole property unless they were the only person donating tier.

What you describe are the reasons for locking an object in any situation, grouped or otherwise. There are no other reasons.

Ok, a couple of suggestions for you as someone who has all of his land in a group (98000m worth).

First, there is a difference between giving allocation to a group and giving land to a group. You do not pay a monthly tier fee for land, you pay for allocation (even if it is ultimately based on the highest amount of land you own during that period). So if your tier allows up to 512m of land, you can allocate your 512m allocation to the group. What does this mean? It means that the group can now own 512m of land (plus 10%, so 563m approx). You are responsible for that tier fee even in allocation to the group. So if four people put their 512m allocations toward the group, the result is that the group can own 2048m of land plus 10% (2262m). Each of you is paying for your own account's worth of 512m, and you get 204m as a bonus for grouping).

Now comes the part of actually giving land to the group. You can do this in several ways. The first is to give a piece of existing land you own to the group. You do this by setting the group on the land using Set Group, then checking Deed to Group, then deeding it. You also have the option of giving your allocation at the same time to cover that amount of land, if you have not already donated the allocation. This allows you to smoothly put land into a group that you already own. So if you check the option for your allocation as well, what happens is the group now owns 512m of land and you have allocated 512m of your allocation to cover that land for the group. The group now owns the land, and any officer can manage the land (and sell it, so be careful). Members cannot.

Another option is to buy land on behalf of a group. Make sure you have your group active, and then when you go to buy the land, choose Buy for Group instead of Buy. What happens is the money is taken from you, and the land goes into the group directly, thus you don't need to deed it. Make sure the group has enough allocation before using this option. This is generally how you add bonus land to your group after transferring in any land you already own.

Now, you can set the land to autoreturn any objects that don't belong to the group. This will have the effect of only allowing your group to build on the land, while still having the flexibility to allow a store where someone can temporarily take out an item. If you set it to 1 minute, it should be fine. What this means however is all items on the land must have their group set to your group. They do not need to be deeded to the group, only to have their group set using Set Group.

As far as being able to modify each other's items, the best way is to use the Grant Modify Permissions option by right clicking on the person's calling card. This will allow them to edit any of your objects. Be careful with this option, as they can delete your objects as well. The one restriction of this option is that you cannot modify someone else's scripts (a weird limitation). Otherwise, it is very useful.

Hope this helps clear up some confusion about group land and gives you ideas on how to make it work for your group. If you need more specifics, let me know. Good luck!

Thank you all very much for these very helpful tips. We are trying them out one by one and trying to get our act together.

I followed everybody's advice -- or so I thought -- and even got further advice from a seminar leader, and apparently, I still blew it -- big time. It worked the first time around, but then I got clever and decided to try it again, pouring 2 parcels into a new land group and joining up the parcels -- and got burned.

Perhaps some seasoned players can explain where my error was.

I had two alts who each bought a parcel of land, next door to each other. One alt sold off half the land, and the idea was to unite the two parcels and deed them to a group we had formed of TSO friends. One parcel was purchased in a "buy for group" transaction, and the other was purchased individually, but then "deeded to group" with contribution. Each of the two accounts paid $40 in tier, for a total of $80 across the two parcels, and the rest was covered by other players contributions.

But there were editing problems, prim return problems, despite constant attempts to check off boxes, etc. One landowner simply seemed to be buggy, since she was only a mere "member" in the group, and yet showing on her menu in "about land" was the power to sell the land -- we were told only officers could do that. We knew officers could sell land out from under the group, but members supposedly can't do that.

As our original group got a big large, and people warned us that members could get together and vote for officers to be removed, and we had this buggy member problem who also found she couldn't edit objects even when they were turned over to the group, we decided to consolidate the parcels and put them into a brand-new, smaller group.

First, we created the group, and all the members put in their allocations. Of course, the invitations took more than 3 tries, there were some bumps along the way, but finally the allocations were available -- seemingly. That was the advice we got -- put in allocations first.

Next, I sold one parcel to myself for a $1, and turned around and made the purchase of that parcel on behalf of the newly-formed group. The purchase took me automatically to the www.secondlife.com site to confirm the purchase and update the tier. I had reasoned that if I had 10848 acres, and I bought them from myself and put them in a new group, I would remain at the same tier. Imagine my surprise when I found a menu that was suddenly telling me I was in the 33,000 plus acres zone and had to tier up to $125! (I owned no other properties). I kept reloading the page, checking back at the numbers, but there it was. I couldn't lower the tier to what was clearly my actual purchase, and it seemed that the system was double charging me, as if it required me to have double the amount of land credits available in order to make the new purchase -- from myself (but that should be beside the point, since the same transaction should work between any players.) Not wanting to lose my land, I was forced to click through the menu and found myself billed for a tier that was twice the land I owned.

Thoroughly burned on that transaction, I vowed not to repeat it. I reasoned that there must be something in the "buy for group" transaction that was throwing it off. Or maybe it was that I was buying and selling from myself. So the next time, I had one alt sell to the other alt. All the group members rechecked their contributions and made sure that everything was taken out of the old group and put in the new -- that was a factor for some, but it shouldn't have affected the total.

The second time, I tried to have the alt allocate to the new group first, since we had been told that was necessary to do. And instead of having "buy for group" the second time, I decided to try the individual purchase, and then deed to group later. But then when that alt tried to sell to my other alt, the tier was jacked up again -- again as if it was double what was actually owned, apparently precisely because the contribution to the group was made? I am thoroughly confused.

Somehow, despite checking the math and going over the transactions over and over, the two accounts ended up being charged up to the level of $75 on one, and $125 on the other -- that is, instead of $75 on one and $0 on the other, which should have fit the amount of land, minus the advantage gained by the group contributions, (or $80, on two separate plots with two different accounts). Thus, merely putting the land into a new group cost an additional $120 that month for a seeming double amount of land! That's quite a cash burn for this transaction, especially given that it's about what I made from the sale of half the first plot!

I tried to get Live Help and Lindens in-game, but Live Help volunteers were unable to help me and the Lindens were unreachable. I put the tiers back down to the lower levels finally after all the transactions were over, and it now reflects the actual land possessed -- some 17,000 acres, which is reasonable given that the two parcels were 10848 plus 6400. I don't know how on earth the website could have forced me into tier levels of 23,000 and 33,000 over this transaction, and I don't think it's a bug. I've now thrown myself on the mercy of customer service, if they read all the transaction records maybe they'll see that there was never more than 17,000 acres in the deals, and take pity on us.

I'm glad to learn from my stupid mistakes -- if I can understand the stupid thing I did!
Please enlighten...

Well - that settles it.

I nearly put some land into a group to hold it for me this afternoon. I even pressed the "deed" button, but I didn't like the look of the resulting message and cancelled it.

I never like acting blind in situations I don't fully understand, and it looks like I made the right decision.

The above forum postings are the nearest I have seen to an explanation of how groups work. I have to ask, although I think I know the answer - have I missed the official document or manual which explains this ? Could someone please point me to it ?

If, as I suspect, no such document exists, may I ask - why do we accept without complaint the general lack of documentation ? Maybe we like SL so much that we feel it would be almost churlish to actually act like customers, and demand to be told how things work?

Again and again I find myself trawling through forums looking for clues on various topics - and then I find I am reading the results of other peoples actual "experiments" to try to find what happens. Is this really how it should be ? Does everyone feel this is an OK situation ? Or am I alone in feeling that some improvement in manuals/documentation would not be unreasonable to request ?

There is a Second Life wiki on group land. But it really doesn't help you answer all these problems, especially the issue of how to transfer from an individual to a group, or how to pour from one to another.

Since getting burned on this don't-try-it-at-home experiment, I've tried it dozens of other times with other groups.

And I noticed in fine print in notes to one of the past patches/updates to the game that the Lindens put out that they said something like "fixed bug that failed to update land allocations to groups".

I believe that's exactly what happened to me -- the system didn't update, even when I put that donation in the group, so that when I went to "buy for group" for the new group, it double billed me with double tier.

One way I stepped through this was to take a small parcel of just 24 acres and tried to move it around until I could understand what was happening.

I've found that it pays to put your tier into the group FIRST then WAIT. Re-log if necessary. Double check that the tier is actually in that group. Only then press "buy for group". If it says the message "you don't have enough tier" you know the system hasn't updated. This could be due to packet loss or whatever.

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The above topic has a useful post that should really be in the wiki. The bottom line: make SURE you deed with the full privileges set to "next owner" if you deed an object, otherwise you will lose it. Also, ensure that all of the items in the contents of the object are also shared with the group and have the right next-owner privileges set, or you will lose them.

As for the land stuff, I think, rather than buying it from yourself for group, you should look at deeding the land, which has the option to also set a land contribution simultaneously. This option factors in the 10% bonus you'll get, so if you contributed a 1024 square meter plot, it would actually only set a contribution from your land allocation of 930.90 square meters.

I think a full corporate model would be more appropiate for groups.

We should be able to buy (and sell) shares as well as appoint a board of directors, a CEO.

We should be able to elect our board of directors based on our share holdings.

Dividend payouts according to share holdings and what not would be really cool as well.

Basically, groups need to be improved to faciliate real life companies so we can start taking on projects that are very complex and require sophisticated economic relationships.

/shouting out in my best Dr Frankenstein voice

Hhahahaha It's alive, it's ALIIIIVVVEEEE

Prokofy Neva, today, on The Herald:

"resurrect old Prokofy posts from the past and make the Undead Walk Again muahahah as blaze spinnaker has been doing by simply answering old fallow posts to make them show up again on the headlines with the original poster’s name"

lets try to stay on topic, shall we?

Ok, I will go dig up some old Prokofy threads too.

This is interesting... I ran into some of these issues back when I was just becoming accostomed to group land. The major thing you want to keep track of is who owns the land and who has the tier at every step. It doesnt matter if you are buying the land from yourself to deed to group, if you own the land as an individual you're responsible for that tier for that month. If you deed some tier to the group you cant use that tier for purchases which do not go directly to the group, because the land alotment is considered used by the group. It's not available to the individual for personal use.


I think what happened to prokofy, and I don't know if he figured it out, was this:

Assume a land alotment of 1000.
Donate 1000 land alotment to group.
Buy Land assuming 1000 land alotment.
Donate Land to group.

Come billing time you see.. wel darn.. I just doubled my tier! Why? Because after donating your alotment to group.. You have no available land alotment to own land as an individual.

The solution!

Assume Land alotment of 1000
Donate 1000 land alotment to group.
Buy land with "Buy for group"

Alternativly.

Assume Land alotment of 1000
Buy land.
Donate land to group with alotment.


At all times the entity responsible for the teir must be the one who owns the land. Anyone else gets charged for additional teir costs.

I hope this is clear.


Oh, and Nolan! Settle down. This is a friendly warning.