will groups get a land allotment?

here's my question/proposal: will groups be granted a land allotment without incurring any expense for the members?

if we were living in Fate, newly formed groups would be able to have 512m^2 of land deeded to them just like an individual character. groups that currently (like yesterday) exist and own land would be grandfathered 1024m^2 just like us. that would cover projects that were already started when the first announcment was made and deeding stopped.

if the answer is just "no," i'd like to know that too because we'll probably just scrap one project and i'll be much less likely to participate in others. being responsible for supporting group resources in L$ is one thing. RL$ is another.

utterly shameless bump

I quite curious to this as well.

-_Water

Kharmon:

The answer is no. Under 1.2x (though not immediately as we won't have implemented the code at the direct 1.2 release) people can designate part (or all) of the land they have paid for as group land (which would, of course deed the prim allotment as part of it) and then use group permissions for who can build etc.

Colin

thanks for the answer colin. i didn't phrase my question very well. i'm asking about non-taxed land allotment for groups.

for example, myself and the other nine people in my group are alloted and own 1024m^2 of tax free land each;

i purchase 512m^2 of land and deed it to the group;

are y'all going to allow the group to own that (or some amount) of land without it counting against everybody's personal allotment?

i suspect not. my gut tells me that everybody in my group just had 51.2m^2 added to the amount of land they own and everybodys fee will increase 5RL$ the next month.

for the sake of encouraging projects, since y'all are still deciding all this, i suggest that you consider alloting groups some amount of land that can be deeded to them without counting against the members' individual allotments.

Unless LL does something unexpected with groups, it's only going to be harder to maintain large groups in the 1.2 economy.

I certainly see no particular advantage to working in groups. Definitely no advantage from the developer incentive perspective.

If group land will be made up of land allotments deeded to the group by members, then I hope they will include a feature to adjust percentages of any payouts to the group. Where the 1.1 changes made it easier to manage groups because all land was deeded and all taxes and rewards were divvied up equally. 1.2 makes managing groups more complicated. We have to track everyone's allotment and if anyone leaves, recruit to replace that same size allotment or face a rl$ bill for the group!

I think the 1.2 changes really raise the stakes tremendously for member commitment. Once you're in, it's really going to be a pain to make any adjustment. If you wanna leave, that forces the group to scramble. If you wanna join, and the group is full, I guess someone can adjust their allotment accordingly to make room? (argh head spinning). Even if you just want to change the amount of your allotment, that means the officers scrambling to negotiate changes with the remaining members. (oh joy!)

Not saying it can't be done. But group management moved from being very easy to requiring considerably more planning and forethought.

So, please clarify. I saw on another thread that if you owned 2 plots of land then your prim allotment would be used on one of the plots and not on both.

Did I mis-read that?

Is each plot just given its own prims based on the size then?

As far as groups, what about land that was already purchased & deeded? How do you know who had what?

feel free to list your ideas here. if they really haven't decided all this yet, we may have a chance to be heard.


mis, my understanding is that if you own two plots in a sim, you can use any number those combined prims per lot. what you can't do is use prims from one sim in another even if you own lots in both. groups will likely be so bound.

bel, you're correct. it will be very nice to be able to set member A as responsible for covering 50% of this groups property allotment. members B, C and D will cover 10% each and member E will cover the remaining 20%. you're also correct in saying that group projects will be much more difficult to manage.

i'm afraid that we're going to see much much less collaboration in 1.2 and that's a shame. it was my point to begin with. i believe that giving groups a tax free allotment will encourage grouping under the new code. everybody chant now: group allotment, group allotment, group allotment!

Ok, so I'll say it like we've been planning it and you guys tell me what doesn't make sense:

Khamon has 4096 meters of land, and allocates 1024 meters to group 'Fate'. Fate has 10 members. So now Khamon has 3072 meters more of land he can purchase.

Officer of group 'Fate' can now deed up to 1024 meters to the group. She deeds 1024 meters. The group members don't need to allocate any more - Khamon's allocation covers it.

Another member of Fate, Philip, allocated another 1024 meters to the group. Now the officer can deed another 1024 meters of land to the group.

Does this make sense? What would you guys like to see?

Ok I'm really dense on that whole issue. Basically my question is. Can a member of the group support the group as a majority? I mean can I put 3/4 of my free amount into a group and it not count against the other members portions? Maybe I'm not making sense on that whole thing. I am trying to learn as I go and still kind of confused to the whole aspect of it. Mostly because I am weighing the RL money purchase of 'taxing' land you own beyond that initial amount vs that in a group and its version of taxing.

Julia, I'm pretty dense on this too but I think what Philip said is that if the group needs 1024m of land and you give the group 1024m then no one else in the group needs to give the group any land and their own personal land won't have anything taken away from it.

So, as I understand it, when Khamon allocates 1024 sq. m. of land, that in effect gives the group officers permission to purchase 1024 sq. m. of land for the group.

What about the following situations?
1) Khamon drops out of 'Fate'. What happens to the land supported by Khamon's allocation? As I understand it, there's no individual parcel of land you can point at and say "This is covered by Khamon's allocation".

2) Khamon stays in the group, but reduces the allocation. What happens?

3) How would Khamon go about allocating more land than he is currently paying for to the group? And when would the increase in monthly fees kick in? When the allocation is made, or when the land is actually purchased?

Carnildo has got some crucial questions there. What happens if someone who donated a land allotment to the group leaves? Does the land allotment leave with them? If it does what kind of warning will the group get before the bill hits their accounts? This sounds like an account services nightmare because most groups above a few members have people leaving and joining all the time.

The way it looks, any group would be foolish to amass this kind of potential RL$ debt. This is why I've been agitating for group prim sharing and the ability to use your prim allocation on others' land. That way, group members would be able to hold the land individually, and if they departed the only consequence would be that a parcel of land would go public, and the group would be able to deal with that as they chose, rather than getting tagged for more money.

As far as donating land allotments to a group, the only way this would work out in the group's favor is if it is a permanent gift and would only be returned on a voluntary basis by an officer.

Not al l groups are as big as NexCorp (some are but the majority are smaller). I'd like to see and understand how a large group can divide a sim. I'm wondering specifically about if there are members allocating differing amounts.

Say member 1 allocates half their allotment. Member 2 gives their whole amount and member 3 gives only 1/4. (assuming they all had the same to begin with). What happens to dwell funds? Will LL do the accounting or will all members get equal share?

Will dwell be only on my land or is all allocated land in a group pool like it is now? Can I put my prims on memeber 3's land?

If I want to opt out later, can I? How? Right now you cant sell land you allocated to a group so you will be sol if you decide to leave.

What will happen to land you already paid for and allocated? Will all land have to be sold and redistributed?

Obviously I have more questions than answers.

Regarding dropouts:

Our rough design thinking is that if you leave a group (or are ejected), or if you reduce your allocation to the group (which you will be able to do at any time from within the "My Land" dialog - see preview), this is what happens:

If the group's overall allocation (that given by all members) is still larger than the amount of land the group owns, no problem.

If the group now has less allocation than it does land, the officers will be sent a warning message that they need to release some land or get more allocation from members within a few days.

If the officers don't release land or get more allocation, the system will automatically release some of the group land to match the reduced allocation.

Under this design, if group officers keep an allocation from members sufficiently larger than the land actually owned by the group, this should adequately reduce the amount of 'thrashing' as a result of members coming and going. This is pretty much the same sort of management that groups must do in RL - keep a larger kitty of dues than the rent on the clubhouse.

Thoughts?

Regarding dwell and money paid for/to group objects:

Now this is an interesting design issue. There are two obvious alternatives:

1. All members/officers get paid equally.

2. Payments are proportional to the land that has been allocated to the group.

Thoughts?

Here is my group related question:

The group land currently has a grace period once 1.2 starts (since group options have not been coded in yet). How does this affect the prim rights on group land that is being carried into 1.2 before the group options come online? More specifically, if a group owns land in 1.2, will we be able to build on it, or will it be prohibited since there is no prim allotment on the group deeded land yet?

This has a big effect on some people who hold most or all of their land in some sims as group deeded land. If I'm reading things the right way, since we have no other individually owned parcels in that sim we effectively will have no way to build permanent (non temporary) builds until the group land options come online in 1.2.

Linden comments?

-Bone

that's exactly what i was hoping you would say. let me recap with a real example. group codas own fate park 1008m^2. khamon and jarod want to allocate 504m^2 each for the group to own the land.

this will leave them 520m^2 to own individually and NOT require any other member of the group to be responsible for the allocation. stop me if i'm wrong here

now one final question. one member of our group is planning to pay the one time fee and not own any land. is that okay as long as the group land allocations are covered?

i agree that it will be harder to organize and maintain group projects with land and associated prim allocations. we'll just have to build really good relationships to do these kinds of things.

ditto bonecrusher's question about prim usage before the group code is implemented.

Shameless bump to resurrect the thread and see if I can get a Linden response to this question.

It would be nice to be able to have the option to choose between payout plans. But I would add a third option.

3. 50% of income is paid out equally to members/officers and 50% is paid out by land allocation

With the third option, everyone gets something, but the people who commit more resources get a little extra.

There's no way that one option will fit all. Groups are too diverse. Some are very large, some are tiny, some will take advantage of the new 1.2 economy to become business ventures, others are just there for friendship and fun. I think its very important to make group management tools as flexible as possible.

Khamon, your description of how things work is correct.

Bonecrusher, I will check on what will happen WRT group land for prim limits and post to this thread. Good question.

OK, so for group land, you will still be able to build prims on it and see the limits for the group owned parcels, etc.

Be careful about group-owned (deeded) objects on that land, though - if too many objects are built (beyond the object limits) and the system needs to return objects to their owners, the group owned objects will simply be deleted since they cannot be returned to a specific person.

How will the system decide which objects to delete/return? Randomly? Highest first? Last in - first out?


What if prims are grouped? would the system delete/return an object containing 200 prims because it (or something else) went 5 prims over the limit?

Is it realistic to expect members to devote resources to the group they are not using? As it is, people involved in groups are having to make tough choices. Most of our members have their own private projects as well. So any land allocated to the project is land taken away from something else.

To ask members for more than is needed seems wasteful. And what advantage to the members to make such a sacrifice? What do they get back for giving up land/prims they can't use in the project or elsewhere?

At this point, I wonder what value groups have to the SL community? Does LL want to see stable group formation? Is the social engineering steering us away from groups or towards them? Honestly, it feels like you are steering away. Group management is becoming a nightmare. Group membership is becoming too costly in terms of personal resources.

What attracts people to SL is the freedom to do things. But the very structure of a group is a curtailment on that freedom. In order to benefit from the group, we give up a certain amount of self-expression. But the 1.2 economy is creating a cap on their resources for self-expression that many people dont see themselves overcoming. The "cost" of group participation just went up, there should be a commensurate increase in value.

Groups should be able to offer an advantage - a practical advantage. For instance, our land allocations could count for more in groups, rather than count for less. The group gets a 10% land allocation bump for every square meter the group contributes. This would be one way to encourage pooling resources and working together.

Here Here

Excelent idea Bel.