fine-grained permissions for friends, to control who can map you, teleport to you,etc

Based on /13/28/110115/1.html
- but modified!

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Personally, I think instead of having 'friendships' in SL, we should have 'relationships'.... where you can set, individually, if someone can :
1) map you... options = yes/no/ask
2) send you a request to teleport to your location (similar to mapping, but can be enabled without #1).... options = yes,no
3a) instant message you.... options = yes (normal), no (muting)
3b) send public chat you can hear.... options = yes (normal), no (muting)
4) see if you are online.... options = yes (normal), no (appear offline)
5) send you inventory.... options = yes and auto-accept, yes and ask before accepting, no
6) edit your objects.... options = no, or comma-seperated list of sims (and possibly x/y/z co-ordinate ranges) in which they can edit your objects
7) push you on their land ..... options = yes, no, ask me for permission first
push you elsewhere.... options = yes, no, ask me for permission first
9) can see what permissions you have assigned them by clicking a link in your profile called "show relationship" .... options = yes, no, only when I'm online and they ask me first
10) show this person in my short relationships list .... options = yes, no
11) can see my 'green dot' on the world map .... options = yes, no

There would be more fields, for the various other important things someone can do in second life. Not the tiny little things... but just the major things people may want to grant as permissions to others.

Also, we should have, in preferences, several groups a person can belong to, called 'relationship groups' each of which defines the permissions for everyone in it. (such as 'friends', 'business contacts', etc).
Instead of 'add friend', we should have 'add relationship' (or 'edit relationship' if you already have one with someone) in the pie menu.
There should also be quick buttons on the 'edit relationship' menu for a person, to set them to use the permissions from a certain group, or to set them to use a custom set you define for just that person.
Similarly, you should be able to select someone in the relationship list, right click them, select "assign to relationship group" or something, and give them permissions from a group you've set up previously.
You should also be able to shift select and control select people in your relationship list.... to assign several of them to the same group at once.
Finally, there should be a button to move everyone in your friends list to a group that you pick.
With these changes, the relationships window would look like a two colum table, of 'name' and 'relationship group' (just shortened to 'relationship' in the table, probably) - so you could have :
Joe - friend
Bob - friend
Mike - business partner
Adam - contact/aquaintance
Sam - Partner
Joey - ignore/muted/bad guy

To make it simple to use, everyone should start off with a sensibly defined set of defaults, and when someone clicks 'add relationship' they should be prompted to use one of these defaults (they can always edit permissions for that person later anyway).
Only advanced people that wanted a lot of control over their SL experience (say, business owners who want privacy!) would need to create new groups and edit permissions manually.

Of course, relationships need *not* be mutual. That is, my giving someone permissions and them giving me permissions should be completely seperate.

Another point - your relationship with someone should show up over their avatar, possibly under their name. For example, you could have :
Title
Name
Relationship - like this :
"Tringo Player"
"Joey"
"[Friend]"
The relationship status should always show *under* the name, to distinguish it from a title. It should also show up in the person's profile when you view it (along with a link to assign them to another group. The button to edit the groups you have should be in preferences, under 'relationships' or something as a new tab.

Clicking on someone's name (or selecting multiple avatars and right clicking) should open a menu, such as :
"assign to a different group"
"edit custom permissions"
"remove relationship"
"offer teleport"
"send IM to selection"
- this would let you easily edit permissions for many people, offer all your friends TPs to where you are, IM all your business contacts in one handy panel, etc....

Clicking on a relationship type (e.g. 'Friend') should filter the list of relationships so that it shows only those of that type. Since this system would encourage people to have *lots* of relationships, the 'relationships' tab (to replace the "friends" tab on the bottom left menubar) would have to show only some of them. Only the persons with the "show on my short relationships list" permission would be shown by default, unless the person clicked on the "show all relationships" button (roughly where the "grant modify rights" button is now on the 'friends' panel.... which can be removed as it would be redundant under these proposals).

There should also be a 'show offline relationships' checkbox which, if unchecked (and it would be checked by default) shows you only your online friends (like the 'new IM' window, but more useful as you could select multiple people and perform actions on each).

Lastly, changing a group's settings should change all the permissions for everyone in it (to make it easy, say, to revoke or update permissions for a large group of people you're working with when you want to be more/less involved with them).

These flexible relationship options would be much better then the current 'friends' system, becuase it would allow fine-grained control, so you could stop people in relationships with you from doing things to you that you diddn't like.
It would *greatly* enhance the control each avatar has over their relationships with other avs.

These would solve many problems with privacy and avs, for example.... if someone maps you and you don't like it - remove their mapping permission. If someone keeps spamming you with teleport requests, set their teleport request permission to 'always decline' instead of 'ask'.
Or, you could, if you were privacy conscious, just give everyone 'offer teleport' and 'request to come to your location' permissions, but not give anyone the 'map me' permission.

This would solve a lot of the problems with 'friendship' lists and privacy in one stroke, and would have a similar system of fine-grained permissions to the way the group system is getting changed into (with its new 'role' system) - and thus be not only useful but consistent with how the group system is developing.

Please comment If people like this idea I will put it up for a vote on secondlife.com/vote - after discussion shows people back it. I realise implementing this proposal will be just as much work for the Lindens as implementing "roles" in groups will be... but IMHO, it would be a very worthwhile change that will transform Second Life by giving a huge amount of power to residents, and thus, by giving them power, encouraging them to bond socially (as they wouldn't have to worry about the privacy implications of having friends).

It would, thus, be a good thing for SL - it'd encourage residents to form social relationships in SL by giving them the ability to network with people without giving those people privacy-damaging abilities (like the ability to tell where they are at any time without notice).
By empowering the resident, the resident will enjoy SL more and this increases the attractiveness of SL for pretty much everyone

=== In support of fine-grained permissions in friends lists, there are a few worthy proposals...

* allow other avs to adjust your attachments
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=1084
* allow sending of group teleports
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=344
* hide your green dot on minimap
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=541
* hide green dot (better) & landowner tools -
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=557
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=719
* privacy in the form of ability to appear offline
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=917
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=855
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=809
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=804
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=983
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=1199
* remove self from find / hide online status
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=997
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=1429
* Allow restriction of mapping rights amongst friends
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=781
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=1108
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=1421
* grouping your friend list
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=839
* stop overactive security systems on land by being 'invisible'
http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=401

Another possible permission, inspired by forum topic 113768 : "Affect other avatars", would be "can modify/remove attachments on my avatar".

Would be useful for other people (say, the designer of that really nice suit or prim hair you just bought) to help you align it perfectly for your av.

Could open up the possibility of helping to teach people, in a hands on way, how to align things right

First, the main problem with the friends list is that "Add Friend" is in the first level of the avatar menu, and the more casual "Exchange Cards" is in the second. If these wree the other way around, you'd be more likely to only have actual *friends* rather than *acquaintances* in your freinds list.

Second, most of the things you want to control are the "instant message" functions of the system. Separate the "being online for IM, map, etc..." and "being in-world", and you could be logged in without showing up in Linden's IM tools. THEN you could script your more sophisticated tools using the HTTP API. You could actually give your lover a "magic token" that would tell them you were on even though nobody else could see you.

Rather than building more rules and restrictions into SL, create the tools to let residents define the rules. SL didn't create leashing and master-slave relationships. Residents did, by creating scripts.

Let people choose privacy, the lower the barriers themselves, under their own control.

Third, same with the other sthread: add calls that attachments could make to change your appearance settings... wear clothes, for example... and this could be implemented by residents.

This rocks!

That said, I have to say that I also see where Argent is comming from, and cannot disagree with that position, either.

Toodle-oo!

I agree with the principle of devolving more power to residents to script things, rather then relying on LL to implement them. I'm not sure it'd be less work, overall, though, to modify LSL such that such things were possible then it would be to change the 'friends' system into a 'relationships' system.

If it'd get the results faster, I'm for it I just wonder... aren't there some things LSL scripts can't do? Apparently they can't interface with assets very well... would that mean they also can't access what they'd need to helpfully replicate friendships with script, and it'd be very difficult to make that possible?

Good idea to let residents handle implementation, but I just wonder if it's possible to do that.

You'd do it outside the LL system, you'd have scripts that would let people track friendships using things like external websites, maybe hook it in to existing social nets like LJ or Orkut...

Kind of pointless as LL is already planning some better privacy controls for residents as far as mapping and the like go. Hooking stuff up in such a manner would ultimately cause more lag for residents as the friends lists and things such as that would require more bandwidth as well. Personally this would really just be over complicating things if you dont want to add someone to your friends list dont do it as such. You can already split calling cards up (which you get when adding friends anyways) and use that in a similar manner to which you are saying. I believe it was that LL will be doing away with being able to map people completely in the future.

And the simpler solution for the dialog menu would be if you dont click yes to the request they cant find where you are unless they know where you usually hang out or something. Also there was a post about from Phoenix Linden that states they are bringing in an update that will better show online status probably making it plausible in the event to actually make yourself appear "invisible" like they do on yahoo and things like that. Making the friends list over complicated really doesnt help anyone other then those that are overtly organized and get into a panic when things arnt organized. I think the current friends system is great if your not just tossing out friends left and right to everyone you meet.



Now a few things in here the bottom one for starters. Stopping over active security systems by being invisible. Thats something t hats not a good privacy control as really if i put it down i dont wan people snooping around. Some of this stuff has been said to being implemented in the future and some of it is kind of utterly useless. I agree heavily with your 3rd post on here though that needs to be done although not adjusting clothing. Being able to have someone adjust attachments would be a handy tool however because alot are misplaced and not all of us are great at moving or modding stuff ourselves. This could add heavily to modifying for furry av's to .

Now what I'd like to see as a possible outcome is LL allowing some way to "link" prims to your prims if you have mod rights for that person when they set stuff down. And actually being able to add to stuff when you are wearing it on your body. Mabye have allow this person to link their prims to yours kind of interface when the person has mod rights that basically buys the prims they are trying to link at no cost and links them. This would massively be helpful if you wanted to let someone do a project for you while your not around etc and could be allowed as "instant" or an ask system (both which i think should be implemented)

Also how about allowing objects rezzed to be set to be edited by certain people? Instead of setting mod rights for each and every object you have rezzed you can set that they can only edit a certain one possibly without granting them mod rights, but while keeping mod rights as they are in place on top of it as it is handy for some situations like business partners etc. However the original context of that post really has nothing to do with my idea but this is how "affect other avatar" should be (mabye have an access list for how it is in the other post that one could add to) really though removal of clothing needs to be adressed in the sense that it needs to make you stop standing up when you remove it lol.

Having scripts in object do it would be kind of cool (hint to people that can animate and script if this is implemented make an animation that looks like taking off clothing for that specific thing and ask if its a normal shirt buttons etc thru some sorta hud system)

And how would you do this outside the LL system pre tell? Your saying have scripts that let people track friendships not really plausible as of yet and quite clunky and uneeded if you ask me. The system that is in place is fine if your not out giving friends left and right like i said above. The only reason i could see really splitting the friends list up into groups is if they were developing an out of game chat system in which case this ultimately would be helpful if it took it directly from the friends list in world

Ok, you're right. My proposal is needlessly complicated.

The reason that it is so is because it tries to provide a clear way to do several thing currently not possible, like selecting a bunch of friends and start an IM session with them without having to go through your inventory and make a special calling card folder just for this purpose.

Maybe, instead, we should merge these things to make it simpler.

Here is a simpler and cleaner proposal to give people privacy and protection from unwanted push.

In preferences, we should have a "show online status to : everyone, partner, friends, residents with whom I share a group, nobody", defaulting to 'everyone'. Similarly for mapping we should have the same options.
Muting someone should cause you to ignore their IMs, chat, teleport/inventory offers, chat/inventory/etc from all objects they own.

As for push, permissions checks might go like this, for an object that wants to push you :
1) if you own the object, allow the push
2) if the object is owned by the owner of the land you are on, allow the push
3) check the preferences of the target avatar, if they permit, allow the push
4) otherwise, deny the push

#3 would check the av's preferences, say, a few menus for who can push them :
everyone -> yes, ask permission first, no
partner -> yes, ask permission first, no
friends -> yes, ask permission first, no
members of the same groups -> yes, ask permission first, no

Works a bit better and i can see a use for the push and offline/online thing. I believe muting someone does stop im's and that stuff already not sure. With the new group tools it may be a bit better and i think that feature will be a big help. Like i said the friends category thing is a bit more practical if they plan to make an offline chat client and its something i'd like to see if the future if its plausible. One thing you do run into though still gotta add some people to more then "category" unless they give the option of multiple ones at first but still varying on how many categories could still end up having to manually add them later =/. All in all its not a bad proposal.

I think most people dont want to be pushed in general though but for "security reaons" push is often neccessary. I think object owners in general need the option to "unsit" and avatar as well without using a script but allowing it to be scripted to but ya hehe.

I get what your getting at with this all and it'd be nice to a degree. Mabye link the friends list and the calling card system to make the conference folders you make into groups would be a good start at least hehe.

Response by Phoenix Linden - I hope he reacts better to :

I love the idea Angel... you got my vote

Reasonable, though I suspect that it might be a good idea to purely derive "mapping" from this... that is, mapping would be allowed to "friends" who are also allowed to see your online status (that is, you have "show online status to friends", or they are also in one of the other categories you're allowing). Otherwise you're giving away your online status behind your back through mapping.

I agree on the extension of muting.