Buyback for exceptional sims

How about a LL buyback program for truly exceptional sims. LL buys the sim and preserves it by turning it into a park.

For example, Svarga is one of SL's treasures. The owner is leaving and has to either sell or delete it. If it's deleted, it's a huge loss for SL. But to keep it running, she needs to find someone willing to pay at least the cost of a sim and pick up the monthly, for a property that's gorgeous but probably won't earn the new owner enough to cover the costs. If the wrong person buys it, they might start changing it.

When a sim is this valuable to SL, we need a way of preserving it.

While we're on the topic, what happens to a sim's data if the owner decides they can't afford it anymore? Is it stored or backed up anywhere in case they want to reinstate it sometime in the future, or is it gone forever?

If LL holds it, they have to suffer the loss instead. The question is, if it is worth the loss in exchange for the benefit that SL gains from the build, and sometimes the answer is yes. They have already preserved the Ivory Tower in this way so I shouldn't think it's unreasonable that Svarga would be preserved too.

Try asking in "Linden Answers"?

There are some beautiful builds in Second Life that we'd love to preserve. Maybe at some point we can create a National Parks Reserve, with caretakers and a foundation to maintain the hardware and bandwidth. We're not quite there (need to be profitable before we can think about something like that) but I'd like to think that longer term it will be possible.

But is there any mechanism in place for backing them up? I'm not sure how much data land requires, but somewhere else we were told that prims only take up 1kb compressed, 15,000 of them means less than 15mb for a whole sim worth of objects. Hard-drive space is REALLY cheap these days, so it wouldn't be hard to keep simulators that close?

Could even have some system of taking screenshots (maybe the plots on a sim that are most popular) to store them with, allowing people to buy voluntarily pay to bring it back (by buying a simulator to run it on, it would automatically restore with them in control of it).
This would be an option, sim owners who sell could opt out of leaving their sim, thus having it deleted completely instead.

We can save a snapshot, in a sim-state file. The problem there is that we don't have the system set up for long-term storage. We've also discovered that over time the quality of SL builds gets better and better, so resurrecting what was once a fabulous build can be a bit of a disappointment after a long while.

Also, new features can mean that old builds will blow things up. Philip tried to rez a bunch of objects he made on the alpha grid and crashed the sim -- they were no longer compatible with the software.

I think the best solution will be some sort of historic landmark approach, no unlike that we took with the Governor's Mansion on Clementina. But as I say, unfortunately we don't have the infrastructure just yet for that type of program on a sim-size basis.

This is truly a shame but I understand it now after you gave your detailed explanation Robin. I had been wondering about this for months after seeing the slide show and presentation on the sims Heaven & Hell. They were truly magnificent and had hoped that maybe a backup was stored somewhere. I would imagine that they probably aren't compatable with our existing grid any longer thou.

But this was also about the time of no more dwell. We lost a few places then too. People that had made such wonderful places for others enjoyment. But they could no longer afford the monthly tier. One such place was Elven Gardens, it always had a lot of people enjoying themselves there. He has relocated and rebuilt but it still isn't at it's former size or glory(But I still wanted to say thank you!!!!!!).

So this would raise one other question. What about paying dwell on non commercial public sites. Maybe some commitee to decide who meets the criteria. Let's face it the stores will always have more traffic then the parks and (sorry if this ruffles feathers) they don't need the dwell. They have Lindens coming in. But what about places like Lost Gardens of Apollo or The Caves of Rua or so many other places? In this fashion it would still be kind of a buyback from LL but based on popularity. But then again if this idea is feasable I would hate to be on the commitee. There would have to be guidelines on quantifying exactly what a place was. An example of this would be dungeons. They are non commercial and have a ton of traffic. Let's face it people want them. I would hate to be the one to set the policy that says that a dungeon with more traffic isn't eligible while Apollo is.

In a way - there is such a thing. Though admittedly on a smaller scale.

For instance, the Caledon Trolley.

It's a community thing, a wonderful thing, and its right-of-way and environment are something that the residents of Caledon maintain. How long will it last? I suspect a really long time.


You might be surprised at the number of continent owners who want an interesting or fun area that isn't tringo, a laggy club or camping chairs to maintain interest in their sims.

As in the real world, it may be the financially successful who ultimately preserve such things.

Let's just pray that the corporate sponsorship sign is a small one...

Consider me a volunteer, if I'm still around by then.

Lewis

What about an area in the forum which is specifically for these builds.

A group could be formed for each of these sims and a Linden becomes the group owner with the owner as the only person with permission to sell the land.

The group then appoints trustees, as officers, who are able to maintain and update the sim. Updates and changes to be agreed by votes from the sponsors.

A group membership of Sponsors, who have the land tier donation and associated tier costs with no rights to sell the land.

A seperate group could be formed for those who wish to be trustees of this type of sim who would be appointed by the Linden who formed the group initially and if they are in a specific group, such as this, can be found quickly.

Those wishing to sponsor these types of sims can then offer themselves as sponsors of this sim, with the amount of land they are prepared to support, which will as a divisor also indicate how much of the selling price they are prepared to put up. The trustees then decide amongst themselves who they will accept as sponsors of the sim.

Once the transfer of land to the group has been completed there can then be an election for new trustees who are voted on by the sponsors only and the group is now up and running.

A Linden remains owner of the group and the only one able to sell the land. The sponsors are in place and cannot destroy the sim with their own vision. The trustees are supported by the sponsors and are able to build and create only with the agreement of the other trustees and sponsors.

This would enable those who wish to sponsor but have no time to get heavily involved to support these sims. The trustees who want to preserve the sims but don't want to put in the money can maintain the preservation and the Linden is the impartial uninvolved administrator who ony needs to inform group members if a sponsor leaves and more tier is required to maintain the sim.

That way these types of sims can be preserved, they don't need one individual sponsor to organise everything, the seller has a place to post this type of build and can liaise with trustees to ensure the sale is progressing and there is an interest in preserving the sim.

I use sim as the unit, but it could well be a smaller land unit.

There remains the problem of people using this system to get a Linden to set upa group, trustees involved for a totally unsuitable build, so needs some tweaking, I use a Linden as an impartial advisor, but maybe sim owners of this type of property could approach an individual to take this role of group owner, it just needs to be someone totally impartial who has no function other than to appoint trustees, and inform the group if sponsors leave the group and funding/extra tier is needed before the group is dissolved and the land lost, but as a principal, any thoughts?

edit:

I ommitted to mention. Only the group owner can appoint and eject group members

It's a good idea but wouldn't work for places like Svarga because islands can't be paid for by group contribution.

Svarga could be moved to the mainland with Linden support, no? There's no built-in mechanism for this, but I don't see any reason why they couldn't manually change the island to a corner-connected sim that's part of the mainland estate, and then it COULD be paid for by donated tier.

There already seems to be a kind of volunteer national trust group, I don't recall what it's called but I occasionaly come across land that's owned by a group with a name that sounds like they're already involved in this kind of thing. I'll post here next time I see one.

Is there something we can do quickly for Svarga? I put in an offer, but yikes, it's so expensive and my offer was probably too far low anyway. I'm just doing it so that Svarga won't be deleted and will remain unchanged. I've only been in SL for a month, so it's a big and scary move. I can afford to pay a little more than the setup cost of a sim to keep it around, but to pay $200 a month as well would really be hard. Would LL consider waiving the tier if whoever buys it promises to leave it as is? Enabling tier donation to cover it would be great as well. I'll try and find that trust organization to see if they know a way to handle it.


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BTW, I really like Nowun's idea. It'd probably be best for LL to set up some kind of framework for allowing people to preserve the sims they find valuable, rather than preserving them themselves. That way no one person or group has the final say about which sims are worthy of preservation.

I, too, would like to be a part of "Saving Svarga". The prior suggestions certainly make a lot of sense. As with protected lands in the RL, it will boil down to three areas:

(1) authority over the area;
(2) upkeep; and
(3) financing

As for (1) some form of group ownership would certainly be best, with at least one Linden on the board. The proposal set forth by Norwun seems well thought out. As I am neither a builder nor scripter, I will leave it to others to discuss what is involved in(2) the upkeep of the ecosystem.

In regards to (3), financing would be needed for the purchase of the sim and the resulting tier. The initial purchase would be best made all at once, if possible, so that Svarga would be under "new ownership" from the beginning. Perhaps a loan could be sought from the SL Bank or other financial enterprise in SL that seeks to get a footing in-world? The monthly tier could be handled by a combination of annual pledges, donations, perhaps rental of the sim for weddings, events, etc.

I would volunteer to help arrange a "Save Svarga" benefit concert to draw attention to the situation if anyone else would be interested....

Niko

If you can negotiate a deal with the original owner to give you the island, you need only pay US$100 start up (the LL fee for transferring it)

Having looked at the situation I don't think this one quite matches..

LL have rescued builds before, but in every case it's been that either the owner was leaving SL and would otherwise have just abandoned the build, or the owner was forced by RL circumstances to stop maintaining the land, so all they wanted was for someone else to own the land and pay the tier.

In this case however it seems that Svarga is being sold with an expectation of profit and the owner *presumably* will deliberately intend to see it deleted if a suitable purchase price isn't reached. Of course they have every right to do this but I would think it precludes the build from being "rescued" by LL (although of course I might be wrong) since it means that the build is represented as a profit-making endeavour rather than a public service.

Yumi

I understand the perspective you have. This will inevitably be the case with many of the opportunities which arise.

It is for sponsors to value the sim and decide whether it is a build they view as being worth preserving. There need not be a hard and fast rule, as with a LL preservation, as by the very nature of the sponsorship, there is only going to be interest in sponsoring a build over which you as a sponsor have no power to sell, if it is worth preserving at a price which makes it viable.

The nature of the process I propose, will alleviate commercial sims and over priced sims will become self precluded. The very nature of sponsorship and trusteeship means that one persons treasure is another persons rubbish. These types of builds will only come under this type of umbrella if they truly fit the nature of a build requiring preservation if all parties involved are giving time and money freely. 1 Linden, 3-5 trustees, N sponsors. They will be the arbiters, not those who do not wish to be involved.

There is additionally, absolutely no reason why areas viewed by a variety of interested groups should not realise a commercial selling price.

In regard to Svarga, as has been pointed out, this land cannot be group owned and perhaps LL could coment on the query raised as to the viability of moving a private sim to the maingrid in circumstances such as this and as importantly if they would be prepared and able to commit a Linden to the role of Group owner for these types of build.

In regards to Svarga I would be interested in being part of a new ownership group, if guidelines similar to those I propose can be implemented.

I just stumbled across an amazing "Tinies" village at Phyllira (43,2, most of the sim, that is due to be deleted October 2nd.

If you want to privately sponsor a sim, then that is fine, but why in that case why do you need a Linden involved? This is not to say that having a Linden involved in a group is a bad thing, but rather than you seem to suggest it's so that the Linden can be the Owner of the land group, thus ensuring that individual sponsors can't sell or tamper with the land. But if the sponsors do not trust each other the arrangement isn't going to work at all in the first place (what happens if one of them pulls out their money?).

The alternative suggestion is that LL ought to get involved because the sim is of benefit to Second Life and needs to be rescued by somebody, and as I mentioned LL have done this in the past, but only with areas that (AFAIK) weren't being sold on a commercial basis. For example the Ivory Tower, it is tiered by LL now, but I don't think they actually paid Lumiere for it, they just took it over to prevent it being removed. The problem is that LL can't be left in the position where they have to go to the sim owner and say "the SL public are demanding we preserve this sim, so we have to buy it from you per policy, and you knowing that can set whatever price you like.. um.."

I personally don't think LL should get involved. Only because I can see all sorts of problems down the road. If they save this sim, and do not save another sim, there will be cries of favoritism and the dreaded FIC accusation.

That's fine Yumi,

You don't think my idea is valid. I have no problem with that.

I am trying to generate an idea that may work, some think it is viable. I am sure there are other solutions, let's hear them.

LL have explicitly stated in this thread they are not in a position to do anything at present.

So we are left with three choices. Let sims go, try to preserve sims within the current frame work, or find an alternative solution.

I opt for the third.

Dennie

I agree to an extent. However, I used the Linden as an administrative individual. I do not see they are in any way involved in finding or deciding on sims to be preserved.

If I a sim owner think I have a sim worth preserving. I would envisage contacting the Linden Liaison (which is where I said in my initial post, I can envisage waste of time applications). The Linden does not then evaluate the rights or wrongs of this sim, but merely appoints 3-5 trustees to a newly formed group and it is to them that the task of finding sponsors falls. The sponsors ultimately decide the saving or not of the sim.

Lindens involvement would explicitly not be to select but to act, as they do with DMCA takedowns.

But you're still asking them to act. And should they do this for every sim that might be removed? The Linden involvement is just not feasible. You want them to set up a 3 person committee? Who gets to be on it?

I think if a sim is going to be saved, it has to be by individuals.

Nowun, I'm not trying to shoot your idea down completely. I guess what I'm trying to say is to clarify what problem you're trying to solve. Are you saying that it should become possible for people to contribute to saving a sim without needing to trust each other, because that way more people can be gotten involved more quickly?