Linden Letter about Zoning

Got this notecard from Jack Linden. Posting reply in the forums.

No doubt I've just lost my fasttrack to FICdom as well, but here ya go:

I'm doing a little research on zoning, and how it affects or aids communities. I want to get views from those that are involved in zoning - as landlords, sim owners, residents within those areas. If you could answer any or all of these questions, I'd appreciate it. Your views will be aired within Linden Lab only.

1. Which zoned areas are you involved with and in what capacity?
Resident of Midge, Meins, A'Ksha, and I've helped out a little bit with Boardman. Lent land tier to NBerg for awhile.

2. Which zoned communities are you aware of, and which one is the best example in your opinion?
Boardman is best, then DarkWood(kinda zoned, kinda just friends), and then NBerg. Heard about Lusk, but it seemed more like a loose affiliation of friends than a zoned area.

A'Ksha is my personal favorite for the future though still in early stages so hard to say its proven itself.

I think Boardman owes a lot of its success to the balanced leadership of Ingrid.



3. Do you think that zoning helps create a sense of community amongst the residents, or is it merely a selling point for the plots?
Yes and Yes

4. Whats the single biggest advantage to a resident in choosing to live in a zoned area?
Escape griefer builds (see various cube of death threads)

5. What is the biggest disadvantage?
Loss of freedom

6. If you could wish for any single zoning/land related improvement to the secondLife software - what would it be?
Something like what Anshe is doing, but you don't have to buy the land / pay the whole tier in order to make it happen. Anshe had to buy the whole sim in order to zone it. Also, led by someone like Ingrid who is more into it for the creation act than the profit. (Though I have no problem with profit

7. Do you think Linden Lab should offer more zoned areas, or should it be left to residents to create and run new zoned communities? And why?
Should be left to residents .. just provide them with better tools. LL needs to provide an ecology where evolution occurs, this is clearly their whole point of existence and clearly where they are most successful. Picking the ideas and the people and circumventing the evolution is bad news all around.


8. When creating a zoned area, what features do you feel help to promote community living, colaboration and friendship amongst the residents? Roads, Parks, ??
It all depends on the type of build. For example, what if I got a sim and cleared out all the land and water and made it a "Space Sim"? Where would be the roads and parks there?

Any further feedback is appreciated too, just notecard your views. Many thanks for taking the time to answer some or all of these questions.

I know you guys have an aversion the forums, but at the very least let people know you're thinking about this so they aren't caught with their pants down when you suddenly show all this new stuff your thinking about.


Jack Linden

Jack sent me a PM about the same residential issues and suggested a meeting in world. He also mentioned if I was busy he could just write questions. I replied that I could meet with him but hoped he'd put the questions on a card. I thought that would be good to then circulate among others with experience and views on these communities.

I also told a friend of mine who has been interested in sponsoring them and seeing if they can work. We agreed to ask if Jack could hold some kind of inworld meeting. I know it turns into a 30-avatar alphabet soup lagging a sim if you try to have a Linden to your house, but we could try to do this somehow, and perhaps try to have several meetings with several focus groups so that it doesn't become the usual laggy griefer insanity.

Thanks for posting the answers Blaze.

As the Linden dealing with the Linden zoned sims, I simply wanted to learn a little more and thought this an easy way to do that. Don't read anything more into it than that. I picked those that I did, just because I noticed on my travels that they are living in or running zoned areas, or have shown interest in the topic on the forums. But anyone is free to notecard me their views too.

And Blaze, catching anyone with their pants down is the last thing I had in mind.


Jack

Cool topic.

Jack, it looks like you and I are wondering about the same things.

I didn't realize you were thinking about having an inworld meeting about this. On my own (convergent evolution at work), I had set up an informal meeting for this Sunday about this very topic:

http://secondlife.com/events/event.php?id=43881&date=1113721200

If anyone at this meeting is interested in examples of zoning adeas, I have a few good images of sim plans i have worked on over the past several days. Perhaps some visual aids will help a discussion?

I am free and eager to aid in any discussion

~Lefty

Great idea, Lefty. Please bring them to the meeting!

My understanding of Jack's request for a meeting was that it was informal, and that he'd be canvassing different people and having kind of "focus groups" over some time to gather information and ideas about how zoned communities are already done and how people want them to be done in the future.

I pictured these as informal gatherings here and there, maybe even traveling around to look at some of the communities.

The problem with creating a scheduled event on the events map is that numerous people are hungry for content and engagement and bored with Tringo. And 40 avatars or how ever many can fit in that sim will swarm in even for something that seems an egg-headed topic like architecture. And among those 40 will be 2 griefers or nuisance cases that babble and hog the floor and crash vehicles around LOL. Of course it's everyone's right to be at a public Linden meeting and this topic definitely needs some participation from the community, but does it have to be the usual alphabet soup?

The problem with this kind of posted meeting is that people begin to jockey furiously into position to be the ones to show off to the Lindens and get the ears of the game devs, the Holy Grail of wannabee architects and urban planners. One eager beaver already has a slide show now scheduled to show us plans for something that doesn't exist yet?

Um, do I get equal time to show slides of communities that already exist on a number of sims lol? But why bore everyone like that?

Honestly, this discussion is so important to have and so important for the Lindens to get A LOT more information than they have on it that it should be structured, and held not once, not twice, but as a series, and have formal alphabet-soup 40-av discussions as well as more informal smaller focus groups and definitely some trips to see these communities.

I can't stress this enough. Please, Lindens, listen to people who have already done this, already spent money on this, already tried a lot of things, already gained field experience, already have something coherent to say. Don't make us fight for your attention in an alphabet soup of 40 avs.

Well, I disagree with you, Prok.

I think there are a number of tools *especially* with the advent of 1.6 and streaming that the Lindens could be using to do mini townhalls.

Setting up a basic capture/streaming server and then people can IM in questions is very basic.

Even if it is just a text repeater, that would be fine (though sad, given all the hard work that went into QT streaming).

There are many many things the Linden's could be taking advantage of in order to be inclusive..

Trying to pick the feted few *will not* result in a meaningful statistical sample.

le sigh

Geez, I don't know why you think *I* would be advocating talking to the feted few!

I'm saying they should do town halls -- and you have a good idea, why don't they use those very video tools they just put in? Didn't think of that (because I often crash or don't get them to work I guess.)

But I'm saying on this subject, it would be worth their while to actually visit the zoned residential communities that do exist, and have like "focus groups" of the managers and residents. They could go out and make a series of site visits that way. Then there wouldn't be the "alphabet soup" crowd -- they can do that (using repeaters helps the congestion) but I think more focused visits are useful too.

Hey Blaze, I still can't see the wheels on the trolley.

Blaze made a trolley in Boardman. It's quite neat.


Have fun fighting for the attention of the Lindens guys.

Very good points. Town halls about this topic are definitely a great idea.

The meeting I scheduled is just what I called it...an informal discussion, not a town hall. Anyone who wants to attend is welcome. It's just a first step towards addressing this important issue, and I'll be sure to have more if there is a lot of interest.

Tell you what. This is an informal meeting, but I'll be hosting it and trying to guide the discussions so everyone will have a chance to say what's on their mind. So if anyone else has "slides" or a brief thing to present, please email me at [email]pathfinder@lindenlab.com[/email] or post in this thread. I'll make sure it's on the "informal agenda" for the meeting, as well as allowing as much time as possible for open discussion. I'll also share the minutes of the meeting with everyone by posting them in this thread. Sound fair?

I also really like the idea of having future meetings in different places in SL where people are actually managing communities with zoning in mind.

I heard some junkies stole the wheels to sell for meth

That sounds like a good idea, for you to moderate the discussion and queue up the proposals and questions.

I'm fairly new, so I don't know how "informal" meetings with the Lindens have traditionally worked.

I've been to a number of town halls and I've seen that there is a huge pressing demand to get access to Lindens and have as many town-hall repeaters as can even be put into one viewable area on the events schedule. People flock to them with intense interest obviously.

When we had an informal discussion with Xenon Linden at the Sacred Moth Temple in Iris, I figured the subject matter involving architectural models for Linden builds, etc. was a bit wonkish and therefore might only gather say 20-30 people. But in fact it got 40 with many more struggling to TP into the area. I'm just saying that when you put an event on the events schedule and announce that a Linden is going to be hosting an event, you will have a lot of pent-up demand. Some people will come just to shout that their game is crashing LOL (and who can blame them).

So I'm just saying that in addition to what I call "alphabet soup" gatherings (which are a sea of name tags and a sea of scrolling statements often off-topic and a sea of IMs with letters all swimming together), there might be sort of "site-visits" rolled over time and around the grid to prevent that kind of "congestion".

I think if you're serious about getting people's feedback, the notecard is the way to go. A meeting, even an informal one, will end up being a handful of people stroking their own egos and wanting to hear themselves talk. Frankly, that doesn't interest me in the least and I doubt it'll lead to anything productive.

productive.
__________________


Maybe people who have put in the time and money and effort to make zoned residential communities in this very risky and difficult climate in a virtual world *should* have some change to "stroke their egos" a bit and shine? I don't mind watching others do it as long as it is choreographed so we all get a little show-and-tell spot.

After all, YOU would get a chance to shine with Boardman and Brown, too, if such a little slide-show could be permitted, and rightly so!

I don't want to shine. I want to be dull and lackluster.

Trolley is fixed Now someone needs to remove the cars or move them out of the way, heh

We need parking space in Boardman!

Also, if someone goes to the center point of each corner and sends it to me with a little map I'll add all thew waypoints of the rest of the Sim.


As for townhalls, another way is to just randomly drop in and survey people randomly who are in the Sims like Prok suggested.

That would be a statistical random sample, it would also be indicative of the people who actually spend time in these zoned sims rather than those who claim to.

Seriously? do i need to move the cars for the trolley? I will if you want. IM me when you want to do the waypoints, I'll help. What happened to the DING DING DING???

Well, sit in the trolley and zoom in your camera to your avatar and it goes ding ding ding at the corners.

I didn't want to make the sound too loud as sound polution can be a bit annoying sometimes and not everyone likes it.

I remember having land next to a casino once and it drove me *mad* with all the casino noises. Though, really, that was like every 10 minutes sometimes and this would be once every few hours (it randomly dings at each corner, not everytime).

If you can get buy in from everyone (heh), I can amplify it with Audacity.

Some of the cars are owned by other people, so that might be a bit hard to get them moved.

The big thing I really need I guess is someone to collect way points for me

oh screw everybody.. more DING DING DING!

okay ill try to get way points this weekend. How come i can NEVER reach you in world?

Well, Ingrid gave this meeting a pass, as did others who are important to the cause of residential zoned sims, so one can only hope that the Lindens will quietly go around and just meet one-on-one in-world with people who did this for a living and take some time to visit these important sims.

I'm sure there were those who thought I was guilty of ego-stroking for speaking out at this meeting frequently and forcefully, but honestly, I didn't bore anybody with a slide show and I left feeling the same kind of frustration, sarcasm, and even anger that I all too often feel in this game which -- even allowing for my sour and cantankerous disposition -- can be engendered in any sentient being who matches the stated intentions with the result: that while everybody loves zoned community planned residential sims, the examples they cite of them, or the models they promote for them, are not truly zoned, not truly community, not truly planned, and not truly residential, in one fashion or another.

On the one hand, sure, it was a happy meeting with happy little trees that go in that happy little corner -- remember that guy who used to do the painting on TV? God, I loved that guy! (Did you know he's *dead*? But his shows keep appearing on TV!)

All kinds of happy examples were trotted out. Meins, that wonderful sim that looks good and makes everybody happy [why do these happy sims always have German names?] ...until Prok said but is Meins all sold? Is Meins moving? Is GIGAS pulling out because they can't make a profit off rentals? Then came Taber...but Prok cranked that Taber was just a few people and not a good example to replicate because it basically involves only one excellent architect and a couple who are excellent engineers. I was corrected by a Linden who said there are 6 landowners on that sim. *Shrugs*. Well the sim owners can comment but I'm just echoing what they said -- just basically one guy paying most of the tier with a friend or two online occasionally -- and I'm sorry, but that is NOT a persuasive model for me for "zoned residential sims".

Nobody ever talked about Ansheland -- although they should have!

Several proposals were put forth for the usual socialist handouts -- oh Lindens, we have a vision that is anti-capitalist and utopian and will Save-the-Whales, please do this or you will look like people who beat up baby seals. To which your humble correspondent said...um...who's going to pay for this about 20 times in 20 different ways to 20 different ideas just like that until finally a Linden shushed me and said "We're aware of your views on this subject, Prokofy" -- but honestly, the Lindens make money off the land auction...how come they don't want other people to?

Robin told us that they "wouldn't be doing that again" [involuntary shudder] over the Nberg type of subsidy -- and God bless them for it!

Baba Yamamoto (sorry if I mangled the name) had a brilliant idea -- how about "try before you buy". Get a sim, but then give it back if it doesn't work. This was discussed here and elsewhere and Ryan's letter gave a figure of $100 for return fees. This seemed like a wonderful idea! Let's work on that! God knows those first 30 days you are scrambling to deal with a sim are SO HARD!!!!!

Several high-end architects/artists in the meeting seemed to confuse their need for a high-end/double-prim sim, in a low-cost, risk-free scheme, with a different public need (greater than the public's need to consume art) which is to PLAY HOUSE. Most people laughed at me when I raised this urgent issue of the public's need to PLAY HOUSE because in polite company, among artists, socialists, scripterati, and earnest Lindens, you don't sully the dinner napkins and frighten the servants and the pets by mentioning *all those other people who need to play house*.

A discussion on the borked group land tools was held with all the right and proper points made about how they need to change. The Lindens are definitely working on this and are going to try to fix them. But...I do worry about this. Why? Because a really clear-cut Very Bad Thing like officer recall is still not really registering. I explained how officer recall separates a man from his land he paid for, by allowing clamoring idjit masses to strip away land from him for their "anti-capitalist" vision I guess. Whereupon a Linden admonished me that "just the other day" someone had "successfully" used officer recall for a good end. I'll bet a month's tier bill that that group did NOT have a land issue at stake at that officer was NOT among those who had *paid for a purchase of land and kept tier on it* (I hope to God he wasn't). I reiterated my ardent belief that officer recall is never used to remove tyrants but is always used to separate legitimate landowners from their property, undermining the only basis for the rule of law we have in this very wild west we live in called SL. I was instructed this wasn't true. Since my experience is limited to just seeing how awful and mischievious officer recall is -- so often it is triggered by mistake -- well, let others come forward and convince me about this.

A major recognition was achieved at this meeting, however, by Lindens as well as players, that the group tools have to be more finely tuned to allow a founder who paid for land not to lose it due to a pernicious recall. Numerous other suggestions were listed, i.e. that members can't deed objects and should be able to, that different grades of members were needed with different levels of permissions etc. I'm confident the Lindens are working on this. What I am apprehensive about is how some feature of it will inevitably get worse if there isn't a basic, normal, healthy acknowledgement of this fact: that people who pay land and tier must have more rights and privileges in a group than all the rest. To make this admission runs square against the Chomskyian grain of every tekkie from here to breakfast, and yet they better grit their teeth and make it or they will never have more high-end customers.

A long detour was made in general about wikis on the Second Life website and how nobody gets them or adds to them and they could have disinformation on them but Lindens assured us they weed out that kind of stuff.

OK, there's the cranky Prok take on it and I'll stop now and let someone else draw in the happy little trees.

Haha Prok! I'm not sure about your connection between tekkies and Chomsky, but keep up the good fight for group tools. Your 'confident' they are working on the issue, yet I was 'confident' a year ago it would be a simple fix -- Obviously I was wrong. I respect the originality of concept that SL has to offer and have been pulled in via temporary addiction like everyone else, but the game just isn't set up for mid/long term development by teams of individuals (or what i like to call 'groups'). Everyone knows that it is virtually impossible to coordinate projects with other players that are larger than a home or club without significantly trusting people you very likely have never met. The Lindens just don't care. In a perfect world this would be a significant priority because it holds the whole game back. I can only imagine where SL would be today if in-game development was not hindered by such faulty design. Yet somehow, I doubt they will EVER bother to get around to fixing the crap they have now. Apparently it works just enough to be called barely functional and thats good enough for them. I recently logged in after a good break from SL to relize just how non-functional they and many of the other interfaces really are. If you, Linden Lab, want to be a game development platform then I have all the respect in the world for that, but you are failing in one of the most important areas of that task. In hindsight, I'm surprised I put up with all the problems at all. Until this is addressed I most definitally wouldn't suggest anyone invest actual capital in a company that is unwilling to protect your assets from blatant theft or mismanagement.

that people who pay land and tier must have more rights and privileges in a group than all the rest.

I continue to believe this could be ideological stumbling blocks the Lindens, and the Chief Linden, are continuing to have.

It might be unconscious. Sometimes such ideologies are inchoate. They may be uncomfortable about it because of player pressure. But they seem to have devised groups as "all equal" due to some ideological precept about how groups or organizations should work.

I don't think Will Wright suffered from these ideological hindrances in TSO. Of course, TSO was a much more tiny toy village, though it had more players. But there, you were encouraged, indeed FORCED to cooperate with people on lots to do the job-sharing objects like. And it was understood that the founder of the lot, who paid for the lot, had greater privileges than the rest automatically precisely because he was founder, or property leader. He then had the right to grant build privileges to the roomies who came on to join him, giving them the right to build on that lot.

The tools were further refined from their original incarnation precisely due to griefers and lot-trashing. They had to get rid of the right of roomies to chose their own wall paper because too often, the roomies would use that privilege to infiltrate an enemy lot and sabotage the whole house, rearranging everything into a pile, putting ugly wallpaper on, and spelling out obscene words in a tile -- a delightful affair which then led to that property owner being banned for having an obscene lot -- one not of his own creation. Sound familiar?

In the same way, officer recall and tier-pulling by regular members create a nasty situation where a person who has bought land can be separated from it. This constant Linden admonishment that "group land is group land and belongs to the group" just doesn't acknowledge the role of the investor. People can't create real businesses and real non-profits with real structure out of these idiotic group tools that were just designed for people knocking around in sandboxes and building different parts of an elephant. They need to get more serious about making them real tools to promote cooperation AND protect investment!

It's as if the modern organizational structure of a chairman and a board of trustees and officers was deliberately thrown over by the LL in favor of some more ancient tribal pow-wow or collectivist commune. People in the New Age cultures often serve up these models as new and innovative but they are actually versions of ancient ways that in fact ensured that nobody could assume responsibility, leadership, and ownership and therefore create a society of other such free beings like himself who also assumed responsibility, leadership, and ownership.

A good book to read about how societies evolve leadership, responsibility, freedom, etc. is
Civilization and Its Enemies: The Next Stage of History by Lee Harris. People can sift out what they need from this without having to obsess on his premise about America's leadership role in the world -- his analysis of different styles of organization and apprenticing in societies through the ages is a helpful one.

I'm interested in zoning, but I'm not interested in neo-McCarthyist ranting. Is there a seperate thread for that?