Blumfield Residents Association

The Blumfield Residents Association will hold a meeting at 2 p.m. SL, Tuesday, Dec. 13, at the office of Pathfinder Linden, who has kindly agreed to meet with us.
All residents and interested observers are invited to attend.
We hope to learn what our options are in creating a community, whether we can or should have zoning and whether we can have community space.
Gwyneth Llewellyn has graciously accepted our invitation to act as moderator as we proceed with our discussion.
If you are interested in attending, please IM me so we can have a head count to determine if a bigger meeting space is needed.
Residents are encouraged to visit other sims, such as Boardman, for comparison.

Self-organized groups like this can have some valuable impact on SL society.

I hope that you'll keep us posted on the progress in organizing it, getting participation, and what challenges the association gets to deal with them and how it works.

Frank

With grid going down and the latest update and my computer acting in mysterious ways, I cant log in at all just now... if the meeting does manage to happen, let me know what I missed.

We are watching you


Seriously, though, I'm interested in how this progresses.

I prob wont follow this up today, as Ive too much real work to do, but here is the summary.

I did eventually make it in (after changing my firewall! anyone else have firewall problems after the 1.8 update or only me?), and got to the meet a little late - but so did most other people.

Jeannedellalune sadly was unable to attend, though Im not sure why.

Zoning support from Linden was ruled out - though Pathfinder agreed/stated that better group tools to allow things like zoning and preventing land being scammed are needed. We wont hold our breath for that though.

Self-(voluntary) zoning seems the only option, with some predictions of doom and gloom on a biblical scale come march when the residents can sell their land - dormant residents in particular could be an issue here. If possible, it would be good if sellers could sell to other blumfield residents - or at least not to sell to 'rotating billboards of beelzebub' operatives.

While not discussed much (there were a lot of non-blumfielders in attendance), it seems that 'community building' stuff (bake sales and pot-lucks maybe local events ) will be important to try to build a place where people want to stay and want to keep 'nice'.

A voluntary zoning code is of course unenforceable, but if it makes place nicer and enough people agree to keep to the spirit of the code then maybe - just maybe - blumfield wont totally descend into the pits of hell in the new year.

Community space didnt really make it in to the meeting - and does not seem to be on the cards - unless again that is arranged by the residents themselves.


Not from the meeting, but some of my ideas - feedback please?
1. Zoning code. These are my ideas, but others may disagree. This being forums, they probably will.
Maintain residential styling - pref. 50's 'inspired'. Voluntary code to keep buildings to one or two storeys. Keep sky's clear from roof tops to 100m - allow builds in sky above that.

2. Do stuff!
Im afraid I havent been able to spend a great deal of time inworld, much less than expected. But spending some time in Blumfield doing things locally is important.

One resident (Axon) has put a gaming area in his house, and is very friendly, some others have started building shops while still keeping to a residential theme.

Findal suggested putting a freeby welcome pack for residents together - a nice idea.

A welcome party sometime over the next couple of weeks would be good too.

Have some local competitions (most fun house, best garden, best av)
invite speakers - on selling in SL, on building, on AVs, on...

3. Find one or two times that are convenient for blumfield residents for meetings - I think we are mostly North America and Europe, so two different times might be required.

While exploring ways to manage land usage in your community, you might find some techniques of value in the Neualtenburg experiment. A summary of Neualt's set up and some comments are in the Law Society group forum. Link in my sig.

Hi Patch

Although all of your ideas are great and I too think the residential community is the best one for all of us...

There is still the issue of land ownership: Mostly everyone is open to sell in February, and I think it would be very helpful if they let us know in advance and give US the opportunity to buy the land first. Naturally the land is only desirable if it's next to our own lots, but there may be someone who wants more land no matter where it is, for realestate purposes...so I think selling within first, is a question to ask the community about.

Also if we could do what Boardman did, and make an area for shopping...that may help the business situation for our residents.

I myself want more land, since our prim usage is very limited within a 512m Lot.

What do you think?

IMO Boardman is a perfect example of a working community. It's not only pleasing to the eye, but I'm sure there are many viewers who would love to become a part of something like it. Since we're a new community, we have the resources and the ability to grow in that direction. I'm in agreement that we should all strive to make Blumfield as wonderful as it can be

So sorry I wasn't able to attend. A contractor working in my RL neighborhood decided to blow the cable, so everyone has been without cable/internet for more than a day.

Apparently the meeting was well attended, and I guess we have work to do if we want to become a community.

My thanks to Patch for his/her work. I hope to be in touch soon.

Feedback on your number: try 150 meters instead. The skies can get junky when lots of people put up platforms and skyboxes, so the higher the better.

Good luck with your residents association!

Sorry to hear about your sad loss of cable.
Typical though, you arrange a meeting in SL with a weeks notice, and then just when you need in it all goes boom.

And thanks for the suggestion Traxx, it'll go straight into the voluntary zone code.

First of all, my sincere apologies — I should have posted this transcript before! I thought I had lost it by mistake, but today, by some stroke of luck, I find out that I just had forgotten to add a .txt extension to it, and since it had a weird name, I didn't saw it as a "text file" hehe. Ah well, we all make mistakes (can I be excused for being a RL blonde? )

Some short explanations first. The meeting was "free to attend" and of course the largest group were the Blumfielders, the most interested ones. Jeanne sadly couldn't attend, but she managed to write an agenda for the meeting:



Sadly, I came in a bit too late, meaning that the meeting was slightly shorter than planned, but I think we were able to discuss the points that Jeanne suggested. And after the meeting was officially over, we had some time to discuss it among ourselves even after Pathfinder left.

A bit of information here, just for you to understand who attended. Pathfinder Linden is one of the Linden employees, part of the Community Team (headed by Robin Linden). You will often see the members of the Community Team more than willing to discuss these kinds of issues with us in-world. It's part of their job description If you wish, they're LL's "eyes and ears" in-world, since they have actually got some time just to talk to us On the other hand, they're neither developers, nor policy-makers — they can bring back to Linden Lab suggestions regarding ideas we have, but they can't enforce those directly. What they can do is reorganize priorities on the development team, for instance, if some isssue should be addressed before others in the Linden development timescale. Pathfinder, as an example, is always interested in understanding what kind of tools are really demanded by the residents to create more communities. Rest assured that much of the feedback that was given him on this issue will definitely be spread around inside Linden Lab

Lauren Linden, mentioned in the transcript, is one of the marketeers of Linden Lab. Recently she has been "dragged" (in the good sense of the word!!) to come more often in-world, and see with her own eyes what goes on in SL. As you'll see from the transcript, Pathfinder made clear that Blumfield is a "marketing experiment" and nothing more. This means that slightly changing the "experiment" needs Lauren's approval. Jeanne is currently trying to catch Lauren's attention to Blumfield's issues, and I bet that she already got some feedback from Pathfinder on this issue.

Prokofy Neva and Shaun Altman are not Blumfielders — rather, they are "community builders" on their own. You can view them as "experts" in areas related to land, economy, and society — they have struggled with very similar problems to Blumfield and devised ways to deal with them, slowly and patiently. You can look at these two guys as "advisors" — they have dealt with LL quite often, they're very keen on having LL mantain "fairness" overall, but they also have their own interests that, say, better community-related tools are deployed, since they will benefit not only Blumfield but the whole of SL as well. They were also key in producing answers and giving advice on what can/should be done in Blumfield. Consider their opinions as "wisdom from the senior advisers" Even if you disagree with some of their ideas, rest assured that their role was mostly giving input to the discussion.

In my case, I'm neither a landowner, nor a Blumfield resident, nor even Linden-associated. Of course, I happen to be a part of the Neualtenburg group, so I'm quite sensitive to community-related issues as well. Before that, I tried to help out the community in the old sim of Uli, and it's due to that experience that I have understood how difficult and daunting the task of "community-building" is in SL.

You'll see that during the transcript that names like "Taber", "Boardman", and "Brown" pop up. These are older "experiences" by Linden Lab. In some of the cases, they resemble Blumfield, in the sense that there was some urban planning done by the Lindens before the plots were open to residents. These have, however, some rules that have to be followed (ie. zoning), and Lindens enforce those rules. In some sense, we tried to see how open LL was to slowly transform Blumfield in a "new Boardman/Taber/Brown", and how willing Blumfielders would be to pay for that privilege. Linden-enforced communities are, however, a big exception. And there is no example yet of a resident association that managed to get Linden enforcement.

All these points were quite interesting to discuss as the meeting unfolded, as you'll shortly see...

This is true. As young resident, you can buy 1024sqm Starter Land in zoned residential sims such as Ellis Island or Newport on the Dreamland continent for only 1024 L$. You then own 1024sqm and pay 8$ monthly tier fee. You don't need to maintain a premium account.

Unlike rental, you can resell your land deed to other residents. Currently we have more than 500000sqm in land sales transactions in Dreamland - per month!

The main difference is that at ANSHECHUNG.COM we maintain our own land ownership database, separate from Linden Lab. Thus, your ownership rights are guaranteed by us instead of by Linden Lab. When you resell land, you don't list it for sale in Linden Lab's land finder, but on our website.

Well, there may be no zoning enforcement but the Blumfield residents association has not been inactive...

Jeannedellalune has turned her land into a very nice community pool with changing room and dance machine.
An excellent spot for parties...
http://www.sluniverse.com/pics/pic.aspx?id=45551

My own land is currently modelled as a community park - very basic for now, until I collect a wider variety of garden plants and furniture (and until feb. when my deeds turn to ownership and I can landscape the plot a little).
http://www.sluniverse.com/pics/pic.aspx?id=45734

Im hoping to make the park a bit more auditorium like... maybe try and get an occaisional class running, generally a place for chilling and chatting.

Cool

The whole time I owned land in Brown a linden spent maybe 20 minutes cleaning up and enforcing the rules. It is not all that labor intensive for LL to maintain zoned sims, and It's something that is highly desirable for residents.

NO BRAINER!

Hi

I've flown over your land many times and I'm very impressed. I have a question:

I currently live in Blumfield and most likely always will. I'd like to purchase an additional 1,024 lot...hopefully on or overlooking water. Is that possible for a small amount of lindens, or am I a dreamer?

Thanks for your reply in advance.

if anshe hasnt got back to you yet, I'll be a little surprised...

I think you might be dreaming, but just a little.

This is all from what Ive been able to gather, but Im no land dealer and havent bought any land yet so apologies if there are any mistakes in this.

to buy land from anshe you pay in dollars - check out her site at anshechung.com I think.
You dont have to be a premium member though.

Prokofy Neva (and many others) will rent you land for lindens - again, I dont think you need to be premium, but the cost of lindens will mean that unless you have a pretty successful in game business then you'll need a premium subsciption to afford it (or buy lindens with dollars using lindenx)
Have a look at the "How does island land differ from mainland land?" thread in this forum for more.

Another alternative, if you have the patience, is to save up your lindens for feb/march and
try and grab some more land in blumfield if/when it becomes available. Standard blumfield plots are 512m2 - which I guess should go for 3000-4000 lindens or there abouts.

If you know anyone locally planning to move out, see if you can agree a sale before the land becomes available to make sure you get it and not someone else. If you own several plots of land in the same area I believe that you can join them even if they are not physically connected. You can then spend all the prim allowance on just one of the plots if you want.

Hey Patch...how are you? I haven't seen you in SL a lot. You must be a busy worker in the RW Anyway back to ths subject at hand:

I had NO Idea her land was for $. I wouldn't even consider that. I have spoken to people lately about her sims/land, and I don't think it's the way to go for me. I'm going to stick to the Lindens for payment, and I want to buy the land legally...that it will be mine and not something that someone can reach out and take back at any given moment. I'm not saying she's not legal; I'm just stating that *I* want to buy/purchase public land and not land that although I would "own" it sort of, it would still be on someone elses sim and still owned by them...whew got that out. LOL!

I was thinking about putting a sign up in front of my house in Blumfield for my neighbors to see. I'd LOVE to buy more land in Blumfield when the time comes around. Right now I don't have many neighbors surrounding my land...it hasn't been taken as yet. I may just end up buying whatever comes along and hoping to buy something next to that as well. We'll see what happens when February comes

Thanks for replying and for your help. Being in this commnunity is wonderful. I love the care and the sharing that we all do

Nevada

It's good to know that somebody has the solution to the Impeach George Bush sign problem.

It's a good thing Anshe is here to take care of us.

Remember, the difference is one of trust — you trust Linden Lab more than Anshe Chung because really, at the bottom level, there is no difference (LL is also able to remove your land without explanation at all, under their Terms of Service, and I might say that they might have done that more often than Anshe, but that's another story ). Anshe needs to work under a flawless reputation in order to keep her thousands of customers happy, like any other company in RL.

What Anshe (or rather Dreamland) mostly does is provide value-added service. In the mainland, there are no rules, and disputes are only solved through abuse reports to Linden Lab, which rarely have any effect when there is a need to argue and make a decision based on morals and ethics, and not a "technical" decision. At Dreamland, you have clearly written rules, you know what you can count with, and there will always be people who actively enforce those rules (well, beyond all the rest — Dreamland is also about culture, not only "enforcing rules" — and they provide that as well).

It seems, however, that all the Blumfielders' requests have not been ignored by Linden Lab. In about 3 months or so (could be sooner), there will be "zoned communities", a novelty for mainland sims. Although the descriptions leave more questions than give answers, it looks like the way it will work is tying "convenants" (a contract between all members) to a group, and thus, group-owned land will be able to be subject to those rules. If someone has violated one of rules, the whole group can vote to "empower" one of their members to correct the offense. How exactly this is going to work is anyone's guess, and the discussion has not even started! But the good news is that Blumfield, perhaps not yet in mid-February, but eventually a few weeks after that, will be able to join this model of "zoned community" and somehow address all issues related to your urban planning that way.

Also, if someone sells their land to someone else, that someone else will have to read the "covenant" and accept it. So this really means that everyone inside that "zoned community" will have to comply with the rules. And of course these can be changed — everyone just has to agree together on a new covenant!