A possible mature furry mainland community?

In the last year there's been an explosion of furry island sims which has been a great thing to see happen. But at the same time there are many furs, like myself, who are premium account holders and are tied to the mainland. Scattered and fragmented often stuck between clubs, malls, abandoned builds, lag-pits or even hostile neighbours.

At this point in time there's large tracts of land available all over the mainland, so that's not a problem. The main decision would be the location and initial amount of land acquired as a 'seed'. I've considered being a facilitator to bring groups of furs together in possibly more congenial surroundings on the mainland for some time now. Possible models would be either outright individual / group land ownership, a 'free-for-tier' model as used on the Luskwood estate or a mix of both. I'm open to all possibilites and suggestions. I intend for there to be a certain amount of common space, a store that would be available for the estate residents to sell their goods and possibly a club for social events. There would be no restrictions on how individuals use their land aside from the normal consideration of one's neighbours.

I would like to point out that while I am not able to buy large tracts of land outright, I am happy to throw my own limited funds into the pot in order to see such a project come to fruition. So there you have it. If you're interested, please either post a reply on this thread, send me an IM in-world or an email reply to: [email=alazarinmobius@hotmail.com]alazarinmobius@hotmail.com[/email]

I don't expect this to fly overnight. As a matter of fact, I'd rather wait until enough folks are interested and prepared to commit themselves to such an undertaking before making a move.

The past few weeks, I have had a slowly progressing project - to organise an island for some friends of mine and I (mostly furs) to share. So, I've been doing a lot of looking into things like island financing, group management, etc.

I'm interested in working with you, as it might be a chance to join forces and, by joining momentum, help to actually get something *done*

IM me inworld if you're interested.

Is your signature obnoxious enough yet?

Yeah, seriously... putting huge pictures in your sig is a terrible idea.


Don't do long sigs, kids.


I do think that this is a good idea, but lets be serious here:
Not all people in SL are furries.

Maybe I missed the point of your idea, but are you suggesting a whole continent (or a small one) for furries?
If so, that's a pretty stupid idea. First off, there are far too many places for furries and tinies everywhere around SL. Secondly, only furries would be allowed to be residents there... that would be not good. Third, since there will be all furries, a break in the system would be a potential safety danger; if someone hated furries (not me, I'm not a furry but I am indifferent) then having them in the area would not be good if you know what I mean...

as kind of the one person who probably has more continuous experience than anyone alive at:

1) running an 'unsupported' mainland theme area
2) attempting to work group/community land on the mainland
3) running a 'furry' area on the mainland

i think i can unequivocably say that anyone who even thinks about trying to do all three is insane, masochistic, or idiotic, or perhaps all three.

You won't get the tools you need to make it work, and to make up for that, you are going to have to throw ridiculous amounts of personal time and energy, to even only partially make up the difference between this and island ownership.

We've done it, barely, and i wouldn wish tryin to do it again, on our worst enemy, the deck is just amazingly amazingly stacked against you from the very start.

if you really really really feel you have to, i will try and support you guys any way i can, but seriously, if you have *ANY* choice at all, money is, right now, clearly *unquestionably* better spent on an island.

and i do mean PURCHASE of an island, being beholden to someone else via 'renting' is a joke, and one with a really bad punch line, as everyone has recently found out :/

To be honest, i can honestlyagree with this idea, and I have no doubt that it would be very very difficult, but of course, such an are wouldn't be purely and only for furs, such a thing is bigotry, which many furs have been subject to. I think it would be an amazing idea, it would take loads of time, of that there's no doubt.

It would be an amazing idea, and if I can help, and am allowed to, I will certainly do so.

Thanks for the feedback so far, folks.

Angel, if you're looking to do an island project I can recommened that you hook up with the valley group. They're a stable growing community.

I might yet throw my lot in with the valley group, it's just that I've had the mainland idea bouncing around in the back of my mind for ages. So I thought I'd run it past people and see what the reaction would be. I do see advantages and drawbacks for both mainland and islands. A group on the mainland has greater land rights than island tenants. The incremental growth aspect of a mainland setting appeals to me as it would allow a community to grow as funds and members coalesced, providing it doesn't get boxed in.... a definite downside on the mainland. OTOH, the fact that growth on the islands can only be done in 'whole sim' chunks means that a community is continuously having to jump the sim start-up hurdle each time it wants to expand.

Eltee, I hear what you're saying and I've had enough of 'running' a sim, so to speak. My only interest would really be as an enabler to help furs group together in a community on the mainland. After that I'd be pretty much 'paws-off'. Well, as much as possible.

Karsten, I'm sorry for you if you find my sig offensive. I find some other sigs offensive. But I gather that freedom of speech and expression is something that is cherished in your nation. You can always scroll quickly past my sig if it bothers you that much. That's what I do.

Graham, this bigotry thing puzzles me..... I really see at it more as enabling a 'special interest' group of which I am part to coalesce for no great reason other than to make our SL experience fun / pleasant and to encourage a community to grow. Mebbe that's bigotry.... I don't know.

Peter, you seem to have misread my intentions. I am very well aware that not all people in SL are furs. Some of us are. Does it seem so odd that we might want to band together? As for the area involved it could start out as small as a 1/4 sim or whatever. It really depends on how many people are involved and the amount of land they want to buy / use / whatever. And yes, I'm pitching this to other furs in SL. No-one bats an eye when a gorean community, bdsm community, goth community or some other special interest group buys up a block on the mainland, so I can't really see what the big deal is in this case.

But...... I'll see what the response is and if sufficient furs / people are interested I'll proceed with it. Otherwise I'll let it drop as an interesting but impractical idea.

I think the best solution is to work with already existant communities to make them bigger and better, rather than creating ´nother small thing fragmented in the grid, since I see there´s some initiative.

Other thing, please squeeze your sig, it´s way too big and the Jazeera icon shows twice, I don´t think that is necessary.

You still see the the al-jazeera logo? Hmm, that's odd, I don't. yeh, I'll resize the sig in a bit..... I'm a bit busy prepping treehouses and stuff for the new sim the forest is moving to over in the Valleys group at the moment. Point taken about working with existing communities. I'm still considering the luskwood estate. Nice place, nice furs. I need a place where I can set up my vendors though.

A lot of people think a police department is stupid..so I wouldn't condescend on anyone about that.

Honestly, I greatly prefer mainland areas to islands. Islands always seem so closed-off to me, too exclusive for my tastes. However, the island land tools are far superior to the mainland land tools, so it's a toss-up.

And Peter, furs are a pretty close-knit group outside SL as well as in it, and we like to gather together, enough to fill dozens of island sims and countless mainland attractions. No one is forced to visit our areas, and many non-furs come to our attractions by choice. As far as griefers, I appreciate your concern, but I think we can handle ourselves, we've done so for quite some time in the real world.

Karsten, if it's the political / ideological content of my sig that you find 'offensive', I'm more than happy to discuss / debate this with you. Though that would really require a separate thread of it's own either on this forum or another where people aren't harrassed / griefed / banned for having different opinions / values / etc. I heartily recommend Guardian Unlimited Talk , an old haunt of mine and an excellent venue for political debate. See you there.

We've had something like that (fur-owned chunk of mainland sim) happen in Patagonia... not a 'planned' community of any kind, just friends buying land in the same mainland sim. Between 3 of us, we own (roughly) 1/3 of the sim. The sim is not exclusively fur, by any means, though it is sparsely populated (a few landowners with big chunks, rather than many with small ones).

My lot is on the waterfront, and has been set up as a 'common' area... configurable stage/dance/movie/party/gathering area, with a nice diving board as well... feel free to check out:

secondlife://patagonia/210/55/26

Fur is not a requirement... all are welcome, as long as they are reasonably behaved and tolerant (and being a landowner and not a renter, I get to decide what either of those terms mean ).

We're not another Luskwood. I love Luskwood, but sometimes you just want to get away from the soundspam, griefers and other issues that are the downside of being so close to the Ahern welcome area and so popular (all of those green dots on the map so near Ahern are such a sweet target, it seems). We're also not a private island... we've had some very nice folks (humans and not) just stumble across us while we were having a dance party or other type gathering who have wound up staying/dancing/talking for hours - that's the kind of thing you won't generally see on a private (controlled access) island, I think.

So I can see where you're going with things, Alazarin... a mainland area, fur-friendly/populated, but with access for everyone.

But eltee's points are well taken. We've been able to make up for some of the lack of island tools with some clever scripting (thanks Sheila! ) - my designates can change audio/video URL settings, teleport griefers back home, tempban, configure the stage/lighting/effects, etc. Having an 'llReturnObject' LSL call available would round things out further- and, yes, having the same land tools as are available on the islands would be even better (Michi, Travis, don't let them forget! ). But if we become popular (perhaps I shouldn't have posted the link ) , we may attract enough attention of the unwelcome sort that I can see where an island might indeed become preferable.

Good luck with your project!

Alazarin,

In my case, I have no problems with the content of your sig -- just the size; it's still somewhat large. Let me describe what I see in multiple browsers:

The AlJazeera.net graphic, starting indented, followed by the AniWar graphic on one line. Then, on the next line left-justified, another of the AlJazeera.net graphics.

If you cut one of those duplicate graphics, it would cut your sig height in half. It would still be tall, but more tolerably so.

Two words:

furries migrate

In more words

What you build and set up now will be abandoned in 6 months tops.
You have been warned

Or not

Hey, Lusk is the onl exception I can think of on the main land, and that's probably because it has a constant group working there, plus it's the original fur hangout (historical value) and is a "cool place to be." I remember what happened to Olive, Dusun, Forest, and even Furnation to a small extent (fewer furs there from what I've seen recently). They come, hang out, get bored, have DRAMA destroy tings, and move on.

Oh yeah, another word

drama


It's a nice idea and i'm all for it, if only to give some furs another place to move to, but I just wouldn't expect it to last.

making a place last isn magic or voodo, its just workin through problems, givin it yer all, and gettin to the next day, each night

Yeah, no doubt. But I have witnessed furry migrations, as I'm sure you have (both Olive and Dussun stared out as "Hey, let's get the furs to buy land together in a same area". Plus furs don't really strike me as having... what's the word... it's the opposite of attention deficit/flighty/all over the pace. And again, there's always the risk of drama involved. It's what killed both Dussun and The Forest. So I'm not saying it's impossible (Lusk is a great example of how it can be done, as well as how difficult it can be). It's just not something I would advise to (or wish on) anyone

aww no voodoo? that´s lame XD

I should start hunting and landmarking all the furry areas available, theres so many and a lot of them are nice places.

realistically though, on the mainland, the only way to 'enforce' a 'cluster' or theme is to have a land owning group, and people involved are part of that group, either as members, or officers, (or soon hopefully much much more flexable things)

anything else and yer likely to have a club/casino/mall in the middle of everything within a few weeks that lags the whole sim out :/

Seraph, I don't understand how all the other pictures are still there..... I only see the small version of the Anti-War picture (with a link to AlterNet). When I go to edit my sig, that's all there is although I do get an error message about the sig being in excess of 400 characters if I try to add any text. I even deleted everything and went to no sig before adding the small picture, but it made no difference. Something's not working quite right. I only wanted 1 picture at a time to make a point.

I'm seeing AlJazeera, then no war, then al jazeera, too. BUG REPORT

change yer sig to something like:

-temp-

then change it to what you want afterward

I do not know where you are typing from, but maybe when you add that anti war link this aljazeera logo sticks automatically

here is how I see it :