The Groups *Are* The Government

The group land tools contain within them the seeds of government because they contain within them forms of governance.

They need changing, precisely because currently they force a form of government on us that many of us don't want.

Currently, the group land tools are horribly skewed to defend a socialist commune type of arrangement, or a loose hippie utopian commune. It is often said that the group tools "weren't intended" to be used for grouping land for business or clubs, that trying to work them this way is "wrong" or "not using the tools correctly."

Others say the tools are flawed or simply broken, and have not kept pace with the rest of the world's development.

Here's what I mean:

Currently, the group tools work like the Soviet Union:

1. All officers in the Politburo, or officer class are equal in rights and privileges.
2. All funds taken in by the group from vendors, land sales, and dwell circulate equally to all officers and members
3. Any officer can totally screw any other officer by selling all the group's land to himself for $0 and then reselling it behind the other officers' back.
4. Any member can flip an officer recall on an officer, even if he paid for the land.
5. No member has the right even to return a prim in their way, much less put in music on their parcel within a group.

Thus, while seeming to promote "equality" and "equal redistribution of income," the socialist group tools actually achieve what all socialist system do when left to their own devices, unencumbered with democracy in particular: they lead to one officer screwing another by stealing his land; or by one member screwing up the entire group and freezing it with a rogue officer recall, and installing a non-investing officer in to take over the group.

The socialist current tools so discourage risk-taking and investment that they constitute a serious hobble on the game.

As in the Soviet Union, by making the land "everybody's land in the group" the group tools encourage of an attitude of entitlement, which, when pressed to its worst form, leads to "therefore if it is anybody's I'll grab it for myself."

As in the Soviet Union, even though some people might contribute more by a purchase price, or more in tier, the land is "everybody's" and can be stripped away from that investor by other officers or by rogue members triggering officer recall.

Group tools were meant to be used benignly by groups of well-meaning artists and tekkies merely getting together a wiki. It wasn't meant to be this way -- robbing people of their land or investment or tier. Yet...so often that has happened or attempts at it have happened that make people scared to form groups, scared to pool tier, scared to cooperate.

Imagine, a forced equality-making machine, a forced levelling of privilege, and it didn't lead to cooperate and the flourishing of groups and projects! It lead to either misuse, or indifference.

Of course, people do use groups to good effect, including myself, but when they do, they work around all the crazy risks. Club managers, for example, keep several sets of groups going and trade off their functions, as do mall managers. It gets to be a confusing and tiresome chore but they do their best.

So how could this really unhappy, destructive socialist experiment going nowhere come to an end?

Well, one thing is to replace it entirely, with a different kind of group, one organized not on the Eurasian or Asian collective/collegium model, but on the Western corporation model of a strong CEO and a board of trustees as well as customers or shareholders.

Such a model would keep the investors' privileges by enabling him never to be recalled because he made the investment; by making sure that land could not be sold out from under him; and by also spreading some of the functions more fairly, as hierarchical systems actually do (unlike the false equality systems that actually create more rigid systems of pernicious privileging). In the Western CEO model, customers could return prims, for example, or deed their created objects/products to the entire group. But toggles could make the split of profits differ based on the different levels of stake or share in the investment.

This group could also be used for Principle Investigator and Researchers as in science projects; for Program Director and Volunteers for non-profits; for Creative Director and Artists and so on.

But what's likely to happen if the old socialist model is scrapped and a new modern, more Westernized and capitalist version is put into place, is that a tiny core of people in here will howl miserably at their socialist sandbox being taken away from them. In fact, they may not even be people who have groups, let alone land in groups, let alone land in groups on which they all pay exactly the same amount of tier and extract exactly the same equally dispersed income. In fact, I'm willing to bet there isn't even any such animal actually in the wild in SL, although this artificial hypothetical creature -- the perfectly working, equally-shared, equally-tiered group -- will be endlessly and hysterically cited as something that needs to be "preserved".

So, to prevent that howling -- especially now that Andrew Linden has breathed some new life into this gang with his remark about letting them choke off the flow to SL "even if they do exist" -- let's be charitable. Let's be considerate. Let's be free and democratic and allow even non-free and non-democratic tools. In fact, IMHO, the Western CEO corporate structure isn't among the non-free and non-democratic, despite all the hueing and crying about "bosses from hell". A good, vested, responsible CEO is a great boon to a liberal market economy and civil society, whereas a bunch of secretive types in a closed group demanding perfection of themselves and others are scary prospect if they spread.

Groups matter. They matter because they are just as much building blocks of this world as prims, although few people are willing to spend the time on them they deserve.

What I would advocate is a changing of the group functions and a new perception of them as functions, not roles, and not types of groups. This way, anyone, whether a landlord setting up tenants, or a king setting up his serfs, or an artist setting up his collaborators, or a dom his subs, could use the group tools for whatever they like.

Here's the list of functions that would then be toggled:

o Founds Group, Pays $100
o Names Group
o Invites Members
o Expels Members
o Invites Officers
o Expels Officers
o Names Titles
o Pays Purchase Price of Land
o Pays Tier
o Names Land and Describes Land
o Puts Land in Find Places
o Sets Landing Point
o Returns Prims
o Parcels Land
o Sets Music/Video
o Sells Land
o Purchases Land
o Takes Land Out of Group
o Announces Events
o Makes Proposals for Votes
o Sends Group IMs
o Deeds Objects
o Collects and Distributes Income
o Collects and Distributes Dwell
o Terraforms and Landscapes

These 24 functions would be mixed and matched up by the founder or founders -- the first thing the original founder did if he wanted would be to click off the "founder" toggle for 2 other people or the "officer" or "member" title and then toggle every permission he'd like them to have. While it might seem some work at the beginning, it will be a huge boon for a club to be able to have members that can just return prims, or just set music, or just deed created objects, or have the full range of permissions if they wish.

I think the "Groups" were made for common ideas or interests areas etc, Not some corporate hierachy establishment .

Please submit Feature Proposal : SlumLord

Feature Detail: Allow Capitalist Landowners to exploit low income SL'r with revised Group ownership options.

Prokofy, you do have a lot of great things to say. I have even coopted some of your messages because they rang true, however I can't make it through this megapost. It's just too damn long.

You should start with a thesis, give some examples, and pose a few questions. As people respond, you can slowly share more and more of your message, so people can assimilate the data interactively.

You will increase the size of your audience, reduce the amount of ridicule you receive, and actually get your message across. FWIW I just thought I'd mention it, as it seems like such a waste of time and energy to go to all that effort and have no one actually see it.

~Ulrika~

It's OK Ulrika, it's there to be seen, take the short course if you like:

the group tools are socialist
they need to become capitalist
capitalists would be willing to allow socialist group tools to remain
for that socialists have to stop screaming and do the same for capitalist tools




And people think there's no anti-business climate in SL? hahaha.

Maybe they were one day, when land ws given out for free. But now it is sold on the auction for a hefty some and it has value. Sorry, there it is. And a good thing it is too, because when you have pride of ownership and care about a land, then you have the basis for a society.

Exploit low income players? How? They can come and go as they please in the game, at whatever level they wish. If they are too "poor" to buy (being people with credit cards and computers???) then let them rent, and not from slumlords -- I'm not aware of any in SL -- but people who provide good views and good values.

Prokofy.. couldn't we ask for a tool that allows for both wiki-type use (socialist, if you will) and capitalist?

Obviously, as clearly demonstrated by the attempted ousting of you, group tools are not working properly for what you're using them for. They are, however, for others - so maybe we can figure out a way to add in your features w/o killing off some of the others?

There are some features you mention that would be very handy going forth.

I paraphrased your post to remove the unnecessary political modifiers, as I they get in the way of otherwise good points.

We've owned our private sim for a few days now and we've already bumped into limitations that are making our group project difficult to manage. I think your suggestion that the Lindens should approach governance tools as functions rather than roles is spot on.

~Ulrika~

Aha! This does bring up a valid point. The group tools were not originally created for use in a capitalist sense, so maybe what we need is another tool completely unrelated to 'groups'.

Corporation.

You can take the same set of permissions -- identical -- but just configure them differently and achieve "corporation" out of "Politburo".

You can just add a few things like the privilege of never being recalled if you invested, etc. to tighten it up further.

But that's what I just said, Juro.

I said divide it by functions rather than roles, toggle a mixture of functions to suit whichever role

My concern is that socialists will howl so much they'll want to do things like trash the 10 percent discount.

So, what Prokofy wants is for group structures to be configurable so they can be used for whatever purpose? Say: A corporation, a co-op, land-free social groups, tyrannies, leasing arrangements, direct democracies, whatever?

Is there anyone who does not think this is an excellent idea? Why not split it off to a new thread where we can discuss the hows (the bottom half of Prokofy's message), without de-railing into socialist techie-wiki-bashing (the top half)? If protections against fraud could somehow be built into the proposal, for examples by making risks as visible as possible, LL might even listen.

my noob cents,
nim

Yes, I want group structures to be configurable to be used for any purpose because I am for promoting player self-organization from the bottom up.

Anyone who did not think this is an excellent idea would be for keeping the status-quo, therefore my excellent idea comes packed in some pretty stiff wrapping about why the socialist tekkie-wiki is pernicious and runs counter *even* to its purported goal of promoting organization and equality among players, because what it does is promote crime, like all socialist models, by pumping up the sense of entitlement, reducing the sense of responsibility, and erasing the initiative of the newbie.

LL is already listening, don't worry, but they disagree among themselves and that's why it is very important to list all the very real ideoligical problems inherent in the socialist model and trounce them thoroughly.

No worries... I'll wrangle them up.. it may be like herding cats, but I can do it!

I think as long as everyone felt that the new options wouldn't obliterate the current setup, especially for those where it is working fine, we could actually get some needed improvements.

Nobody is going to kill the 10% discount, except maybe the Lindens.

Watch your step and get your ice skates out, folks. Hell just froze over! haha

I actually think this is the best piece of forum-authoring advice I've ever seen posted. Well done, Ulrika. Cheers.

The worm... is the spice. The spice... is the worm.

lol prok, that post is too long for me and given that we have discussed these issues before, I probably know some of what is in it, but I could be wrong.

I probably agree with you that group tools need to be fixed. I probably agree with you on many of your ideas on HOW they should be fixed.

I probably disagree with you that the technical limitations within the current design is due to an anti-business attitude on behalf of LL

Free Tibet!

Let me concentrate your mind wonderfully on this Forseti.

Let's say you go to the new Russia. You believe the hype. They tell you it's the "new Russia". You invest in some oil company. Then oops, the next day the Russian director is jailed because he also owns a tv station that criticizes the war in Chechnya, but also because they may have gotten him on a tax dodge -- whatever. The fact is, it's Russia, anything can and does happen, and your investment goes into the toilet because the state is now confiscating all of that company's assets, booting out the board members that were the jailed guy's friends, and taking over.

In the same way in SL, you can invest in a whole bunch of land on the auction and start some big project. You can group your land and bring in other investors and tier donors. You can run a group and keep it on open enrollment for the convenience of customers, i.e. mall vendors or tenants. But at any time, the following can happen:

1) You, the main investor could be banned for 3 days for swearing in a PG zone, or 7 days for firing a weapon in a safe zone.
2) While you are stuck off line (or even if you just have computer problems or even if it is just the middle of the night and you are asleep), a competitor or a rogue member who joins your group can freeze its activities and flip an officer recall on it, throw you out of the group even though you might be the main investor and have provided the purchase price of the land, and be paying the tier, and collude with a treacherous officer to sold all the land you paid for, out from under you and seize all your assets.
3) If you complain, you'll be told by LL "Well, better be sure you run an effective campaign to retain your position as an officer in the group." All efforts to say "but this is harassment, and a misuse of officer recall tools by a non-paying member," you'll get a shrug.
4) The treacherous officer and rogue member can flip out the entire group of legitimate investors and simply take over.

Now, you can say about all this that hey, it's the "new Russia" but you should be careful in "the new Russia".

You could say, well, the "new Russia" isn't anti-business per se, they're pro-business but...well...they really don't have good protections for investors.

You can call it whatever you want -- anti-business or pro-business, but failing to protect investors, or pro-business, but only business by the state's friends.

You can be sure that the fellow in jail is calling it anti-business, however.

Good point. I never thought of it that way before.

~Ulrika~

This gives me an idea to add to the list of 'wishes' for change in the function of groups. We should have an option whereby a person who donates tier to the group can only sell off land up to what they have donated and monies should only go to that officer.

Whatcha think?

Excellent idea!

As for back on topic, I think allowing toggling rules for a group would be a great way to empower users to better controls their affairs with other players.

I would support many of these changes. I think discussing which functions should be toggleable and what other things groups would need to better manage affairs would be a productive way to continue.

Well, this is a problem unless they change other stuff. Currently, when group land is sold, all the proceeds circulate equally to all the members of the group, regardless of how much tier they pay.

I thought of that idea as workable -- that any officer can only sell off land up to the amount they have donated.

But the way the tools work, he can get at *any* land equivalent of that size. So let's say he donated a doggy laggy piece of back rump of a mountainside. When the founder is sleeping, he rushes off to sell not that 2048 he donated, but the 2048 that really was never his, which he never paid the higher price for, which is the primo mature waterfront. See the problem?

There's also the problem of flexibility. The founder of the group sells parcels to manage the group. And he has tier left over then. Instead of being able to move his tier over to another group where he is also a member, and help that group cover a purchase, i.e. of land that became available suddenly and had to be purchased due to view securing issues, he will not be able to do that if we institute this control.

Therefore, I"m for creating a set of rules that the founder, and his co-founders if he choses to make them, can have, which is some officers manage but don't sell land, but some officers can sell land, including the land they themselves once donated.

Otherwise, there is no point in deeding a land to the group. You might as well just all hang on to your own land.

i think thats a great idea...

This is an option, but has its drawbacks. It means that officers cannot move land around. For example, from one group to another. Or out of a rental into a buy. Or out of a for-sale back into a rental.

If this is the only way it could work to close up the hole represented by the vulnerability to the treacherous officer, I'd consider it.

But think also what drawbacks it brings.

If you have a group where one person pays a huge up-front cost -- say the cost of an entire sim or half sim -- and then rents out that sim and gets some tier donations in lieu of cash rent, i.e. he's put in say, 30,000 tier, and 2 other people each put in 1000 in tier, for 2000 total.

What, just because he has accepted their tier donations on this land, now he can't sell off the whole land he bought and held at one point and put on 32k tier on?

He paid the entire purchase price, but just because he opted to take tier donations in a join project from 2 other people, what, they get to sell the land now "up to the amount of tier they are donating" when they never paid a penny of upfront cost? And they get to hunk off what the original buyer here had?

AFter awhile, the whole thing becomes pointless then -- why have a group?. Why make a group just for the 10 percent bonus? Yet if LL wants to stimulate cooperate cooperation, they need to figure this out. Because groups have advantages other than just that 10 percent bonus, which doesn't add up to much in the end.

If he freed up 2k in tier in this transaction, getting the donation from others, maybe he used that to buy a parcel in the next sim bordering the original group, or maybe he bought up some prim land on that sim, or whatever. It would be good if people in the group cooperated on decisions like this. But at the end of the day, if someone only puts in 512, they shouldn't be holding up the sale of a purchase someone made.

Here it is again, he's paid for land on the auction, but because he is creating a cooperative, now it will be snatched from him in whole or part.

Yep, groups do need to become more flexible. A couple of weeks back, I posted this idea to the Feature Suggestions forum: /13/47/44011/1.html

I hope LL picks up on that because change is seriously needed.