Wanted: Questions for Wednesday's Town Hall with Robin Linden

In an attempt to better organize the Linden Town Hall format, we're now taking a group of questions before hand. Please post your community-related questions* below for Robin to answer. The Town Hall will open with Robin's answers to these questions.

Guidelines for Posting Questions
1. Community-related questions only
2. No Tech support-type questions (ie: "My computer is broken" or "I crashed"
3. If you'd like to ask a question that is already posted - 'second' it instead of posting it again
4. We will try to answer all of the posted questions, but if your question isn't asked, feel free to post it in the Hotline to Linden

I'll be heavily moderating this thread, so please stay on topic and post only the questions you are interesting in knowing more about!

Thanks!

(read more about the Town Hall here )


* ie: events, land leasing/selling, teen grid, etc

Robin,
I have been lackadaisically following the event discussions so not sure if this has been covered already or not. (sorry) Is there any plans to bring back linden support of non-mentor/instructor educational/non-educational events ? If so in what form and fashion ?
Thanks.

Hi Robin! I'd like to know a bit more about the "definition" of "land sales" in SL, as per this poll/thread and this thread.

I'm sorry to give you so much to read about. If you take the time reading those threads, however, you see that this could be a major turning point in SL's real estate economy.

I'm aware that SL land is not "real land". However, the way ownership/property of "virtual land" is handled between parties under an agreement which establishes certain rights and duties, and sets an "upfront" payment and regular monthly fees -- either between LL and a resident (through ToS, land sale payment, and land usage fees), or an Estate Owner and another resident (through a contract/agreement/covenant/deed, an upfront payment and recurring monthly fees) -- is, from a legal point of view, basically the same thing. Anshe, Prokofy, and others (including myself) claim the "right" to call their agreements "land sales"; your own stated opinion seem to point out the opposite view (it's just "renting land for US$" and not a "transfer of ownership".

I feel that if it's "forbidden" to call anything else a "land sale" - even if from a legal point it has exactly the same mechanisms as what LL provides - this should be strictly defined in the ToS. If not, the Land Sales tab should offer both LL land and Estate Owner land on equal terms - but add an icon or something for residents to understand that there is a difference.

So, what will be Linden Lab's policy regarding Estate Owner "land sales"? If they're going to be announced on the "Land Sales" tab, will they be specially marked as such?

Will Hamlet be allowed on the teen grid? I am so incredibly curious to see what the teenies will build. Will we ever be told anything about what goes on in it?

Seconded

Hi Robin - If you could give a brief talk about where we're at with the event calendar - and what the future holds along what kind of timeline, that'd be great.

Mostly - What I'm hoping to hear about is:

1. When do you plan to begin having the events workgroup meet?
2. What kind of intended timeline will the implementation of our approved suggestions fall under? (several weeks/several months/several quarters)?

And of course - When I'll be able to allow others to post events to my land

Thanks!

Travis

And a followup question regarding events:

Robin, as I think you can tell, at least the forum community is quite divided on what should or shouldn't entertain us as a community, with extremes at either end of the spectrum.

In the interest of providing a moderating voice - what are Linden Lab's ideas on what kind of events are "good" and what kind of events are "bad", even if you can only offer a personal opinion. How do you define the word "event" in an SL context?

...And I'll take my answers off the air

Hello. Here's my list.

- Can we expect to see the Event browser's capabilities expanded in the future, with better filters instead of restrictions?

- Will we see better filters for Land Sales?

- What changes to the existing group system, if any, can we expect to see in the future?

- What is the status on event payments other than just educational? The projected economic ramifications?

- What are the current projections of resident growth? Demographics in general?

- Can we expect to see more intuitive "privacy" controls for residents on the main grid?

- What changes, if any, can we expect to see to the Ratings System? Is a "reputation" system still being considered?

- Is LL still considering a more active role in currency trading for residents?

- What changes, if any, can we expect to see to the Animations/Gesture system? Many people have mentioned they'd like to set their own animations, without the need of cumbersome/laggy scripts. Is this being considered?

- For that matter, can we expect to see any new venus for communication? Direct integration with Roger Wilco, for example? Text-to-Speech?

- Can we expect to see any new avatar meshes to work with? (Insert "I want a pony" here)

- Out of curiosity, will any changes be made to dwell rewards as Second Life grows?

Hi Robin,

was wondering if there are any suggestions about the events calendar in your town hall meeting if the group you have formed to work on this could get copies of what is suggested and talked about.

I think this would help us out getting feed back so the whole group who is working on this could know what is being talked about and suggested.

Just an idea. I have to work RL at the time so I won't be able to make your town hall meeting but would like to know what is suggested at it and I think the rest of the group would like to hear also.

Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you as to our first meeting of the group.

Wags Manimal

I have one easy and simple question:

On occasion there is land owned by a player that has been in-world every extremely infrequently (as in once in maybe six months) or has been removed (banned?) from the system. There is land still under their name, but clearly abandoned. When does this land get freed up to be bought again, or what process should one follow to get abandoned land back up on sale?


- Newfie Pendragon

Jeffrey Gomez:
seconded.

Jeffrey also asks if there are any changes planned for the ratings system. My specific question is as follows:

Does LL intend to drop the concept of negative ratings? Often negative ratings are used for general griefing or interpersonal conflict, whereas cooperative players are more likely to favor low-key solutions like muting, banning or agreeing to disagree.

The recent changes in the events rules have done nothing, or very little to fix the clutter. The need to group any land I own to allow others to post events to it is a major pain and really seems silly. Can we do away with that change? Make 3 events per person instead..or even one event per day per person..but get rid of the "have to be owner or group member" to post events change.

It is unfair to non-estate owners.

Seconded. While there is information out there on the purpose behind developer incentives, even the term 'developer' means different things to different people.

The earliest mention of Developer incentives I can find is the following:



And a most recent thought-provoking post by a resident:




Robin - your thoughts on this could be very illuminating for the community

Seconded.

I quietly develop scripts and products but this kind of creativity, planning and effort is absolutely invisible to the "developer incentives". Yet my products keep people coming back to SL because it makes it just that little bit more interesting with each new release. I don't think the developer incentives is a fair system, even if it's a good idea. Are you able to make it more comprehensive or should I just increase my prices as my incentive?

Robin knows my technical suggestions. Here are some community ones:

Time Square.
A central place that everyone knows about. Believe it or not, there are some people in SL who have NEVER been to the Welcome Area in Ahern at all (they get tp'd from orientation island straight to thier friend's place or something). Nonetheless, even if we all had orientation in Ahern even, we still cant and shouldnt advertise or bombard newbies in the Welcome Area.

Think about this: SL News Network (avatar anchorman lmao). We have streaming video. Let this be yet another incentive to get land, to watch SL tv. Instead of coming to the forums for news, which can be a hassle and frustrating what with all the lack of respect here, you can catch whats up while IN secondlife.

And we all know certain business people that will pay big bucks to have a location on Time Square. And big bucks to be advertised on the stream.

What i'm trying to say is, there isnt a sl-world wide communication system. You cant have rock stars and pop idols by word of mouth alone. Yes fads exist in SL but not as widespread as one would think. Everyone is an island, and literally! You get two dots every 4 sims and full clubs of silent "afk" people...

Shopping and advertising, consuming and selling, are what we do best in SL and i think an equivalent to the community feel we are lacking is a sort of Time Square, complete with streaming news (video, text or radio).

Oh, and an aside to the anti-pop, cooler than thou underground people: you cant be underground if there isnt a mainstream.

Yes I know two or more versions of New York exist, and they are beautifully built... but horridly empty most of the time.

Just how we have "sponsored links" in Find, here is another way to pay for spotlight recognition and traffic targetting. Basically, this is a suggestion to entreprenuers out there in SL but they would need constant Linden support and even Linden events to make sure it wasnt just an empty ghost town.

I Second this.
I think that Luna could be greatly improved, with these suggestions.

Hi Robin,

First question:

Alternatively, will there be a "Teen Hamlet"?

Second question:

Richard Bartle wrote about four types of players in MUD communities in 1990 and 1996, namely "achievers," "explorers," "killers" (griefers), and "socializers." He described what he considered to be stable mixes of these player types within a single MUD/MUSH/MOO, and how to alter the proportions of player types by altering the rules of the MUD. (We discussed this in the forums a bit here, for those who are interested.) Have the LL staff reviewed this and related research? To what extent are changes made to land availability, the ratings system, stipends, etc. related to trying to balance the influence and proportion of types of players in the community? To what extent does LL take the needs and wishes of different types of players consciously into account when designing new features or services in SL?

Third question:

We have the ability to list land for sale now, as well as events (and I know that's kind of broken at the moment, but I also know you're working on it). There has been discussion about making it easier to find items in-world in some kind of market or catalog search. What about people who sell services as their "product"? We have a "help wanted/Classifieds" kind of forum here, but how about in-world? Could an in-world Better Business Bureau and/or Services listing/log/rating system be part of the contracts system you've been discussing? The community is getting a little large for word-of-mouth or fly-by advertising alone.

Fourth question:

What do you think of this alternate rating proposal? Summary: Residents decide what they want to be rated on by using the profile checkboxes ("I want to..." and then others can select a limited number of favorites in each category, which expire over time. This would not be tied to income, it would only be used to help identify what someone likes to do and to a limited extent, how good others think they are at doing it. Possibly it could be used in a Find function. Alternately, how about some kind of Friend Network tool to help extended communities form?

Fifth and final question:

A lot of community management tools (for both Residents and Lindens) are limited by the ability to create an effectively infinite number of alts. From the oft-maligned rating system to the ability to ban avatars from a plot or from the world, tools are specific to the avatar, not the RL user. I appreciate the difficulty of establishing real-life identity online, and the desire many have for privacy, but at the same time there's a lot of talk in the community about the problems of griefers returning as alts, or multiple alts neg-rating someone. How does LL plan to manage alternate identities as we go forward? Are any changes being contemplated?

Thanks, as always, for all that you do,

neko

Awesome questions, Neko Seconded.

Hello iam new in SL
And in the real world building groups/cartels are not allowed

Are they allowed in SL wit fixed and high standard prices of
L$ 50.000~100.000,00/US$ 200,00~500,00
for a custom building 20~40 hour work is not uncommon in SL

Thanks

I recently found Philip and Cory's old paper on the foundation technology of SL - http://www.gamasutra.com/resource_guide/20030916/rosedale_pfv.htm - and I was fascinated by the view through the wayback machine, as well as the justifications for various technical and social choices.

The social engineering decision that really stood out was the role of dwell. Rather than try to police content directly, game mechanics were designed to automatically police content based on user behavior. The prim tax ensured that creating a build incurred a cost, but dwell awards supposedly would offset that cost. Ugly builds would be avoided or at least ignored, and thus would not earn dwell, but builds that users appreciated would earn dwell that would offset the prim tax. Thus good builds would stay while bad builds would be retired because of maintenance costs. This is a classic invisible hand approach to guiding content development.

Prim taxes have faded into the obscurity of olden days tales, approximately replaced by land tier fees. We still have dwell (or traffic), and even Developer Incentive awards, but they more often reflect commercial and social activities hosted on land than the content there. Are these game mechanisms still meant to fulfill the same kind of invisible hand role described in Philip and Cory's paper, or have they also changed into something else? If so, just what is the role of these mechanisms and policies? What kind of content and behavior is LL trying to encourage or discourage?

I look forward to the town hall tomorrow.

Thirded.

Robin:

Will Linden Labs encourage or at least tolerate the appearance of a resident-based Better Business Bureau -- or bureaus, since there are likely to be competing concepts of them -- in the game, in order to investigate allegations of fraud and deceptive and harmful business practices? Will Linden Labs refrain from "blessing" any one BBB or consumer advocates' association?

When the targets of this investigation predictably accuse the investigators of "verbal harassment" or other violations of the TOS, will LL review these complaints within the concept and context of a reputable BBB?



Opposed.

Negratings, especially multiple negratings by alts of other players and their alts should be tolerated and indeed encouraged as the only means of legitimate expression, given the total absence in the game of any viable dispute resolution mechanisms or any kind of Better Business Bureau to handle both false allegations of fraud that destroy business reputations as well as actual merited claims of fraud.

Private sims which sell land to SL members as part of a cooperative or a business often pass the savings of having a full land-use fee to the small land owners. For those interested in inexpensive small plots of land, these private sims are more attractive than mainland plots. From LL's perspective a mainland sim filled with 512 m^2 lots brings in approximately seven times more revenue than a single private sim.

Does the movement of these small land owners (those who pay the most for land in SL) from the mainland to private sims affect LL's bottom line? How many of these private sims with flat land-use fees could SL support until it felt a pinch?

~Ulrika~

How can a person who rents land be able to post events, and when will that function be available if it isn't already?