Should there be a Land Regulation Committee in SL

The biggest 'if' is the one that starts with 'if only everyone would ..." SL already has regulations. LL has all but given up on trying to enforce them. You would not be able to do it either. The future is privately owned sims, with regulations enforced by each individual owner.

Chuckle, I take your point but many millions of people do. What about Ebay if you are looking at something close to home (as in used by business and ordinary people)

My point is simple; prevent Second Life being used by people who have dubious get rich quick first life schemes, thus exploiting the SL economy. I am not of course saying Ginko is necessarily in that framework, but any SL based service offering first life goods and services needs to be legally accountable. Otherwise there is no trust

Alot of good replies, and alot that I don't quite understand. There are a few things that I think would be good to look into futher. like defining what role a resident intends on playing, if your in it for fun and games, then your RL idenity should be kept secret, BUT if YOUR making money inworld, and your conducting business, idenity and contact information should be publically availiable.The major point for publicly verifiable idenities is a no brainer, you shouldn't do business with someone you cannot verify in real life, thats just STUPID. I dont think there is anyone that could really disagree with that unless they are just trying to disagree.

As far as the 25 pizzas and Midnight Holy Rollers, well I understand the point but its a gross exageration. If you have made it to Second Life chances are your public information has been on the net alot longer then when you first fired up the SL viewer.

To curb the problem of a "Alt" infiltrating the ranks of a committee for purposes of manipulating the market in some small way, transparency and public idenity would be the cure. Although a committte or commission would not directly affect the market, market prices, or market stability in any way.


Gaybot Says:
"leave it up to the Lindens to moderate, regulate, and enforce land policies"

That solution we all know will not happen as LL has stated publically several times that they will not police SL rather just probvide the platform for development

Desmond Says:
"I don't want someone entering my first life information into every beastiality porn magazine offer. Then using it to order me 25 pizzas over the internet one day. "

Me neither but for any of us to say we havent entered our real information somewhere on the internet is just about the biggest liar in 2007. If your going to be making real money in SL you owe it to your clients and your business to identify yourself in RL

I know why people dont want thier RL identities revealed, its not becuase they dont want spam, its becuase they dont want to be held liable for anything they do in SL, and that right there is cause for alarm

Kyrah Says:
"hmm Jackson , thing is based on what you write i do not think you are fit for the job. However i am not either, and if you and me aren't who else isn't fit for this job?"

Theres no way possible I could even be considered as a committe member as I am a seller and that would be a conflict of interest. This isnt some testing grounds for a SL formed government inwhich I will head up, this is a prospective of a land committee that adds legitimacy to land traders reputation and offers a way of filing grievances for buyers so they dont feel they got ripped off and all SL dont care...

The current system is adequate. I have made money on land and then lost some. If you get involved in land dealing expect to get caught out occasionally.

Some people in SL know exactly who I am. I'm certainly on file with the Company too. Those who do know who I am (and I'm nobody special) respect my privacy and don't tell.

I have a wife and 3 kids. I *have* revealed RL info before in a close circle of friends before (not in SL, in another world) and *did* get harassed. Well, actually not me, but family members who picked up the phone.

Ever have a family member get an ominous phone call late at night? Any idea what they said to me after that? Like hell I'm telling the general SL population who I am.


And yes, I identify myself to my first life business customers. But in my first life business, I have my customer's RL info too (and often their credit card info, I use Verisign). But my first life customers don't attack my business.

The general population of Second Life, however, *does* attack my sims. Only one griefer is a slow day.

Given the chance to threaten my kids, how long will it be before the griefer du jour decides to push a real button?

I'm simply not stupid enough to become a target.



Lastly: I'm not sure if you know how first life corporations work. I have one, by the way.

So even if you *do* know who someone is - if they incorporate their Second Life business, you'll be lucky to get pennies on the dollar. It's called bankruptcy. Just to sue for more would cost a few thousand bucks.

So revealing first life info is like banning handguns for honest people. All the honest people won't cheat you anyway, yet now they are exposed. But it won't help one bit against a Second Life crook.



So here's the bottom line. Do you really think I'd flush my reputation (and thus my business I spent over a year building) to rip someone off for a few hundred bucks? Gimme a break.

Like I said before, deal with transparent businesses and do the math. If it's not clear to *you* that they have a reason to be honest in business, steer clear.

I think even John would change his mind about revealing first life info, if his SL business was griefed daily by punk kids for no reason whatsoever.

Desmond, in no way was I making any attack on anyone, just merely stating that doing business in SL anonymously is like shaking the hands of a business partner thru a curtain.

Also too, I know enough about greifers to know they never grief without reason, there was something somewhere, be it ever so small that made you a target. I unfortunately have had to deal with griefers from time to time on my sims also, but probably not with the frequency you do.

Nothing changed the fact that liability and accountability is null in SL, and something should be done to improve that, I will not yield this as it is the right thing.
I will not accept that "freedom" to do as you please is a right you get when you sign up in SL. If it was strictly a game, then yes everyone should enjoy anonymity, but once you earn that first dollar, and you put it into your US account, you have crossed the line and mixed SL with RL and therefore should not have the luxury of anonymity.

This is why this thread was started, to bring to light what is needed in SL not to decide whether we all like it or not, of course no one likes extra rules. But it has to be done. Like it or not.

I would think any honest, upfront business in SL (or any venue similar to SL) would be supportive of a way to keep it honest and upfront to everyone. I fail to see where offering up credentials verifying your honesty and trustworthiness would compromise your RL security. No one is asking for your name (personal name), your address (personal address), phone number or any such unnecesary information. Just to register with some oversight committee or group that is independant and trustworthy so people can tell if they are doing business with who they think they are.

Everyone of us in SL give money (lindens............which are transferable to real life funds) to people we know absolutely nothing about for goods we have absolutely no way of know if they are worth what we are paying for. We do that every single day........sort of crazy isn't it? I know I've been ripped off before.........and there is no recourse. No way of really complaining to anyone who can do anything at all about it. That's just not right. Jackson is right.........there needs to be some type of oversight or control to protect the vast majority of us in SL. And, yes, I know most businesses in SL are very upfront and honest.......but it only takes a few to screw us. And by us I mean the honest businesses too................you guys get screwed perhaps worst than we do. Makes me suspicious of any business in SL.......because of one.

Good work Jackson. I'm on your side.

Sometimes the reason is, they're an @$$hat. I've been griefed for no reason whatsoever... just laying out in a pool when I got fired at, by some random dude maybe 1 or 2 days old.

Yes I'll admit that some griefing attacks do come totally unwarranted, but these attacks are usually one-timers, and arent targeted, just happen to be in the crosshairs of some noob wanting to try out thier new gun, and is afraid to go into battle sims casue they will get htier back end handed to them, so they pick a someone at random and pop out a little griefing.. but targeted griefing is what i really should have said

dont like where this is going.

I make money In real life and my nieghbors dont know how much. My income isnt publicly availble. My employer would know some. My bank would know some, but my finances arent an open book with everyone. They are responsible for discretion.

I make money in SL - its not up to Linden Labs to tell you how much. I make money by selling lindens through the lindenx program - they are a broker.

At no time do I ever provide anything to anyone for direct USD transactions.

If LL is acting as a broker and they have my personal details on file then that should be enough.

If I were accepting direct transactions thats different.

If you want to change that - then get rid of the Linden $

No one's asking how much you make.............USD or Lindens. Only if you are who you say you are...........and if Linden Labs has that information on file great. But how would I know that? Your word? Maybe your word is good...........but Joe Rippoff can tell me exactly the same thing and be lying through his teeth. Some method of verifying needs to be put in place. If the Lindens would step up, that would be ideal..........but they have shown they are not willing.

Hence the suggestion of some kind of committtee or group. Not difficult at all........just takes some way of getting it all in place.

Absolutely not - the income was used for demonstrative purposes of discretion, I guess I should have anticipated people would zero in on that and not the meaning of my entire post.

I have no intention of agreeing to cede to some ad hoc commitee any power they shoudlnt have. It up to the lindens to enforce Linden $ trades. IF they are unable to prove that level of customer service then we should get rid of the L$

If the lindens stop provding relaiable deliveries of inventory than we have a problem with them. Not with me as a seller - I cant force the lindens to deliver inventory.

In the real world if UPS doesnt deliver my packages I can stop using them and use fed ex - but in SL i can only use Linden sales mechanisms.

In other words having my Real life contact info helps my customers how exactly?

If i was a scammer - Id provide a fake name anyhow.

If the Lindens arent willing to crack down on scammers its a customer service problem with them.

BTW, why every problem has to be solved by the Linden?

Why don't people in this forum who agree that a commitee is needed set up one and try to run it since it is "Not difficult at all".
Just like a credit bureau in real world, your committee will let all customers voluntary report all L$ transaction to you committee and you try to rate each with a trust worthy score (just like a credit score) for all the vendor, land seller, estate owner... etc.
If you guys can make your score fair and logic, I am sure people will love to use it when decide who to work with and rent with and maybe you can make a few bucks like the credit bureau does.

Frankly, Just like Banks don't run or own the credit bureau, Linden doesn't need to run these services, if you think there is a market for it, why not do it?

Whatever a griefer's reasons are, it's got nothing to do with me. Maybe they had a bad day. I don't know and to be honest I don't really want to be their psychologist.

There are roughly 400 people directly involved in Caledon, about half of which are paying residents, and Caledon is a year old now. 14 sims going on 15 in a few weeks. Incidentally I have a business (West Trade Imports) which has dealt with a few thousand more avatars, and deals with more every day.

If I ripped people off you might have heard about it by now.

Nobody's got a right to do as they please, anyway. Do something heinous enough, and I'm sure law enforcement would get involved. Any of our RL info is just a subpoena away, anyhow. The Company has no interest in protecting criminal behaviour on the grid.

I'm cool with having the right rules. Remove my anonymity, sure - but I want everyone else's anonymity to be gone too. Everyone's. So I'm not a big easy target in a huge crowd that must absorb consequence-free potshots.

What I'm not cool with, is anything being done 'like it or not.'

That's not for any one of us to decide.


Anyway, nothing seemed to be an attack; I'm merely making clear that I don't think 'RL exposed landlords' will change much of anything. Save for perhaps making a bigger, easier target for griefers.

In all honestly RL names and contact info isnt absolutely vital to forming a committee, the RL identity was a way of determining if a SL avatar was an "alt" infiltrating the ranks for power gains and incidentally wouldnt be availible as readily as you interpret.

Im sure with nearly 15 Sims running your sucessful and a good sim owner, that was never in question. but the guy that posts his rentals on the land sales page then reclaims the land the next day because the noob didnt understand that while it was posted on the land sales search, and the noob pushed a buy button, that he dont get to have his land because the sim owner ultimately has power to take the land away. even though the sim owner is clearly to blame for the confusion as he is renting but advertising on the land sales search.

Scenario:

How about the guy that owns 16ksq m on a sim , logs on one day and find that the land has been reclaimed, he has been banned and has lost a couple 100k in land, so he files a abuse report to LL about it...meanwhile the sim owner has requested a sim name change and relocation, within days the land owner dont know what name the sim is now under or where its location is... Now Lindens look at the abuse report, hmm no sim named "XXX" toss the report out... The land owner is out some 600-800 USD.

I'll bet you would like to know this sim owners SL name so you dont do business with him wouldnt you? Wouldnt itr be good to be able to actaully difference yourself from him to complete strangers that are trying to decide where to buy thier plots?

No where in there did it include a abuse of power, or need for real life identity. the accomplishment would be to log this type of sim owner as high risk , and as people are researching where to buy land they probably will not even consider this guy no matter what his prices are. Effectively wiping him out of business. and with just cause. Of course you cant save the terminally impatient that will just buy land with no reaseach but hey...

The trouble is this is going to go around and around, although it is interesting to read the posts. It seems three classes of commercial activity have emerged

1) Class 1. I stand by what I said earlier in this thread insomuch as first life businesses OR first life businesses that arise WITHIN Second Life, (the absolute criteria being they are providing a first life service) should be accountable for the day to day business via verified real life ID, hence removing the Lindens from in world police type action

2) Class 2. Second Life businesses providing business services entirely within Second Life using or providing Second Life goods and services have an entitlement to preserve their privacy especially with the more usual small transactions. For example I purchased some trees on Friday for $L400. Does anyone believe I am really going to take first life legal action over just under $2 real US if they are not fit for use. (As it happens they were fine)

3) Class 3. Any business taking Linden dollars OUT of the Second Life economy to provide goods and services in Second Life dependent on first life should fall into class (1). In other words anything that is first life dependent for escrow at point of immediate sale.

Finally I have reservations about self-government or regulation by avatars. It could evolve in the future but are we at present too young to be able to collectively handle the responsibility?

You could trial it for class (2) disputes but knowing human nature it could cause a lot of trouble before it settled down. The thing is some of us forget ethics in an online environment and thus loose restraint.

Just my own views

Regards

John

The Company is a lot more capable than you might think; there is no way someone is going to sneak off merely by reassigning an avatar and sim name. That stuff can be traced in a heartbeat.

About six months ago, a former tenant of mine had some mainland which she was trying to transfer; not a large lot, something like 2k meters if memory serves. She lost it to a 'land swooper' while trying to transfer. So she called me and some others, and we contacted Company representatives.

She got her land back. This was even though the land was set to sale to 'anyone' for a really low price - it was such an obvious case of fraud that the transaction was reversed. The people at our service provider may be very overworked and overwhelmed, but they aren't stupid.

Now, that was before the millions rushed in; I'm not sure how things are today.

As for identity, I'm not quite sure how such a system could work without revealing first life information. Which in my view would have to work two ways, lest one party or the other be set up as a target.

For instance in your example, say you had first life information on the fellow skipping off with 800 USD. Say he's in Canada or the UK or the USA or whatever country you aren't in - what are you going to do? Theoretically you could file a case in another country, but the fuss of it is worth a lot more than 800 USD.

Perhaps other people could be warned, but I doubt this in itself would slow down criminal activity. People don't adequately research who they buy from *now*; I don't see the future being any different.

Nonetheless if you can come up with something that will work effectively both on a practical and a social level, by all means try to get it implemented.

Apart from that I hear somewhere "just another police-force" echo-ing in the back of my head, I think there is no need for any committee or whatever... specially not when it is run by residents.

I am a RL business woman and I use the same rules in SL as in RL which basicly comes down to "Use a clear head, calculate the risk and then make a decision". That is all that is needed.

To that: Most people are here for fun and enjoyment. Yes, there is RL money going around. But for heaven sakes, don't lets make it all to serious. Hobby and spare time cost money, that is a fact. Same goes also for SL.
RL is serious enough on it self....

Morwen

Remember, Second Life is not a democracy that recognizes freedoms. It is an oligarchy that grants privileges. It's frankly not in the Lindens' financial interests to expend resources regulating land transfer. Remember that the Lindens' bottom line is not resident happiness, but the flow of money to the Lindens.

Jackson, I know you are all against rental appears in the search page and I think it not a bad idea to separate out the rent and buy.
But I think your example is misleading at best. First why would the sim owner reclaims the land the next day? It your example try to illustrate a shady sim owner, the sim owner can reclaim the land even it is for PURCHASE of the land, it's not like when you do a real purchase on a sim the sim owner cannot reclaim. The bottom line is either sim owner offered for purchase or rent can reclaim their land anytime they want. The only different is how honest or trust worthy a sim owner is.

And you totally lost me on why the sim owner is to blame, if the sim owner is shady and want to trick people, he is to blame. But this has nothing to do with sim owner who list that land as a rental in land search page because Linden Lab doesn't provide a list for rental.
And at the end of the day, wouldn't a shady sim owner better off to said that he offer land for purchase, then turn away and reclaim it? For estate owner who offer to RENT, that initial charge is usually low. (like 0L to 500L and the first month rent). So wouldn't unaware no-ob
be better off to deal with a shady sim owner which is offer to rent rather than buy since for buy he probably will have to put down a lot more (a few thousands L$ and the first month tier)?





And I agree with most of the other posters, how could it help with real name? You could use a fake name anytime and other fake info, if criminal is really out there to get you. The best way of defense is buyer beware, And How could you verify someone REAL ID, do you want people to enter their social security number? passport number? How about people in different countries? What form of ID do you require? We all know that credit card number is shady at best, anyone can go out and buy a pre-paid credit card with fake address and fake name, so this could not be a reliable way to verify.

Even in RL we can't resolve the problem of shady criminals why would you think that some committee can solve all that? In RL we have dozen level of governments, all level of police, consumer group , better business bureau etc... and we still have people getting SCAM left, and right eveyday. Why??? Maybe if you can come out a REAL solution then you could solve this problem in both RL and SL.

I would go back in a heartbeat, crime was lower, taxes were lower, innovation was the byword. Face it the government is just a well armed criminal gang.

No we do not need any forced regulation in SL.

Well despite the objection from many people, for reasons that are obsured by thier single focus on things that really don't pertain to a regulatory committiee IE: "im not going to tell anyone how much money I make" I'm not going to give my real name", I do fair business and you can beleive that because I say so". I will form a REGISTRY in my spare time.

Since very few people seem to want this at all and they think SL is perfect the way it is, they think that thier inworld business dealings whether good or bad should have no accountaibility, nor recognition. Which I believe is mostly because of my inabilty to properly get my idea across.

It seems the bulk of the problems are in Private sims, so this is where focus will start. A registry will be set up on a website called secondlifesims dot blah blah. a domain which is owned by me but not being used right now (web developers needed). That will include a guideline for obtaining and retaining a FREE membership to to the registry, which will include benefits listed below:

1 Logo's and Trademark's
2 Access to covenant templates
3 How to guides on land management and developement
4 Co-operative projects
5 Lists of known problem sims and problem residents
6 Voice in issues dealing with how the registry is run
etc.......

At first logos would get very little recognition and will mean nearly nothing, but after proper marketing andexposure having this logo will be almost a neccessity if your planing on doing anything in the land trade business in SL. Terms for membreship and logos are very simple, keep your nose clean and use the logo's, mess up, do wrong and scam someone out of money, then lose the logo's(which will be copyrighted and enforced) and be put on a blacklist
Since membership is would be free, and NO real life information is required, anyone doing fair business could only consider this an enhancement to their reputation and level of respectibility..

Though still there will be those people screaming that its not right, its not fair, and its not allowed, well sorry about the bed you make for yourself. whats the old adage? If your not part of the solution, your part of the problem?

Who said anything about Government? This isnt about government, this is about forming a system that can add credibility to good land traders and trump the bad ones. But I see how people that are opposed to this might try and squirrel the issue off on a sidestreet like government and police state. Real Life names, and income levels, those thing push buttons with the general public and raise opposition by the masses without bringing too much attention to thier true agendas

Sound like to me that nonregulation and the people who are so staunchly against something that can only benefit the residents is the criminal here. Look to the real world for guidance here, there is no nation without a rules and someone to enforce those rules, thats why anarchistic cultures are always eventually conquered by the organized and civilized

Do as you like, it will be very interesting to watch.

Just curious how you would handle the following, though: What happens when someone lies and says bad things about your own sims on your ratings page?

Will you blacklist yourself or simply remove the complaints?

Would you do the same if it happened to someone else?

And who will be the judge of who was lying, just you?

It's easy to show us how fair this registry will be, by saying what you will do in the above situations.

Very interesting that you had that domain name handy. Good luck to you.

I aquired the domain last week , but found i didnt want to use it for my land sales website due to LL restrictions on the two words "Second Life" in the mast section of the webpage, or something like that. Im not really good with webpages and such

Ideally I wouldnt want to be anything more than a member and not the deciding factor, obviously Im a Land seller and would have certain bias that would always be called to question. Once its set up and running I would much like to set in in someone elses hands

As for someone dirtying your name, things like this cannot be avoided, that would be akin to demanding LL puts an end to all griefers grid wide by tomorrow midnight, I would guess that sooner or later there will be enough interest in the project that people will want to be on investigative and review panels. In any event it would not be done purely on hearsay, no reputable registry or committee takes things on hearsay alone