Public vs Private spaces?

I've been around a couple months, but I guess I haven't gotten around to doing much exploring until now. I'm immediately confronted with a big question whenever I find a place on the map, or in the search, that looks interesting: How do I know if it's appropriate for me to teleport there and wander around? How does one know whether a space is public or private?

If you found it under search, chances are it's public. People list places they want other people to visit. If you find a place on the map and are unsure what to do, follow these general heads-ups. If it looks like a house, chances are it's a house (Private). If it's locked, or has no visible entries....chances are it's private.

It's probably public if :
* it shows up in Search->Places or Search->Classifieds, or is otherwise advertised.
* it has 'welcome' signs, greeter robots, or scripts that are provided as toys for guests.

It's probably private if :
* the only way to find it is to stumble upon it - it's not advertised.
* the doors/etc don't accept you in - you don't seem to have access to it.
* it looks like a house - it LOOKs like a private area.
* wandering close to it gets you a polite warning from any kind of security device

I feel there are not private places(unless you disonect form the internet)
, but ppl can ban all from their land so...
if you cant go there then its private, if you can then its public.
i mean why build in SL if no one is to see it? just buy your own render program.
what if everyone locked down their land? there would be no SL....
its like haveing a web page no one can see...
-LW

That's not entirely accurate. Webpages are often used to relate information or services to a wide variety of people. The house I put up on the land I rent is not to relate information or services to anyone. It's for me to have a place to sit back and watch tv or a movie with friends and family, work quietly without the hassle of sandbox griefers, make my avatar walk around naked wearing nothing but a fedora (just because I can ^_^), to try out new textures for clothes and objects, and if need be to take pictures of said clothes and objects in a controlled enviroment.

It's not a place for people to walk/run/fly up to and ask me if they can buy something, or sell me something, or have some money. Yes, there are a great many people who build wonderful things who share them with the community at large. Then there are others who may be building something to sell, or something for a friend, or just for practice.

Ok, that helps. Just for the record, while I have no control over the ensuing direction of a thread I start, I did not intend this to be a discussion about what SHOULD or SHOULDN'T be public, just a discussion about how best to determine the owner's intent, so I don't go around being a jerk and invading people's privacy.

I think part of my trouble in the last few days has been lack of search engine. I've been pecking away at the map and using things like SLurl. It's easy enough to tell when you're standing in someone's back yard (oops, sorry), but it's trickier when it's a beach without any houses around, or a forest. Today, I found a beach through SLurl, tped over there, clicked on the ground and it said it was group owned, and it was one of those deals where you rent from them, like Anshe Chung, but I don't think that's who it was. So, the land info didn't really tell me anything. I sat there for about 10 minutes watching a sunset. All around me were beach blankets and stuff that made it look like crowds of people came there. Then I turned around to find a naked person giving me a very icy stare. I quickly asked whether I had tresspassed: Silence (pants appear). I begin apologizing: Silence (a shirt appears). I say I'm leaving immediately and I won't trouble her further: Silence. I leave.

I still don't know whether I was getting the silent treatment from an angry landowner, or whether she was simply busy getting dressed and couldn't respond. I could assume that it was public because it came up on SLurl, but I think this might be an incorrect assumption because maybe the landowner wants potential renters to be able to find it, so he or she added a SLurl link. I suppose when the search function is back up, I'll be able to just read a description of whatever comes up.

Hmmm… let me give you my view on this.

You can walk onto my land without a problem. So it is public as far it concerns me. I have no problems we people walking on my land or sit for some time in my garden. If I would not like you to do so, I should make my land private. If I would walk around naked on my land and run like that into you… then there is nothing for you to blame (now before my land gets invaded… I normally don’t walk naked around there^^).

The frontdoor of my house is open. This means you are welcome to enter. But as you are on my property, I expect you to behave polite. Don’t leave “carbage” behind and if I am in my house and I ask you to leave (for what reason ever), I expect you to do so. But mostly I am happy with polite visitors.

When I don’t want visitors in my house, I lock the frontdoor. This a clear “Sorry, not now”-sign.
The doors upstairs are always locked.

I know that locked doors are not a 100% guarantee that someone cannot get in. But I expect people to behave polite on my land (I dislike to enforce simple things like this with strong force). If someone acts against these simple signs I see that as trespassing and will result in a quick ban.

That is the way I look and act on this.

Morwen.

If it's open, then to me it's fair game.

If ban lines are up, you probably aren't wanted there.

If it has a closed door, then you probably aren't wanted there - and using the various methods to break in is wrong.

If it is designed to keep you out (ie a skybox that you can only teleport in to) then you probably aren't welcome to try and break in either.

I think the biggest problem that a lot of people see empty land, and immediately assume it's free to build on. There's been a couple of plots near me for sale for a while that regularly got cluttered up with abandoned plywood boxes and suchlike. Unless it actually says it's a sandbox - then you shouldn't build there without permission, and you most definitely shouldn't leave behind anything when you leave.

Personally I have no 'private space that nobody can get into' in my Second Life, but for reasons I rarely understand, some are so paranoid of other people dropping by. I've never quite figured out why people choose to be so antisocial in something that is designed to be a social game.

Lewis

It is a social game Lewis, but surely the reason why you would buy/rent a home in Sl is to have your own private space there aswell that you can hangout in, or invite friends to for smaller private gathering without the distraction of others popping in unannounced.

If you then want to socialise with all and sundry then go out into the big SL world and find the areas open to everyone.

Surely this works as it does in RL... I can't see why there should be any difference in SL?

If you search for a sim on the map and then tp to it you will land at 128, 128 - the middle of the sim. I have sometimes ended up in someone's house, or even embedded in their walls or floor. So far there has been no one there and I've tp'd straight out again, but it could be embarrassing, not to mention distressing for the owner. I suppose in the old days this was the location of the sim telehub, but it needs updating - perhaps a small 16m rectangle free at those coordinates (Mr Lee where are you? [G]).

True to an extent... but I guess it's just not the way I play. I don't do anything that needs particular "privacy", and the only time I do I'd talk in instant message or outside of SL.

Lewis

Nice to see you back, Lewis.

Thats fair enough Lewis. That is how you play I wouldn't knock you for that. Others play it differently and I feel other users should (and on the whole do) respect that.

I must admit when I first started I wondered everywhere and anywhere, but I realised after I'd popped into a few houses that I was just being nosey and effectively going into someone elses house and rummaging through their stuff. I know that I wouldn't like that and so now refrain from enter places that seem like peoples homes without an invite.

Generally speaking, if it's listed as a business in the Classifieds, it's 'fair game' to go to where that listing's teleport coordinates take you. But that doesn't mean every square inch of area on that parcel is wide open. If you go to a department store, the showroom floor is wide open, but the storage rooms and back offices and the company safe certainly are not!

For example, one of my businesses, "Fox and Ground Construction Company", has a classified ad that will take you to the deck outside my Wailele Isle home. There is a notecard dispenser there for the business, and that deck is where I usually meet with prospective clients for sim building and other construction work, because from there they can look around and see numerous examples of my work, in a sim that I built.

However, the house the deck is attached to is my home. I don't expect you to walk inside the house when the doors are closed and the curtains are drawn closed. I certainly don't expect you to go prowling around in my basement, which has no obvious way into it, and making free with any pose balls that you might find there. I don't expect you to walk in and start using my shower or bathtub without being a personal friend first, and asking permission. I have had to lock access to my teleporter that leads from that home to my skybox in that sim, to prevent curious people, and in at least one case a hostile griefer, from using that teleporter to get to my skybox, which is my private bedroom and the workshop where I design and buld new products.

I can lock the doors on that house, but that is so easily defeated that I rarely bother. If I want privacy, I go up to my skybox. I have a security orb there if I want to really lock everyone else out.

If a structure does NOT look like a place of business, or like a definite public place, it is best to assume that it is private property. Treat it as you would want your own home and land to be treated. If you want to look around, ask the owner for permission. If the owner isn't home, right click on the structure, determine who owns it, open their profile, and send them an IM to ask for permission. That is the SL equivalent of "Knocking on the door, or calling on the phone, before dropping by for a social call".

Under normal circumstances, I would have no problem if a stranger stopped outside my door, and said "This is a beautiful place. Is it yours? May come in and take a look at it?". I've given many tours to new people who politely asked for them.

On the other hand, it's very unnerving to be sitting in your living room, chatting with good friends, and to suddenly have a complete stranger walk in like they own the place! A few days back I had a girl appear on my deck, while I was in the middle of a meeting with three clients. I politely told her that we were having a meeting, and invited her to go enjoy the swimming pool or other features of the island, until we were done. Instead, she stood in the middle of us, danced and leaped around like a maniac, and set herself on fire in a bid for attention. I asked her to go, twice, and ejected her from the parcel once. She came right back. I finally had to demand that she leave, and even then, she didn't go until I threatened to ban her from the entire sim!

A little courtesy will go a LONG way! Treat others as you would want to be treated.

Open land is almost ALWAYS privately owned. If it is open area, but is not CLEARLY MARKED as being a public sandbox, it is NOT OK to use it as one! I have a large open lawn in front of one of my homes. The parcel's prim count supports a skybox, high above that spot. The area is surrounded by homes. And yet newbies and even some longer term residents kept coming by and starting to build there. We finally had to set the land to no-build, except for members of our own group, and to lock out access for accounts with no payment info on file. There were just to many rude and inconsiderate people wandering through as if it was a public park.

That is like saying "Why build a house in RL if everyone can't go into it at will? Why have a bedroom that isn't a public stage?"

Yes, a land owner can lock access on a parcel-wide basis, causing tons of problems for perfectly innocent people like Lewis who just want to fly through that air space on the way from one place to another. Many of us prefer not to be so rude, and if we live on land that we don't own, we may not have that option.

It is impossible to "lock the door" on an individual room in SL. You can put a locked door on it, but that is so easily circumvented that a ten year old could do it. They can still look in, and can still GET in, unless you have an active security system that ejects and bans every unauthorized attempt to enter a certain radius from the security orb.

So for many of us, we face a social problem. We may be perfectly happy for people to wander through and enjoy PART of our land, but if we allow that, we have no privacy on ANY of that land.

It never ceases to amaze me that a person who would never dream of breaking and entering in RL will do it in SL without a second thought. You wouldn't go walking through a residential neighborhood, trying front door latches until you found one that was unlocked, and then walk in and start playing with their stereo, TV and game console, and sleeping in their bed. So why is it OK in SL?

Yes, it is a social game. But it is MY choice to decide exactly who I will or will not socialize with.

Therefore, my skybox is 700+ m in the air, so that it is not easily bumped into by people flying around, and I have a high enough confidence in that so I do not put up ban lines, thus allowing others to cross the sim more easily. The land appears vacant, so I have auto-return set to prevent littering.

As others have opined, if I want to socialize with the whole wide world, I'll venture out to a public space.

Cheers.

Now, I take issue a bit with this sort of distinction. Saying that people can come to the deck you advertise but it's rude for them to come inside, that's a little unfair. It is perfectly reasonable for people to expect that the house connected to the advertised deck is part of the commercial space being advertised (especially considering yours is a construction company.)

I mean, it would be one thing if you had a sign on the door (I like invisible cubes with hovertext) that tells people the inside is a private residence, but otherwise it's just unfair to expect visitors to read your mind and know "oh, the advertised business is only the deck and not the entire house."

Note that I am a little cheesed off here since I've been bitten by this personally. I clicked on an ad, enter the building I tp'd to, the homeowner freezes me for trespassing. wtf, if you don't want people coming in, then don't advertise the location.

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Incidentally, on my land we welcome visitors (indeed, the entire lake is designed to be a fun spot for people to come visit) and put private spaces above the cloud layer. This works well; random visitors can walk around our land all they want, and we just fly up whenever we want privacy.

Possible theories to explain why people think this :
1) "it's just a game, I can do what I want here". Obvious reply "it's not a game to me" is met with the objection "well, I consider it a game and don't care what you think".
2) "nothing stopped me, so I presumed it was ok". Obvious reply "I assumed you'd have courtesy!" is met with the objection "how was I supposed to know you cared?"

The trick is educating people (on O.I. preferably) about the concept of private property, so they do know. That would take care of most intruders.

That sums it up pretty well. I personally find the third sentence very important: closed door, no shop sign = private home, even without ban lines.

Well Johan, that is why, even though there is a 'bedroom' in my bungalo on Wailele, my actual bedroom in that sim is in a skybox. And it is why the basement is a place that isn't easy to find a way into. If someone does walk into the solarium, which is the door closest to the business location teleport point, I'm not going to be upset at that. For that matter, I'm not terribly worried about some curious person taking a peek inside the upstairs, either.

You raise a good point that since I am advertising that spot out on the deck as a Builder's business, one might feel justified in assuming the house there is a "model home", intended for public display. So perhaps I should lock the doors, just to make it clear that this is not the case.

My sim building work is all custom builds, so a normal retail storefront makes no sense for it, nor does directing people to a mall location where the majority of what I sell there is clothes and avatar parts. But a classified ad has to tie to a location somewhere. You can't create one without also creating a teleport marker for wherever you are at that moment.

In addition to that, I agree with Ceera. I also see the need to have a private house in a public and advertised sim, or just a private room within a public store. No open entry, door doesn't swing open when you click it = room is locked, every camera+poseball trick to get through solid walls is breaking in.

Even if the door is unlocked, but after entering it looks like a private room (people sitting at a dinner table or making funny sounds while jumping around on a bed), it would be polite to say something like "Uhm, Hello..." or "Sorry, I didn't want to disturb". If they want company, they'll reply and ask you to stay. What one shouldn't do is to sit down at their dinner table without a word, to undress and jump into their bed or to start shooting at them with a melon launcher.

Basically, everything that would be considered extremely peculiar in RL may be a bit on the wild side in SL too. Common sense helps a lot; if you're walking through Disneyworld, it's unlikely that someone lives in the colorful houses, but if the area looks like a housing development people might give you odd looks if you climb through their windows. And nothing says "private office" more clearly than a locked room on the upper floor of a public club.

People are often simply being nice to vehicle owners, not wanting to cause a plane crash due to red ban lines. That's not really compatible to the former WoW player who assumes that everything was built for his entertainment and that every scarcely dressed lady in her own private bed wants to be jumped and humped at. SL is a world, not a WoW.

Today I clicked on a lucky chair that I could just see in the distance. SL flung me half-way across the region so I was sitting in a jacuzzi inside someone's house!

Couldn't even find a front door to get out so I'm fairly sure I wasn't supposed to be there. Thankfully no one was home so I didn't have to explain myself.

Not all "home invasions" are deliberate. Though some obviously are.

Chellonia Regent

I would say that if a house is unlocked and no-one is at home, it's not unreasonable to wander in and have a look round. But I would go quickly if the owner comes back suddenly!

It's not like RL because avatars do not really have the same needs for privacy as people do. Also, you can't wander into someone's house and steal things or leave muddy footprints. But don't leave waste prims around!

Well, if you type "Sorry" or "Hi there, just passing through *giggles*", no one will possibly mind your accidental intrusion
I'm only talking of the numerous people I meet each day who seem unable to use a keyboard at all. They just click everything, trying if it somehow interacts with them in a funny way, including other avatars. And if they find something entertaining, there seems to be no way to tell them that they should please knock first and then leave after not breaking in in the first place and if they really insist to stay around, then please without shooting melons at my head or humping the legs of my guests.

So make the teleport marker somewhere else in the sim. You say the entire sim other than the inside of the house is a showcase to potential clients, so why on earth would you have your ad teleport people to the one spot you don't want them to enter? That's just silly.

And Ishtara, she said she leaves her door unlocked. If I click on a door and it doesn't open then no, I don't use camera panning to break in.