Security Orb Creators and Owners

[Scylla Rhiadra]

12 minutes ago, AyelaNewLife said:

I don't think it's particularly helpful that the big "educational initiative" of those mainland landowner pillars is so... extreme. Open rez rights is not a reasonable expectation to wave in landowner's faces, nor is the removal of ban lines; and the inclusion of the unreasonable makes ignoring the reasonable so much easier for landowners. A reasonable compromise would be "put banlines up instead of using an orb", or "set your orb to move visitors off your land, don't eject to home". It achieves the same thing - maintaining the landowner's privacy - without being a miserable SOB to any unsuspecting wanderers.

I am in complete agreement: privacy is not an unreasonable expectation, and there are circumstances -- again, Blush represents an example -- which may demand more stringent measures.

The problem here is that both sides seem to be arguing from principle, rather than acknowledging that situations and contexts demand flexible responses.

[HeathcliffMontague]

46 minutes ago, AyelaNewLife said:

I imagine most people will use their orb on the default setting

And some of the problems stem from that. I think this comes mostly from ignorance, not malice. I can actually see most sides of the debate here - and I'd think most would agree that knowing how wide your orb reaches is a good thing. To makes sure it doesn't actually reach beyond your parcel, for example.

[Selene Gregoire]

36 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

But there are plenty of posts here that suggest that some are choosing to be miserable SOBs, merely because they've paid LL for the privilege to be so.

[Brenda Archer]

I don’t actually think a teleport home orb is necessarily wrong - it depends on the context.

Any of the currently available “security” options might be sensible and helpful in the right context.

What I’m trying to communicate in this thread, and I don’t seem to be making the point very well, is that even with a zero orb, banlines and can’t see avatars turned on, you don’t really have either privacy or security on Mainland. 

I’m not making this argument to sneak in an argument that all these features should be turned off. 

But what I’m hearing about in this thread are legit problems with stalkers and griefers and a desire for a level of privacy that doesn’t exist on Mainland because we don’t have the tools for it, not even with everything cranked up to 11.

When I was hosting meetings and adult parties, and the available tools were even less granular than what we have now, I always maintained a little parcel far away - owned or rented on a private estate - to serve as a bolt hole, and no one but me ever knew where. I maintain this will fix the casual harassment problem by simply being able to take off when someone isn’t taking a hint. 

And bluntly, if SL harassment is bleeding into RL harassment it’s time to call the cops. 

I have relocated from one state to another in the past to get rid of a RL threat, for sure if he was reaching me through a piece of software I’d turn the damn thing off. SL is not that important, unless it’s the source of your living, in which case you’re far more technical than what I’m hearing from some in this thread. 

On a security level, we need to drop all RP and look at the software. We do not have real privacy on Mainland by design and the bones we’ve been thrown are not enough. They are not an IP level ban or a block to camming or wandering. 

So instead of affecting your neighbors with banlines at property edge and hyperactive orb settings - and your neighbors are more affected by this than vehicle users - why not learn how your tools work, and their hard coded  limitations? 

If you’re in SL to meet with a select few and venture out mainly to shop or go to events, you want your real SL home to be a private secret. The ground on Mainland is not ideal for that, especially if an avatar and not an unlisted group owns it. If you can pay for land in SL, you can have two completely separate homes! This will throw off all but the worst stalkers.

Not just SL, but a lot of platforms are designed badly for women from a safety point of view. If you’re getting hassled, please drop the RP and try to think like a hacker long enough to protect yourself. It’s a world of security threat out there and the illusion of safety is usually just good luck. 

 

 

 

 

[AyelaNewLife]

6 minutes ago, Brenda Archer said:

What I’m trying to communicate in this thread, and I don’t seem to be making the point very well, is that even with a zero orb, banlines and can’t see avatars turned on, you don’t really have either privacy or security on Mainland. 

But what I’m hearing about in this thread are legit problems with stalkers and griefers and a desire for a level of privacy that doesn’t exist on Mainland because we don’t have the tools for it, not even with everything cranked up to 11.

On a security level, we need to drop all RP and look at the software. We do not have real privacy on Mainland by design and the bones we’ve been thrown are not enough. They are not an IP level ban or a block to camming or wandering. 

Not just SL, but a lot of platforms are designed badly for women from a safety point of view. If you’re getting hassled, please drop the RP and try to think like a hacker long enough to protect yourself. It’s a world of security threat out there and the illusion of safety is usually just good luck. 

You keep talking in really vague terms about "insufficient privacy and security". Could you be more specific? What privacy/security concerns don't these tools address? What are the big vulnerabilities?

There's one thing I can think of, off the top of my head; the fact that a stalker can park an alt just outside your mainland parcel, on the same region, and can not only tell if you're on the parcel but also which room. Sure, they might not be able to watch you perform the horizontal tango with someone, but they can zoom in on your name + another name at a similar distance away in the nearby window and see that you're both on a bed; and it doesn't take a genius to join those dots. That's a problem, and one that LL could fix pretty easily if they cared enough.

In terms of stalking/harassment, the biggest security vulnerability anyone will ever has is a chat box. People openly talk too much, without realising how your tiny little clues you casually drop in conversation can be gathered up and melded together into a pretty specific picture. Actual "hacking" when it comes to harassment is extremely rare, it's mostly just loose lips and someone obsessive enough to join the dots.

Oh, and on a point of principle I abhor any implication that only women deserve security and safety. Harassment and privacy are gender neutral. This "women are the victims, men are the perpetrators" narrative is both divisive, harmful and outright nonsensical. 

[Female Winslet]

 

2 hours ago, AyelaNewLife said:

I don't think it's particularly helpful that the big "educational initiative" of those mainland landowner pillars is so... extreme. Open rez rights is not a reasonable expectation to wave in landowner's faces, nor is the removal of ban lines; and the inclusion of the unreasonable makes ignoring the reasonable so much easier for landowners. A reasonable compromise would be "put banlines up instead of using an orb", or "set your orb to move visitors off your land, don't eject to home". It achieves the same thing - maintaining the landowner's privacy - without being a miserable SOB to any unsuspecting wanderers.

As has been discussed ad nauseum, ban lines interfere with efforts to travel outside of the property for a variety of reasons--feel free to read some of the recent discussions. They also don't work so well from the privacy protecting perspective either because they reach only 50m above ground level (I actually measured yesterday). Having rez turned on seems to work perfectly well for many, many, many of us. I do it with a 3 hour autoreturn and I know people who use an even longer autoreturn than that.

I have made an exception with the mini-parcels where I've rezzed my own obelisks. Those have an autoreturn of only 1 minute. That is because some others who have also participated in rezzing these obelisks have encountered hate messages from the "me me me" people, so I know there is an elevated risk of griefing there. So . . . I guess this goes to show that adjustments can even be made to deal with the risk of griefing. Even though griefing simply is not the issue it once was. 

44 minutes ago, Brenda Archer said:

What I’m trying to communicate in this thread, and I don’t seem to be making the point very well, is that even with a zero orb, banlines and can’t see avatars turned on, you don’t really have either privacy or security on Mainland. 

This is true--and this is where I think some of the disconnect lies. Mainland is shared, much the way a city in RL is shared. That means you don't, can't, and shouldn't have the same level of isolation and privacy as if you lived off in some private estate region unconnected to anything. Just the same way that city dwellers don't, can't, and shouldn't have the same level of isolation and privacy as someone living out by themselves in the country side. It's just the way it is.

It also means that your actions on your parcel affect your neighbors in much the way is true in city's as well. This is why we have things like zoning laws in RL that prohibit opening a fertilizer factory in the middle of a residential neighborhood. And, while the analogy is crude, we have restrictions on the mainland kinda like zoning restrictions that don't exist on private islands. Off the top of my head, examples could be ban line height (which can be raised on private islands) and limits on terraforming.

44 minutes ago, Brenda Archer said:

And bluntly, if SL harassment is bleeding into RL harassment it’s time to call the cops. 

I have relocated from one state to another in the past to get rid of a RL threat, for sure if he was reaching me through a piece of software I’d turn the damn thing off. SL is not that important, unless it’s the source of your living, in which case you’re far more technical than what I’m hearing from some in this thread. 

I can't react to a part of a post, but I just wanted to underscore and agree with this. 

44 minutes ago, Brenda Archer said:

Not just SL, but a lot of platforms are designed badly for women from a safety point of view. If you’re getting hassled, please drop the RP and try to think like a hacker long enough to protect yourself. It’s a world of security threat out there and the illusion of safety is usually just good luck. 

I agree with this too. With that said, I think that SL does a better job of protecting real life information and such than most platforms. Facebook it isn't.

But nothing is a replacement for good security awareness by the individual, especially if the individual is a woman. We shouldn't have to do that sort of thing. But in the real world, we have to deal with the reality that not good people are out there, that they especially tend to be problematic for women, and that SL hides them from us as well as it hides us from them.

 

20 minutes ago, AyelaNewLife said:

Oh, and on a point of principle I abhor any implication that only women deserve security and safety. Harassment and privacy are gender neutral. This "women are the victims, men are the perpetrators" narrative is both divisive, harmful and outright nonsensical. 

Again with the ignoring what was said to respond to something that no one ever said, i.e. a strawman. No one said only women deserve security and safety. Perhaps you have not noticed, but the only people in this thread who have described being stalked in SL or RL are women. Ever wonder why?

[Brenda Archer]

2 minutes ago, AyelaNewLife said:

You keep talking in really vague terms about "insufficient privacy and security". Could you be more specific? What privacy/security concerns don't these tools address? What are the big vulnerabilities?

There's one thing I can think of, off the top of my head; the fact that a stalker can park an alt just outside your mainland parcel, on the same region, and can not only tell if you're on the parcel but also which room. Sure, they might not be able to watch you perform the horizontal tango with someone, but they can zoom in on your name + another name at a similar distance away in the nearby window and see that you're both on a bed; and it doesn't take a genius to join those dots. That's a problem, and one that LL could fix pretty easily if they cared enough.

In terms of stalking/harassment, the biggest security vulnerability anyone will ever has is a chat box. People openly talk too much, without realising how your tiny little clues you casually drop in conversation can be gathered up and melded together into a pretty specific picture. Actual "hacking" when it comes to harassment is extremely rare, it's mostly just loose lips and someone obsessive enough to join the dots.

Oh, and on a point of principle I abhor any implication that only women deserve security and safety. Harassment and privacy are gender neutral. This "women are the victims, men are the perpetrators" narrative is both divisive, harmful and outright nonsensical. 

 

In practice and for cultural reasons, most of the harassment is aimed at female presenting avatars, but of course sociopathy knows no bounds of gender. I can think of an example right off the top of my head of a male presenting avatar with a male RL user who was RL doxxed by a female user. But this is less common than the opposite, just because the cultural drivers aren’t there. And the culture is one of the things a hacker considers when making a design, or breaking it.

You're absolutely correct to say someone near you on Mainland can know exactly where you are even if they can’t see your avatar. So real privacy in this case would be the ability to conceal your avatar name or presence, and we don’t have that. Firestorm, for example, will let me scan and zoom in on avatars anywhere nearby. 

Additionally, if your main avatar owns the land in its own name, rather than a secret alt or group, you have a sign out that anyone can read. 

So you want a lot which you have told no one about (at least no one who is not proven super trustworthy) and that’s your downtime home, while the other lot is the one where you entertain and which you tell everyone about. They should be far away from each other and the downtime lot could also be a private estate rental or a high skybox, although, in practice it seemed to me some people used their Linden home for this. 

The concept here is keeping a secret. And the culture I come from doesn’t really support the idea of women being so self-interested, so we usually wind up learning it the hard way: you *don’t* have to be nice to someone who doesn’t respect your boundaries, you don’t have to be open to strangers.

An IP ban, which we don’t have in SL, is a tool you may have seen if you’ve had an RL online store. A website like this can log the IP addresses of every visitor who requests to see the site, and there may be a tool for the store owner to block requests to see the site from an IP address or a range of them. So for example, if a particular ISP in Florida was the location of someone running fraudulent credit card tests, you would ban the whole range of that ISP’s IP addresses from ever loading your store site. If we had this in SL, it could be a form of ignore or a form of banline. But we don’t. 

Obviously this might turn into a case of whack a mole if a stalker was technical enough to use a VPN, but most of the SL type stalkers probably aren’t. 

But we don’t have such a tool, so the only way to not be seen in SL is to be at a location you have kept a secret. This includes from whoever you’re SL dating. You don’t know him. And this is where culture comes into play, will you give yourself permission to keep a secret from someone? Because you should.

I would also say: if anything makes you embarrassed, don’t put it on the ground on Mainland. I have used silent Visitor Counters for a long time on all my lots. Generally, avatars just passing by on Mainland are on the ground. I rarely see anyone at my skybox with a ten second counter. So that’s where I rez any adult furniture that might make me blush. I might orb a skybox where I’m holding an adult party. But the truth is, it’s still not a secret from my neighbors who are in the next skybox over.

This is the other missing feature from Mainland - blocks on camming. We’re not going to get it.

 I don’t see the point of doing anything in SL that makes you uncomfortable and this is where culture again comes into play. If I’m really too embarrassed to ever be seen on a sex bed or whatever it is, I won’t use one. (I’m not, but that’s me.) The old joke that PG is where the adults are comes to mind. PG with no sex furniture makes a nice downtime home. 

So we can’t hide an avatar name on Mainland, we can’t stop anyone from getting our coordinates who is nearby, we can’t hide any of our rezzed prims from camming and we can’t keep someone being tossed around by a botched sim crossing or boomeranged by lag from dropping in even if they didn’t want to. For the love of god, why would anyone put adult stuff on the ground on Mainland? Unless they’re me and don’t care other people know they’re there, but Mainland really is not for everyone. By design. 

 

 

[Brenda Archer]

35 minutes ago, Female Winslet said:

With that said, I think that SL does a better job of protecting real life information and such than most platforms. Facebook it isn't.

But nothing is a replacement for good security awareness by the individual, especially if the individual is a woman. We shouldn't have to do that sort of thing. But in the real world, we have to deal with the reality that not good people are out there, that they especially tend to be problematic for women, and that SL hides them from us as well as it hides us from them.

Thank you, and I agree with your whole post. 

I once naively thought I could know someone just from SL. But it does hide them from us, and if someone is a bad person we might never know until we experience their RL behavior. Some people live their whole life building up a narcissistic mask. They are often very good at it, and any virtual world is their playground. Normal people do *not* understand how these people work or their potential for deception.

 LL is definitely no Facebook, for which I’m very grateful.

 

 

[Female Winslet]

4 minutes ago, Brenda Archer said:

I once naively thought I could know someone just from SL. But it does hide them from us, and if someone is a bad person we might never know until we experience their RL behavior. Some people live their whole life building up a narcissistic mask. They are often very good at it, and any virtual world is their playground. Normal people do *not* understand how these people work or their potential for deception.

Yes. . . . I've met a few people from SL in RL. I've met them at conventions. I've met them at crowded hotel lobbies. That sort of thing. It's partly just good common sense and partly exactly what you are saying above about how you never really know until you experience their RL behavior!

Some of my built in caution from RL moves into SL in ways where it just isn't needed. Situations like "Man I don't know invites me to go boating with him alone." In RL, I just say no thank you. If not that, for some reason , then I check him out thoroughly with people I know before even considering it. In SL male avatar approaches me claiming to be a close friend of one of my good friends, so I start doing this routine and then an hour later I remember that if there are any problems, I can just teleport out, so I can take a little more risk than I'd take in RL. True story. Actually happened.

Sigh. Perhaps the next gentleman who complains about women complaining about needing to be safe from men could share some of the ways he protects himself against assault/stalking/harassment by women.

[Selene Gregoire]

1 hour ago, Brenda Archer said:

Mainland really is not for everyone. By design. 

Incorrect. Once upon a time the only land available was mainland. Private regions did not exist. Mainland was designed for everyone. Homesteads weren't introduced until 2009. I don't remember exactly what year private regions were introduced but it was only a couple or three years before homesteads. 

Edited April 15, 2019 by Selene Gregoire

[AyelaNewLife]

1 hour ago, Female Winslet said:

Again with the ignoring what was said to respond to something that no one ever said, i.e. a strawman. No one said only women deserve security and safety. Perhaps you have not noticed, but the only people in this thread who have described being stalked in SL or RL are women. Ever wonder why?

 

23 minutes ago, Female Winslet said:

Sigh. Perhaps the next gentleman who complains about women complaining about needing to be safe from men could share some of the ways he protects himself against assault/stalking/harassment by women.

This is precisely what I was objecting to. I truly dislike this "female ownership" of harassment victimhood. Yes, we're more than twice as likely to self-report as having been stalked than men, and twice as likely to worry about it (YouGov polling of Brits; may vary elsewhere). That's still millions and millions of men who have been on the receiving end of this horrible crime, and I don't think phrases like "a lot of platforms are designed badly for women from a safety point of view" are that helpful. Every one of those privacy features and safety concerns applies to men and women, no one is immune from this.

At the end of the day though, we're arguing about me being a language pedant, so it's probably best that we both move on?

[Brenda Archer]

35 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

Incorrect. Once upon a time the only land available was mainland. Private regions did not exist. Mainland was designed for everyone. Homesteads weren't introduced until 2009. I don't remember exactly what year private regions were introduced but it was only a couple or three years before homesteads. 

 

We’re using a different meaning of “designed.” If Mainland was going to be thoughtfully designed for everyone, it would be a very different kind of software. Instead it started out as a techno libertarian Burning Man sandbox, there’s no way that’s for everyone.

There are good reasons why platforms like Facebook and games like WoW can get the mainstream, and SL cannot, even though LL really tried for a while. To my mind the biggest reason is just what SL *is*, a sandbox of mostly uncensored user generated content. The mainstream can’t tolerate this level of choice and self direction. 

It’s not just prudery, although I’m not sure LL could ever be anywhere other than SF. It’s that the total sandbox and anonymity break down the social cues normies need to navigate.

I remember when the idea was being floated to show RL gender on the avatar and the overwhelming rejection of this idea by the residents - except for a very few male presenting avatars using very old fashioned conservative and religious arguments. When many people get thrown into another culture, they don’t know how to act, and if the culture is anarchy there’s no one to ask.

Sandboxes are great if you can enjoy the ride, but SL was never going to be a RL dating app and a sandbox at the same time. We still only have social SL as RP by the users. 

Edited April 15, 2019 by Brenda Archer
Grammar

[AyelaNewLife]

2 hours ago, Brenda Archer said:

The concept here is keeping a secret. And the culture I come from doesn’t really support the idea of women being so self-interested, so we usually wind up learning it the hard way: you *don’t* have to be nice to someone who doesn’t respect your boundaries, you don’t have to be open to strangers.

And this is where culture comes into play, will you give yourself permission to keep a secret from someone? Because you should.

 

1 hour ago, Brenda Archer said:

I once naively thought I could know someone just from SL. But it does hide them from us, and if someone is a bad person we might never know until we experience their RL behavior. Some people live their whole life building up a narcissistic mask. They are often very good at it, and any virtual world is their playground. Normal people do *not* understand how these people work or their potential for deception.

 LL is definitely no Facebook, for which I’m very grateful.

Chopped up your posts to highlight these parts.

I'd add one thing; normal people do not understand how these people work or their potential for deception, until they've fallen victim to such a deception. Or at least that's the way I've learned to protect myself online.

I put my Second Life into a box. That box isn't watertight because I'm only human, but as much as possible I keep the details about my real life outside of that box. My real name, age and birthday, job, location, what I look like, even what my voice sounds like, everything like that stays out of the box. I have fresh email addresses and social media accounts that don't link back to my real self, and anyone that tries to push past those boundaries gets cut out.

I don't need to worry about who I can and cannot trust; because even if you compiled together every single conversation I've ever had here, you could never work out who I am. You'd be able to "know me" as a person, I'm not putting on an act or anything, I'd be the same girl if we met face to face. But you'd never "know me" as a list of details, you'd never be able to track me down; at least no way that I'm aware of.

Some people call me paranoid, others call it proof that I'm an alt/a RL man/an age player. For me it's just basic common sense, no different to locking the windows and doors whenever they're not in use. It's just some simple steps to keep myself safe, and that's more important than the fee-fees of some idiot that's never been on the receiving end of a doxx or a stalker.

Edited April 15, 2019 by AyelaNewLife
Reworded some bits

[Brenda Archer]

15 minutes ago, AyelaNewLife said:

 

Chopped up your posts to highlight these parts.

I'd add one thing; normal people do not understand how these people work or their potential for deception, until they've fallen victim to such a deception. Or at least that's the way I've learned to protect myself online.

I put my Second Life into a box. That box isn't watertight because I'm only human, but as much as possible I keep the details about my real life outside of that box. My age, my birthday, my job, my location, my old university, my hobbies, my real name, what I look like, even what my voice sounds like, everything like that stays out of the box. I have fresh email addresses and social media accounts that don't link back to my real self, and anyone that tries to push past those boundaries gets cut out. I don't need to worry about who I can and cannot trust; because even if you compiled together every single conversation I've ever had here, you could never work out who I am.

Some people call me paranoid, others call it proof that I'm an alt/a RL man/an age player. For me it's just basic common sense, no different to locking the windows and doors whenever they're not in use. It's just some simple steps to keep myself safe, and that's more important than the fee-fees of some idiot that's never been on the receiving end of a doxx or a stalker.

 

If this works for you, go for it. 

I’m at the opposite pole and a little digging will turn up my RL social media. Most people who have used SL for a RL related reason are in the same situation. 

Instead I fall back to the level of caution I apply to social media in general. There are a few details of life I don’t post anywhere.

Social media is a real problem for anyone who has picked up a stalker. This is definitely an area where the law needs to catch up to reality. SL is actually better than average because we have anonymity. 

[Brenda Archer]

1 hour ago, Female Winslet said:

Yes. . . . I've met a few people from SL in RL. I've met them at conventions. I've met them at crowded hotel lobbies. That sort of thing. It's partly just good common sense and partly exactly what you are saying above about how you never really know until you experience their RL behavior!

Some of my built in caution from RL moves into SL in ways where it just isn't needed. Situations like "Man I don't know invites me to go boating with him alone." In RL, I just say no thank you. If not that, for some reason , then I check him out thoroughly with people I know before even considering it. In SL male avatar approaches me claiming to be a close friend of one of my good friends, so I start doing this routine and then an hour later I remember that if there are any problems, I can just teleport out, so I can take a little more risk than I'd take in RL. True story. Actually happened.

Sigh. Perhaps the next gentleman who complains about women complaining about needing to be safe from men could share some of the ways he protects himself against assault/stalking/harassment by women.

 

One of the most freeing things about SL for me has been this lack of physical danger. At least while still in SL, you can hang out with anybody doing anything, and I still love that. 

[AyelaNewLife]

4 minutes ago, Brenda Archer said:

If this works for you, go for it. 

I’m at the opposite pole and a little digging will turn up my RL social media. Most people who have used SL for a RL related reason are in the same situation. 

Instead I fall back to the level of caution I apply to social media in general. There are a few details of life I don’t post anywhere.

Social media is a real problem for anyone who has picked up a stalker. This is definitely an area where the law needs to catch up to reality. SL is actually better than average because we have anonymity. 

My RL social media is a goldmine for any stalker, especially Facebook. There's no way to avoid that, aside from opting out entirely. Even if I try and keep my own well-scrubbed, all it takes is a friend not scrubbing the meta-data from a single photo taken on her phone and a stalker has my address. All I can do is limit access to my social media, and try to reduce the risk. Keeping it entirely separate from my Second Life identity is an easy and efficient way of reducing that risk.

[Roxy Couturier]

On 4/8/2019 at 2:18 PM, animats said:

Maybe LL should charge extra tier if you have objects above 256m not connected to the ground on mainland. Skyboxes are really a cheat to make more land without paying for it, after all.

Or, as an incentive, deeply discount tier for land that has an 'air corridor' from 500m - 2000m. With a parcel setting that disallows building in that corridor. Happy flyers and happy land owners. After all the land owner wouldn't be getting the full use of the property they're paying for. Those that don't want to allow overflight would pay the full tier price.

[Parhelion Palou]

14 hours ago, Roxy Couturier said:

Or, as an incentive, deeply discount tier for land that has an 'air corridor' from 500m - 2000m. With a parcel setting that disallows building in that corridor. Happy flyers and happy land owners. After all the land owner wouldn't be getting the full use of the property they're paying for. Those that don't want to allow overflight would pay the full tier price.

Why should LL decrease their income for something like that?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

2 minutes ago, Parhelion Palou said:

Why should LL decrease their income for something like that?

Because happy fliers = happy customers, which also means potentially more customers who might like to fly in SL. It could even be linked to a mini-marketing campaign that highlights flight in SL.

I have no idea how the cost/benefits analysis of that might work out. Maybe they'd lose so much in tier that retention and recruitment couldn't make up for it. They'd have to figure that out. Maybe they could designate only certain areas, along pre-established flight routes, where that would apply: if you wanted land there, you'd have to agree to these terms, but get a discount.

Why would LL decrease its tier for anything? Answer: to make their user base happy and make their product more attractive.

[Parhelion Palou]

1 minute ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Because happy fliers = happy customers, which also means potentially more customers who might like to fly in SL. It could even be linked to a mini-marketing campaign that highlights flight in SL.

I have no idea how the cost/benefits analysis of that might work out. Maybe they'd lose so much in tier that retention and recruitment couldn't make up for it. They'd have to figure that out. Maybe they could designate only certain areas, along pre-established flight routes, where that would apply: if you wanted land there, you'd have to agree to these terms, but get a discount.

Why would LL decrease its tier for anything? Answer: to make their user base happy and make their product more attractive.

Any tier decrease big enough to interest landowners is unlikely to be offset by increased retention within the small part of SL that's into flying. Increased retention also has to pay for the cost of modifying the simulator code to handle a case that would only apply to a small percentage of the parcels in SL. LL needs really good reasons to touch that code; it isn't something that should be done for niche cases like this.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

4 minutes ago, Parhelion Palou said:

Any tier decrease big enough to interest landowners is unlikely to be offset by increased retention within the small part of SL that's into flying. Increased retention also has to pay for the cost of modifying the simulator code to handle a case that would only apply to a small percentage of the parcels in SL. LL needs really good reasons to touch that code; it isn't something that should be done for niche cases like this.

You could well be correct: I don't know. Do you, really?

How "small" is the part of SL that's into flying? What do you base this upon? MP sales? Even I own a couple of flying vehicles, one of which I used to use reasonably frequently.

Is it smaller than the number of landlords who, for good reasons or for none at all, are resistant to opening up their airspace? What, for you, constitutes a "niche case"?

(And as a marginal note: as you've been complaining about the tone of some of the responses here, can I suggest that you try to avoid dismissive and contemptuous characterizations such a "niche case"? You can make your point without being dismissive, surely?)

Roxy has made what I think is a compromise suggestion worth at least exploring. Maybe it's not viable, but she's at least making an effort.

What do you have to offer?

 

 

[mikka Luik]

@Roxy CouturierI could live with that. Willing to give up the top 2k of airspace in return for four times the premium land area allowance (with all the LI please - coo would use the extra on SSP in a shot)

@Scylla RhiadraSee? Willing to compromise, as there is the carrot. The stick, of  course, is the possibility of having to reconsider three premium accounts... a start on C/B analysis anyway.

But the ' It could even be linked to a mini-marketing campaign that highlights flight in SL. ' - err - do you read the posts on region boundary crossings? That would be a marketing campaign to treasure =^^=

(Declaration of personal niche : mainland indy 'owner' (my shop space is rented from someone else), careful vehicle user and part time vehicle creator - in case you are making a Venn or something)

[Parhelion Palou]

1 minute ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

You could well be correct: I don't know. Do you, really?

How "small" is the part of SL that's into flying? What do you base this upon? MP sales? Even I own a couple of flying vehicles, one of which I used to use reasonably frequently.

Is it smaller than the number of landlords who, for good reasons or for none at all, are resistant to opening up their airspace? What, for you, constitutes a "niche case"?

(And as a marginal note: as you've been complaining about the tone of some of the responses here, can I suggest that you try to avoid dismissive and contemptuous characterizations such a "niche case"? You can make your point without being dismissive, surely?)

Roxy has made what I think is a compromise suggestion worth at least exploring. Maybe it's not viable, but she's at least making an effort.

What do you have to offer? 

 

 

Really ... you wanted the wall of text?

Go to the Blake Sea, roads, or some of the other mainland areas that are commonly used by vehicles and look. In the Blake Sea there are generally more people hanging out on islands than are actually moving, and the total number of people isn't that large anyway. Now consider that the Blake Sea and the other areas are a small part of mainland, so you can't claim that there are so many of those areas that the overall total is significant. I'm only specifying mainland since estates can easily ban or regulate orbs if they wish.

Would you leave SL because you couldn't fly over someone's parcel? For that matter, isn't it likely that region crossings are a far bigger problem for vehicle owners than some parcels they can't enter? What percentage of vehicle owners would leave SL because of security orbs?

Niche case isn't dismissive. Modifying the simulator code to add a feature that would only be used in a fraction of SL is a niche case. It's also not that easy a feature to implement. How do you keep someone from building within an altitude range, considering that you still would have to allow vehicles? You could block non-physical objects from being within the range, but not all vehicles are physical. You could decide that anything that's in the range for more than X seconds must be static and therefore get rid of the object, but what about slow-moving vehicles? You could allow everyone's objects to enter *except* for the parcel owner's, but it doesn't seem fair that the parcel owner couldn't fly over their own parcel within the corridor. For that matter, what happens to parcel permissions within that range? To be fair to the parcel owner, the people passing through that range shouldn't be able to see anyone above or below if the parcel is set to not show avatars. Is the corridor set for public ''allow entry" and "allow scripts" even if the parcel isn't? Is doing all this worth the risk of making the simulator code less stable?

The security orb disagreement doesn't really have a solution. LL can't change LSL to stop zero-second orbs, because separate functions do the detection and the ejection. They could add something to the TOS (applicable to mainland only), but what delay value would be reasonable? I discourage the use of orbs at ground level on my region, but if used they must have at least a 10-second delay. For some vehicle users that's OK, for others it's unacceptable. If the land owner is dealing with a stalker then perhaps a very short delay is OK, but anything more is unacceptable. If LL requires too large of a delay, they *will* lose people who need the security. It's not likely they'd lose vehicle owners by leaving things as they are since vehicle owners already have the problem with orbs and they're still here.

And finally ... One positive thing that could be done without messing with the simulator code is add OpenSpace (I assume LL can still create them) regions so vehicles have better channels and more places to go. If LL wanted to offset the cost of running the regions, they could charge for using them. It doesn't solve the security orb disagreement, but it does meet one of the biggest desires of vehicle owners (other than making region crossings seamless). It would also be nice if LL would set some standards for themselves & the moles for the width of channels.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

30 minutes ago, Parhelion Palou said:

Really ... you wanted the wall of text?

Well, yes, I did . . . if it meant that you had something genuine to offer in the way of a solution, rather than being merely dismissive of the concerns of those who fly vehicles. Unfortunately, what follows doesn't (mostly: I liked your suggestions at the end) represent an attempt to find a solution that would accommodate everyone's concerns, or at least represent a livable compromise. Instead, you merely reiterate, at greater length and in more detail, that you think that the complaints of what you see as a negligible and unimportant part of the user base are not worth worrying about.

BTW, the reason I stopped flying in 2011 was not because of region crossings (although those were certainly an issue then) but because I kept hitting walls. I'm not sure whether or not I'd pick it up again if it were easier. Maybe? But whether or not this would impact me isn't really the point.

30 minutes ago, Parhelion Palou said:

Would you leave SL because you couldn't fly over someone's parcel?

No.

But then I wouldn't leave SL, or give up land, because someone spent 20 seconds crossing over my parcel at 2000m either.

30 minutes ago, Parhelion Palou said:

For that matter, isn't it likely that region crossings are a far bigger problem for vehicle owners than some parcels they can't enter?

Perhaps so. That's a separate issue, however. Why can we not address both?

30 minutes ago, Parhelion Palou said:

What percentage of vehicle owners would leave SL because of security orbs?

I don't think we need to get hypothetical here. The question should rather be how many have left because security orbs and ban lines have made flying here a misery? And how many remain, but are not engaging in flying, or spending money on vehicles, because the obstacles make it seem pointless and frustrating?

 

30 minutes ago, Parhelion Palou said:

Niche case isn't dismissive.

Yes, it is, Par. We're talking about language here, and the fact that your use of this term suggests that those who want to fly are not numerous or important enough to be worth the effort. The word "niche" literally marginalizes them. And that attitude, or at least the rhetorical display of it here, intentional or otherwise, is one of the reasons that those who are advocating for vehicles are sounding more and more grumpy and hard line. How would you respond if someone dismissed your concerns because you were "niche"?

There's a sort of majoritarian bent to your responses. How many annoyed vehicle owners constitute, in your view, a sufficient number that you won't simply dismiss them as unimportant?

I don't know nearly enough about what's involved in implementing Roxy's suggestion to be able to critique your analysis. I'll take your word for it: it was an interesting idea that would be too difficult to put into practice.

Ok, so let's move on and find ideas that are workable, and demonstrate people who fly vehicles are important too, just like all the other "niches" in Second Life -- BDSM, furries, RPers, etc. -- whom we quite rightly do try to accommodate.

30 minutes ago, Parhelion Palou said:

They could add something to the TOS (applicable to mainland only), but what delay value would be reasonable?

That's something worth discussing. Personally, I don't think 10 seconds is entirely adequate even for pedestrians: I accidentally bumbled into a parcel with 20 second response the other day, on a sim that I actually know reasonable well, and didn't see the warning in enough time to find my way off again. So I got booted home. Not a biggie, but I'd like to see some dispassionate discussion about what is a reasonable delay. And the TOS would be a very good tool in this regard.

30 minutes ago, Parhelion Palou said:

One positive thing that could be done without messing with the simulator code is add OpenSpace (I assume LL can still create them) regions so vehicles have better channels and more places to go. If LL wanted to offset the cost of running the regions, they could charge for using them. It doesn't solve the security orb disagreement, but it does meet one of the biggest desires of vehicle owners (other than making region crossings seamless). It would also be nice if LL would set some standards for themselves & the moles for the width of channels.

Yes. Thank you for this: it's not a total solution, but it represents something that would at least mitigate the current problems.

Edited April 16, 2019 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Theresa Tennyson]

On 4/2/2019 at 6:55 PM, Theresa Tennyson said:

Another aspect of reality is that if someone in authority "suggests" that you do/not do something and your reply is, "Well, you didn't say I must so who cares?" it's very likely that you'll find the same authority figure handing down a very clear rule - in no uncertain terms - that's often quite a bit more draconian than the "suggestion."

Annnnddddd looky here...