Revoke the use of Security Orbs in Mainland

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Drake1 Nightfire wrote:

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Qie Niangao wrote:

 

Most folks really only want the privacy (as you said earlier) for those special times, and would rather

not

be that crotchety old geezer who fusses about anybody intruding on the pixels they bought and paid for with their own hard-earned L$s, goshdanggit you entitled Millennial whippersnappers!

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So, you really think it should be ok for random people in SL to just walk into anyones home and use what the land owner paid hard earned USD for?  Seriously? What kind of twisted mentality is that? Would you leave your RL door unlocked and let anyone inside? You wouldn't freak out to find two strangers knocking boots on your bed? I would. Same rules apply to SL.

The number of threads that have been started in the forums by a new user that couldn't understand why they couldn't take the furniture from a house they found scare me. Why anyone would think it is ok to use others items is beyond me.

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I thought it was endearing and amusing for people to canoodle on the furniture in my Forgotten City lighthouse. I sometimes logged in to find couples lounging on the sofa in front of my fireplace, or exploring my skybox and contemplation spots. I usually had to assure them they were welcome to stay and that I had plenty of other space from which to chat with friends. I sometimes ended up giving visitors tours of FC. A couple of those people ended up on my friends list.

On the rare occasion that I needed my space and the visitors wouldn't leave, I amused myself by flipping the sofa over and trying to shake them off. If that didn't work, I ejected them.

I don't treat my SL space at all like I treat me RL space. The rules are very different for me.

I'm also not surprised that people might not understand that they can't take furniture...

They are extrapolating from their experiences (and will learn), you are extrapolating from yours.

;-).

[Kelli May]

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Drake1 Nightfire wrote:

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Qie Niangao wrote:

 

Most folks really only want the privacy (as you said earlier) for those special times, and would rather

not

be that crotchety old geezer who fusses about anybody intruding on the pixels they bought and paid for with their own hard-earned L$s, goshdanggit you entitled Millennial whippersnappers!

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So, you really think it should be ok for random people in SL to just walk into anyones home and use what the land owner paid hard earned USD for?  Seriously? What kind of twisted mentality is that? Would you leave your RL door unlocked and let anyone inside? You wouldn't freak out to find two strangers knocking boots on your bed? I would. Same rules apply to SL.

The number of threads that have been started in the forums by a new user that couldn't understand why they couldn't take the furniture from a house they found scare me. Why anyone would think it is ok to use others items is beyond me.

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Because people have been trained by videogames to know that they are the most important person in that game. Everything in the game is there for them to open, close, sit on, rummage through, smash, or take. Even in MMORPGs, everything not in another player-character's immediate posession is (often) there to be picked through. And many, many people see SL as a game.

[Aethelwine]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

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Yep. I contribute a little over a half-sim tier to a group that exists solely for that purpose, and the vast majority of the rest of my land is equally open for anybody to use. Why ever not?

And again, as I've pointed out over and over again, the RL analogy only applies to the extent people want it to apply, and even then it's a huge stretch. For example, imagining for the nonce that I want to pretend my SL land is somehow "like" my RL house, I sure as heck don't get to blast to kingdom come somebody who knocks on the door, nor do I get to vapourise any motor vehicle that tries to turn around in my driveway. SL ain't RL and no amount of make-believe will make it so.

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The same for me. I contribute about an eigth of a sims tier for an open space for people to enjoy... (a motorcycle sim). I have 6 other parcels. One with a gallery displaying art I have bought, one hosting a friends art gallery and 4 others for people to rezz their boats hang out and party. I do have a few little private spaces in skyboxes but whilst I have used orbs over very limited range and with a timer the only time I ever really needed one was when I owned a sim and we were being repeatedly griefed by new accounts and I needed to give more people eject rights and an avatar ageban in place for a short while, until they had got bored and moved on.

[Phil Deakins]

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Drake1 Nightfire wrote:

---

Qie Niangao wrote:

 

Most folks really only want the privacy (as you said earlier) for those special times, and would rather

not

be that crotchety old geezer who fusses about anybody intruding on the pixels they bought and paid for with their own hard-earned L$s, goshdanggit you entitled Millennial whippersnappers!

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So, you really think it should be ok for random people in SL to just walk into anyones home and use what the land owner paid hard earned USD for?  Seriously? What kind of twisted mentality is that?

Would you leave your RL door unlocked and let anyone inside?

You wouldn't freak out to find two strangers knocking boots on your bed? I would. Same rules apply to SL.

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Of course I wouldn't leave my RL unlocked when I'm away, and the reason is very simple. People could come in and steal stuff. They can't do that in SL, so leaving your SL door unlocked when you're away, isn't detrimental to anything of yours. SL and RL are not the same.

[Alwin Alcott]

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Phil Deakins wrote

Of course I wouldn't leave my RL unlocked when I'm away, and the reason is very simple. People could come in and steal stuff. They can't do that in SL, so leaving your SL door unlocked when you're away, isn't detrimental to anything of yours. SL and RL are not the same.

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Yes...and no.... i agree they can't actually steal things, but they do take something :

you pay for the use of the parcel, and they, even when you'r not around, come use it for free ... so in fact you do really give something. It's no extra cost, but it's a bit to compare to give a room to a homeless in rl for free... it doesn't cost extra, but you dó actually give something... for tax matters it even would have a real value.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

This is a dead horse that is being beaten forever.

 

1. TOS allows Landowners to control access, it doesn't specify any rules or official policies.  The Knowledge Base is not policy.  This page contains the only policies incorporated into the TOS.  Even the Mainland Policies have no rules regarding security orbs.
2. LL does not act against a landowner who uses 0 warning to leave before ejecting or that TP's them home with a security orb.
3. Premium members have a right to own any mainland available and use the tier discount benefit they PAY for.  It is not anyone's place other than LL to deny this right because you think mainland should be free of orbs or that restrictions be placed on them.
4. Encouraging community on the mainland is great, but it is not required by the TOS or official policy.  If they really wanted to do this they'd zone all the mainland into residential areas or commercial areas. (I can hear the screaming now as loud as when they came up with the Adult continent idea! )  You do have a choice.  If you want community, own land in one of the LL planned communities on the mainland or buy you own sim or large parcel and rent it out to establish one according to your rules.

Bottom line

If LL were in agreement with restricting how or even if a security orb could be used by a landowner they'd change things.  

 

[Phil Deakins]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

Yeah, I'm suggesting that the default warning time be maybe 30 seconds, adjustable down to... I dunno, fifteen seconds or so, without needing to edit the source code itself to get a lower number.

Mine defaults to 15 seconds, which, imo, is ample time for anyone to clear a parcel. The time starts when the first warning is given.

I'm sure some folks

think

they want that time to be zero, but of course we know that even giving no warning at all doesn't mean the intruder spends no time on the parcel: the llGetAgentList sampling interval for detecting their presence shouldn't be any tighter than, say, fifteen seconds, to be responsible with sim script time. (

Possibly

 agents already known to be in the sim could be tracked with llOverMyLand (or llGetObjectDetails for some other simple geometry) at a somewhat tighter interval, maybe five seconds or so.)

Yep. The scan frequency dictates things. Mine scans every 5 seconds, so a '0 second' setting means that it can be anything from 0 to 5 seconds.

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[Qie Niangao]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

Mine defaults to 15 seconds, which, imo, is ample time for anyone to clear a parcel. The time starts when the first warning is given.

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It would certainly be ample on, say, a typical 4096 if the target has some idea which way to go and the ability to go in that direction. And you know, adding more time probably wouldn't help much when that's not the case. I mean, personally, I usually travel on or over Linden roads, rails, and waterways, but nonetheless often find myself trapped inside structures just across a region border, having drifted far past my intended control and inside somebody's build before Havok notices I've crossed into the sim. Then there's pretty much nothing I can do to avoid getting booted and my vehicle poofed, no matter how much time I'm given to escape.

[Phil Deakins]

So the bottom line is that there is no perfect solution. Those who pay for land are more satisfied than passers-by, but it's not perfect even for them.

[Aethelwine]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

So the bottom line is that there is no perfect solution. Those who pay for land are more satisfied than passers-by, but it's not perfect even for them.

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Far from perfect, the survey cited on the wiki suggests that land owners generally don't want to prevent people exploring and especially using airspace for vehicles

"A survey made by our team showed that about 40% of all parcels have restricted access, as follows:

• 20% use ban lines and use group access, access list or no access list. This percent is much higher in some places of the grid and a lot lower in others.
• 5 to 10% use entity orbs to restrict access. From these, the majority use a higher eject time (over 10 seconds). Only a few are very aggresive and are set for less then 5 seconds. Also, only a few teleport people to another parcel.
• About 15% use banned lines for a few unwanted visitors."

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Land_With_Restricted_Access#Percents

It is only orbs that restrict vehicle access in the sky, and "Only a few are very aggresive and are set for less then 5 seconds."

Land owners using their tools to restrict access are a minority, and those that take steps to prevent flying vehicles are just a few.

A few that spoil it for everyone else.

It is currently perfect for only a small minority.... a situation like that is dysfunctional and any solutions LL can implement ultimately would increase retention and interest in buying, renting and using mainland.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

The survey doesn't say how large a sample they surveyed, what the margin of error was, or how they found the statistics of the survey.  Did they travel the whole grid logging which parcels were restricted or did they ask people?  If they asked, what method did they use to determine who to ask?  It doesn't say how many of the 60% don't restrict access because the land they own is commercial.  It's not a survey you can rely on for these reasons.  Whoever wrote the article could have asked only 10 of his friends, 6 of which just own land for their shops for all you know.

For the record I don't restrict access to my land, but I say a land owner has a right to do it if they desire to.  No telling how many people who don't restrict access on residential parcels agree with me because they want to retain the option if they need it, due to trolls, griefers, or a rash of drop-ins, as do I.  

No one spoils your SL simply because you can't go on their private property.  That's absurd.  There are tons of places you can go that are public or will welcome you.  

[Qie Niangao]

I wouldn't put a lot of weight on those poll numbers myself. I don't think they should be taken to mean orbs should all be disabled and access should be open across the grid.

And really, I don't think anybody is arguing it should be, universally.

The sad fact is, though, a few scattered islands with restricted access can be hugely disproportionately disruptive -- it's like asymmetric warfare, by accident. Folks who are trying diligently not to intrude can nonetheless end up inconvenienced enough to give up ever exploring SL again. Plenty of people have -- explorers are much rarer and more timid than they used to be -- and surely some must have left SL altogether as a result.

That asymmetric effect is why it was a mistake to allow privacy-protected spaces to intermingle with open access spaces on the Mainland. (What happens on Estates has no real impact here.)

But it's far too late now to fix that. As far as I can tell, the most effective tool is to start threads like this every few months in hopes of shaming more folks into removing unnecessary restrictions, their rights to cling to them notwithstanding.

For a while I thought it might help to develop free, feature-rich security scripts with less offensively aggressive settings and defaults, but it seems there are already plenty of free security orbs, so that's probably not viable.

[Rhonda Huntress]

Yeah, but I still think most no-mod settings stem from superstition that it might reduce vulnerability to content theft.

Of the rest, I fear some creators are so full of themselves as to think their tastes are superior to those of their customers, and speaking as a would-be customer, those creators can go eat worms.

I'm very supportive of SL content creators, but fools, not so much.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

I wouldn't put a lot of weight on those poll numbers myself. I don't think they should be taken to mean orbs should all be disabled and access should be open across the grid.

And really, I don't think anybody is arguing it should be, universally.

The sad fact is, though, a few scattered islands with restricted access can be hugely disproportionately disruptive -- it's like asymmetric warfare, by accident. Folks who are trying diligently not to intrude can nonetheless end up inconvenienced enough to give up ever exploring SL again. Plenty of people have -- explorers are much rarer and more timid than they used to be -- and surely some must have left SL altogether as a result.

That asymmetric effect is why it was a mistake to allow privacy-protected spaces to intermingle with open access spaces on the Mainland. (What happens on Estates has no real impact here.)

But it's far too late now to fix that. As far as I can tell, the most effective tool is to start threads like this every few months in hopes of shaming more folks into removing unnecessary restrictions, their rights to cling to them notwithstanding.

For a while I thought it might help to develop free, feature-rich security scripts with less offensively aggressive settings and defaults, but it seems there are already plenty of free security orbs, so that's probably not viable.

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In my view the biggest mistake LL made was to not zone and have minimum covenants to satisfy all styles of builds on the the mainland.  They should have made clear residential areas and clear commercial areas.  Of the residential areas, some could have allowed land restrictions some not.   They could have reserved the land bordering water and  with great water views as residential, and perhaps some mountain and meadow areas for those that prefer that, with commercial areas more concentrated in uninteresting land in the interior.  That would have helped merchants too,  as people could stroll though shopping areas and see more things that they might buy.

I also think that zoned open access land, as a result of the above, could have been color coded on the map and noted on landmarks with restricted access land also color coded.  As part of the orientation that newbs go through when they first joined, they could have been taught what to look for and also that they should not go on restricted access land without a specific invitation.

If they had done that we wouldn't have these constant conversations about explorers wanting to ban or restict security because they feel entitled to go where they want and do what they want.

I have always loved to explore and still do, as well as sail, fly and ride my motorcycle.  However, since my first days  in SL, I never go on private land without invitation or without clear indication that it's ok in the land description because it's commercial or it states visitors are welcome.  If unsure, I stop and check.  I have a HUD too that alerts me to ban lines when I enter a sim.  I stick to public right of ways, like roads, LL owned water etc. and plan my routes whenever possible.  I rarely have a problem with orbs and ban lines taking me by surprise as a result.  A bit of courtesy and common sense is all it takes.

[Rhonda Huntress]

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Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

In my view the biggest mistake LL made was to not zone and have minimum covenants to satisfy all styles of builds on the the mainland.  They should have made clear residential areas and clear commercial areas. 

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I always wondered why mainland wasn't developed and instanced.  Commercial areas would be single much like you have now but residential would be houses with 10 or more different instances of each house.  When you are inside you are in a completely separate place.  No one flying over head or camming in to see you do whatever you are doing.  When you step out you are back into a the main sim with a much higher chance of bumping into a neighbor since there will be 10 times as many people calling that sim home.

No need for security orbs.  You click on the door and pick a list of who you want to see or maybe buy an instance if one is available.  This sort of housing was being done in other platforms 12 years ago, too.

 

[Rufferta]

I wonder if there is a term for "clicking on what you think is a road or other Linden land on a map and ending up instead in a nest of security orbs"?

I like to explore, but every once in a while I mis-click and get booted home.* I remember there was a term in Huckleberry Hax' log

 

 " Droplosting : A complicated, yet devastating error which occurs when you’re trying to move an item from one folder to   another and lose the mouse-hold at some point in between, thereby losing the item and having to look for it in every f....... folder."

 

There ought to be a term for "inadvertent teleporting".

*My thanks, by the way, to the one (1) security orb owner who set the boot point to a road near her parcel. 

 

[Kelli May]

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Rufferta wrote:

 

...

 There ought to be a term for "inadvertent teleporting".

...

 

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Telebumble? Teleblunder?

My normal means of inadvertent teleportation is to hit crtl-shift-h when I mean to type a capital H.

[Phil Deakins]

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Rufferta wrote:

*My thanks, by the way, to the one (1) security orb owner who set the boot point to a road near her parcel.

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That will have just been coincidence. AFAIK, it isn't possible to boot to a specific spot. It's either teleport home or eject. Eject teleports the avatar to just off the parcel, but it isn't possible to state which parcel to send the av to, or where to land the av in the parcel. That is, unless I've missed something along the way.