The Lindens Should Put an End to Spam Cars AND Make a Policy on Driverless Vehicles on Public Roads

[Prokofy Neva]

1. The Lindens should put an end to spam cars -- driverless cars that blight the roads, waterways and railways of the Mainland to no good purpose.

When you actually read this thread, you see MOST of the people DO NOT LIKE and DO NOT WANT these cars. Their voices are never measured or allowed to be heard because just a few fanboyz who like them coupled with just a few Lindens who even follow this issue keep them churning. But most do not want them.  That is what you find when you actually research this issue in good faith, without being biased as a) a road builder b) a car maker c) a platformista with big ideas of how you can play Tropica. By that I mean people who like cross-sim meta-play in their virtual world and who either don't own land and spend time in sandboxes, never log in at all and just chat on the forums, or have tiny parcels so they cast their eye about for where they can spread their wings without paying tier. 

Those of us who have to pay tier, run businesses, trying to make communities, trying to live our lives should not be sustaining those who don't pay tier but blight our lives.

So you get this resident talking about how these cars pile up. Indeed! And that's why some of them are gone now, and why those that remain supposedly don't do that, but yet, the can get stuck and keep scudding along like the others.

Another resident speaks about TOS violations -- the very fact of hitting avatars and knocking into them which is a violation.

Then there's the usual debate about sim crossing problems, always more exaggerated to give some a feeling they are needed.

One also sees here this sort of argumentation that is all too common among those who cry "PICNIC": "residents mistakenly accusing owners of excessive rezzing of vehicles and sending abuse reports for "unfair use of region resources".

Um, but their vehicles are out of control, piling up, blighting the view, and giving people stress, so that if there is technically "not" an unfair use of region resources, that doesn't matter. It's still a bad thing. If it happens "due to a bug" and STILL uses up resources, why can't that be called out? How ELSE is a resident going to get rid of this blight and lag except by a report? It's not as if a Support Ticket will work, and there the resident will be told to go make an Abuse Report.

2. The Lindens -- if they must -- should only allow such rezzing cars to be placed at infohubs or certain junctures on Linden roads and NOT allowed to endlessly ride through all the highways.

This is the most obvious solution to quell the endless invocation of the "tourism" argument because if someone REALLY needs tourism, they don't need it on demand on OTHER people's sims, sims where OTHER people live and own and pay the tier. They can pick up the cars at certain junctions with the rest of the public by looking in search/places and exploring from there. The Lindens could also take applications from private property owners who want to serve as rezzing zones, as they would the community portals

3. The Lindens should make a policy on driverless vehicles on public roads -- this shouldn't be so hard and they need to establish either a prohibition completely (my proposal) or a significant restriction on the vehicles by allowing them only at certain locations, and only with certain features and rules, i.e. not "out of theme," not inducing lag, not for sale, etc.

What is sometimes mistakenly viewed as "Linden policy" is merely a wiki written by resident fans and is even labelled now as "not" Linden policy. Why can't we get an actual Linden policy? Furthermore, the "Linden policy" is based on two Lindens who are no longer here, one who  promoted the adult continent and the other whose job it was to build roads.

So we get this sort of lackadaisical "policy:

Blondin Linden: yeah I dont see a problem with that. The roads are meant to be used by vehicles

Actually, no. Roads are for avatars WITH vehicles. This isn't a train set where the boy stands outside and watches the trains go round. It's a world with people in it, in the form of their avatars. Actual people who travel tend to get a free vehicle or buy either a low-cost or very customized expensive vehicle and get around find without any spam cars.

And the sims are meant to be lived on by people who pay tier for the land and put builds on them, so the roads aren't to be endlessly coddled in the name of load tests, big ideas of running the platform at a meta level, selling vehicles, reputational enhancement. etc. Why does my view from my tiered land on to a public road that I expect to add, not subtract value, and to be like a RL highway, have to include your grandiose spam projects? It shouldn't.

Or you get this randomly said at an office hour:

Michael Linden: one area the Lab won't act on is the "appropriateness of appearance"
if a train looks like a potato with twelve noses and "eat at joes" written on it, that's fine with us
 

But a car on the water or a bus in the air shouldn't be "fine with us"? Why?

4. The Lindens should justify any need to have grid-wide "testing" for load testing or any other kind of testing.

There's reference to the "Lindens' need to test." I'm not sure that's the case any more. AND even if it is, don't the Lindens have their own sims to test on? Do they really need to constantly stress the Mainland, which has enough problems, with this constant "load testing"? I mean we "Tier Loading" patrons of SL are tired of being treated as guinea pigs. We should have the enjoyment of Second Life as the Community Standards promise us.

What's interesting, too about the theories around the banning of a certain car is that "the Lindens shut it down due to a SL bug." Not for any good reason -- like it was piling up, like the creator was selling it, like the creator refused to mitigate it. But some bug.

There was this comment there then in that thread: "I doubt any of this is particularly useful to know in detail now, although I gather that at one point some variant may have aided griefers. What may someday have significance is the fact that objects can acquire state that's hidden to us but known to the sim. It's not something I'd ever considered before this, when trying to isolate bugs." 

Well, as a victim of this bug, I can only say that if it was "required" to run the cars, then the cars had to go.

5. The driverless cars are NOT used for "tourism" -- this is one of the most widely used arguments for them that has no validity.

The notion is hypothetically and groundlessly invoked by those who merely "like" the idea; it is also self-reported by driverless car makers -- and the Lindens should provide us with the actual numbers as they discover them objectively.

Perhaps someone can make a script that monitors cars and indicates whether they have drivers or not; these can be deployed around sample sims so that better numbers can be obtained.

Anyone who actually logs into SL knows that these cars are EMPTY -- I stand on multiple sims for hours and see nothing but empty spam cars -- and the occasional vehicle with an actual conscious avatar in it it -- and I often see an even worse phenomenon: out-of-theme cars -- buses are in the air, planes are on the road, cars are on the water -- the makers don't care and they think this is "creative". It gets old quick. They often hover in the air above roads and blight the view. The pod car is a science fiction "look" that the overwhelming majority of sims do NOT have.

The idea that to have one car available on a whim for someone who wants to explore, we need to have thousands of spam cars deployed on 5,000 sims is absurd. The Lindens don't have that idea about sailing; they make only some areas available for rezzing and sailing. Why are roads different and why do the less appreciated non-Blake Sea owning residents have to endure ugly pod spam and off-topic vehicles in the sky? 

The one figure we're given by one of the most notorious spam car makers is astounding and gives the lie to all the claims of "wide use of tourism": 

5 years with over 110,000 visitors taking over 325,000 rides

That's incredible, as it means only 22,000 users a year -- a tiny number compared to the massive numbers of cars rezzed and spamming the world -- which would be in the millions. This figure totally gives the lie to the "tourism" argument and the fact that these 22,000 per year took 65,000 rides -- i.e. users took more than one ride -- is also a total nothing. These figures by one of the most notorious and disliked "scourge cars" let us know that the "tourism" argument simply has to be knocked down. Furthermore, if we had the "scourge car" user lists, we would discover that the overwhelming majority of "tourists" would be gone from SL. They didn't retain. Why should the rest of us suffer from a list of ghost riders?

If the Lindens really think this is true, they will take the numbers of any of the car makers, and subject them to ruthless scrutiny. Better yet, they will do their own monitoring.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 2, 2018 by Prokofy Neva

[Love Zhaoying]

Glad there’s no roadway directly touching my mainland!

[Love Zhaoying]

*psst* You have 2 #4’s.

[Love Zhaoying]

25 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

One also sees here this sort of argumentation that is all too common among those who cry "PICNIC"

Please define the acronym “PICNIC”, as I and I suspect many others are not familiar with it. If I cried “PICNIC”, I’d expect Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo to come running out of the forest. ?

[Prokofy Neva]

Problem in Chair, Not in Computer, i.e. the computer programmer's hatred of the user as the actual problem arising with software, instead of his own coding.

[Love Zhaoying]

16 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Problem in Chair, Not in Computer, i.e. the computer programmer's hatred of the user as the actual problem arising with software, instead of his own coding.

Ok, the acronym more commonly used is PEBCAK. “Problem exists between chair and keyboard.”

*Edit* Your explanation “hatred for users” misses the point of both acronyms: they are not about the programmer, they are about the user. This is often used as a “code” by customer service, help desk, etc. to indicate the USER is unfamiliar with the software. I’m not sure how you got it backwards..I’m guessing long-standing bias and hatred of coders? This made me sad.

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/PEBCAK

Edited March 2, 2018 by Love Zhaoying

[Love Zhaoying]

*psst* Now you have 2 number 5’s.

[Love Zhaoying]

7 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Your explanation “hatred for users” misses the point of both acronyms: they are not about the programmer, they are about the user. This is often used as a “code” by customer service, help desk, etc. to indicate the USER is unfamiliar with the software. I’m not sure how you got it backwards..I’m guessing long-standing bias and hatred of coders? This made me sad.

In case you miss it.

[Callum Meriman]

48 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Why are roads different and why do the less appreciated non-Blake Sea owning residents have to endure ugly pod spam and off-topic vehicles in the sky? 

It's not just you, we get yadni pod vehicles on the Blake sea too Prok.

One of our properties is right at a point where the same pod changes from a boat to a balloon. A few sims to the south it turns into a sub.

[Love Zhaoying]

Since vehicles remain rezzed without riders by straddling sim / parcel boundaries (and move back and forth on timer between sim/parcel to prevent auto return): Here is one way LL could “kill” these annoying things:

1) On Linden land only: if an object enters, and no avatar is seated upon it, immediately auto-return.

2) This would also (happily?) kill one of Animat’s sim-crossing fixes.

[Callum Meriman]

59 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

one way LL could “kill” these annoying things

Are they annoying? For the current generation, I don't think so.

[Blush Bravin]

I don't mind these vehicles at all. It's been awhile since I rode one around, but I have been known to hop in one in an area I've not explored to get a nice up close tour of an area. I don't see why it annoys you.

[Love Zhaoying]

51 minutes ago, Callum Meriman said:

Are they annoying? For the current generation, I don't think so.

Certainly to people who have Prok’s complaints of them “piling up”, etc. Her list of complaints is a bit much to comprehend. Just like the initial post.

[iamyourneighbour]

Never seen a yana pod crash, I have two spots near the public road 

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, iamyourneighbour said:

Never seen a yana pod crash, I have two spots near the public road 

It would be funny if we showed Prok a picture of orderly parked pods, and she said “Don’t you see that horrible pileup? Pods everywhere! It looks like an accident with no survivors! Those techno-fascists could have killed a lot of avatars in that terrible, terrible collision. OH THE HUMANITY!!!12!12!1!”

Edited March 2, 2018 by Love Zhaoying

[iamyourneighbour]

2 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

It would be funny if we showed Prok a picture of orderly parked pods, and she said “Don’t you see that horrible pileup? Pods everywhere! It looks like an accident with no survivors! Those techno-fascists could have killed a lot of avatars in that terrible, terrible collision. OH THE HUMANITY!!!12!12!1!”

I think the car crash had more to do with another physics operated automatic cars which was ordered off road by LL. Yana pod used KFM and cannot be disrupted by HUDs and someone standing in the middle of the road. 

[Luna Bliss]

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Purrfect, Comrade Commi-Cat!

[Prokofy Neva]

12 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Ok, the acronym more commonly used is PEBCAK. “Problem exists between chair and keyboard.”

*Edit* Your explanation “hatred for users” misses the point of both acronyms: they are not about the programmer, they are about the user. This is often used as a “code” by customer service, help desk, etc. to indicate the USER is unfamiliar with the software. I’m not sure how you got it backwards..I’m guessing long-standing bias and hatred of coders? This made me sad.

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/PEBCAK

PICNIC is used just as much. I've heard it any number of times. It's more memorable than PEBCAK.

Of course it's about hatred of users, and both indeed are about programmers as they give us a window into their horrid culture.

The customers are viewed as a "problem" when the coders should be subordinate to them in the "customer is always right" mode of trying to SERVE customers and make their code have CUSTOMER REQUIREMENTS instead of their own ideological extremities.

We've so often found that the case -- it's our computer that is the problem, it's our ignorance that's a problem in trying to play the very difficult game of Second Life. It's like you have to get a degree in physics to run something you've purchased. At least Sansar is more forthright in implying that purchases there are like high-end developer kits or perhaps hobbyists' kits but it's clear that the average user is going to have a hard time (and does).

It's not about "unfamiliar". It's about sheer contempt, scorn, hatred and the belief that "everyone" should conform to machines and their limited way of "thinking" or they are stupid. THEY are the ones who have it quite backward.

If anything, there needs to be more regulation of coders because of their horrid culture.

[Prokofy Neva]

4 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

It would be funny if we showed Prok a picture of orderly parked pods, and she said “Don’t you see that horrible pileup? Pods everywhere! It looks like an accident with no survivors! Those techno-fascists could have killed a lot of avatars in that terrible, terrible collision. OH THE HUMANITY!!!12!12!1!”

No, no what would be funny if Prok showed you a picture of a pod that has literally scudded here for months on end. You can't sit in it and drive it away. You can't push it off the road. The owner is a typical no-show. So there it is, annoying people and making land near it unrentable.

I'll find it and post it here soon.

I've written to the creator to come get their stupid pod AND the owner any number of times, guess those "messages cap"!

 

[Prokofy Neva]

11 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Since vehicles remain rezzed without riders by straddling sim / parcel boundaries (and move back and forth on timer between sim/parcel to prevent auto return): Here is one way LL could “kill” these annoying things:

1) On Linden land only: if an object enters, and no avatar is seated upon it, immediately auto-return.

2) This would also (happily?) kill one of Animat’s sim-crossing fixes.

The Lindens would blandly say "oh, but roads were meant for vehicles". BTW the Linden who said that was the BDSM Linden responsible for Zindra and used to give out a little bear all in chains in leather pants.

[Prokofy Neva]

12 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

*psst* Now you have 2 number 5’s.

No.

I have one no. 5

And then a reference to 5 years.

D for trolling effort, Love Thang.

[Love Zhaoying]

10 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

No.

I have one no. 5

And then a reference to 5 years.

D for trolling effort, Love Thang.

Sorry, misread. Was trying to be helpful as before.

[Love Zhaoying]

19 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

PICNIC is used just as much. I've heard it any number of times. It's more memorable than PEBCAK.

Of course it's about hatred of users, and both indeed are about programmers as they give us a window into their horrid culture.

The customers are viewed as a "problem" when the coders should be subordinate to them in the "customer is always right" mode of trying to SERVE customers and make their code have CUSTOMER REQUIREMENTS instead of their own ideological extremities.

We've so often found that the case -- it's our computer that is the problem, it's our ignorance that's a problem in trying to play the very difficult game of Second Life. It's like you have to get a degree in physics to run something you've purchased. At least Sansar is more forthright in implying that purchases there are like high-end developer kits or perhaps hobbyists' kits but it's clear that the average user is going to have a hard time (and does).

It's not about "unfamiliar". It's about sheer contempt, scorn, hatred and the belief that "everyone" should conform to machines and their limited way of "thinking" or they are stupid. THEY are the ones who have it quite backward.

If anything, there needs to be more regulation of coders because of their horrid culture.

You remind me of John the Baptist - “a voice crying out alone in the wilderness.” Because you seem to be a lone voice.  I’ve never heard this hateful stuff. Get help.

[ChinRey]

6 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I've written to the creator to come get their stupid pod AND the owner any number of times, guess those "messages cap"!

It isn't, it's because she has blocked you. And you know that because it's in your blog. that's where I learned about it. Here is Prokofy's full transcript of the only conversation he and Yavanna Llanfair has ever had:

http://3dblogger.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2011/06/yavanna-llanfair-is-just-as-bad-as-annemarie-otoole-maybe-worse.html

Edited March 3, 2018 by ChinRey