Sad that popular places are turning into Experiences with no option to visit without accepting

[Gabriele Graves]

6 minutes ago, Callum Meriman said:

An experience gatcha that forces a sit, and blocks standup until you roll a rare!

No, I shouldn't give them ideas.

Even worse...petitions LL to add force payment to Experience and then just starts playing them too ?

[Madelaine McMasters]

4 hours ago, Dillon Levenque said:

I loved just getting in the boat and going for the ride at The Pirates of the Caribbean. I had no desire whatever to travel that route on my own. ETA: Good grief, it took me half an hour to do this? In my defense I did get interrupted a few times. Anyway, upon going back to read what posted while I dawdled, I see Lil had already used Pirates of the Caribbean as an example (in exactly the same way I did, which is pretty funny).

Our family was warned to stay away from the "Small World" boat tour at Disneyland, as it would make us hate the song. We took the tour. We hate the song. We warn others. Can it get any better?

[Gabriele Graves]

4 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Yep, and I think it's reasonable to give a basic head's up as you suggested. I also think it's okay to post that at the entrance, giving you the all-or-nothing choice, though it sounds like that's not currently possible.

It isn't possible to display this information in the Experience permission request popup but there definitely isn't any reason why a place couldn't detect your avatar at the land point and give you a notecard or display this on a big sign.

[Gabriele Graves]

6 hours ago, Moraxo said:

I'm kinda of curious of everyone commenting who has owned/built/managed a sim?

I can kind of understand the RLV and experience fear as when I first rezzed only a few months ago I was confused and terrified by it all. However after understanding and using it a bit more Its become a non issue to me, I dont go to sims where I would typically have to worry about being tricked or trolled so if there is an experience I'll typically take it if I'm interested in the sim.

But as a creator and sim builder... If you dont want to EXPERIENCE my sim they way I envisioned it and would like people to engage with it...why are you here? Its my creation! What, would you go to an art gallery and start peeling things out of their frames and cases because YOU want to experience them differently?? Ludicrous... Now on the flip side I think of museums that have the little audio guides... most times I dont use them because I am in the museum for something specific so I dont use it and go about my way... the difference here? I PAID TO GET IN. If you're just FREELY going into other peoples sims the LEAST you could do is accept the experience... I'm sure im not the only person in SL who takes pride in their sim.

Absolutely you have the right to do this and I am OK with not visiting your place.  It is probable that I never visited anyway.  My OP was about places I used to already visit that changed to Experiences.  I expressed that it was a shame and with the inference that I hope that this doesn't become a trend at all places I have enjoyed before they changed.

6 hours ago, Moraxo said:

In direct reference to the OP, I think(and hope) it will become more prevalent as more sim owners (RP sims especially) are starting to see the convenience and utility of Experiences but I also hope SL continues to fine tune how they work as there could be improvements as others have noted.

I very much hope not but if it does then, hey that is life sometimes.  It isn't a big deal, just a shame they don't want even more visitors.

6 hours ago, Moraxo said:

If I were you I would IM and NC the sim owners or mods to ask about being able to enter without the experience but If it was my sim I'd grill the heck out of ya as to why you wanna come in my sim without the experience...not that Id would say no for certain but yeah..

Over the years, I have seen this advice given out many times about creators and many times I have done exactly in many cases, requesting just trivial accomodations.  In the overwhelming majority of cases it has been pointless and the most common response, if you get one, was to be extremely offended that someone may dare to even ask.  I have come to believe that this advice is given out to make creators seem more reasonable than the majority of them really are.  Though I am sure there we will be some counter-testimonies along adroitly to show how wrong I am.  Nevertheless, this is my "Experience".

It comes down to this.  The sim owners right stops at controlling my avatar.  That is for me to do or decide on a per situation basis.  Sure, it is their place and sure, they can say where I may or may not go (even if I may visit at all) but in the areas I am permitted to go, I am the one who gets to say if I sit, dance or stick my head in a bucket of goo.  Just like in the real world.

If a creator wants to control my avatar "Experience" to the degree expressed in parts of this topic, from my point of view, they might as well just close their sim to the public, take their own video of the "tour" and post it to youtube, etc.  I might even watch it on those terms.

 

[Callum Meriman]

5 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

My OP was about places I used to already visit that changed to Experiences.  I expressed that it was a shame and with the inference that I hope that this doesn't become a trend at all places I have enjoyed before they changed.

Your OP raised a valid point. And it reinforces the point that the Lab really need to work on that permission's dialog so that people are not scared by all the stuff being asked for "You want to see where my camera is looking? OMG no! no! NO!"

For me, as a region builder... I use experiences for movement -- and that is it.

My current build is a beduin tent next to an oasis in the desert. There is an apollo capsule and a Genie bottle. I welcome people to walk towards the genie bottle, at which point there is a puff of smoke and they are zipped into the sky, at 3000M,  inside a 40 meter wide, 64 meter tall version of the bottle. Arabic motif windows inside look out onto mega sized palm trees and a mega sized apollo module.

How can I delight people without the ability to seamlessly move them?

As I said back on page 1, that permissions dialog seriously needs some work so it's not scary. It would also be nice if temporary permissions could be requested.

"Callum Meriman has requested permission to teleport you, he has requested this to [freeform text string from the script]. This permission will remain until you log out. Accept [Yes], [No]"

[Gabriele Graves]

5 hours ago, Dillon Levenque said:

If nothing else, Gabrielle, you chose a heck of a good topic: three four pages of fascinating posts already in just fourteen hours (it expanded as I wrote).

I agree about the fascinating posts and it has, so far, definitely turned out better than where I thought it was heading at the beginning.

[Innula Zenovka]

11 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

RedZone employed components (technical and social) that were, on their own, entirely benign. It was the way they were combined together and exploited that made that "innovation" so very dangerous.

RedZone exploited something that scripters had long known was a security hole, and which had been the subject of several jiras.

I've not yet seen any credible accounts of how the permissions granted by experience perms could be exploited for nefarious ends save for obvious griefing measures that have obvious and immediate remedies (leave the region, leave the experience and submit an AR, which will likely get the experience suspended -- or at least any scripts compiled to it by the griefer).

I'm not that keen on arguments by analogy but I'd have said that experiences, unlike taxis or uber rides, guarantee you the ability to leave them, safely and readily, at any moment you start to feel uncomfortable.    That's what's important.

[Klytyna]

17 hours ago, Moraxo said:

I'm kinda of curious of everyone commenting who has owned/built/managed a sim?

I've been part of sim building and management teams... The prim pusher for the "more money than talent" types...

17 hours ago, Moraxo said:

I can kind of understand the RLV and experience fear as when I first rezzed only a few months ago I was confused and terrified by it all.

It's not "fear" it's annoyance...

If I get an LM to "a really cool place I should check out" and I TP in and get told I have 30 seconds to accept an "Experience" or be banned for 24 hours, that gives a bad impression, if I should accept the "Experience", and find my self on some "kinky furniture half a sim away, with a freeniss stuck to my head being animated in "woody the woodpecker" style in front of the crotch of a statue of a naked 12 year old while the sim owners friends take snapshots, laugh and file AR's, and have to RELOG to evade and un-accept all this crap... That is an annoyance I can do without, so no I won't accept the damn "Experience".

17 hours ago, Moraxo said:

But as a creator and sim builder... If you dont want to EXPERIENCE my sim they way I envisioned it and would like people to engage with it...why are you here? Its my creation!

Hmmm the Argument that... 

"I'm an Artiste, with the extra E, which Entitles me to shove my head up my rectum and talk crap..."

Sorry, EPIC FAIL right there...

Take windlights...

You the "Artiste with an extra E", have chosen the windlight "Too Fugging Dark To See Properly" for your conceptual experimental interactive head-up-rectum art sim...

But if somebody comes to your sim who has vision problems, and who uses a different windlight, so they can see something... You think you should blind them with "EEP Experiences" and ban them if they dislike being blind...

17 hours ago, Moraxo said:

I PAID TO GET IN. If you're just FREELY going into other peoples sims the LEAST you could do is accept the experience...

Ahhh the Argument that because you payed money to build an area that leaves visitors blind, its ok to blind people...

Guess what, many of those people ALSO paid money to be in SL, and to be able to see, without having a freenis glued to their head.

17 hours ago, Moraxo said:

I'm sure im not the only person in SL who takes pride in their sim.

I can assure you from personal "Experience", that SL has a great many low talent artiste -wannabe build-fails who take pride in their gpu destroying collections of lag-tech primwaste. The LEA sims are full of them for example...

17 hours ago, Moraxo said:

If I were you I would IM and NC the sim owners or mods to ask about being able to enter without the experience but If it was my sim I'd grill the heck out of ya as to why you wanna come in my sim without the experience...not that Id would say no for certain but yeah..

"Please sir mister arrogant self important low talent build-fail sim owner Artiste with the Extra E, may I visit your gpu destroying collection of lag-tech primwaste without switching to too-dark-to-see mode because I suffer a visual impairment, here is a weblink to a scan of my medical diagnosis, and a letter from my optician, thank you in advance...

*lick lick* *fawn fawn* *grovel grovel*"

Yeah I think you can probably guess EXACTLY what you can do with THAT suggestion...

Make sure you enjoy the "Experience" as intended... Insert without LUBE...

 

Edited October 18, 2018 by Klytyna

[Klytyna]

16 hours ago, Moraxo said:

You are correct. Banksy is one of my favorite modern artists,

Banksy is a classic "Artist with an Extra E", he's also an IP violating hack...

There was an article in the Manchester Evening news, in the last week or so, in which it was revealed that a whole bunch of "his" designs are in fact, stolen from another artist, an american if I recall correctly, who was living in the UK at one time, published several pieces, went home, then recently returned to the UK to see, basically his versions of her art on walls, being touted as genius, her comment was that while its ok for artists to use each other as sources of inspiration, some CREDIT would have been nice.

Examples of stolen designs include "girl hugging a bomb", and "couple hugging in gasmasks" for example.

So, like most "celebrated modern artists" he's just another over-rated fraud.

 

Edited October 18, 2018 by Klytyna

[Nova Convair]

The permissions giving to an experience are the same than every other permission in SL.

3 differences:
- for an experience you give them all at once
- you can easily revoke everything. (note: the permission you give to a danceball you can NOT revoke)
- permissions are only granted at the place the experience is active

So reading the thread made me laugh multiple times - lots of funny hysteria - very entertaining

 

You can of course debate if experiences need to be forced.  For an RP sim that doesnt wan't tourists: YES! Kick 'em out. 
Everything other installation: depends.

I personally would make a different approach here. I would simply ignore everybody that is not in experience in my scripts. They can stumble around on their own and try to find someting interesting or get into locations without entrance on their own. I noticed that you can prevent sitting on objects too, so nobody can block things. No need for pressure. I dont't think the tourists would not stay for long anyways.

Edited October 18, 2018 by Nova Convair

[Luna Bliss]

Hey Moraxo….you've been Hit by the Klyt….lol

*passes you a helmet

[Scylla Rhiadra]

10 hours ago, Innula Zenovka said:

RedZone exploited something that scripters had long known was a security hole, and which had been the subject of several jiras.

I've not yet seen any credible accounts of how the permissions granted by experience perms could be exploited for nefarious ends save for obvious griefing measures that have obvious and immediate remedies (leave the region, leave the experience and submit an AR, which will likely get the experience suspended -- or at least any scripts compiled to it by the griefer).

I'm not that keen on arguments by analogy but I'd have said that experiences, unlike taxis or uber rides, guarantee you the ability to leave them, safely and readily, at any moment you start to feel uncomfortable.    That's what's important.

Thanks, Innula. As always, your expertise (and, apparently, superior powers of memory!) are a useful corrective.

I'm sure -- or at least, very much hope -- that Experiences are as safe as you suggest. I'm not particularly paranoid about them myself, despite my invocation of RedZone, although it does seem to me that the sheer breadth of perms that they grant might, possibly, provide some enterprising fraudster with ammunition in the future.

It's not something, however, that is leaving me sleepless at night. I don't really have much objection to Experiences themselves (although I say this as someone who has yet to actually try one): like the OP and others here, I just prefer to be given more choice, rather than less. I'll doubtless try one soonish, probably at an art installation. I will not, however, be compelled to use on at an in-world store: I don't think merchants can justify the need for the granting of those kinds of perms, and my main response would likely be the kind of resentment that I feel at RL stores that are overly pushy and manipulative.

[Kiera Clutterbuck]

I'd like to visit places where experiences are taking place. Is there a list of places anywhere?

[Innula Zenovka]

47 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I don't think merchants can justify the need for the granting of those kinds of perms,

Experience Perms are particularly useful to merchants for teleporting visitors round a large store without presenting them with a dialog request each time.    Yes, it can be done by "sit teleports", but experience perms teleporters are often easier to configure and maintain.      

They're also useful because they can seamlessly temp-attach sample items which don't create entries in your inventory and which detach and vanish when you relog or leave the store.   So you can let people try on regular examples of your goods without having to make special copies with Sample labels floating about.     Furthermore, if the shop sells scripted furniture, the furniture will frequently want to temp-attach props, like books or cups of coffee, without pestering the avatar for permissions each time.

I've worked with experiences a lot and I really don't see much potential for successful griefing, not least because it's so easy to leave the experience and to identify what object caused the problems and to whom it belongs.  That's available to the avatar and also, in the case of an abuse report, to LL, and the fact that experiences can be owned only by premium members means that the owner probably isn't a throw-away alt.

I suppose it would probably be more polite most of the time not to insist on people accepting the experience in order to enter the region.    Instead, ask them to accept it the first time they try to interact with something that needs experience perms to operate.    Once the perms are granted, they won't be asked for again.   Personally, I wouldn't advise forcing people to accept an experience unless it was necessary ro the area to function (for a game area, for example), but that's more about good manners than security.

If I wanted to grief people, I could have far more fun -- and my throwaway alts would be far less easy to trace back to me -- by exploiting the fact that so many people wander around with open RLV relays and no real idea of how to configure them than I would by playing with experience perms.    Nevertheless, my RLV relay (which is properly configured) very rarely reports any suspicious activity when I'm wandering round SL.   I really don't think that people have much need to worry about Experience Perms.

[Alyona Su]

24 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

I suppose it would probably be more polite most of the time not to insist on people accepting the experience in order to enter the region. 

This, I believe, is the main point the OP is making. I don't have any problems with accepting an experience. It's when they present the *ultimatum* "give perms or leave" - okay, easy choice: I'll leave. Not because I don't want to accept your experience, not because I'm worried about anything, but rather because your heavy-handedness is a major turn-off to me and so I'll remove myself from your ridiculous elitism.

That's just how *I* see it and I only speak for myself, obviously enough. I say this because too many people read other comments as though speaking for everyone when they don't. LOL

[Luna Bliss]

18 minutes ago, Alyona Su said:

This, I believe, is the main point the OP is making. I don't have any problems with accepting an experience. It's when they present the *ultimatum* "give perms or leave" - okay, easy choice: I'll leave. Not because I don't want to accept your experience, not because I'm worried about anything, but rather because your heavy-handedness is a major turn-off to me and so I'll remove myself from your ridiculous elitism.

You don't have to call people names to assert your preferences.

This only creates a kind of war. I see both sides in this debate as having valid points.

[Blush Bravin]

22 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

We're asking for more and better choices. And transparency is one very important way to accomplish that: I can't make a real choice unless it's an informed one.

I do enjoy using experiences in my own home for attaching objects rezzed by furniture. I really don't want to have to accept each and every time. So I definitely see the good in the feature. I'm not opposed to anyone setting up experiences how they see fit for their own build. My point was that perhaps it could come back and bite a creator in the behind if they use them too much or when not really necessary. I've only visited one store that used experiences for teleporting. Personally I would rather use the teleport boards and have some choice in that, but I did accept as I wanted to see that area of the store; however, I've not been back to that store since. It's not been a conscience decision of well I'm never going back there but the end result was it wasn't a pleasant experience for me and I think that has played a roll in my decision making when shopping.

I'm especially unlikely to go to any event that will force an experience on me during this season anyway. I don't handle horror type events well and in fact to this day am still plagued with images from the Exorcist that show up in nightmares. Honestly, wish I'd never gone to that movie all those years ago. Also, I would like up front info before accepting an experience in regard to particles and bright flashing lights as they trigger migraines for me. So yes, I can quickly leave but sometimes it's too late and I'll be suffering with a migraine for hours after leaving. 

Again, all this said is not in any way to suggest that the owner of an experience needs to be limited because of my limitations. But if someone is making an experience hoping to attract a lot of people then perhaps considering how their experiences might affect others would be a wise thing to do. Give us enough info up front so we can decide if it's something we really want to be a part of.

Edited October 18, 2018 by Blush Bravin

[Qie Niangao]

3 hours ago, Nova Convair said:

The permissions giving to an experience are the same than every other permission in SL.

3 differences:
- for an experience you give them all at once
- you can easily revoke everything. (note: the permission you give to a danceball you can NOT revoke)
- permissions are only granted at the place the experience is active

So reading the thread made me laugh multiple times - lots of funny hysteria - very entertaining

 

You can of course debate if experiences need to be forced.  For an RP sim that doesnt wan't tourists: YES! Kick 'em out. 
Everything other installation: depends.

I personally would make a different approach here. I would simply ignore everybody that is not in experience in my scripts. They can stumble around on their own and try to find someting interesting or get into locations without entrance on their own. I noticed that you can prevent sitting on objects too, so nobody can block things. No need for pressure. I dont't think the tourists would not stay for long anyways.

A few things to ramble about here.

1. As Callum has noted, the granting of all permissions at once is not necessarily a good thing. This is actually a very complicated topic, not as simple as just following the Android or iOS models -- which are themselves too complex for many users to select only the permissions needed for the functions they want an app to perform.
2. I'll bet some folks think they can revoke danceball permissions because a certain TPV hack makes it appear superficially as if that were the case. So the point is very valid: because you can revoke them, Experience permissions are infinitely safer to grant than, say, allowing somebody's supposed "hugger" to animate your avatar, something folks still do all the time without a second thought.
3. "- permissions are only granted at the place the experience is active" is a little too strong for a couple of reasons. First, even a "land scope" Experience's permissions are valid everywhere that Experience is enabled, not only the location where it was first granted. For example, I have an Experience that's enabled on a dozen or so parcels scattered around the SLRR (for teleporting a few adventurous explorers around those locations). Also, there are some "grid scope" Experiences, and there's prospect for more of them, which are valid everywhere they've not been explicitly disabled.

The part of this thread I found most worrisome is that folks are comparing Experience permissions to RedZone -- with no apparent concern that they're exposing themselves to a potential RedZone-equivalent threat every time they hear a parcel audio stream. (Technically, it would require slightly more sophisticated association of stream listener's IP with SL avatar identity -- but it's not rocket science.) Does everyone who hesitates to grant Experience permissions also never listen to a DJ's stream except through a whole separate VPN connection than they're using for SL? 

I, too, pretty much "... simply ignore everybody that is not in experience in my scripts." And that's fine for the kind of things they usually encounter with my Experiences. But then sometimes I'll go to a bunch of extra work to offer some semblance of the functionality the Experience is trying to provide. Maybe I'll pop a llMapDestination() for a cross-continent teleport, as a fallback to the simpler and more reliable Experience-based llTeleportAgent().

As much as the Experience-shy user may tire of being asked permission, the Experience scripter must be allowed to tire of finding shambling substitutes for the intended functionality.

[Alyona Su]

24 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

You don't have to call people names to assert your preferences.

This only creates a kind of war. I see both sides in this debate as having valid points.

Regarding how others take their own meaning rather than a cognitive understanding of what others say or write: I rest my case.

[Luna Bliss]

18 minutes ago, Alyona Su said:

44 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

You don't have to call people names to assert your preferences.

This only creates a kind of war. I see both sides in this debate as having valid points.

Regarding how others take their own meaning rather than a cognitive understanding of what others say or write: I rest my case.

"Give perms or leave" does not absolutely mean the sim owner is "heavy-handed" or suffering from "ridiculous elitism", as you have accused.
There could be perfectly acceptable reasons for such a requirement.

[Luna Bliss]

1 hour ago, Kiera Clutterbuck said:

I'd like to visit places where experiences are taking place. Is there a list of places anywhere?

I'd like to visit some sims with Experiences too. I ran across one at a jungle-type sim that asked permission for something, but I did not click as I didn't understand what was going on.
I get how some wouldn't want their body to be controlled, yet sometimes we might be surprised and have a better experience if we overcome this fear.
So far, I agree with Nova that there's been a bit of hysteria here, without any proof that sim owners are doing strange things like forcing one's head into goo as was mentioned earlier.

My perspective comes from creating and owning large nature parks, and knowing others who owned these parks too. While I met a lot of wonderful visitors, there were so many griefers and disturbed individuals visiting that it could at times ruin the experience for all. Often I felt like I was managing a class of elementary school children, except they had no fear of discipline or inclination to behave! It became like a zoo at times.

There's not enough appreciation of sim owners who pay loads of money each month to LL and spend countless hours designing landscapes & fun experiences for the rest of the population to enjoy.
What bothered me the most, and the musicians I hired, was that so many never bothered to tip -- they seemed to believe all of it should just be free for them to enjoy.

[Alyona Su]

6 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

"Give perms or leave" does not absolutely mean the sim owner is "heavy-handed" or suffering from "ridiculous elitism", as you have accused.
There could be perfectly acceptable reasons for such a requirement.

If this were your original response to my post I would have easily and quickly agreed. See how that works?

[Luna Bliss]

1 minute ago, Alyona Su said:

If this were your original response to my post I would have easily and quickly agreed. See how that works?

No I don't really

[Scylla Rhiadra]

53 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

The part of this thread I found most worrisome is that folks are comparing Experience permissions to RedZone -- with no apparent concern that they're exposing themselves to a potential RedZone-equivalent threat every time they hear a parcel audio stream. (Technically, it would require slightly more sophisticated association of stream listener's IP with SL avatar identity -- but it's not rocket science.) Does everyone who hesitates to grant Experience permissions also never listen to a DJ's stream except through a whole separate VPN connection than they're using for SL?

Well, "folks" in this case is *cough cough* me.

This non-techie is pretty much ready to trust both you and Innula implicitly with regard to the relative "safety" of Experiences (although I'll still, on the whole, avoid providing more information about myself than is necessary, where I am aware of options available to avoid doing so).

I had forgotten (along with, clearly, much else) that the security hole that RedZone used was in the SL Parcel Media. Back in the day, I disabled automatic media playback (or whatever the tech term is) for precisely that reason. Since returning, and having reinstalled my viewers, I've neglected to do this, and will do so. That said, of course, it's difficult to avoid using if one is at a club or music event, so . . . well, you pays your money, and you takes your chances, I suppose.

Thanks to both you and Innula for the info!

[Alyona Su]

48 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

No I don't really

Rather than the snarky accusational response, you originated with, your second was more in-line what a neutral comment.  But, I digress. Feel free to plonk me, my point is already made to those with cognitive ability.