Freedom to, freedom from and the future of mainland (shared experience)

[Mollymews]

15 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I think the Lindens gave out comp accounts in the industry

i agree with this.  It would be far more unlikely for LL back in the day, to not give out complimentary accounts to investors and large real world businesses and organistions that they wanted or did attract into SL. Is pretty standard practice for start ups to do comps

[Prokofy Neva]

On 6/11/2019 at 9:57 PM, Ingrid Ingersoll said:

These are on Mock Heather Road on the Atoll continent where I have my lot. I think they're ugly and I'd like to see them removed. Ironically. 

I just asked the person who puts these ugly things all over if he could take them down near me and just leave grass and flowers, and even offered to buy the micro-plot. He said "no". I wonder if a petition of hundreds or thousands would change his mind. I will start one.

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I just asked the person who puts these ugly things all over if he could take them down near me and just leave grass and flowers...

Wonder how much he shells out every month to have signs about ugly builds , that are also ugly, all over the grid.

[ananoelle]

3 hours ago, Ingrid Ingersoll said:

Wonder how much he shells out every month to have signs about ugly builds , that are also ugly, all over the grid.

I think they are Moles who put the monuments down, at least that what Animats has said. If that's the case they are Lab employees and those signs will be on Linden protected land.

[Mollymews]

58 minutes ago, ananoelle said:

I think they are Moles who put the monuments down, at least that what Animats has said. If that's the case they are Lab employees and those signs will be on Linden protected land.

Abnor Mole might have made the obelisk but I haven't seen any on Linden land. Some people have obtained a copy of it and put it up on their own land

if the obelisk were on Linden land then it would imply that LDPW endorses the commandments on it, and might imply that old mainland is covenanted when it isn't

the obelisk is one of those things that gets made sometimes, and ends up falling into the category: No good deed goes unpunished

[Raspberry Crystal]

Not moles who place them, though the original object is mole made. I rather like them, though I haven't seen them used to prop up garbage bags yet!

[Prokofy Neva]

10 hours ago, Ingrid Ingersoll said:

Wonder how much he shells out every month to have signs about ugly builds , that are also ugly, all over the grid.

Indeed.

Here's the petition:

https://www.change.org/p/second-life-residents-remove-good-neighbour-obelisk-from-mainland/share_for_starters?just_created=true

It's on a parcel next to one here.

It's quite telling that these "rules for the mainland" which involve limits on scripts, security orbs, and privacy fences and lanes don't involve anything about ugly builds. Three rules could help there -- no builds over two stories on the ground; put skyboxes at 500 m or higher; step back 32 m from the parcel border to build.

Edited June 20, 2019 by Prokofy Neva

[Qie Niangao]

10 hours ago, Ingrid Ingersoll said:

Wonder how much he shells out every month to have signs about ugly builds , that are also ugly, all over the grid.

If we learned anything from adfarmers, it's that a ridiculously small amount of tier can buy an appalling lot of ugly. Microparcels are weapons of extreme asymmetrical warfare. Indeed, if one happens to have an oldbie Premium account raking in L$500 per week stipend and have had one's fill of Linden Homes, one could own 64 sixteen square meter microparcels and still turn a small profit.

[Qie Niangao]

20 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

step back 32 m from the parcel border to build.

That's a huge setback. The old standard 512 is only 16x32 m, so even an 8 m setback would mean there's nowhere to build on a 512.

[Prokofy Neva]

You can't make an 8 m stepback easily, when the land is in 16 m chunks. Even 16 m would be a major improvement. I say 32 m because 16 m is often not enough. Most lots aren't 512 but 1024 in my rentals, and the 256 camping sites don't have this rule because they already have buildings on them I place, or they have to be cleared and in theme. It's not what you imagine. Look at an entire sim with 1024 lots, or even 4096 lots, and you will start to see the problem if everybody builds smack on the property line.

[Qie Niangao]

2 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Look at an entire sim with 1024 lots, or even 4096 lots, and you will start to see the problem if everybody builds smack on the property line.

Oh, indeed, and if one were to make "zoning" rules it also might be good to specify the setback width as a function of the height of the build, sorta the way it's done in regulating RL sun penetration in urban environments with a lot of tall buildings.

(Still, I might guess that your proposed numbers are kind of "square meters" instead of linear meters, so "16" really corresponds to a 4 linear meter setback, one side of the 16 sq.m. quantum of land.)

[animats]

On 6/11/2019 at 6:57 PM, Ingrid Ingersoll said:

These are on Mock Heather Road on the Atoll continent where I have my lot. I think they're ugly and I'd like to see them removed. Ironically. 

The base is rather ugly. That's why I sunk the base into the ground for mine. Anyone want to design a better looking one?

[Female Winslet]

1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

It's quite telling that these "rules for the mainland" which involve limits on scripts, security orbs, and privacy fences and lanes don't involve anything about ugly builds.

"Thou shalt beget privacy walls, screens, and shrubbery around thy land which please the eye of thy neighbor as they do theyself."

I'm not the person who rezzes the most of these obelisks around the mainland by a large margin, but I do put them up on everyone of my parcels. And I own roughly a dozen small ad parcels where I rez them. I don't find them ugly (sorry to those who do) and they sure do look a lot better than the average advertisement. But their purpose is not to beautify their neighborhood. Their purpose is to protest against people who use their land to be bad neighbors and disrupt the use of mainland by doing a variety of things including blocking land, security orbs, ban lines, and leaving junk lying around because they don't use autoreturn. Generally speaking, I find that the people who have problems with these obelisks are the same people who like to scream that it's their land so they get to do whatever they want no matter how it affects anyone else. So their solution is to tell me what I should do with my land (not put up obelisks) even though it affects no one.

If someone wants to come up with a prettier object that sends the same sort of message, I would be willing to consider using it instead of the obelisk. But the point of protest is always to encourage change. The message is directed at Linden Lab (at least in my case) but it is a message that users could heat as well. I would suggest that being better neighbors and playing a part in a community is a better way to respond than by trying to get a perfectly TOS compliant, non-obnoxious object removed.
 

 

[Love Zhaoying]

17 minutes ago, Female Winslet said:

"Thou shalt beget privacy walls, screens, and shrubbery around thy land which please the eye of thy neighbor as they do theyself."

A shrubbery, you say? 

 

[Prokofy Neva]

4 hours ago, animats said:

The base is rather ugly. That's why I sunk the base into the ground for mine. Anyone want to design a better looking one?

No. The job isn't to design "a better one," but to stop these vanity grid-wide projects in their tracks. There are too many people who expand their egos all over the grid with obelisks, signs, pods, etc. Just as the Lindens have a requirement that you cannot put a search ad on a parcel smaller than 128 m, so they might consider not allowing builds on anything smaller. But basically, this can't be solved via the Lindens. It can only be solved by massive outcry and peer pressure, so that people get pushback when they attempt to expand their egos across the grid with this sort of thing.

[Prokofy Neva]

4 hours ago, Female Winslet said:

"Thou shalt beget privacy walls, screens, and shrubbery around thy land which please the eye of thy neighbor as they do theyself."

I'm not the person who rezzes the most of these obelisks around the mainland by a large margin, but I do put them up on everyone of my parcels. And I own roughly a dozen small ad parcels where I rez them. I don't find them ugly (sorry to those who do) and they sure do look a lot better than the average advertisement. But their purpose is not to beautify their neighborhood. Their purpose is to protest against people who use their land to be bad neighbors and disrupt the use of mainland by doing a variety of things including blocking land, security orbs, ban lines, and leaving junk lying around because they don't use autoreturn. Generally speaking, I find that the people who have problems with these obelisks are the same people who like to scream that it's their land so they get to do whatever they want no matter how it affects anyone else. So their solution is to tell me what I should do with my land (not put up obelisks) even though it affects no one.

If someone wants to come up with a prettier object that sends the same sort of message, I would be willing to consider using it instead of the obelisk. But the point of protest is always to encourage change. The message is directed at Linden Lab (at least in my case) but it is a message that users could heat as well. I would suggest that being better neighbors and playing a part in a community is a better way to respond than by trying to get a perfectly TOS compliant, non-obnoxious object removed.
 

 

Why? They are ugly, and stupid, to boot.

The problem is that they only contribute to the clutter and ugliness.

Those that violate those rules will ignore them; those that don't violate them don't need stupid reminders like this. They are not effective.

They are also dead wrong about "begetting privacy fences". There is nothing uglier on the grid that a photo-real flat shrub. They are the worst thing to have to look at. There are very, very few shrubs or walls that are EVER an improvement. If the trees/shrubs are good 3D plants, and not planar horrors of 10 years ago, possibly they are ok. But the idea that they give "privacy" or "relief" from ugliness is sheer idiocy. 

Unchecking "avatars can see me" makes you invisible and gives maximum privacy that no amount of wall or hedges could give you as anyone could cam over them.

Honestly, the person making up these rules and putting these ugly things around the grid really does not understand community living and I doubt they manage a community or a rentals business or they would not say things like this.

I ban fences in many of my rentals because they always annoy the person next to you and make them feel crowded even if you feel like you are now cosy and safe. Photo-real NEVER looks good in SL. 

[Aethelwine]

I disagree, Prok.

On both points. I rather like them, I remember when I first saw one and thought the advice sound. Those I mentioned it to have all agreed. So you would seem to be in a minority on that.

With regard to the privacy screens and shrubberies, again I disagree. You seem to be focussed on the wrong part of the sentence. it is the " which please the eye of thy neighbor as they do theyself " which is the important focus for its meaning.

There are 2 dimensional screens that are an eyesore, especially the non transparent boxes some occasionally put around their parcels. But I use 2D alpha masked Bamboo textures from Heart, and sometimes other alpha masked textures to help hide an eyesore behind, like one of those boxes, or full bright waterfalls and other grotesque oddities that are fairly common.

The important point is to use the tools and objects we have to decorate our parcels with due regard for our neighbours.

[animats]

14 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

If we learned anything from adfarmers, it's that a ridiculously small amount of tier can buy an appalling lot of ugly. Microparcels are weapons of extreme asymmetrical warfare.

Er, yes.

Censored to avoid naming and shaming, per policy. This thing is huge. 25 meters high on a 4m x 4m parcel. That's a standard size Linden road in the background. The sign overhangs the road. This one is in Corsica. There are probably more.

[Mollymews]

56 minutes ago, animats said:

Er, yes.

Censored to avoid naming and shaming, per policy. This thing is huge. 25 meters high on a 4m x 4m parcel. That's a standard size Linden road in the background. The sign overhangs the road. This one is in Corsica. There are probably more.

when a sign is over 8 meters tall then contravenes the mainland ad farm policy.  http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:About_ad_farms_and_network_advertisers

some newer people who get into making mainland ad networks don't know about this policy as the mainland parcel About Land \ Covenant says No Covenant. With newer accounts, maybe before AR then a IM to them with a link to the policy

[Marianne Little]

On 6/18/2019 at 3:31 AM, Prokofy Neva said:

Ask yourself who in their right mind would PAY AHEAD FOR YEARS for a parcel they never visit, when they never log into SL. Who could possibly justify paying $72 A YEAR FOR YEARS??? It makes no sense. Even the wealthy wouldn't do this -- especially the wealthy, as they get wealthy by saving money. If they left a form of payment that bills $72 every year or worse, $22.50 every 3 months, what, are they dead? They make so many purchases they don't notice? And this happens not just once but 10 times in SL? I simply do not believe it. I think the Lindens gave out comp accounts in the industry, possibly to staff (they are Linden alts) or friends or family, and they are  paid forever, but without the kind of symbol like the Charter members have on their account. There really is no other good explanation. 

Maybe you are right, but I am still convinced that there are people who have joined premium and forgot about it. When the money is withdrawn from their account, it is too late. Maybe they don't notice that.

What is 72 USD? A pair of jeans, a pair of sunglasses? And you say that wealthy people would care about that? I know people who are not rich, but they have a nice income. Buying a pair of jeans and not using them, is not a problem for them.

[Raspberry Crystal]

On 6/20/2019 at 5:25 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

put skyboxes at 500 m or higher

1024m outside maximum draw distance would be better, sky clutter is my pet peeve!

[animats]

On 6/21/2019 at 1:55 AM, Mollymews said:

when a sign is over 8 meters tall then contravenes the mainland ad farm policy.  http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:About_ad_farms_and_network_advertisers

some newer people who get into making mainland ad networks don't know about this policy as the mainland parcel About Land \ Covenant says No Covenant. With newer accounts, maybe before AR then a IM to them with a link to the policy

Yes. Visit the south end of Corsica and head west on the coast road, and you'll see a few large signs on tiny parcels. File ARs. Oversize, encroaches on Linden land, glows - all reasons to AR. Amusingly, the biggest ones are ads for ad space. They don't have actual customers or revenue. They seem to have bought up some of those little "Taxi" ad stands and put huge signs on them. So much uglyness with no benefit to anyone.

(Corsica really needs some more roads through the under-utilized abandoned land in the interior. Once you get 100m from road or sea, it's mostly bleak abandoned land. LL might plant forests on abandoned land. If they used good trees, SL could have leaf tourism.)

[Female Winslet]

7 hours ago, Raspberry Crystal said:

1024m outside maximum draw distance would be better, sky clutter is my pet peeve!

My personal rule is that all skyboxes/build platforms/other sky structures on my land is that nothing is built lower than 2000m. I think that's also the rule on many private estates and in Bellisseria. It works well to keep things out of view even from mountain tops. It's an easy round number to remember. It allows space for flying. It seems to work well.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

On 6/21/2019 at 2:08 PM, Marianne Little said:

Maybe you are right, but I am still convinced that there are people who have joined premium and forgot about it. When the money is withdrawn from their account, it is too late. Maybe they don't notice that.

What is 72 USD? A pair of jeans, a pair of sunglasses? And you say that wealthy people would care about that? I know people who are not rich, but they have a nice income. Buying a pair of jeans and not using them, is not a problem for them.

Pretty much, I have relatives that sit on worthless pieces of land IRL rather than selling them (what are you going to do with a 4x80m piece of land in a non-constructible area?)

[Crim Mip]

Provided the neighbor in question hasn't already shown themselves to be a jerk, my general offer when I've felt the need to put up screens has been "I can put the same texture on your side I'm using on mine, I can make you're side transparent, or, if you provide a texture, I'll be glad to put that on your side." In my home area we have fairly nice mesh rock walls with greenery and waterfalls on both sides where needed. Just one complaint so far and that was from somebody who put up some super tall ugly as hell apartment buildings.The complaint? That the wall blocked the veiw of what was on our parcel and would make the apartments less desireable. They didn't like it much when it was pointed out that the view of their apartment buildings made our parcel less desireable.