If You Could Zone the Mainland, What Would You Do?

[Beth Macbain]

Okay, here's my two cents.

I'm a recent mainland owner. I had no understanding of it, no desire, and had barely visited any mainland before Bellisseria opened my eyes. Now, in addition to my two Bellisseria parcels, I have purchased a nice swath of mainland on the Atoll. I started with one abandoned parcel, and have since nearly tripled the size by purchasing abandoned parcels on either side of me. When I first started looking for mainland to buy, it took a while to find what I was looking for especially since I wanted abandoned land I could buy directly from LL instead of paying money to someone else, and I also knew I wanted a parcel that butted up against both a Linden Road and the SLRR. 

Perhaps because mainland living is still new to me, I freaking love it exactly the way it is right now. I love being able to do (nearly) anything I want with my land. I love that when I click on my land tab, there is no covenant. I love that I've got my still-figuring-out-what-exactly-I-want-it-to-be parcel covered with a house and surrounded with horses and my own train tracks hooking up to the SLRR, and I love that on the other side of the road is someone with a field of nothing but breedable bunnies, next to a completely out of place ice skating rink, and one parcel away from me is a giant GTFO warehouse, and across the train tracks is a little bar, and then there is the guy who has built a memorial to his dead wife, and just all the freaking weirdness surrounding me. It's brilliant!

Why would I want any of that zoned? I bought mainland specifically because it isn't zoned. It's the wild frontier of SL. There are plenty of places with zoning, and covenants, and HOAs, and Gladys Kravitzs judging and snooping and reporting and ARing. If the mainland changed to be zoned, where do the people go who want to build what they want on land they own? That's what the mainland is for. 

Zoning it in any way is the antithesis of what the mainland is, in my opinion. 

LL is my governance. It'll be a cold day in hell before I live anyplace where Prok has any governance over anything I do. The idea of that is utterly horrific. 

[Marianne Little]

On 11/29/2019 at 7:35 AM, Prokofy Neva said:

There's more -- like not building smack on the property line for 16 or ideally 32 m -- but that's also something people endlessly argue about -- although when it happens to them, and a giant black box club modeled after the Black Sun in "Snowcrash," they get it better.

 

 

I see others comment on huge privacy screens and low skyboxes, and I am in agreement with them. I also think Legacy Mainland should be left as it is. There is no need to take away something, when we can have both.

Adressing just this I took out of your post. One of the things I am most pleased with in Belli, is that my property line does not touch the others property lines. It is a very human trait, to use your property to the edge. The Protected land around Bellisseria homes act as a buffer zone.

I would very much see land Mainland 2.0 parcels placed out without touching each other. I see no need for so detailed landscaping between them as it is in Belli. Some trees, a few rocks and roads. Limited landscaping, so you can dig down and have a basement or a pool, or make small hills. Maybe 4 m up/4 m down.

I would not allow slicing up parcels as it is on Legacy Mainland. The way groups work now, you must find more land in the region, if you will use it all on a group parcel. It is almost impossible to do so. What people do, is buy a parcel, cut off what they don't need, and try to sell the leftover. That's often oddly shaped, and no one wants it, so it is abandoned.

I would instead see parcels set to 1024, 2048 and up to ?.. This is supposed to be residential areas, not land where 200 ppl go together and create a roleplay land. So parcels for max 5 - 6 premium avatars would perhaps be enough.

Other zones could be for commercial use. Or residential areas could be homes + light commercial. Let us say the home parcels allow for a skybox or a sky platform up in 1000 m height, or more. I am not sure what the rules could be for light commercial. But give small business owners a little gallery to show off things. No clubs.

What about the group benefit? I think it would be paid out in Landimpact only. With sparsely decorated protected land as bufferzones, there is Li enough left over. A couple can then form a group, get 2048 m land, and the Li bonus is added automatically when you are setting the land to group.

I like the idea of square and rectangular parcels that can't be hacked up in small parts. The number of unusuable land on Legacy Mainland is high. There are L- shaped land, U- shaped land, snake shaped land, triangular land. And all sort of sizes.

 

Edited November 30, 2019 by Marianne Little

[animats]

I was just driving around Jeoghot on Route 9. That's a pretty route. What detracts from the experience? Mostly, stuff that would make no sense in real life:

• Big flat walls with images on them. As I've said before, there are private landlords who cater to that market. Moving people out of shared mainland to "wall land", with walled areas side by side, would be a win.
• Really ugly advertising junk. Ad farms that don't even bother to use a model of a RL billboard, but just plaster their ad textures on big ugly prims. I've been ARing some of the ones that are over-height (there's an 8m limit), rotating (not allowed), or more than one per region (not allowed).
• Big floating stuff at low altitude. This is like the big flat wall problem. It's mostly people having trouble fitting their prefab building to the terrain, and just giving up.This would be a good topic for a class at Caledon Oxbridge or Builders Brewery - SL Architecture 101, or how to make your build fit the land.
• Bad low level of detail models on large objects. Big triangles in midair. Towers to nowhere. See-through buildings. That's partly a tooling problem, and partly buyers not rejecting such junk. It's sad to go to some of the big prefab builders, set the LOD factor to zero, and look at, or through, the model buildings.

This is the kind of junk that makes mainland less valuable. There's none of that in Bellesaria. Just cleaning that up would make mainland more valuable. I saw an awful lot of FOR SALE signs this trip. Far more than a few months ago.

[ChinRey]

11 hours ago, animats said:

I was just driving around Jeoghot on Route 9. That's a pretty route. What detracts from the experience? Mostly, stuff that would make no sense in real life...

Oh Jeogeot! I had my first land in SL by Route 9 (well, Route 9A actually but it's the same area.)

I had to revisit the place when you mentioned it. All the eyesores and hovering FOR SALE columns are gone now but everything else is just as it was back in 2013:

 

I never built anything permanent there myself. For some weird reason I just never could come up with something that worked with the idyllic "Japanese" garden that sent a constant stream of cherry blossom particles onto my land, the war zone that sent explosives onto my land, the big cyberpunkish building with the huge rotating flashing sign on the roof, the two low sky platforms (one with a medieval house on it and the other crammed full of horses), the garden full of breedable cats that crashed the sim every now and then and the many for sale signs. But at least, a ground made from an 8 bit heightmap really, really encouraged me to learn terraforming.

Edited December 1, 2019 by ChinRey

[Marianne Little]

8 hours ago, ChinRey said:

Oh Jeogeot! I had my first land in SL by Route 9 (well, Route 9A actually but it's the same area.)

I had to revisit the place when you mentioned it. All the eyesores and hovering FOR SALE columns are gone now but everything else is just as it was back in 2014:

 

I never built anything permanent there myself. For some weird reason I just never could come up with something that worked with the idyllic "Japanese" garden that sent a constant stream of cherry blossom particles onto my land, the war zone that sent explosives onto my land, the big cyberpunkish building with the huge rotating flashing sign on the roof, the two low sky platforms (one with a medieval house on it and the other crammed full of horses), the garden full of breedable cats that crashed the sim every now and then and the many for sale signs. But at least, a ground made from an 8 bit heightmap really, really encouraged me to learn terraforming.

 

I could live there as it is now, but anyone can move in next to me and do exactly what you describe. It is a dream, to buy land like this without most of what you describe. Well, the cherry garden could not be disallowed. Maybe derendering the trees would stop particles too. I would call the other things very hard to live with. At least people could be considerate and move platforms up, but people do as they please when there is no rules.

[ChinRey]

2 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

I would call the other things very hard to live with. At least people could be considerate and move platforms up, but people do as they please when there is no rules.

That's the point, yes. Everybody were wearing each other out, making each others' virtual lives as unpleasant as possible. The result is an empty sim. The guy who bought my parcels there lasted less than a week before he abandoned his land.

It's not totally empty actually, there are two or three stores (including somebody's "main store" without a single item for sale in it) on the other side of the road and also a small parcel for rent at a ridiculous price.

This thread is about stricter rules for mainland (or at least parts of mainland) but what really got me upset back then was that LL wasn't even interested in the few rules we already have. Even those hovering For Sale signs was perfectly ok as far as they were concerned. There weren't actually many in "my" sim but the neighbour region was crammed full of them. Lots and lots of 512s for sale and each and every one of them had a small not for sale 4x4 cut out in the middle. It was only years later I learned what that meant. To add insult to injury, when I filed a support ticket about the cats that kept crashing the sim, they blamed it on me, claiming those cats were on my land. They never were and that's when I gave up.

 

2 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

Maybe derendering the trees would stop particles too.

Derendering is hardly an option if you want to build something other people can enjoy too. Then again, trying to do something for the common good in SL is the virtual equivalent to wearing a sign saying "Kick Me" on your back anyway.

---

2 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

I could live there as it is now, but anyone can move in next to me and do exactly what you describe.

To be fair to my former neighbours, a few of the builds were actually very nice on their own. It was the way they clashed with each other that made everybody unhappy. Prokofy suggested there ought to be separate "residental" and "public" areas of mainland. Well, yes, but I don't think it's enough. Imagine a lovely log cabin in a winter landscape, complete with snow particles and everything. On one side it borders to a tropical paradise with palms and a tiki hut, on the other side there's this wonderfully wacky "scifi" house and behind them all a huge dark midevil towering above them all. These builds are all residental. Do you think any of the owners would be happy about the neighbourhood?

[Marianne Little]

17 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

That's the point, yes. Everybody were wearing each other out, making each others' virtual lives as unpleasant as possible. The result is an empty sim. The guy who bought my parcels there lasted less than a week before he abandoned his land.

It's not totally empty actually, there are two or three stores (including somebody's "main store" without a single item for sale in it) on the other side of the road and also a small parcel for rent at a ridiculous price.

This thread is about stricter rules for mainland (or at least parts of mainland) but what really got me upset back then was that LL wasn't even interested in the few rules we already have. Even those hovering For Sale signs was perfectly ok as far as they were concerned. There weren't actually many in "my" sim but the neighbour region was crammed full of them. Lots and lots of 512s for sale and each and every one of them had a small not for sale 4x4 cut out in the middle. It was only years later I learned what that meant. To add insult to injury, when I filed a support ticket about the cats that kept crashing the sim, they blamed it on me, claiming those cats were on my land. They never were and that's when I gave up.

 

Derendering is hardly an option if you want to build something other people can enjoy too. Then again, trying to do something for the common good in SL is the virtual equivalent to wearing a sign saying "Kick Me" on your back anyway.

---

To be fair to my former neighbours, a few of the builds were actually very nice on their own. It was the way they clashed with each other that made everybody unhappy. Prokofy suggested there ought to be separate "residental" and "public" areas of mainland. Well, yes, but I don't think it's enough. Imagine a lovely log cabin in a winter landscape, complete with snow particles and everything. On one side it borders to a tropical paradise with palms and a tiki hut, on the other side there's this wonderfully wacky "scifi" house and behind them all a huge dark midevil towering above them all. These builds are all residental. Do you think any of the owners would be happy about the neighbourhood?

It would be really hard to find out what they should make most of. But I think, based upon what sells most on the MP, that most want something like traditional houses. Then tropical/beach. The lands around the Blake sea has some rules? Is it still regions that's called Second Norway? Something like that.

I think a lot could be avoided with buffer zones in between and rules for height of the build? And no particles entering over the buffer zone and in the other plots? Much of the troubles now, is that every parcel touches the other parcel. It is easier to make a natural privacy wall, with a hill 4 m, with trees and bushes, if it is 32 m to the next parcel, don't you think? Second Life houses often has 4 m ceiling height. 2 x 4 m plus roof... height 12 m restriction? 15 m to have an attic?

I am thinking of a Vanilla version Mainland in addition to Legacy Mainland, where I can set up my ONSU, Roost, Mayas cottage house with oak trees and a patio.

Yes, I know. Boring. Safe. Sometimes I want boring. I am in that phase now.

I think those who are interested in boring and safe is many enough to fill up such land. Again, see what sells on the MP.

 

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, Marianne Little said:

 Is it still regions that's called Second Norway?

Second Norway is a private estate. There are several such private estates connected to mainland, including all the rentals around Blake Sea, and yes, I do think that's what we need more of. There are lots of restrictions for connecting private estates to mainland though. There's only room for a limited number of them and LL has some very specific (and sometimes rather weird) rules for such estates. LL also charges the estate owner a significant non-refundable fee for applying and there's no guarantee they'll accept you application. Fairchang was moved and connected to mainland not long ago but their application may well have been pre-approved (the estate owner at that time was the widow of a former Linden). There was a very ugly incident a few years ago where a new estate got their application accepted and then withdrawn after they'd spent lots of time and money developing and paying tier for their 100 sims estate whilst waiting for it to be relocated to Blake Sea. I can't imagine any estate owner is willing to take the risk at this stage.

 

1 hour ago, Marianne Little said:

I think those who are interested in boring and safe is many enough to fill up such land.

I think so too and Belliseria's popularity proves your point.

I do not believe they make up the majority of the people who would be interested in a virtual home though.

Speaking for myself, in RL I live in a lovely little cottage by the sea. Nice neighbours close enough I don't feel alone far enough away we don't get into each others' hair. Behind me a landscape with forest, lakes and mountains. Everything criss-crossed by footpaths and bicycle paths. A small town center and a national park both within walking distance. Why on earth would I want to downgrade my virtual life to Bellisseria standards? If it's my dream home, I want it to be better and/or more exciting/exotic than my RL one, not the other way around.

That's just of course but even though American suburbia obviously has a large following in SL, I still don't think it's what most people really want here. It's neither familar enough to be comforting nor exotic enough to be exciting.

I strongly believe we need a variety of environments to attract and attract a wider group of SL'ers.

This is not something the LL and the Moles can provide. It has nothing to do with how good builders they are or aren't, the problem is that they all represent the same culture, white American middle class (except Crazy Mole of course but I don't think she works here anymore). There's nothing wrong with that, everybody has to come from somewhere after all but it's a monoculture. They can do very good design as long as they can work within the scenarios they are familair with but the moment they ventru into the unnown, they are lost and we end up with things like Sahreta Osumai and Horizons. (The way Horizons was originally presented that is. In that particular case I actually believe it was a good thing that the residents rejected the theme.) European cultures are very different from American white middle class, far more different than most people realise. So are Canadian, Australian and even much of USian cultures and don't get me started on the rest fo the world. The Moles can't possibly create anything for other people with the same sense of comfortable familiarity Bellisseria gives to "their own kind". Expecting them to do that wouldn't be fair. Others can though, if the were given the chance.

 

1 hour ago, Marianne Little said:

I think a lot could be avoided with buffer zones in between and rules for height of the build? And no particles entering over the buffer zone and in the other plots? Much of the troubles now, is that every parcel touches the other parcel. It is easier to make a natural privacy wall, with a hill 4 m, with trees and bushes, if it is 32 m to the next parcel, don't you think?

I think this is where I shold remind everybody of this thread. It would take a lot of insanity or money to waste to even try to build something like that as a private estate in SL but if LL jumped on the idea and adopted it as a new Linden Homes theme, it oght to be a success.

I'm trying to get out of this thread because, as I think we all know, it's a total waste of time since nothing we discuss here will ever come true. But even so, the topic is so interesting I can't resist it.

Please, stop tempting me!

 

Edited December 1, 2019 by ChinRey

[Marianne Little]

33 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

I think this is where I shold remind everybody of this thread. It would take a lot of insanity or money to waste to even try to build something like that as a private estate in SL but if LL jumped on the idea and adopted it as a new Linden Homes theme, it oght to be a success.

I'm trying to get out of this thread because, as I think we all know, it's a total waste of time since nothing we discuss here will ever come true. But even so, the topic is so interesting I can't resist it.

Please, stop tempting me!

 

I remember that thread well. I don't think we would need so much work on details as you can do, and as the Moles in Belli does. Second Mainland with some rules and some zones. Not as many zones as some wish. Using a grid and spacing out plots with protected land between would be better _for ME, not_everyone. Maybe a group with the same wishes, is big enough that it's possible. Many express that they will get rid of 64 X 64 privacy screens and skyboxes a few m above the ground when it's made threads like this. It does not have to be more complicated than that.

And I am out of the thread now, so you don't have to be tempted. I promise I will not quote you more. 😁

[ChinRey]

18 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

I remember that thread well. I don't think we would need so much work on details as you can do, and as the Moles in Belli does.

Ummm... you think marking the parcels with big bright green prims is adding too much details?

Edit: But seriously, yes, you are right, it doesn't have to be this elaborate, the key is to spread 24 1024s over four homestead sims rather than shoehorn them all onto a single full sim. Everything else is optional

Good, intelligent landscaping can add a lot of quality (and privacy screening ) though. It doesn't take that much time and once it's done, there's no additional cost of any kind.

Edited December 1, 2019 by ChinRey

[Pussycat Catnap]

I almost want to find Beth's lot and buy something next door and then rez giant advertising signs, a 64m tall wall that is a photograph of trees badly cropped, a floating spinning fullbright for sale sign, a nazi flag next to a black panther flag so I can offend BOTH the liberals and the conservatives, 73 bad LOD mesh objects, a farm for breedable chickens,  12 cars and a sexbed floating in midair, AND max-setting lights on the border between our lots... that project glowing particles that are pictures of that green-frog faced guy the alt-right loves...

And then terriform it into a mess of spikes, cut it into a gazillion 16m micro parcels, and sell every other one of them...

We'll have a new zoning convert in here real fast...

BUT... I'd never do that... even though I could... anyone could... because it'd be ethically wrong... Yet a LOT of people would and actually do exactly that...

Which is why we need some kind of rules...

As noted in an earlier post... she's new to mainland. She hasn't YET seen what that anarchy can and eventually WILL do to her wonderful land yet...

Edited December 1, 2019 by Pussycat Catnap

[Marianne Little]

47 minutes ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

I almost want to find Beth's lot and buy something next door and then rez giant advertising signs, a 64m tall wall that is a photograph of trees badly cropped, a floating spinning fullbright for sale sign, a nazi flag next to a black panther flag so I can offend BOTH the liberals and the conservatives, 73 bad LOD mesh objects, a farm for breedable chickens,  12 cars and a sexbed floating in midair.....

PS. I did not put a crying smiley there because I think you would do it. And anyone can live lucky on Mainland without an ugly neighbor build. It is just a matter of luck or not.

You forgot to mention a big cutout of the bear cartoon meme from 4chan. I shall not say more, its name is offensive. But I lived almost next to one, luckily not in plain sight. And a really ugly building with a xxx group as owner of the land.

It didn't bother me then. It was "Mainland, what do you expect". After Belli, it struck me that it don't have to be like this.

Yes, I can rent in an estate with rules. But then I would quit Premium, for why pay for both premium and rent to the estate the same time? One of it has to go.

Edited December 1, 2019 by Marianne Little

[Pussycat Catnap]

1 hour ago, Marianne Little said:

PS. I did not put a crying smiley there because I think you would do it. And anyone can live lucky on Mainland without an ugly neighbor build. It is just a matter of luck or not.

...

It didn't bother me then. It was "Mainland, what do you expect". After Belli, it struck me that it don't have to be like this.

You can start with that luck, but you can't hold onto it.

At any random point all the things I noted could just show up and destroy your experience.

Unless your piece of mainland is in Bellisseria... Because it has a covenant... a small one... but it's there. Perhaps the most important rule in the Bellisseria covenant is one I think most people don't notice:

Quote

 *Residents may decorate the interior of their house to their liking. The exterior should always remain in theme out of consideration for your neighbors.

- The bolded part.

It's the 'no jerks' rule.

- That alone would go a LONG WAY towards fixing the rest of mainland...

1 hour ago, Marianne Little said:

After Belli, it struck me that it don't have to be like this.

- Exactly...

Mainland doesn't have to be like it is...

Some very minor rules could go a long way towards cleaning things up without disturbing 90% of the 5 people still left on the blight that is mainland...

I think we actually WILL see a covenant in time. It's just a massive money dump to Linden Lab the way it is now... too much of it's abandoned. At some point on the balance sheet someone on the board is going to be asking them to 'turn off the lights' on mainland, or fix it...

I don't know what that covenant would entail... but Bellisseria is proving the point that a very small covenant is actually enough to keep almost ALL of the trouble out with (I'm guessing) little active work by enforcement staff needed. The other side of Bellisseria - all the active development by moles and lindens - builds community... that's a separate topic. Likely NOT the approach needed for most mainland, but time will tell.

 

We do know from looking at Horizons that having the moles and lindens build up regions WITHOUT a covenant does NOT work... it's just as blighted as mainland, even though it has all the mole/linden bells and whistles seen on Bellisseria. And you can't blame it on those 'old lifetime accounts' that clutter up the extremely old sims of mainland - Horizons is just around 2-3 years old. Every blighted build on it is an active account... It just lacks a 'no jerks' policy...

 

 

Edited December 1, 2019 by Pussycat Catnap

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

Perhaps the most important rule in the Bellisseria covenant is one I think most people don't notice:

- The bolded part.

It's the 'no jerks' rule.

Hey, they stole that from me! Can I sue them now?

Edited December 2, 2019 by ChinRey

[Mollymews]

6 hours ago, ChinRey said:

I'm trying to get out of this thread because, as I think we all know, it's a total waste of time since nothing we discuss here will ever come true. But even so, the topic is so interesting I can't resist it.

Please, stop tempting me!

 

i am tempt you back :😸

what these conversations do I think is help to inform Linden about what we (residents) talk about.  While this doesn't always translate to Linden action on existing legacy mainland,  it does help I think to influence what Linden do in their planning when making new mainland continents.  Belli the latest, Horizons before that, Nautilus etc. Each of which turned out to be pretty popular with residents into the respective themed offerings

[Pussycat Catnap]

31 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

i am tempt you back :😸

what these conversations do I think is help to inform Linden about what we (residents) talk about.  While this doesn't always translate to Linden action on existing legacy mainland,  it does help I think to influence what Linden do in their planning when making new mainland continents.

This is true. For a probable example look at the incoming fee on listing events. They said it was due to seeing many complaints. That likely comes from a mix of inworld, tickets, and us ranting on these forums.

I suspect that the more rational and cool headed we debate and argue, the more likely they are to read all the sides and choose some policy that tries to do what's BOTH best for the company and us as a larger whole. They're not going to ever give us exactly what we demand because we all demand different things and we don't see the internal numbers... but they do seem to be getting better about trying to come up with an idea that improves things for as many of us as possible.

So I think it's very healthy for us to have these kinds of threads.

[Beth Macbain]

7 hours ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

 

I almost want to find Beth's lot and buy something next door and then rez giant advertising signs, a 64m tall wall that is a photograph of trees badly cropped, a floating spinning fullbright for sale sign, a nazi flag next to a black panther flag so I can offend BOTH the liberals and the conservatives, 73 bad LOD mesh objects, a farm for breedable chickens,  12 cars and a sexbed floating in midair, AND max-setting lights on the border between our lots... that project glowing particles that are pictures of that green-frog faced guy the alt-right loves...

And then terriform it into a mess of spikes, cut it into a gazillion 16m micro parcels, and sell every other one of them...

 

The region is Velda. Do your worst.

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

19 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

Boring. Safe. Sometimes I want boring. I am in that phase now.

I think those who are interested in boring and safe is many enough to fill up such land. Again, see what sells on the MP.

 

18 hours ago, ChinRey said:

I think so too and Belliseria's popularity proves your point.

I have a different take on this. I think it may be more of an outlet for the "need" fostered by advertising, magazines, tv to have a picture perfect home and "look". So rooms that could be in a magazine, fashion model mesh bodies and clothes. It's what's being sold as the dream or ideal.

Have you seen the psychological studies about the way too much choice overwhelms us and makes it all harder? I think there's validity in that and SL has the potential for near infinite choice. Maybe Belli is popular simply because it's easier.

[Raspberry Crystal]

9 minutes ago, Bitsy Buccaneer said:

I think it may be more of an outlet for the "need" fostered by advertising, magazines, tv to have a picture perfect hom

It is possible to have a lovely home anywhere in second life, it's the lovely neighbourhood which can be more of a challenge. Especially if you don't want to restrict your view distance to the shortest settings.

[ChinRey]

34 minutes ago, Bitsy Buccaneer said:

I have a different take on this. I think it may be more of an outlet for the "need" fostered by advertising, magazines, tv to have a picture perfect home and "look". So rooms that could be in a magazine, fashion model mesh bodies and clothes. It's what's being sold as the dream or ideal.

Oh yes, I totally agree with you there. It's the least common denominator of a hyper-commercialized culture. We see it in what people buy to decorate their SL homes and avatars too. It's more and more about standardized stuff based on what RL media tells us is trendy - or rather what RL media told us was trendy a couple of years ago. But it is not up to us to judge. We are not the taste police and nor is LL. One person's kitch is another person's treasure and that's perfectly ok.

However, SL has always been seen as a haven for those seeking something different. It's "Your Dream, Your Imagination" (and "Your Neighbor's Nightmare" - why is it they always leave that part out?), not "The Majority's Dream, the Marketer's Imagination". That's never really been true since the basic premises inevitably steer us all in one direction, but I have the impression it's becoming less and less true. Slowly but surely SL is turning into a monoculture and I think that's a shame.

[Marianne Little]

3 hours ago, Bitsy Buccaneer said:

 

I have a different take on this. I think it may be more of an outlet for the "need" fostered by advertising, magazines, tv to have a picture perfect home and "look". So rooms that could be in a magazine, fashion model mesh bodies and clothes. It's what's being sold as the dream or ideal.

Have you seen the psychological studies about the way too much choice overwhelms us and makes it all harder? I think there's validity in that and SL has the potential for near infinite choice. Maybe Belli is popular simply because it's easier.

It's not wrong to have a need and care to that need, is it? I was growing up poor. I started working full time just before I was 18, so I don't have education and a job that pays so much. Oh, it is not like I have a bad life. But I can play with stuff in Second Life that goes beyond what my money in RL allows. As a child, I used to daydream about a nice house, my own room, a fine stereo, a mother who was well liked in the community, and she had put up a cork board on the kitchen wall with postcards and cute stuff pinned to it. This is taken directly from one of the few times I was to another kids home. I never forgot the corkboard and the pain of jealousy. It was a ordinary home, nothing special, and yet another world for me. I had never sat down by a table with a complete dinner set and a couple tealight candles in ceramic holders. I am happiest in SL when I create a version of a perfect home again and again. I am not attracted to space stations and mermaid homes. I would love to be in one and live there for a week, maybe.

[Luna Bliss]

10 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

It's not wrong to have a need and care to that need, is it? I was growing up poor. I started working full time just before I was 18, so I don't have education and a job that pays so much. Oh, it is not like I have a bad life. But I can play with stuff in Second Life that goes beyond what my money in RL allows. As a child, I used to daydream about a nice house, my own room, a fine stereo, a mother who was well liked in the community, and she had put up a cork board on the kitchen wall with postcards and cute stuff pinned to it. This is taken directly from one of the few times I was to another kids home. I never forgot the corkboard and the pain of jealousy. It was a ordinary home, nothing special, and yet another world for me. I had never sat down by a table with a complete dinner set and a couple tealight candles in ceramic holders. I am happiest in SL when I create a version of a perfect home again and again. I am not attracted to space stations and mermaid homes. I would love to be in one and live there for a week, maybe.

That's a very touching story, Marianne, and brought a tear to my eye..

[animats]

On 12/1/2019 at 9:10 AM, Marianne Little said:

I think a lot could be avoided with buffer zones in between and rules for height of the build?

Now that's a good thought. Buffer zones are part of what makes Bellesaria work. Suppose mainland areas zoned "rural" and "suburban" had decorated buffer zones between parcels. If you owned the parcels on both sides of a buffer zone, you'd be allowed to use the buffer zone. People could buy multiple parcels and build big, but sell or rent it out and the buffer zone reverts to LL.

This goes along with the "no big walls" rule. You get some division from your neighbors with the buffer zone, but can't overdo it with a 50m slab wall.

[ChinRey]

17 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

I am happiest in SL when I create a version of a perfect home again and again. I am not attracted to space stations and mermaid homes. I would love to be in one and live there for a week, maybe.

It's lovely to hear you found the perfect home you dreamed of in SL.

But remember, that's exactly what it is. It's not a perfect home or the perfect home. It's your perfect home, not a universal one. Other people from other cultures grew up with very different visions.

I'm Norwegian myself and in this respect at least Norway is probably one of the three nations - along with Sweden and Canada - that are closest to white American culture. I still don't feel at home in a Bellisseria house. It's alien, not nearly as alien as a space station or mermaid cave would be, but in the same way. (In one way it feels even more alien because it's close enough to give an uncanny valley effect .)

Take a look at Second Norway, not just the cetnral town sims but the residental sims on the estate. Second Norway is owned, run and made by Norwegians as an attempt to recreate the Norwegian dream home. It's still very Americanized because it's SL but if you compare it to Bellisseria, you should still notice the difference. Multiply that difference by two or three and you should get a decent idea of how a Norwegian dream home compares to a white American one. You have to multiply that difference by at least ten to cover the majority of Northwest European and Noth American tastes and childhood dreams and we're still only within a fairly small set of closely related cultures.

I love flight of fancy builds like underwater mermaid seascapes and space stations and you-name-it. But even so, the main reason why I'm so much for diversity in SL is to allow for a diversity of "comfort homes" for a diversity of people to feel comfortable and at home in.

Edited December 3, 2019 by ChinRey

[animats]

I've mentioned the idea of "walled parcel continent", for people who want to build a wall around their property. Found this on the SL world map.

Non-Continent of Walled Parcels. No idea who set this up, but clearly there's demand for this sort of thing. People who want to wall off their mainland parcel should be moved to someplace like this. That's how we can get to wall-free mainland.

There are other groupings of parcels on the map cut up this way. This is just an example.