Sky Clutter - Mainland

[Qie Niangao]

7 hours ago, Syo Emerald said:

I don't think the success of Belli is a sign that people love rules so much. Beside the appeal of "the new shiny thing", Bellis success is likely build on its beautiful landscape and its themed neighborhood with a nice style of houses, that appeal to a broad audiance. Now, should all mainland be like Belli? I'm not sure. I'm even more unsure if that is even a realistic wish, as it would probably mean, that we would have gotten a much smaller mainland and that the landscaping wouldn't look this good after almost 20 years. Also the stricter the rules, the more work LL creates for themself.

Yeah. I have to admit, I'm playing around a bit, arguing that the Mainland might have done better with strict covenants, leaving the Estates to serve the no-covenant market. (I mean, I got some Zindra so I'd have no constraints on my SL, so a "strict" Mainland probably wouldn't be for me.) 

But I'm legit trying to understand the economics that dictate one way or another. Maybe it's just as you say: "the more work LL creates" done by Lab staff who presumably earn a lot more than Estate managers, in a business expecting higher margins.

So covenants work best when enforcement is inexpensive. Seems plausible.

[animats]

3 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

So covenants work best when enforcement is inexpensive.

Yes. The Belli-type rules on sky junk, security orbs, and ban lines are easy to enforce. The more vague rules on not changing the house style are tougher.

Some of the big private estates have zoning. One big landlord has five types of land use.

The Confederation of Democratic Simulators works like a town; they have elected leaders, rules, and zoning. It's one of the very few places in SL with a democratically elected government.

New Babbage has an autocrat and building inspection, to enforce design consistency. They've been quite successful at that.

I'd argue for much weaker rules for mainland than those places have, but stronger rules than we have now. Start with a few areas and see what happens.

 

[Alwin Alcott]

8 hours ago, seeno29 said:

* the draw distance is 300 no junk in the sky, it was a very nice region but not anymore..

if you'r on firestorm.. derender

[Marianne Little]

9 hours ago, seeno29 said:

I don't like living in private regions where the land is not really mine, my only solution living in a mainland is buying most of the lands around me so no random person with ugly building or laggy scripts live next to me, i live in a very nice region where everyone is sticking to the theme, but sadly not long ago we had a new neighbor who did this..
I missed out on this land i would've bought it...

* the draw distance is 300 no junk in the sky, it was a very nice region but not anymore..

Isn't it a red "For sale" sign over the box?

[Aethelwine]

On 5/31/2020 at 6:11 AM, Parhelion Palou said:

Still going on with this? It's not going to happen. Mainland is free-for-all land and it's way too late to change that. It's not Linden Lab's job to keep the people you find unacceptable out of mainland.

I don't think it is necessarily too late. It would make for a big change that they would need to consider carefully, but there are strong economic arguments.

Tier is being paid on every private region, Bellisseria is full and they have no private regions left to sell. That all makes the wastefulness of a mostly less than half occupied mainland obvious. Mainland is popular and fully occupied around sailable water, where people largely abide by unwritten rules of keeping builds and parcel settings social. It is the inland free for alls that are costing them and indirectly everyone. They may not want to take on the change required, but there are good economic reasons for them to do so, to maximise their profit and invest in a future we can continue to enjoy. 

[Alwin Alcott]

3 hours ago, Aethelwine said:

I don't think it is necessarily too late. It would make for a big change that they would need to consider carefully, but there are strong economic arguments.

Tier is being paid on every private region, Bellisseria is full and they have no private regions left to sell. That all makes the wastefulness of a mostly less than half occupied mainland obvious. Mainland is popular and fully occupied around sailable water, where people largely abide by unwritten rules of keeping builds and parcel settings social. It is the inland free for alls that are costing them and indirectly everyone. They may not want to take on the change required, but there are good economic reasons for them to do so, to maximise their profit and invest in a future we can continue to enjoy. 

very recently when the shortage of space came up, a Linden said there are not plans to work / change the mainland.

[Qie Niangao]

45 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

very recently when the shortage of space came up, a Linden said there are not plans to work / change the mainland.

I doubt they'll do anything either, but I think that comment was in the context of (not) freeing-up servers by re-hosting some mostly-abandoned Mainland (and Ye Olde Linden Homes) sims to homesteads... which would take some investment of time and effort.

Having had some responsibility for platform migrations myself, and guessing what technical challenges ☁️Project☁️Uplift☁️ might entail, I wouldn't be surprised if the Lab eventually needs to reconsider that position (rather than trying to make Mainland more popular by introducing selective restrictions; compared to an Estate region, a full-up Mainland sim can generate substantially more revenue for the Lab -- but only very rarely does, so they'd be better off freeing up some mostly idle Mainland-hosting hardware to use them on shiny new Estates).

[Aethelwine]

40 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

very recently when the shortage of space came up, a Linden said there are not plans to work / change the mainland.

I am also sure I heard of moles being redeployed to mainland projects. Plans change and what was true a week ago might not be true now. 

For the record I love the variety and chaos of creativity on display on mainland. I have and do still have prim builds of my own, made out of tortured path cut prims and textured with what I could find cheap on marketplace or with textures of perhaps dubious licence from freebie organisers.

I loved when I first came across the full bright neon wonderland at Buso and sad now it has mostly gone. An area that by all normal standards would seem tasteless,  but that for a while inspired the surrounding landowners to build in a similar gaudy style.

I have my own space station at 500m height. I could put it higher but in its context of a sky space cluttered with other builds is high enough to be outside most people's views. 

I don't think the Lindens should get involved in policing taste beyond what they already do,  except perhaps to tidy up stray builds,  half returned homes leaving bits of clutter behind etc. They could get the moles to mark out protected waterways. 

Restrictions on banlines and orbs would be nice, but there are lots of other little improvements that would add value. 

[SarahThe Wanderer]

6 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

Isn't it a red "For sale" sign over the box?

Yes, but it's not over the box, it's another land far behind that is for sale.

[Axel Naxos]

18 hours ago, seeno29 said:

Eu não gosto de morar em regiões privadas onde a terra não é realmente minha, minha única solução morar em um continente é comprar a maioria das terras ao meu redor, então nenhuma pessoa aleatória com construções feias ou scripts vagos vive ao meu lado, eu moro em uma região muito agradável, onde todo mundo está aderindo ao tema, mas, infelizmente, não faz muito tempo, tivemos um novo vizinho que fez isso.
Eu perdi essa terra que eu a teria comprado ...

* a distância do sorteio é de 300 sem lixo no céu, era uma região muito agradável, mas não mais ..

Long live freedom! LOL

[Beth Macbain]

On 5/31/2020 at 11:32 AM, Qie Niangao said:

But why Mainland? If the free-for-all is so valuable, why wouldn't Estates have made a fortune from it?

But why NOT mainland? If the covenant-restricted land is so valuable, why wouldn't estates have... 

Oh wait. 

Mainland is mainland. I bought land there because there is no covenant. If one rule gets created, then someone else is going to demand another, and another, and another, and then suddenly mainland has the same covenant as Bellisseria and the Uppity Citizens Brigade will start going around taste-policing, and then it's going to be like living in a gated community governed by a Nazi Home Owner's Association, and no thank you. 

[Aethelwine]

6 hours ago, Aethelwine said:

I loved when I first came across the full bright neon wonderland at Buso and sad now it has mostly gone. An area that by all normal standards would seem tasteless,  but that for a while inspired the surrounding landowners to build in a similar gaudy style.

Correction I remembered the location wrong, Ebisu 5 years ago in all its glory....

 

A shame it is a shadow of its former self, I would love to know more about what was going on there and the surrounding areas.. It was a magical moment of discovery when I found it.

(I think I was wearing tmp body back then.)

Edited June 1, 2020 by Aethelwine

[Qie Niangao]

1 hour ago, Beth Macbain said:

But why NOT mainland? If the covenant-restricted land is so valuable, why wouldn't estates have... 

Oh wait. 

Mainland is mainland. I bought land there because there is no covenant. If one rule gets created, then someone else is going to demand another, and another, and another, and then suddenly mainland has the same covenant as Bellisseria and the Uppity Citizens Brigade will start going around taste-policing, and then it's going to be like living in a gated community governed by a Nazi Home Owner's Association, and no thank you. 

Again, the question was WHY Mainland as opposed to Estates? Which question, incidentally, you completely ignored by simply assuming the answer was "BECAUSE MAINLAND IS MAINLAND and must ALWAYS AND FOREVER HAVE BEEN DESTINED TO BE MAINLAND." That's just a ducky way of answering by simply assuming-away the question, but not a contribution towards understanding the economics.

On the other hand, I think we later got the answer: It's simply cheaper to have fewer rules to enforce, and cheapest of all to have no rules at all; when you have the most expensive workforce, you're the one with no rules. The costs will determine that only Estates, with cheap labor, low margins, and higher end-user prices -- only Estates can provide the "gated community" "Nazi Home Owner's Association" experience you don't want (and, if you read a little further, you'll find I, too, don't want it for myself).

[Beth Macbain]

9 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

... Which question, incidentally, you completely ignored ...

On the other hand, I think we later got the answer:...

So I both did and didn't answer the question? 

And, yes, I had read further when I wrote that, but I got stuck on the question you posed. To phrase it another way, what are the advantages to having LL enforce a covenant on the mainland vs. leaving it as is and letting the estates offer land that is both covered by a covenant and enforced by themselves or their employees?

I'm honestly not trying to be difficult here. I'm genuinely curious why a few people want the mainland gentrified (and that's really what we're talking about here) as opposed to moving someplace where they can have what they want?

Yes, there are large swathes of empty mainland. Is that because everyone thinks the mainland is a garbage dump, or is there another reason? I have my own theories, but I'm curious what others think, and what they base that on.

[animats]

If you're going to build something which has no relationship to its neighborhood, there are places for that.

A non-continent. You can't see nearby sims unless they have an edge in common. So each sim sees water to the horizon, and can't cross any region boundaries.

 

A non-neighborhood. Go ahead, put up huge walls.

If you want isolation in SL, it's available. That's where skybox stacks and walled parcels belong. Not on mainland.

There are probably more isolated parcels on such sims than on mainland. Only a small percentage of mainland owners wall off their property. Each one creates an ugly barrier visible for quite a distance.

A directory of land set up as isolated parcels would help here. These are all private estates, and Second Life doesn't have a multiple listing service for land, like RL does.

[Beth Macbain]

5 minutes ago, animats said:

If you're going to build something which has no relationship to its neighborhood, there are places for that.

Yes, it's called the mainland.

[Aethelwine]

1 hour ago, Beth Macbain said:

I'm honestly not trying to be difficult here. I'm genuinely curious why a few people want the mainland gentrified (and that's really what we're talking about here) as opposed to moving someplace where they can have what they want?

Yes, there are large swathes of empty mainland. Is that because everyone thinks the mainland is a garbage dump, or is there another reason? I have my own theories, but I'm curious what others think, and what they base that on.

Your premises seem to be way off.

Where else are there 100s of connected regions to explore except the mainland continents? The biggest private continent would be fruits and Eden, which is a lovely place, but maybe 100 regions? Even so I have a rental there, but also rentals and land on all the mainland continents, I think Qie and others in this thread are in a similar position. But, it isn't about living somewhere, it is about enjoying the environment we have and maximising its potential. Economically maximising its potential benefits us all by creating stronger finances for Linden Lab to reinvest. Removing barriers to ownership, like the potential for someone down river or a neighbour to spoil your investment would help both Linden Labs bottom line improve the value of landowners investments and help people who are not owners to enjoy the space too.

The reason some areas of mainland are unpopular is the lack of a covenant, the potential for neighbours to put up problem builds or clubs. They offer nothing of benefit that private estates don't do better. Where mainland is popular, there are no estates that can compete, no where can provide the variety or quantity of connected regions.

[Qie Niangao]

4 hours ago, Beth Macbain said:

So I both did and didn't answer the question? 

Huh? No, Syo Emerald led us in the direction of an answer. (Granted, I don't know who's alt of whom, so I guess anything's possible.)

Anyway, I'm drifting back to the same old place I was all along: Old time Mainland won't get a covenant, but it would be better if it had some of the constraints that apply on Belli: No hair-trigger orbs, no banlines, sky builds only at some plausible altitude. That's about it. The main reason for restricting Mainland parcel-owners' ability to screw with passersby is that Mainland, specifically, is uniquely suited to exploring, just by virtue of its geographic extent. So that's a market need that simply cannot be satisfied on Estates, even the ones with clusters of a few dozen contiguous regions.

After understanding the economic forces, I get it that the more restrictive "gated community" "gentrification" (which I never wanted for myself anyway) only makes financial sense in an Estate business model, with dirt cheap labor and high end-user prices. Yeah, there are a few experiments on Mainland (Brown, Boardman, maybe some others), but they never had a chance of scaling.

Belli is completely different, of course, with only fairly minimal covenant restrictions but constrained by a choice of pre-built housing, as well as the old "Linden Homes" region settings: no terraforming, no resale, no parcel joining/splitting, etc. Those particular constraints would be weird on Mainland* and I don't think anybody is arguing for them.

But in reality we're not going to get anything, so exploring the market economics is the most interest I can squeeze from the topic.

_______________
*I've owned some no-terraform Mainland, and of course most of Mainland is limited to that +/-4m range, restrictive compared to most Estates. And some no split/join Bay City, etc. It's not such a burden, really. Nor would be so horrid if sky builds were kept above common draw distance, just so shadows can be sensible.

[Asadora Summers]

On 5/29/2020 at 4:00 PM, DakotaMacy said:

Thanks to everyone for their replies.  I will reduce my draw distance and just not look upward 🙂

 

If you are using Firestorm, you can derender what you think is ugly. You can either derender it temporary and it will show up again the next time you log in or re-teleport back to your land. OR you can derender -forever- meaning that you'll never ever see it again:)

 

[Macrocosm Draegonne]

It is actually quite nice that mainland allows a lot of freedom, most often... unless someone else encroaches on what your idea of aesthetics are. In which case you could sell and move, or speak with them, see if some amicable arrangement can be made.

This reminds me of my idea for Occlusion Prims 😜 theres many ways they can be used, but being able to hide hideous neighbors, skyboxes, internal rooms, etcetera would be nice, and boost performance too. Basically just an occlusion plane/cube that hides everything but sky/land/water/linden trees, unless you're within it, or on the other side of it.

[Anicha Heartsong]

On 5/31/2020 at 4:50 PM, Ardy Lay said:

There are regions in the mainland that have 'zoning restrictions'.

Ardy, where are these regions with zoning restrictions? Any easy way to search for them? Or a list of them all?

[Ardy Lay]

Boardman, Kissling, Lusk, Brown and some multi-region areas like Bay City.  Some have note card givers with the zoning information but many of those have broken over the years.  

[Gabriele Graves]

Bay City has a theme and a community but there is no covenant.  If there is no covenant then it will not be enforced by LL.  This holds true for any mainland without covenant.  There are many places in Bay City that aren't in theme for example..  The notecards givers are there to try to convince people to stick with the themes and be part of the community.

[Ardy Lay]

Right.  I was not referring to estate covenant, which is enforced by estate owners, including Linden Lab, since mainland is their estate(s). What we call zoning in SL is rather informal.  In Lusk it is enforced by the land owners.  I don’t know if any of the other areas still have enforcement or not but Lusk still does, 17 years and running.  I imagine other areas where the land ownership is maintained by a group and people donate tier to the group to use the land have enforcement too.

[Qie Niangao]

19 hours ago, Ardy Lay said:

Kissling

That one is interesting, and apparently escaped my attention all these years. It appears that almost all the private land in the region is owned by a collective group. Don't know the history here at all.

I do remember the "campground" region, De Haro, from when its very restrictive rules were still enforced. Doesn't seem to be any of that remaining, although it's still relatively sylvan in theme; I can't imagine how those little prim cabins would fare in the age of mesh.