How to be a Good Neighbor

[norajulian]

The title sounds aggressive, but this is more a query than anything. I’d considered posting this in the Mainland section, but realized that although my specific land in question is mainland, I’m sure this is a situation that renters on private regions can also relate to. 
 

The question: How do you be a good neighbor? 
 

I have finally, after a few different characters in SL, some breaks, and lots of interesting adventures into non-mainland renting, have obtained mainland (abandoned land!) in a lovely, relatively open area, with somewhat distant neighbors who seem to use their parcels as sandboxes to unpack items. As somebody who adores landscaping and decorating, but also enjoys her privacy, I would like to do a tasteful border and set up on my parcel, but also don’t want to upset anyone by using large cliffs. 
 

I know -mainland is free game and you do what you want because you pay for it, blah blah, but I also don’t wish to ruin the grassland vibes happening and upset folks. I’ve always rented my private region areas where terraforming is already blocking the views to guarantee privacy, so this is a relatively new concept to me, despite my many years in SL. 
 

SO! Is 15s warning on an orb acceptable (to still allow for flyers, of course)? Would you consider nicely textured cliffs and/or pine trees around a border unsightly? If I were to decorate a retirement home with a wheelchair racing track and hosted bingo Thursdays, would the joyful sounds of dentures clacking together in laughter around 6pm SLT keep you up at night?
 

What are some things have you seen that would make somebody a bad neighbor? 

I’m quite sure this is all a personal preference, so please don’t attack each other in the comments. 💖

[Fritigern Gothly]

I think that the 4 "commandments" on @Abnor Mole's obelisk are good ones. Off the top of my head these are:

• 15 second minimum warning, and just eject, NEVER TP HOME. Sometimes people simply are unable to move fast enough (lag is a b*tch).
• Do not use ban lines. They are ugly and disruptive to the enjoyment of SL by people who never done anything to get banned.
• Allow people to rez but use autoreturn to keep your parcel tidy. I use a 10-minute autoreturn myself and never have any issues. 
• If you wanna put up barriers, make sure that the neighbors have something nice to look at, not just a plywood wall.

I have been paraphrasing, but Abnor may be able to give you the actual "commandments".

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

For me, general ban lines are the number one thing that makes a bad neighbor. People tend to set their parcel to "group only" which means everyone else gets to see yellow lines. I much prefer that someone use orbs or just put individual names on the ban list. (Nope, I don't want to turn off ban lines in my viewer because then I will be running into them. lol)

The second thing that bugs me is aggressively bad terraforming. I wish people would make better use of the "smooth" option when editing terrain, so that the transition from one parcel to the next is not a harsh flat ugly vertical wall. I realize not everyone knows how to terraform, but I'm sure those of us who do would be glad to help if asked.

Aside from all that, on Mainland, it is indeed "everything goes" for the most part, and I just derender the truly heinous stuff if I must. Cliffs and walls can look great if they are good quality, and I've seen some really nice work done with them (see Campbell Coast for examples). I happen to like the ruins from Fanatik, but Studio Skye has nice things as well that can help with parcel privacy while not being an eyesore.

As for the retirement home, that sounds like fun, and if you restrict sounds and chat to your parcel, your partying seniors shouldn't be too raucous for the neighbors.  (Will you be serving a buffet? Asking for a friend...)

[norajulian]

24 minutes ago, Fritigern Gothly said:

• Allow people to rez but use autoreturn to keep your parcel tidy. I use a 10-minute autoreturn myself and never have any issues. 

Oh, I didn't think about autoreturn! That's an idea!

I might turn up my eject time to a bit more than it currently is set, just because I don't particularly MIND if people cross through, i just don't want them necessarily living there. And of course - no TPing home - just scoot over the glass wall, if you please.

[Claireschen Hesten]

7 hours ago, norajulian said:

What are some things have you seen that would make somebody a bad neighbor? 

Not keeping their prims with in their parcel boundary i've had neighbours in my home region and currently the one next to it that think it's ok for their prims to clearly spill out on to land owned by other people 

[Polenth Yue]

My view as a mainland dweller would be don't break any Linden rules (including things like the age rating rules) and keep your stuff on your parcel. That can be standard encroachment of objects, but things like orbs that warn people standing outside your land and constant loud sounds can also be problems. Make sure to test the orb isn't trying to warn your neighbours and restrict sound to your parcel if that'd be an issue.

Other than that, you can build whatever you like. I'm not going to complain. Some people will, but I see it as one of those two ways things. I don't get to say you can't have ugly mile high cliffs and you can't complain about my cake.

[animats]

If you really need a privacy barrier, there are trees for that. There are some very low prim tree sets around. There's even one which is completely opaque, but just looks like dense forest and shrubbery.

Take a look at how the Moles separate parcels in Belessaria.

[Alwin Alcott]

1 hour ago, animats said:

Take a look at how the Moles separate parcels in Belessaria.

quite irrealistic example unless you want everything to be "community builded" ... Not everybody has the ability to get hundreds of meter extra land and tier to make  hedges, tree and  32 / 64 meters space between the neighbours.

"my rules"
don't encroach, even when not using my prims it's annoying.
don't come in uninvited when i'm there
(rezz is disabled)
 

Edited April 7, 2021 by Alwin Alcott

[ArgontheDevil Ormega]

Being a bad neighbor can be fun if you have a neighbor who is a pain in the ass.  If you have nice neighbors, that is different but there are few things more fun that responding to a neighbor who terraforms so you have one side almost facing a cliff with a large prim towering over his land.  I always put a fence up around my lands, not to keep people out but to make sure I don't build over onto anyone else.

[Garnet Psaltery]

The first thing I do with any new parcel is terraform, with the aim of having a buildable area but also smoothing to the neighbouring parcels; when they have very different border levels that can be tricky, but I try.  In my last mainland location I used large rocks tinted to suit the landscape, which covered up some jarring sharp edges.  I loathed the look of my neighbours' parcels where no-one gave a thought to what others could see, all except one poor fellow with the smallest parcel which was exquisite, but just before I left it had been overshadowed and encroached upon by a jerk who thinks palm trees belong in Cumbria.  Where I am now I'm remote from anyone, and the only visitors are people who used to visit the previous owner.  I have for the first time in whenever I can recall set the parcel to group only, as these visitors arrive expecting soxy time, which they are not getting on my land or from me.

[Lillith Hapmouche]

Apparently, leaving the ground unoccupied and taking things to skyboxes is also not ok.

Had the owners of that airport place south to my plot IM me and ask if I'd sell my home. Obviously, I would not use it, as there'd be nothing on the ground... yeah, no.

[Yukiko Yeshto]

What makes a good neighbour? I think, courtesy it is in the first place. And for most disagreements or misunderstandings, there is a way to solve it so both sides can be happy.

My handling for my mainland parcels is:

• No banlines and no security orb (reason for the latter is that it happened to me too often that after crossing a region border, an orb even with a considerate set time would go wild and still eject me right away ). Since I don't hang out at my parcel all the time, I don't mind if people pass by while I am not even there. While I write that, I am however debating if I should rez out a guestbook, could be fun to read up their salutes 
• Everything but editing terrain is allowed. Autoreturn is on.
• If furniture shall not be accessible for strangers, I set it to "owner only" in the operation menu. Chances are, it wouldn't be used 24/7 anyway so I can just change it back when I wanted that invited visitors/group members only were able to use it.
• If I ever wanted some private time and make sure that I wasn't disturbed at all, I would set up a skybox at a high altitude. I experienced uninvited visitors maybe a handful of times in all of my SL years so in my opinion, the risk is rather low. I would consider an orb only if the settings are for close distance solely. Both skybox+orb would be set up temporarily, I don't need the litter to stay 
• For landscaping: before I buy land, I go checking it out to see how the neighbours decorated their places, so either it matches my own ideas already, or (if I see the need for it) I would reach out to them before moving in to find out if they would be interested in collaborating for creating a nice surrounding together. Also a good way to figure out if I can expect nice or rather annoying neighbours  In general, I would prefer trees as borders because they provide privacy, indicate that it was a private home and still don't give an instant unfriendly vibe of "gtfo" (not referring to "get the freight out" ^^). Overall, I prefer to move into places where I can expect that my neighbours and I share the same ideas how to handle the environment.
• For testing purposes (scripts, particles, etc), I tend to rez out a building platform or skybox at a high altitude so I wouldn't risk that someone gets eye cancer from glowing laser beams or the like.
• If someone encroaches my parcel with their landscaping objects, I would only care if it had a negative effect on my plot. If it is just something like a little corner hidden below ground from a rock formation, I don't mind at all. I see that like RL nature where you can't expect the roots of a tree respecting your neighbour's borders either, and as long as it doesn't become a serious issue, I won't mind. I am aware that others don't agree and insist on the rules, and that is absolutely okay. In the end, rules are there to guarantee that we all play fair. I have my own agreements with my neighbours in that regard, and so far, we all have always been fine with it. 👍

[Theresa Tennyson]

20 hours ago, norajulian said:

I have finally, after a few different characters in SL, some breaks, and lots of interesting adventures into non-mainland renting, have obtained mainland (abandoned land!) in a lovely, relatively open area, with somewhat distant neighbors who seem to use their parcels as sandboxes to unpack items. As somebody who adores landscaping and decorating, but also enjoys her privacy, I would like to do a tasteful border and set up on my parcel, but also don’t want to upset anyone by using large cliffs. 
 

I know -mainland is free game and you do what you want because you pay for it, blah blah, but I also don’t wish to ruin the grassland vibes happening and upset folks. I’ve always rented my private region areas where terraforming is already blocking the views to guarantee privacy, so this is a relatively new concept to me, despite my many years in SL. 
 

In Second Life, using any sort of built barrier for privacy is useless as teats on a boar hog. Someone can simply cam through anything you build.

If your goal is privacy turn off the setting that allows those outside the parcel to see avatars in it.

If your goal is controlling the view from your parcel, build in the sky (preferrably well over the visual range from the ground) and do what you want up there.

[norajulian]

5 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

In Second Life, using any sort of built barrier for privacy is useless as teats on a boar hog. Someone can simply cam through anything you build.

If your goal is privacy turn off the setting that allows those outside the parcel to see avatars in it.

If your goal is controlling the view from your parcel, build in the sky (preferrably well over the visual range from the ground) and do what you want up there.

Oh, folks can cam around and walk through all they want - I'm just a big fan of uniformity (I know, what the heck am I doing on Mainland). BUT! My neighbors really have nothing out, so it's mostly flatish green land all around me (of which I'm not complaining) right now.

I suppose in this case, it's about controlling the view from my parcel, yet still being able to do the +/- terraforming on the ground, so I went with trees and a glass wall, some other things - still working on it so verdict is out to see if my one neighbor throws her snakes in my boot.

 

[Lillith Hapmouche]

So obvious that it got lost on me:

Make double and triple sure that checkbox saying, "Restrict gesture and objects sounds to this parcel" is checked!

About Land > Sound tab.

I'll hate you forever if I have to cam around your parcel and find all your stupid fires cracking or waterfalls falling or birds chirping... ugh.

Edited April 7, 2021 by Lillith Hapmouche

[Bdobson]

The most annoying thing for me is my neighbors putting out objects that "Shout" in local and you can "hear it" on my parcel. Even checking the "limit sounds and gestures" option doesn't work. Try using "say" or "Whisper" if the object gives you the choice.

[norajulian]

1 hour ago, Bdobson said:

The most annoying thing for me is my neighbors putting out objects that "Shout" in local and you can "hear it" on my parcel. Even checking the "limit sounds and gestures" option doesn't work. Try using "say" or "Whisper" if the object gives you the choice.

Oof! Have you tried unchecking “avatars on other parcels can see and chat with avatars on this parcel”? It’s really something they should have done, but.. 

 

either that’s or block the object! 

[Marianne Little]

It is not a rule, but I think excessively hight walls around your land is ugly for all. Those black/brown cliffs. If I use them, I shorten them or jam them deep down in the ground so they have a better height. I think all such border walls is too tall. In my opinion, if a house is 6 m tall, border walls look best as 6 m or a little over 6 m. Living beside 64 m must be a nightmare for those on the inside too.

Walls that have the outside transparent is better. That is a "polite" way of saying: I can't stand to look at your stuff. Because obviously they do not mind if others look in, they just do not want to look out. But such one side transparent walls are looking very funny at angles...

64 m walls should be banned. I really mean it.

[Pussycat Catnap]

I try to avoid orbs and banlines period below 1000m. Keep skyboxes above that too. Best if above 1250 or so to reduce the chance of ever being seen from below.

 

Above that height, I see no problem with instant 0-second no warning TP home orbs IF AN ONLY IF they are contained 100% INSIDE a solid object.

So you're flying along and bump into a giant prim with a texture on it... you need to TP inside to get inside... you do so... you're fair game.

 

At ground... make the place look decent to look at as people pass by. And not 'hostile' to folks that accidentally wander in - thus the 15 second rule. But personally I just leave ground open.

 

It's less important to leave build on than it is to leave scripts on. MOST people who use an AO still use one made before 2013... which means they need scripts to keep their animations working...

Make sure to turn OFF object entry, and PLEASE SET AUTO RETURN to no more than a few minutes. Parcels with no auto-return end up becoming 'griefer launch points'. If they can figure out how to get a prim onto your plot - your land becomes the nexus point for greifing all your neighbors.

- this is why you want object entry off.

You want auto-return set so you don't end up collecting abandoned vehicles. Go visit some of those regions that have land owners that haven't logged in since 2004... and you can often find all kinds of random things floating in the air - often vehicles.

 

Work really hard to not have the bounding box of anything on your land cross over someone else's land.

Work really hard to make sure your lights only emit into your parcel or linden land, and not into another person's land. (Developer Menu -> render metadata -> lights) to see where your lights are shining. I have a script that also turns off the lights on my land when no one is there <--- this is of course theme dependent.

 

PLEASE DO NOT USE fullbright on anything unless it is a light that is on and glowing. Anyone with modern graphics will see a Stephen King Nightmare anytime they look at your land if it has fullbright on it. It's like using that old 2006 era bling... it's just... not done anymore. Might as well carry a purple pimp cane and put on platform shoes with live goldfish in the heels at that point because that's how out of date you are if you do it.

Restrict sounds to your parcel.

 

Don't put in a 'pen*s cannon' that shoots sculpty male anatomical parts at your neighbors... because... yes, this has happened to me. But at least it was an aiming accident and not on purpose.

Don't use sculpties... just... don't... see the note about pimp canes and goldfish shoes, and ad a footnote about pet rocks and mood rings. You're dated... it's 2021.
- I know a lot of people still use sculpty trees but... there are some really nice low land impact AND low lag mesh ones out there. And they just look better, and cause less lag. YES some mesh items are extremely lag-toxic... Mesh can be good or bad, but sculpty is always 'kinda bad'.

 

 

Edited April 9, 2021 by Pussycat Catnap

[Lucia Nightfire]

Am I the only one that thought "State Farm" when reading the title?

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

1 minute ago, Lucia Nightfire said:

Am I the only one that thought "State Farm" when reading the title?

Like my (SL) "welcome" mat says: "Like a good neighbor, stay over there!"

[Rufferta]

Some things I have tried to do:

-match my trees and shrubs to those of the neighbors

-use ground textures that match the region textures

-keep outside of builds simple to avoid texture overload

-introduce myself to neighbors whose parcels are very close

-try not to terraform my land in such a way that it undermines their builds or return items that are not affecting me (did that by accident last week - apologized - item was a few inches on my parcel way high in the sky)

-near water, I've tried not to put up a new object just to block my neighbors' views (Perhaps an extreme example of being polite - I once had a neighbor who had their build underwater, very well disguised...for a long time I thought the parcel was empty)

-keep my political opinions to myself

-set parcel return to ten minutes, no ban lines, no security orbs on the ground

That said, I'm sure my list of unneighborly habits is even longer.

 

 

Edited April 10, 2021 by Rufferta
Realized I am blocking one of my neighbor's water views; but not deliberately...

[Lillith Hapmouche]

"U must use protection if u don't want visitors!"

No, my fellow lady who is running around in underwear with boobs and butts hanging out, trying to sit on everything and the dog, literally ... I can also ban them. Bye!

[SarahThe Wanderer]

I think I have the worst neighbor you will ever meet in second life, she's my new neighbor and she's using ban lines, orbs and walls, she does all that and I won't go in the details, but she keep calling me names and sending me links for mental disorders, just because I have the biggest land in the area and she said it herself, she does way more than that, turning my staying next to her a hell, she keep watching what ever i do waiting for anything i rez to reach her land so she can rerun it with a nasty message like OMFG enough is enough!!

I blocked her but still I can't stand living next to her, so yes of course I'm selling my land, she won!!

 

[Lillith Hapmouche]

Just wondering... why exactly are you rezzing encroaching objects in that situation?