Mainland & Social Norms - Did I miss any?

[Feorie Frimon]

 

I know I might not make any friends with this video... but I'm just sayin' what everyone is thinkin'.... 

[Quistess Alpha]

So, I don't want to start up the "but what causes the most lag" wars, but while minimizing script use is obviously a good thing, what I've osmosed from people who know a lot better than I do is that scripts can't actually lag anything other than other scripts, because they always get the last slice of the time-cake. Things that use physics simulation (make a stack of boxes physical and move into it; quite fun, but remember to clean up the physical boxes afterward.) or the path-finding functions (mostly "wildlife" and breedables) can cause a lot more lag (I think).

so 3 more rules:

1. Don't make an active breedable farm next to a bunch of people or where people might want to be. Buy some abandoned mountain-land for that.
2. Don't make a club or traffic-generator without consulting your neighbors.
3. Don't leave around too many 'physical' objects when not in-use.

[Coffee Pancake]

That's the problem with content like this, if any singular part can be picked apart, the entire project is disregarded over that one part.

But yes.. don't go randomly deleting scripts from your stuff. It wont have the impact you hope. Poor region performance is not caused by the scripts in your furniture .. especially on mainland where active occupancy tends to be fairly low.

[Rabid Cheetah]

Great video...except...*sigh*  here we go again.

As an explorer, I am firmly in the Ban Lines Are Better Than Orbs camp.  Sure, the pro-orb reasons you gave in the video are valid;  The problem is most folks don't know how to properly use orbs.  Setting the orb to tp folks home, instead of to the edge of the parcel, setting an obnoxiously low warning time prior to tp, setting orbs to add folks to the "banned from parcel" list so that they have to deal with ban lines anyway -- all of these are, well, to use the analogy from your video, worse than not flushing the toilet:  It's like pooping on the floor.

Trying to educate the public about proper social norms regarding orbs is a much more daunting task than trying to educate the public about the ease of a single click in their viewer to toggle ban line visibility on and off.  Plus a ban line will never tp you home, half-way across the grid.  I am quite appreciative of folks who chose to use ban lines on their parcels instead of getting sucked into the orb fiasco -- and let me add that trying to educate folks about how they use their viewers to click a simple ban line toggle box is a much easier task than trying to get orb manufacturers to develop products that don't tp folks home or have unreasonably short warning times.

So that's my big pet peeve lol  Other than that, your video was superb.

[Coffee Pancake]

Ban lines only go 50M above ground level.

Fly a little bit higher.

[Coffee Pancake]

Hacker voice - I'm in.

[Quistess Alpha]

Yeah, IMO orbs for skyboxes (hopefully set up to only push people out of the skybox) and open-access or banlines if you must for ground-level.

[Feorie Frimon]

17 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Ban lines only go 50M above ground level.

Fly a little bit higher.

I didn’t know that! That’s good to know!

[Feorie Frimon]

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

That's the problem with content like this, if any singular part can be picked apart, the entire project is disregarded over that one part.

But yes.. don't go randomly deleting scripts from your stuff. It wont have the impact you hope. Poor region performance is not caused by the scripts in your furniture .. especially on mainland where active occupancy tends to be fairly low.

I agree here - and I think for those that are picking it apart are sort of missing the point. But in the videos defense... 

"Randomly deleting scripts from your stuff" - I don 't think the video came across that way, did it? In the video I made sure to show an object from Aisling that had a 'delete scripts' option displayed on a HUD that auto-deleted some scripts after you picked the color/finish you wanted for the wardrobe. You can see it at 4:19 - Maybe I should have been more clear.

As far as furniture and lag goes - and to preface, I'm not scripter...but on the 'scripts in furniture don't cause lag'. Most animated furniture uses the AviSitter set up these days which isn't laggy to me, but I've seen some that are much more old school - with pieces that actually have to be 'started' (like a car engine) and have manifested pose balls that move around, etc. Then you have to 'turn off' the piece of furniture when you're done using it so the scripts aren't 'always running'. That seems like it might cause problems, right? 

[Quistess Alpha]

4 minutes ago, Feorie Frimon said:

As far as furniture and lag goes - and to preface, I'm not scripter...but on the 'scripts in furniture don't cause lag'. Most animated furniture uses the AviSitter set up these days which isn't laggy to me, but I've seen some that are much more old school - with pieces that actually have to be 'started' (like a car engine) and have manifested pose balls that move around, etc. Then you have to 'turn off' the piece of furniture when you're done using it so the scripts aren't 'always running'. That seems like it might cause problems, right? 

Well, the tl;dr is that old scripts are laggier than new scripts (lso vs mono ; root-only vs per-prim) but the hard to get across thing is that there are multiple /kinds/ of lag, and the 'problems' that can happen depend on the kind of lag.

It's not just do the bad thing and all the bad problems happen, it's more like do this bad thing and this set of bad problems happens, and there's a whole complex ven-diagram of all the bad things and bad problems. . .

[Coffee Pancake]

5 minutes ago, Feorie Frimon said:

"Randomly deleting scripts from your stuff" - I don 't think the video came across that way, did it? In the video I made sure to show an object from Aisling that had a 'delete scripts' option displayed on a HUD that auto-deleted some scripts after you picked the color/finish you wanted for the wardrobe. You can see it at 4:19 - Maybe I should have been more clear.

It's a lost cause. There is no way to bring everyone up to the skill level required to make an informed choice about a potential destructive change to a purchase.

 

5 minutes ago, Feorie Frimon said:

As far as furniture and lag goes - and to preface, I'm not scripter...but on the 'scripts in furniture don't cause lag'. Most animated furniture uses the AviSitter set up these days which isn't laggy to me, but I've seen some that are much more old school - with pieces that actually have to be 'started' (like a car engine) and have manifested pose balls that move around, etc. Then you have to 'turn off' the piece of furniture when you're done using it so the scripts aren't 'always running'. That seems like it might cause problems, right? 

Anecdotal assumptions about how something works is why most information and opinions about scripts are incorrect.

Think of it this way, you have a 6 lane highway. It's rush hour every hour all day every day. Your friend who's "good with cars" has said it's better to leave the spare tire at home, because it makes your car lighter and saves on fuel. 

[sirhc DeSantis]

To the OP. Thanks be that the still contained the warning. After decades on the interwebz the sight of the creepy bloke  in the red cardigan has long meant there are places I do not wish to go. *shudders*

[Feorie Frimon]

7 minutes ago, sirhc DeSantis said:

To the OP. Thanks be that the still contained the warning. After decades on the interwebz the sight of the creepy bloke  in the red cardigan has long meant there are places I do not wish to go. *shudders*

Haha - won’t you be my neighbor?? 😜

[Sister Nova]

29 minutes ago, sirhc DeSantis said:

To the OP. Thanks be that the still contained the warning. After decades on the interwebz the sight of the creepy bloke  in the red cardigan has long meant there are places I do not wish to go. *shudders*

But…but…. Tom Hanks played him in the movie ‘A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood’, he was marvellous. It was really good to see who Fred Rogers was, as to my knowledge his shows were never shown in the UK.

…..and now back to our scheduled programming  

[Prokofy Neva]

I think it's a good video and quite useful to introduce people to all these topics.

I personally can't support the idea of "orbs instead of ban lines because you can move for 10 seconds" -- I oppose orbs on the ground of any kind -- period -- and don't allow them in my rentals on the ground, only in the sky. And I think that given the ease with which skyboxes can be sent up by changing the Z coordinate, and the ability to turn off "avatars can see me", there is no need to have an orb on the ground at all. It's annoying to the other people who also live there.

I'm not as strict as you about insisting on 1500 m for skyboxes -- I believe the Lindens even have 2000 for Bellisseria. I will accept 500 in my Mainland rentals -- because the sim is crowded, there are a lot of people on small lots with skyboxes, and you couldn't fit everyone comfortable with 1500 as the rule. I think for most draw distances not trying to cam up into the sky deliberately, it keeps the skyboxes out of the view, at a draw distance that isn't like above 256, which you wouldn't want to have on the Mainland anyway.

I'm not for solving problems by de-rendering, as it is not an option on the regular SL viewer which I prefer.

And you've pointed out that could involve picking through 500 prims.

There was a woman on a sim where I have most of the land who put up ban lines on the waterfront, which was annoying as it fell square by the landing point and you had to work at flying around it or above it, which is truly annoying. I actually owned a little patch of water in the middle of her property that I could have put on ban as well to induce her at least to put me and my tenants in the safe list. But long ago I pledged to keep that water parcel free to allow passage and that includes not having ban lines. She then sold her land to a friend who put up a big black box BDSM club with all its machines -- and these changed so that anyone trying to constantly derender his black box of doom and everything in it would have to be busy every day, plus their visitors. That's why it's not a solution. This sort of "establishment" belongs up in the sky, not in a Black Sun club on the ground, but I think some people like to flaunt such things. My prediction is that this situation would not last for ever. I can wait. It lasted maybe 6 months, then I was forced to buy this land went it suddenly went for sale at a low price, before facing more of the same for years. That's the Mainland.

I think the phot-real boards and 2D trees or pictures of trees are the worst, not only are any Linden trees better but there are a lot of low-prim inexpensive trees of mesh or sculpty now that look so much better and it is a shame not to use them. I even imagine myself gifting some neighbours with hideous planar trees from 2006 with some lush mesh trees but likely they wouldn't put them out. I've been forced to ban fences of any kind in most places because most people cannot do them tastefully and use those planar trees or flat picture boards or simply boxes.

I tell tenants: "If you enjoy the view here, make the view of you as good, too." And "Be considerate of your neighbour." There are always edge-cases and squabbles to deal with but I think everyone is better off with these simple rules.

Regarding scripts: I realize you can't get into the weeds too much in a short PSA type of video. But it's good to have an idea of the script time above which is begins to get laggy. Scripts are about numbers and about types and times. I find that any sim that gets 6000 scripts on it is going to lag. I start trying to take scripts out everywhere then, especially candles and particle things that don't need the scripts to stay in them. But I try to put away the laggier things, pets, swings, etc. Adult furniture is among the worst of the culprits and people should consider putting them away when not in use. But there are a lot of animated things with complex scripts that get crazy. Use the free XOPH script sensor, fly around, find the things that are above say 0.00500 or 0.01000 and remove them if possible. It can also be the sheer number of scripts everywhere. Do you really need all the doors and windows? You can take the script out of all trees and they will still wave in the wind, although you won't be able to change their seasons if that is their feature in a script.

Can you say more about your "Operation Mainland" and how you propose to enlarge these principles? Have a group that those willing to adhere to these principles can join and put a symbol on their properties?

One thing NOT to use is this lamentable "Good Neighbour Obelisk" made by Abner Mole. His intentions were good, but I don't quite agree with all the rules. More to the point, I don't agree with a grey, prim or sculpty obelisk put up to mar the view everywhere, which an avatar with the name of "advertising" in Russian has put up all over, squatting amidst ugly library cobblestones. If there is any kind of seal or symbol it should be small and tasteful. These obelisks are merely meant to annoy and force sails in some places.

Generally trying to find a set of principles people can agree on as a voluntary and positive practice rather than trying to install Bellisseria like rules everywhere should work better, but it can be like herding cats in SL.

Example: When NGOs wanted to battle "blood diamonds," they hit upon a solution -- it is easier to get companies to pledge to have safe and non-abusive diamond operations and admit across borders only those "good housekeeping seal" diamonds rather than try to identify and ban those that exploited workers and fueled war and detect them at borders. Neither method is perfect, but the positive method of voluntary subscription to a set of good norms is better than the punitive approach the Lindens won't do anyway. 

I think most Mainland rental operations have these rules and maybe even more rules. Like I have "no builds over two stories that block the view". 

Edited July 22, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Rabid Cheetah]

10 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Hacker voice - I'm in.

I like flying over these, then hitting the stop flying button.  You'll fall, bounce off the top of the 50 meter barrier, fall again, ad infinitum.  Free trampoline that you don't even need to rez!  😄  People are so lucky I'm not on voice, otherwise I'd be shouting "BOOOOIIINNNGGGG!  BOOOOIIINNNGGGG!  BOOOOIIINNNGGGG!  BOOOOIIINNNGGGG!  BOOOOIIINNNGGGG!"

[Maitimo]

18 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Hacker voice - I'm in.

I remember once, me and a friend bouncing on the top of someone's ban-lines like a trampoline. It was hilarious.

[Aethelwine]

On 7/21/2021 at 6:32 PM, Rabid Cheetah said:

Great video...except...*sigh*  here we go again.

As an explorer, I am firmly in the Ban Lines Are Better Than Orbs camp.  Sure, the pro-orb reasons you gave in the video are valid;  The problem is most folks don't know how to properly use orbs.  Setting the orb to tp folks home, instead of to the edge of the parcel, setting an obnoxiously low warning time prior to tp, setting orbs to add folks to the "banned from parcel" list so that they have to deal with ban lines anyway -- all of these are, well, to use the analogy from your video, worse than not flushing the toilet:  It's like pooping on the floor.

Trying to educate the public about proper social norms regarding orbs is a much more daunting task than trying to educate the public about the ease of a single click in their viewer to toggle ban line visibility on and off.  Plus a ban line will never tp you home, half-way across the grid.  I am quite appreciative of folks who chose to use ban lines on their parcels instead of getting sucked into the orb fiasco -- and let me add that trying to educate folks about how they use their viewers to click a simple ban line toggle box is a much easier task than trying to get orb manufacturers to develop products that don't tp folks home or have unreasonably short warning times.

So that's my big pet peeve lol  Other than that, your video was superb.

The problem with banlines though is that they tend to totally break vehicles where orbs with timers don't.

They are also incredibly ugly for the neighbour especially on a small parcel, I remember a narrow 1024 parcel I had where they put up banlines it made the view from my window look like Tokyo with the flashing yellow bars happening and imposing on my place. I politely asked them to turn them off and use an orb instead, but they refused and were rude so I ended up abandoning it. Their banlines made it unpleasant to live there.

I would much rather orbs with timers like in the Community partnership estates connected to mainland or bellisseria than orbs. The enjoyment from trampolining on them wears thin very quickly and there are better ways to do that.

The best solution really is to ask people do they really need privacy, do they really think that what they are doing that they want to do in private is going to offend the neighbours and if it is wouldn't they be better off just doing it in a skybox anyway? Banlines only work up to 50m or so, so they don't stop anyone flying above you and camming down to watch if they really wanted to, they don't serve a useful purpose. I see a neighbour with banlines up and my immediate assumption is they have something deeply dark and probably against the TOS they want to hide.

"If you are going to have sex with your best friends boyfriend or their dog then you only need security on while you are doing it, and wouldn't you be better off doing it in a skybox anyway? The 24/7 banlines make it look like you are doing it all the time"

Edited July 23, 2021 by Aethelwine

[Mollymews]

55 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

They are also incredibly ugly for the neighbour especially on a small parcel, I remember a narrow 1024 parcel I had where they put up banlines it made the view from my window look like Tokyo with the flashing yellow bars happening and imposing on my place. I politely asked them to turn them off and use an orb instead, but they refused

i don't get why this is ever raised as an objection to banlines. When we can easily turn the banline display off in the viewer. World \ Show \ Ban Lines

[Coffee Pancake]

2 hours ago, Mollymews said:

i don't get why this is ever raised as an objection to banlines. When we can easily turn the banline display off in the viewer. World \ Show \ Ban Lines

Because disabling all ban-lines everywhere (forever) because of a single case is not a solution.

When Catznip was working on the feature to show parcel boundaries on the minimap we hit the problem that even then, showing properties with access restrictions in red was problematic because the viewer simply didn't know about them till you we're about to hit them. 

[Mollymews]

6 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Because disabling all ban-lines everywhere (forever) because of a single case is not a solution.

When Catznip was working on the feature to show parcel boundaries on the minimap we hit the problem that even then, showing properties with access restrictions in red was problematic because the viewer simply didn't know about them till you we're about to hit them. 

on the first, is 2 mouse clicks and a hover to flip banlines off and on when we need to. 2 clicks and a hover, or get into an argument with our neighbour about how they should be doing what we want them to do

on the second, i like the Catznip minimap and the way it presents information that it can gather. And yes I think that the presence of parcel banlines should be able to be detected from anywhere on a region. Would allow the Catznip minimap to be pretty much perfect for navigating

[Aethelwine]

4 hours ago, Mollymews said:

i don't get why this is ever raised as an objection to banlines. When we can easily turn the banline display off in the viewer. World \ Show \ Ban Lines

I remember spending 20 minutes trying to explain that to a visitor. I even installed their viewer to try and work it out. 

It was a parcel I had with water access for sailing from. The parcel and hassle from the neighbours banline not worth recouping the 10k I spent on it. 

It does depend on context in this case it was a small narrow parcel big enough for a modified 512m2 home, but with walls close to the boundaries. The banline just spoilt the parcel. 

On a recent parcel there is a zombie house next door with banlines but I can deal with that. I put a wall around it and the area on my parcel that is used is far enough away that it isn't so oppressive

Edited July 23, 2021 by Aethelwine

[Rabid Cheetah]

6 hours ago, Mollymews said:

i don't get why this is ever raised as an objection to banlines. When we can easily turn the banline display off in the viewer. World \ Show \ Ban Lines

[Rabid Cheetah]

3 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Because disabling all ban-lines everywhere (forever) because of a single case is not a solution.

 

Uh, no, toggling the ban line box on and off as needed doesn't mean they're turned off forever, any more than it means they're turned on forever.  Why is everyone obsessed with a toggle being a permanent setting?  It's not.

[Rabid Cheetah]

7 hours ago, Aethelwine said:

The best solution really is to ask people do they really need privacy, do they really think that what they are doing that they want to do in private is going to offend the neighbours and if it is wouldn't they be better off just doing it in a skybox anyway?

Oh God, I can only imagine.  That would have been fine ten years ago, but people are so freaky in SL about an imagined need for privacy.  Since this is a thread about social norms, this is a social norm that has unfortunately morphed into what it is today.  Trying to talk sense into someone, in game, who you've just met, rarely works.  I've been screamed at, in Belli, on apparently open properties, just for stopping over to say "hi" to a neighbor.  "WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON MY PROPERTY?!?!?!?"  "Um, just came to say hi, since you just moved in.  I live next door, my name's -"  "HOW DARE YOU COME ON MY PARCEL!"  "But...but...I brought cake..."

Even free cake no longer works.  😞