Covenant Update - What Changed?

[Teresa Firelight]

I got a notice (in Bellisseria Citizens chat group) this morning that the Bellisseria Covenant was revised on Sep 22, 2022.

I wish that when LL updates the covenant, they would do a forum post indicating exactly what changed.

I read it and the only thing I noticed that was different was expanding the no commercial rule to explicitly state that delivery servers and drop boxes are not allowed: "*Activities and items that could be construed by Linden Lab as commercial and for profit are not permitted in the residential homes and houseboats in Bellisseria. This includes using parcels for storing delivery servers, dropboxes or working vendors."

However, I dont claim to have the covenant memorized, so it is entirely possible I missed other new stuff.

Does anyone know for sure what the new parts are from the most recent covenant update of Sep 22?

 

 

[Trinity Blakewell]

Good...I have seen caspervend boxes when doing Area Searches and obviously LL has seen something like that as well!

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

What's worse is that those of us NOT in the group received no notice of a change at all. 

[Tary Allen]

yesterday there was a notice about respecting the covenant in Bellisseria, but no mention of a covenant update. The reason for that was, as far as I remember, lots ospeople disregarding the covenant and lindens and moles having to spend a lot of time correcting things.

Just out of curiosity, does those GTFO cargo boxes qualify as delivery servers? As far as I know there ins't any profit there but I don't play so...

I've seen some vendors around, and I reported  2 of them I think, they were outdoor, I guess maybe there are several indoors. 

[Nika Talaj]

2 hours ago, Sylvia Tamalyn said:

What's worse is that those of us NOT in the group received no notice of a change at all. 

One of my alts got one of those Belli-wide messages from Quartz in the last couple days reminding folks to abide by it, but he did not mention a change.  And there was a Citizens notice echoing that.  However, on the Covenant tab on About Land, it does say it was updated on Sep. 22, 2022.  I don't think there's been a notice of any kind about a change.

Edited September 27, 2022 by Nika Talaj

[Persephone Emerald]

I got that notice from Quartz Mole yesterday, and it freaked me out for a moment. I checked the Covenant, saw it had been updated, but didn't know what had been changed. I wondered if it might have been stronger wording about not raising animals and crops for sale, since I've seen that and reported it before.

[Claireschen Hesten]

3 hours ago, Sylvia Tamalyn said:

What's worse is that those of us NOT in the group received no notice of a change at all. 

While i am in the group i got a Belli-homeowner wide notice regarding the covenant whilst on my mainland parcel in local chat sent by a mole from an object in the region my Linden home is in before any notice was put out in the group

[Polenth Yue]

When asked about it, we were told the reminder was because people weren't following the basic things like the orb rules and the moles were spending a lot of time sorting that. It doesn't look like the updates were anything major. Just clarifying language.

My reading of the delivery system thing is it means a box that delivers items to people across the grid, such as a box that delivers products to someone buying from vendors. Not a game that delivers a prize to someone playing on the parcel (as long as it's free to play and doesn't use too many system resources and so on).

[Claireschen Hesten]

The main thing i got from the covenant reminder chat was the Moles want to spend more time building out Bellisseria and not having to spend their time dealing with all the violations they find

[Abnor Mole]

The Covenant reminder that went out as just a general reminder. It wasn't necessarily tied to a change. We did make a small change to clarify that renting and subletting parcels is not allowed (it would be considered commercial activity, but we felt it was important enough to mention it specifically). The section regarding delivery servers, dropboxes and working vendors has been in there for a few months now. 

As far as I know GTFO cargo boxes don't actually deliver anything. The HUD you wear to play communicates with their server as part of the game. No actual products change hands and no L$ is involved. That is very different from something like several dropboxes with potentially hundreds of different products being delivered across the grid from a Linden Homes region. It's both a question of commercial use and disproportionate use of system resources. 

[Tary Allen]

sorry, just to clarify, I reported 2 vendors for some stuff that were bordering my homes not related in any way to GTFO. 

 

[Teresa Firelight]

18 hours ago, Abnor Mole said:

The Covenant reminder that went out as just a general reminder. It wasn't necessarily tied to a change. We did make a small change to clarify that renting and subletting parcels is not allowed (it would be considered commercial activity, but we felt it was important enough to mention it specifically). The section regarding delivery servers, dropboxes and working vendors has been in there for a few months now.

Actually the last time I looked at the covenant was when the Newbrooks came out and it was updated to specify that we could not add non-flat roofs. At that time, the section about dropboxes and delivery servers wasn't there yet.

It is interesting how people interpret things. In my thinking, backup copies of dropboxes were not "commercial," they were simply storage units used by a commercial system on another region. I did not consider them as actively selling stuff in Bellisseria. (But now, after the fact, I can see how they could be interpreted as commercial.)

As it turned out, I landed a stilt on a Release Candidate region a couple of months before Newbrooke was released. I carefully checked the covenant and did not see anything forbidding Caspervend Dropboxes. So I put up a skybox and kept my backup dropboxes there for a couple of months. When the 512 Newbrookes came out, I found one I loved. So I decided to use the other 512m allowance to get a  parcel on an RC mainland region. I moved my dropboxes there -- I guess it was a good thing I moved them, because apparently LL considered them "commercial." I was accidentally breaking the covenant without realizing it.

That is why I thought the section about Dataservers and dropboxes was new -- today was the first time I saw it. If it has been spelled out back when I first got the RC stilt, I would have never put my dropboxes there. Fortunately, I moved them before anyone got upset about them. And now that I understand the covenant better, I won't put dropboxes in Bellisseria again.

But the point of all this is that a change was made to the covenant to make something I had done become illegal, and I wasnt aware of that change.

Maybe it would be a good idea to have a sticky forum thread that deals with covenant changes.. . and a post is made to spell out covenant changes each time they are made.

Edited September 28, 2022 by Teresa Firelight

[VaelFaye]

I got that notice too! And worried for a moment that the dead bod- er… kitschy new rug I was hiding got discovered. 🤗

[LittleMe Jewell]

The previous version that I had was from March 11, 2022.  If there was an update between that one and the Sept 22 one, then I missed it.  I ran a compare on the March one and the current one.  Differences are below, with the bolded parts being new:

*Land cannot be terraformed, sold, subleased or rented, deeded to group, joined, or divided. Land can only be set to group.

*Activities and items that could be construed by Linden Lab as commercial and for profit are not permitted in the residential homes and houseboats in Bellisseria. This includes using parcels for storing delivery servers, dropboxes or working vendors.  (this part was already noted as new in the OP).

 

The only other changes were the removal of double quotes around various words & phrases.

Edited September 28, 2022 by LittleMe Jewell

[Kathlen Onyx]

5 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

The previous version that I had was from March 11, 2022.  If there was an update between that one and the Sept 22 one, then I missed it.  I ran a compare on the March one and the current one.  Differences are below, with the bolded parts being new:

*Land cannot be terraformed, sold, subleased or rented, deeded to group, joined, or divided. Land can only be set to group.

*Activities and items that could be construed by Linden Lab as commercial and for profit are not permitted in the residential homes and houseboats in Bellisseria. This includes using parcels for storing delivery servers, dropboxes or working vendors.  (this part was already noted as new in the OP).

 

The only other changes were the removal of double quotes around various words & phrases.

I would assume then activities pertaining to Beyou would be against the covenant since they use vendor and droboxes even if you are not selling to the public to transfer assets from the Beyou server to your inventory? I know A LOT of people use Beyou in Linden Homes.

Edited September 28, 2022 by Sam1 Bellisserian

[Love Zhaoying]

I guess Belli residents starve without even a bodega, and go ignorant of current events without even a newspaper box! No gas for cars. No restaurants. No pharmacies. No ice cream trucks!

"Let them eat mesh!"

[diamond Marchant]

19 hours ago, Polenth Yue said:

When asked about it, we were told the reminder was because people weren't following the basic things like the orb rules and the moles were spending a lot of time sorting that.

I AR non-compliant orbs, skyboxes, and obviously bad overhanging objects and governance has been responding favorably. Ty

I only message a Mole if there is a Linden Home construction or operation issue. Ty again.

Edited September 28, 2022 by diamond Marchant

[Polenth Yue]

3 hours ago, diamond Marchant said:

I AR non-compliant orbs, skyboxes, and obviously bad overhanging objects and governance has been responding favorably. Ty

I only message a Mole if there is a Linden Home construction or operation issue. Ty again.

Nothing the moles said suggested that they were upset at the people reporting stuff that needs sorting. I'm not sure how what I said was taken to mean that, but that's really not what anyone was saying. It's more that if more people followed the rules, there'd be less that needed sorting. I don't think a global message will help much, as people who haven't read the rules think they don't need to read them (and the message didn't include the main problems), but I guess we'll see in the following months.

[Nika Talaj]

11 hours ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

Beyou

I had to look it up.  Interesting question, whether it constitutes commerce.   Looks like it started in 2019 (no news posted since then).  According to their website, there are 190 users active right now, and 1924 over the last month.  What are the vendors and dropboxes used for, do they deliver items bought on SL's marketplace, on beYou's website, or purchased inworld from other beYou players?  I see 10 beYou resident-run inworld "Markets" on the website, all but one on private islands, one on mainland. 

Certainly the web activity generated by the game (it has leader boards for inworld activities) enriches the spelling-impaired creators of BeYou, but that is not against LH's covenant.

[Kathlen Onyx]

10 hours ago, Nika Talaj said:

I had to look it up.  Interesting question, whether it constitutes commerce.   Looks like it started in 2019 (no news posted since then).  According to their website, there are 190 users active right now, and 1924 over the last month.  What are the vendors and dropboxes used for, do they deliver items bought on SL's marketplace, on beYou's website, or purchased inworld from other beYou players?  I see 10 beYou resident-run inworld "Markets" on the website, all but one on private islands, one on mainland. 

Certainly the web activity generated by the game (it has leader boards for inworld activities) enriches the spelling-impaired creators of BeYou, but that is not against LH's covenant.

You sell items to other players through the vendors that they have. These same vendors can refresh your items so they don't spoil. So for an example.

Player plants tomatoes. They then harvest them and the harvest goes to an asset based system through beYou. You then have to deliver the "tomato" vendor from another object, the composter and it goes in your inventory. You then rez it and set it up with a price and allow it to access your L's balance. These harvests expire every 30 days unless you click the vendor and refresh them for another 30 days. The same vendor is used to sell the harvests to other players. So even if I wasn't selling to other players I would still keep a vendor out for ease of refreshing them and not having to set it up with a price all the time.  When you set up a vendor you have to put a price on it, even it just 1L and give it permission to take L's from your account. Even when refreshing it makes you buy from yourself.  You can't really tell if someone has the vendors out for persona use only or to sell to other players.  

[Love Zhaoying]

Just thought of something: if most vendors are CasperVend, and LL own that now, and LL will profit from CasperVend transactions - then LL is hurting itself by missing out on potential income, by not allowing vendors in the covenant! 

[Nika Talaj]

2 hours ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

You sell items to other players through the vendors that they have. These same vendors can refresh your items so they don't spoil. So for an example.

...  

Thanks for the explanation.  It does sound like the vendors are commerce, if as you say there is no way to tell if someone is just using them to refresh their own items or to sell to others.

I won't be exploring this further, because I'm a suspicious old bat with distrust of any resident-created "game" that requires giving permission for a scripted object to access my $L balance.

[Gem Oxygen]

Drop boxes can be renamed, and hidden under/in things so there is that..

[Gem Oxygen]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Just thought of something: if most vendors are CasperVend, and LL own that now, and LL will profit from CasperVend transactions - then LL is hurting itself by missing out on potential income, by not allowing vendors in the covenant! 

There is no indicator said on that.

[Teresa Firelight]

3 hours ago, Gem Oxygen said:

Drop boxes can be renamed, and hidden under/in things so there is that..

The caspervend system makes it possible to query dropboxes by location, regardless of name or whether or not they are hidden. I am not sure why you would want to do that... but it wont prevent LL form finding dropboxes if they want to go looking for them.