Ban lines - a proposal

[Persephone Emerald]

3 hours ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

You can, but you better close the door before you activate the adult menu 😂

If I ever did, the doors would be locked at the parcel would be set so others can't see inside, but I'll be damded if I'm gonna put up group only ban lines in Belli.

[Persephone Emerald]

2 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

I did specify no ban lines going up high. 🤣

I know, but then I though, what if someone is flying a plane?

[Silent Mistwalker]

14 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I know, but then I though, what if someone is flying a plane?

Ban lines only go what 50 meters high. I don't know of anyone who flies that low other than take offs and landings. 

[Silent Mistwalker]

2 hours ago, BillFletcher said:

i have actually never experienced these, I have heard of them. Do they make actual sound? I leave my speakers turned off, I suspect if i didn't I would have a whole new list of annoying things,

They've been known to spam local chat.

https://www.google.com/search?q=secdon+life+tummy+talker&rlz=1C1VDKB_enUS963US963&oq=secdon+life+tummy+talker&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBDTQ3NzI0NTcxajBqMTWoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[Jennifer Boyle]

5 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

 Folks who want to be very safe can buy Zindra land and be sure without needing to split these hairs.

Yep. That's why I've lived in Zindra since 2009. I have liberty to do whatever I want without worrying about violating rules. 99% of my behavior would be fine in an M region, and most would be fine in a G region, but I don't have to think about it.

[Fionalein]

6 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

You don't have to do all of those things. As long as you do at least one of them on moderate land, you're fine. It's been that way since they changed the ratings.

So "every reasonable effort" is "one of them"? I must have missed that lecture when learning English...

[PheebyKatz]

3 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Ban lines only go what 50 meters high. I don't know of anyone who flies that low other than take offs and landings. 

I scrape rooftops with my knees, and fly low enough to hit trees and stuff. People on my home sim duck when they see me coming. Even on foot. There's even been talk of making a big flyswatter to use on me.

But then I realize I'm a bit... different.

[Ina Fairport]

As a sailor I hate banlines. When I hit a banline my boat crashes and I can go looking for the nearest rezz spot to resume my trip. I use a banline detector but sometimes I forget that...:(

Besides that, I don't see the point of rezzing banlines. Why should you care when somenone lands on your land while you are not online or at home ?
And when at home you can kick every unwanted visitor or ban them permanently.

And when a security device is really needed just rezz an orb with a decent warning time.

[Sid Nagy]

2 hours ago, Ian Mercury said:

As a sailor I hate banlines. When I hit a banline my boat crashes and I can go looking for the nearest rezz spot to resume my trip. I use a banline detector but sometimes I forget that...:(

Besides that, I don't see the point of rezzing banlines. Why should you care when somenone lands on your land while you are not online or at home ?
And when at home you can kick every unwanted visitor or ban them permanently.

And when a security device is really needed just rezz an orb with a decent warning time.

You mean common sense in SL.... Nah, you must be kidding right?
Some of SL's main dishes are self importance and drama, remember.
"Because I can", is reason enough, no?

If the reader finds splinters of sarcasm in this post: That was intended.

Edited August 11, 2023 by Sid Nagy

[Gabriele Graves]

I've seen parcels owned by Lindens on mainland with ban lines in the past.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

2 hours ago, Ian Mercury said:

As a sailor I hate banlines. When I hit a banline my boat crashes and I can go looking for the nearest rezz spot to resume my trip. I use a banline detector but sometimes I forget that...:(

Besides that, I don't see the point of rezzing banlines. Why should you care when somenone lands on your land while you are not online or at home ?
And when at home you can kick every unwanted visitor or ban them permanently.

And when a security device is really needed just rezz an orb with a decent warning time.

You don't know me, you don't automatically know my timezone, or what shift rota I'm on at work, or how long I spend commuting to and from work, or what my sleep cycle is like...

 

You have NO EFFING CLUE, when or if I will log in.

 

My time in SL is limited by the requirements of FirstLife, so one evening you and a bunch of your equally over entitled toxic anti privacy griefing habitual repeat offender friends, decide to criminal trespass in my home with intent to to commit ToS violating Harassment against the property owner, by having a party in my house.

Then I log in to try and enjoy my limited SL window for that evening, and THEN I have to waste my time manually punt kicking the trash out of my living room and manually adding them to the ban list so they NEVER come back, and manually filing Abuse Reports against all of them when they spam my IM box to whine about how unfriendly I am to home invading criminals

Or, there is plaan B, a Zero Second Punt-Kick and Auto Ban Security Orb, with private group only  banlines as a clear warning that you are NOT WELCOME IN MY HOME AT ANY TIME.

 

When my SL housemates and I bought the parcel, direct off LL, we knew it was moderate, and we knew there was an Official Behind Closed Doors policy, so we looked it up, and tried to follow it to a reasonable level.

 

Stuff in the house, house on a platform several kilometers up, banlines set to an invite only group, no sound or view from outside, we didn't install an orb.

 

And what did we get for our respect for the Officiial Rules? A CONSTANT stream of abuse from people like you.

How dare we have banlines, how dare we live in the sky, how dare we restrict access to our land to ourselves and our friends, how dare we not volunteer to operate a Privacy Hating Nomadic ToS Violator friendly public amusement park at our own expense.

 

Then we get threads like this one, where people rant on about "but a subcontractor said there are different rules in Bellicosia, so the REAL Rules on Mainland set by the subcontractors Employers don't apply" and other equally worthless garbage because they can't be bothered to look for the rules, and assume a subcontractor out ranks his Employer because it suits their home invader agenda.

 

But mostly what we get is , for lack of a better term, "people" demanding that they should have more rights on land we pay for than we do.

 

You want MY land that I pay for to be a public amusement park, BUY IT FROM ME, and you can do what you damn well want with it.

 

Asking price is enough to let me buy a replacement parcel, on Zindra, where there will never be any Bellicosian "Connect the continents" anti-Mainlander invasion route, and compensate me for the trouble of having to tear down my home, and start over elsewhere, plus a variable surcharge dependent on how much of a toxic anti-privacy nomad the buyer is.

Opening bids on my almost worthless 4400 m patch of M rated nowhere, L$440,000. That sounds about fair to me.

 

And as for the "people" who rant on and on and on and on about the "rights of the community" why is it their definition of community always seems to specifically include over entitled jerks who live on a different estate, and never seems to include the people who actually live on the land they community rights are being claimed for?

 

Hypocrites.

 

I wonder how these hypocritical people would whine if I claimed I had a right to click their Belli Mailboxes and derez their homes and rez a different selection because I didn't like the colour they had chosen, and said it offended the "community".

 

I'm out of this Toilet of a thread. Carry on discussing your Anti-Residential-Mainlander Fascist Reich to your hearts content, and how you DESERVE to be allowed to park your aircraft in peoples Living Rooms whenever you want.

[Orwar]

6 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Ban lines only go what 50 meters high. I don't know of anyone who flies that low other than take offs and landings. 

   If you aren't doing 80 knots whilst one or two metres off the ground, you're flying wrong! 

   Well, obviously not trying that over mainland because of things being the way they are - but it's really fun to slalom between sail boats and lighthouses around Nautilus and Blake. And yeah, I know you aren't 'supposed to', it might make the sailors nervous - go grow some sea legs, says I! 

[Orwar]

20 hours ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

*gigglesnorts*

   Actually - found an even more up to date map at the Welcome Hub.

[Silent Mistwalker]

6 hours ago, Fionalein said:

So "every reasonable effort" is "one of them"? I must have missed that lecture when learning English...

Do just one is making a reasonable effort. 🙄

[Nya Jules]

I had created a feature request in April to hide them by default and show them on collision which seemed to me the best compromise at that time  https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-233704

[Silent Mistwalker]

6 hours ago, PheebyKatz said:

I scrape rooftops with my knees, and fly low enough to hit trees and stuff. People on my home sim duck when they see me coming. Even on foot. There's even been talk of making a big flyswatter to use on me.

But then I realize I'm a bit... different.

You've made an airplane avatar? Neat! 

Pics or it didn't happen.

[Silent Mistwalker]

6 hours ago, Ian Mercury said:

As a sailor I hate banlines. When I hit a banline my boat crashes and I can go looking for the nearest rezz spot to resume my trip. I use a banline detector but sometimes I forget that...:(

Besides that, I don't see the point of rezzing banlines. Why should you care when somenone lands on your land while you are not online or at home ?
And when at home you can kick every unwanted visitor or ban them permanently.

And when a security device is really needed just rezz an orb with a decent warning time.

Why should anyone allow strangers on their property at any time? It's their choice, not yours. They don't have to explain their decisions to anyone.

Who do you think you are to question other people's reasons? God? 🙄

 

[Orwar]

8 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

You've made an airplane avatar? Neat! 

Pics or it didn't happen.

   I am Helicopter. Choo-choo!

[Ina Fairport]

6 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Why should anyone allow strangers on their property at any time? It's their choice, not yours. They don't have to explain their decisions to anyone.

Who do you think you are to question other people's reasons? God? 🙄

 

No, I don't think I am God. I just say what I think of those damned banlines.
 

[Ay Vyper]

Yes, ban lines are not just ugly, and should be off by default, but in most cases, they're also an utterly useless solution to privacy, while also interacting quite badly with vehicles—it's why, currently, we need orbs that are much more effective at securing privacy, although at the cost of being annoying in other ways. However, to understand why orbs are needed, it's necessary to understand what the current privacy shortcomings of SL are that are motivating the use of orbs that e.g. shoot you down the very second you enter a "forbidden" parcel.

The motivation behind aggressive privacy solutions in SL can be understood if one considers the basic, taken-for-granted privacy features of a regular RL home and comparing that to the utter lack of those basic privacy features when it comes to a SL home.

In RL, you usually cannot just suddenly pop into someone's home. No, usually, you have to announce yourself by ringing the doorbell or knocking on the front door, or perhaps calling first. When you lock doors, outside people cannot just magically teleport in through locked doors and thick walls by sitting on your couch, or lying into your bed. You also cannot just see through walls, opaque window curtains, and so on,

But, in SL, not only can you see through walls perfectly, you also have telescopic vision and can see everything kilometers away with perfect clarity. You can also see personal IDs of anyone within kilometers on your radar gadget, you can pinpoint their exact location, and you can instantly get their "phone numbers" to call them without ever even meeting them.

The problem with SL is that it has way too many voyeuristic features built-in that are incredibly handy for voyeurs, spies and trolls but utterly annoying and frustrating for everyone else. Hence the motivation for using aggressive orbs that instantly send any trespassers home before they even get a chance to observe anything—yes, crude, but works incredibly well for the purpose. Basically, such orbs simulate the effect of not being able to see into or enter private premises—as it should be—by doing that after the fact very quickly.

So, in my opinion, the following changes would go a long way in addressing these issues; in order of priority:

1. Maximum camera view distance, within which avatars can be seen, should be hard-limited (server-side!) to some much more reasonable distance, preventing people to cam everybody just by standing within a parcel. E.g. it should be absolutely impossible to cam into skyboxes 1000m+ above just by standing on the ground (note that it's possible to force a landing point, forcing arrivals to an expected location, which can be considered as the "front door" of your home; more on that below). This avatar view-distance hard-limit needs to apply only to the vertical Z axis as it is already possible to achieve parcel privacy by splitting land over the XY plane. Actually, I would argue that this limit should be much lower than the 1000m distance between sky altitude layers as skyboxes are often put on different layers for different environment themes and it would be nice to be able to provide them with privacy! Consider all those cheap rentals with skyboxes stacked on top of each other that currently have zero privacy because they all share the same parcel. We care about seeing other avatars that are roughly on the same plane parallel to the ground, not avatars that are 100m+ above or below us. This change alone would drastically improve privacy across the board. (On a side note, I wouldn't be surprised to see viewer performance benefits as a side-effect of such a change.)
2. The parcel landing point should be 100% respected and enforced (server-side!) when enabled in parcel options. Visitors who log off without leaving first, should arrive at the landing point (if enabled) when they log in, not at their last log-off location! Consider a RL analogy of this: if your guests leave your house, should they just pop back into your living room (or worse!) without invitation if/when they decide to return? Absolutely not! I've also seen people who just like to idle in SL using mobile viewers, completely ignoring the landing point and re-logging endlessly at the same location as their app keeps reconnecting throughout the day. Landing point needs to be enforced server-side without exceptions (unless explicitly specified otherwise. e.g. by group rules).
3. Things like radar, mini-map and the nearby people tab should also respect the maximum camera view distance, within which avatars can be seen, as well as the boundaries of a parcel with enabled parcel privacy, enforced server-side! I.e. it should be absolutely impossible to detect who or how many are occupying a private parcel from outside of its boundaries, or outside the avatar view distance hard-limit. This would make ejection of nearby trespassers a better choice than aggressively returning them home because they would no longer be able to inspect a private parcel using radar after being ejected outside. And, of course, with the avatar view distance hard-limit in place, any privacy orb would only need to secure a narrow section of the whole vertical sky space, instead of all of it (if it all).

 

[Silent Mistwalker]

21 minutes ago, Ian Mercury said:

No, I don't think I am God. I just say what I think of those damned banlines.
 

If you had been criticizing just the ban lines that would have been fine. That's not what you did. You were criticizing the people that use them.

 

[Fionalein]

Why has no one dared reverse the argument yet?

"Unhappy with banlines? Just stay within Belli!"

No one forces you to use Mainland.

[InnerCity Elf]

"Banlines" that are baked into buildings would seem to be a solution that many or most home owners should be happy with, and with negligible effects on "strangers" walking, flying, or whatever by. No idea if it's even remotely futurely feasible, but if there's BOM other stuff, maybe there could also be BOS (baked-on security)

I've often wished, there was no need for keys in real life, and everyone could just leave their doors unlocked, it would be such an increase in quality of life, and so much time saved over a lifetime... But, well, people. 🤡 

ETA: While I do mind people apart from the "approved ones" waltzing into my four walls, potentially harming me, taking off with my hard-earned stuff, or observing me, it doesn't bother me in SL. Usually, on the contrary I had my mainland ground level homes here set up in invitingly, as a (semi) public place, with a nice seating area, something to read, virtual coffee,... , and an About Land text that did tell them they're welcome, if they bothered reading. And a skybox for "private moments", i.e. changing clothes, sorting out inventory, AFKing, etc.

Camming doesn't bother me either in SL (certainly does in RL, I know someone whose landlord had a camera in their flat...), if anyone wants to watch boring things like my avi go through clothes and outfits for some inventory cleanout, whatever.

Edited August 11, 2023 by InnerCity Elf

[diamond Marchant]

I reread the OP to confirm that this thread is about banline visibility. This thread has  numerous side trips into aspects of security in Second Life... but the fact is, what we have is not likely to change (for the duration of this platform).

Putting on my sailor cap (or aviator goggles) and speaking for our communities, we are trying to AVOID (that is, not enter) parcels where the owner does not want anyone to enter. ANY visual clues that can aid this effort are appreciated.

Edited August 11, 2023 by diamond Marchant

[Abnor Mole]

The rules regarding adult content/activity and region Maturity rating are universal rules determined by the Lab, not covenant rules; and they are the same rules in Bellisserisa and on Mainland or anywhere else in Second Life... but I will let the Lindens clarify what those rules and requirements actually mean and how they are applied.

Does having some sort of security on that removes avatars after a 15 second warning meet the "Allow only a group or specific individuals access to the parcel" requirement without actually having to ban all access? Is that enough in their view the same way it is generally accepted that simply being inside your home meets the "Enclose the area behind walls or other visual barriers" requirement without having to be completely surrounding by a box? It's not my place to say from a technical standpoint.

From a practical standpoint though, we all know that adult activity happens in moderate regions across all of Second Life and neither the LDPW nor the Lab has any desire to get into policing what people are doing discretely in their bedrooms (and neither do most other residents when they are done discretely). But if I have to guess, I would wager they employ selective enforcement the same way that we do when we enforce some areas of the covenant such as objects that extend outside of parcel lines.