mainland Free: Graven Hearts Mainland AutoBan System - Hopefully stepping back from the nuclear option

[Love Zhaoying]

What the heck is a "toast"?

- Programmer, clueless (not a UI expert)

[Qie Niangao]

2 hours ago, Gabriele Graves said:

  Not sure what viewer @Qie Niangao is using but maybe a related reason?

I''d been trying with Firestorm, Linden, Catznip, and Cool VL Viewer and couldn't find a way to get these system notifications. But inspired by your post (thanks!), I tried again with Firestorm. I'd already had 30 sec Toast life, so I cranked it to 60 and added "in front of other windows" and at first it seemed to make no difference. So I switched to a little test parcel I could make non-group-owned, and got the notification!—but then tried again with the parcel set, then deeded, and still got the notification, so then I went back to the very same group-owned parcel where I tested and before couldn't get the notification, and now can't seem to make the notification fail.

There are many possible combinations here, but this is making me almost as crazy as trying to figure out the details of reflection probe behavior with different EEP settings* which I swear is just willfully perverse. I guess I'll just keep trying as time and sanity permits.

ETA: Now I don't quite believe this, but: I seem to get the ban notifications now when the script that calls llAddToLandBanList is near the avatar being banned, where the "nearness" threshold is TBD. If the script is at 2000 feet elevation and the banned avatar is at ground level, no notification appears, or if those altitudes are swapped, but if they're both at either level he gets notified. This is too silly to be true, though, so I'm probably missing something still.

_________________________
* https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/507244-why-i-dont-like-pbr/page/14/#elControls_2683074_menu

Edited January 23 by Qie Niangao

[Love Zhaoying]

13 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

What the heck is a "toast"?

- Programmer, clueless (not a UI expert)

So, "toast" is a pop-up window that fades over time like Chat when the Chat window is not visible? Nice to know there are settings? The pop-ups for Chat are annoying as heck!

[Abnor Mole]

I don't really think they really are stepping back though. In the end they are simply swapping one very hated edge for another that they know will most likely be equally reviled for the same reasons but it lets them fire back a "this is what you said you wanted" volley in their arguments. 

Overall the needle has shifted though. I encounter far fewer zero second orbs than I used to on mainland and I think we (LL and the LDPW) did help with some of that with the security orb policy in Bellisseria.  Combine that with things like GTFO that show you can have places that use autoreturn and allow rezzing and groups like Drivers of SL who encourage residents to explore and find interesting things across all of SL and you'll see there is an overall and increased positive interest in mainland as a whole other than only as a home for walled gardens with no trespassing signs. 

[Gabriele Graves]

1 hour ago, Abnor Mole said:

I don't really think they really are stepping back though. In the end they are simply swapping one very hated edge for another that they know will most likely be equally reviled for the same reasons but it lets them fire back a "this is what you said you wanted" volley in their arguments. 

Overall the needle has shifted though. I encounter far fewer zero second orbs than I used to on mainland and I think we (LL and the LDPW) did help with some of that with the security orb policy in Bellisseria.  Combine that with things like GTFO that show you can have places that use autoreturn and allow rezzing and groups like Drivers of SL who encourage residents to explore and find interesting things across all of SL and you'll see there is an overall and increased positive interest in mainland as a whole other than only as a home for walled gardens with no trespassing signs. 

Again, our perspectives differ on this.  You are welcome to your opinion but it appears to very much differ with the sentiments around orbs on mainland from the evidence I've seen.

[Qie Niangao]

3 hours ago, Abnor Mole said:

I encounter far fewer zero second orbs than I used to on mainland and I think we (LL and the LDPW) did help with some of that with the security orb policy in Bellisseria.  Combine that with things like GTFO that show you can have places that use autoreturn and allow rezzing and groups like Drivers of SL who encourage residents to explore and find interesting things across all of SL and you'll see there is an overall and increased positive interest in mainland as a whole other than only as a home for walled gardens with no trespassing signs. 

This would be wonderful if accurate, and maybe it is, but I'm a little skeptical. It's one question for which it would be nice to have a full historical grid to spin up somewhere just long enough to collect a few samples of longitudinal data.

What I think I'm seeing, in contrast, is that there's just less Mainland in use now than before, and in certain areas a higher share of explorer-hostile land access settings remain, although with more vacant space the absolute amount of that land may not be as large.

To be sure, there are some "pride of place" areas on Mainland where there are very few impediments; it would be nice if those were growing as a result of the Belli policy. And while I'm being positive, region border crossings have improved somewhat, with prospects of greater improvements in the next few months, and that makes it more likely to cross without getting thrown into a dangerous parcel, at least by rail.

That gets back to the thread topic, and one likely problem with the immediate ban-on-arrival approach: It was always a problem that banlines were hidden by sim borders—viewers theoretically could have that neighboring region parcel access data, but I don't know that any do—but that wouldn't even be theoretically possible if the banlines only exist upon entering the region. (This seems inherent to the approach, although I haven't yet confirmed it myself.)

Edited January 23 by Qie Niangao
"for which" not "for where"

[Gabriele Graves]

6 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

So, "toast" is a pop-up window that fades over time like Chat when the Chat window is not visible? Nice to know there are settings? The pop-ups for Chat are annoying as heck!

Sorry, I went to bed after I sent my "toast posts"

Toasts are popups but they're not just for chat, some are for group notices, system notifications, etc.  All of those things come down to being shown by one of three types of toasts.  There are obvious and easy options for redirecting some of the things the things that would go into toasts to chat/IM insted or turning off them completely but in the case of some of the system notifications, such as the lsl ban messages, it is anything but obvious or easy and so you instead have to hide one of the three basic types if you want rid of them which of course takes out all messages of that type.

I also found out with this exercise that the basic toast type that is used when you are added to either land parcel list is different from the toast you get when you bump into a banline.  How strange is that?

Edited January 23 by Gabriele Graves

[Love Zhaoying]

9 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

Toasts are popups but they're not just for chat,

Yep, that's why I wrote "like chat". I also saw different "Toast" options in the screen shot. Just not a term I was familiar with!  Nice that you can disable them completely, I'll probably disable the Chat one myself.

Edited January 23 by Love Zhaoying

[Gabriele Graves]

29 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Yep, that's why I wrote "like chat".

Oh right! It's just the question marks you wrote here made it seem as if you needed confirmation of that:

6 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

So, "toast" is a pop-up window that fades over time like Chat when the Chat window is not visible? Nice to know there are settings?

[Love Zhaoying]

12 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

Oh right! It's just the question marks you wrote here made it seem as if you needed confirmation of that:

7 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

So, "toast" is a pop-up window that fades over time like Chat when the Chat window is not visible? Nice to know there are settings?

Yes, lol - I noticed the extra question mark on the last sentence that didn't belong!

[Arielle Popstar]

2 hours ago, Gabriele Graves said:

Again, our perspectives differ on this.  You are welcome to your opinion but it appears to very much differ with the sentiments around orbs on mainland from the evidence I've seen.

I just finished a couple hour fly over some of the areas that I tried boating on 2-3 years ago to see if I saw the differences Abnor is mentioning and must admit, there was a lot less extreme privacy phobic type orbs and even less banlines. The worst I did see for orbs was a 2 second one that I luckily made it through anyway  and the other 4-5 I seen were from 30-120 seconds. I didn't encounter even one 0 second orb. So thinking the one poster here is very much the exception here and the Lab could easily outlaw 0 sec orbs without causing much fuss other then what we already see.

[Gabriele Graves]

As we are all aware by now that this kind of information is anecdotal data and not conclusive evidence.

The great thing is not it doesn't matter which point of view is right or wrong.

If there are still a lot of zero-second orbs then this might make some people abandon them and if there aren't a lot of people using zero-second orbs anymore but instead have land that is open to public traversal then they aren't likely to adopt this system which doesn't provide open public land by design.

So either way, win-win.

If Abnor is correct then if the people of the forum could stop complaining about zero-second orbs all the time that would be awfully nice because you will just keep make yourselves look like idiots.  You know who I'm talking about.  K' thx.

[elleevelyn]

12 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

This was the first thing I tried to test after @Eowyn Southmoor reported the problem right away, and simply could not find a way to generate it, so after this post I figured I must have disabled it in Preferences/Notifications but can't find it there. I'm not sure it's important but it's driving me crazy: What am I doing to never see this message despite llAddToLandBanList attempts with multiple accounts in multiple viewers?

 

i don't know why either really. The message may be able to be suppressed in a TPV which I haven't tested for

edit add: Looks like Eowyn above found a a partial solution for Firestorm, so that's good start

i have tested this with Linden viewer but I can't find a setting to do the suppression. Maybe someone else can have a go at it, as would be useful if there was a way to suppress, which there may not be, at least in Linden Viewer

test kit used

scripts

/*
   Test environment
   Linden Viewer: Second Life Release 7.1.2.7215179142 (64bit) - clean install with default settings
   Second Life Server 2023-11-07.6790647783
   
   Group-owned land
   (Not tested on private owned land as I don't have at time of test) 

   put the scripts below into 5 seperate objects
*/
   

// AddToLandPass
// chat message: [Second Life: You have been granted access to this land]
// also shows as a NotificationTipToast top right of screen

default
{
    state_entry()
    {
        llSetText("AddToLandPass", <1,1,1>, 1);  
    }
    
    touch_start(integer total_number)
    {
        llAddToLandPassList(llDetectedKey(0), 0);
    }
}


// RemoveFromLandPass
// chat message: [Second Life: Your access to this land has been revoked.]
// also shows as a NotificationTipToast top right of screen

default
{
    state_entry()
    {
        llSetText("RemoveFromLandPass", <1,1,1>, 1);  
    }
    
    touch_start(integer total_number)
    {
        llRemoveFromLandPassList(llDetectedKey(0));
    }
}

// AddToLandBan
// chat message: [Second Life: You have been banned indefinitely]
// also shows as a NotificationTipToast top right of screen

default
{
    state_entry()
    {
        llSetText("AddToLandBan", <1,1,1>, 1);  
    }
    
    touch_start(integer total_number)
    {
        llAddToLandBanList(llDetectedKey(0), 0);
    }
}

// RemoveFromLandBan
// chat message: [Second Life: You have been removed from this land's ban list.]
// also shows as a NotificationTipToast top right of screen

// listen for message from Relay to RemoveFromLandBan
// done this as we can't directly interact with object on land
// we are banned from


default
{
    state_entry()
    {
        llSetText("RemoveFromLandBan", <1,1,1>, 1);
        llSay(0, (string)llGetKey());
        llListen(-1234, "", NULL_KEY, "");   
    }
    
    listen(integer channel, string name, key id, string text)
    {
        llRemoveFromLandBanList((key)text);   
    }
}

// Relay to RemoveFromLandBan
// relay object placed on neighbour parcel
// done this as we can't directly interact with object on land
// we are banned from

default
{
    state_entry()
    {
       llSetText("Relay to RemoveFromLandBan", <1,1,1>, 1);
    }
    
    touch_start(integer total_number)
    {
        // RemoveFromLandBan uuid (key) hardcoded. Change to actual uiid for testing
        llRegionSayTo((key)"4d46ed50-6827-de7e-c886-f23b45ae0d0c", -1234, (string)llDetectedKey(0));
    }
}

Edited January 23 by elleevelyn
nore info

[Love Zhaoying]

52 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

If Abnor is correct then if the people of the forum could stop complaining about zero-second orbs all the time that would be awfully nice because you will just keep make yourselves look like idiots.  You know who I'm talking about.  K' thx.

^^^TRUTH

[Aethelwine]

3 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

I just finished a couple hour fly over some of the areas that I tried boating on 2-3 years ago to see if I saw the differences Abnor is mentioning and must admit, there was a lot less extreme privacy phobic type orbs and even less banlines. The worst I did see for orbs was a 2 second one that I luckily made it through anyway  and the other 4-5 I seen were from 30-120 seconds. I didn't encounter even one 0 second orb. So thinking the one poster here is very much the exception here and the Lab could easily outlaw 0 sec orbs without causing much fuss other then what we already see.

My experience is the same. Pretty much all I do in SL for some years is organise and run cruises. 

My perception, is perhaps anecdotal but I can certainly speak with some assurance that waterways and riverways look better and are more open now than ever before. Nautilus is circumnavigable. No obstructive security any more between the Sea of Fables and Linden Village area.  Corsica is much easier to navigate and circumnavigate. I can do routes through the Coast Town sims now where previously taking people down there would have wiped out every one. Even Heterocera is open enough now to run cruises, with some care, where a few years ago it would have been out of the question, even if possible.  Even the Zindra river is free from security, now. 

Just yesterday I ran a route from Mare Secondus through rivers in the Volcano regions and Micronesia. There were just two orbs along the 1.5 hour route. There would have been many more just a few years ago,

I can speak with far less assurance for travel overland as I rarely fly, but when I have, my experience is of rarely encountering orbs and security.

For a comparison the Wiki has an article that includes a Survey done 10 years ago:

A survey made by our team showed that about 40% of all parcels have restricted access, as follows:

• 20% use ban lines and use group access, access list or no access list. This percent is much higher in some places of the grid and a lot lower in others.
• 5 to 10% use entity orbs to restrict access. From these, the majority use a higher eject time (over 10 seconds). Only a few are very aggresive and are set for less then 5 seconds. Also, only a few teleport people to another parcel.
• About 15% use banned lines for a few unwanted visitors.

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Land_With_Restricted_Access#Percents

Now I am not clear if those percentages are for mainland alone or if they include private regions. But private regions don't always allow banlines anyway, in fact I don't recall ever being allowed them on private estates I have rented or rent on. 

I would say along waterways the percentage of places using orbs of less than 10 seconds would be something like 0.5%

 

 

Edited January 24 by Aethelwine
upped final percentage I gave after a bit more thought

[Aethelwine]

2 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

^^^TRUTH

I just had a look and in the last 12 months I can see just three threads about people being obstructed whilst travelling and each of them were new to me on the forum with low post counts.

The relative lack of travel stopping security probably has little effect on the number of people that will complain here, because as numbers go down people become more confident to travel and when they do find an obstruction are likely to feel as aggrieved if not more by their experience and think it might be worth raising on the forum.  

Edited January 24 by Aethelwine

[Gabriele Graves]

Great, problem solved then.  Let's hear no more about mainland being a problem for travelers.

Edited January 24 by Gabriele Graves

[Rowan Amore]

26 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

I just had a look and in the last 12 months I can see just three threads about people being obstructed whilst travelling and each of them were new to me on the forum with low post counts.

The relative lack of travel stopping security probably has little effect on the number of people that will complain here, because as numbers go down people become more confident to travel and when they do find an obstruction are likely to feel as aggrieved if not more by their experience and think it might be worth raising on the forum.  

You'd have to dig a little deeper as some threads not specifically started about orbs and banlines often devolve into exactly that.  

Like this one that spurred this one we're in...

 

Edited January 24 by Rowan Amore

[Clem Marques]

1 hour ago, Aethelwine said:

My experience is the same. Pretty much all I do in SL for some years is organise and run cruises. 

My perception, is perhaps anecdotal but I can certainly speak with some assurance that waterways and riverways look better and are more open now than ever before. Nautilus is circumnavigable. No obstructive security any more between the Sea of Fables and Linden Village area.  Corsica is much easier to navigate and circumnavigate. I can do routes through the Coast Town sims now where previously taking people down there would have wiped out every one. Even Heterocera is open enough now to run cruises, with some care, where a few years ago it would have been out of the question, even if possible.  Even the Zindra river is free from security, now. 

Just yesterday I ran a route from Mare Secondus through rivers in the Volcano regions and Micronesia. There were just two orbs along the 1.5 hour route. There would have been many more just a few years ago,

I can speak with far less assurance for travel overland as I rarely fly, but when I have, my experience is of rarely encountering orbs and security.

For a comparison the Wiki has an article that includes a Survey done 10 years ago:

A survey made by our team showed that about 40% of all parcels have restricted access, as follows:

• 20% use ban lines and use group access, access list or no access list. This percent is much higher in some places of the grid and a lot lower in others.
• 5 to 10% use entity orbs to restrict access. From these, the majority use a higher eject time (over 10 seconds). Only a few are very aggresive and are set for less then 5 seconds. Also, only a few teleport people to another parcel.
• About 15% use banned lines for a few unwanted visitors.

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Land_With_Restricted_Access#Percents

Now I am not clear if those percentages are for mainland alone or if they include private regions. But private regions don't always allow banlines anyway, in fact I don't recall ever being allowed them on private estates I have rented or rent on. 

I would say along waterways the percentage of places using orbs of less than 10 seconds would be something like 0.5%

I love to sail and my experience has been very similar to yours. There seems to have been a significant improvement when it comes to access to waterways in the last few years. Some rivers that are not protected have security orbs in them, set up by the parcel owners, but there's usually enough time to sail through them. But even then, they are not very common. I rarely encounter ban lines blocking waterways. If they're present, it's usually due to some dispute between neighbors or they are used on parcels on the beaches/shores, not necessarily blocking anyone's passage. The sailing trips tend to be very pleasant and hassle-free.

In fact, lately I have even noticed a few spots where neighbors are cooperating to leave rivers and small lakes openly accessible, which is very generous.

My opinion when it comes to traveling/exploring in SL. Correct me if I'm wrong:

• Flying is the riskiest form of transportation, and the one that causes the highest amount of trespassing. Therefore fliers have the highest chances of being kicked out by orbs, unless they are careful.
• Driving highly depends on the region, but as long as you stick to the LL-owned roads, you will be 100% safe from orbs and ban lines (just please don't toss your vehicles into people's parcels... should be common sense, but happens way too often. If you crash, pick up the car or delete it.)
• Sailing has some issues, but it's pretty much stress-free most of the time. Some tips: Stick to protected waters if possible, and keep a bit of distance from the shores.

It's possible to explore and travel without dealing with any ban lines or security orbs. Simply pay attention and avoid trespassing as much as possible, just in case. Don't risk it.

Edited January 24 by Clem Marques
Grammar

[Gabriele Graves]

You forgot wandering around - that's up there with riskiest as people roam all over the place.

[Clem Marques]

18 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

You forgot wandering around - that's up there with riskiest as people roam all over the place.

Good point. That is quite risky. I guess a safer alternative would be to stand on protected land or streets and explore by moving one's camera around, but it's definitely not as fun as simply walking, and not everyone has a computer that is capable of using high draw distance settings.

Edited January 24 by Clem Marques

[Aethelwine]

1 hour ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

I'm calling bullh*t on that straight away.

By my count, including this thread, there have been at least FOUR "right to trespass" threads in the last MONTH.

At least one of which was NUKED from orbit by the mods.

 

This thread clearly isn't about rights to trespass, so no I am not counting this, even though you appear to want it to be.

I don't know of one that was deleted because well deleted? and exploring a skybox - there is no wonder why I wouldn't count that.

The other one you mention was about someone that didn't know why they were being ejected from abandoned land. Again I wouldn't count that because not what I was talking about.

Edited January 24 by Aethelwine

[Aethelwine]

1 hour ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Just as an aside...

I recall a thread where the usual whiny complaints were made about how it was impossible to fly more than a couple of regions without being shot down by a zero second orb.

I replied, giving details of a helicopter flight I'd made the previous week, where I had only encountered TWO orbs, both the old fashioned "spherical kill zone" type that spam warnings at people OUTSIDE their owner's parcels.

YOU then replied that such a journey must have involved me "entering hundreds of parcels" and that the lack of orbs encountered in those "hundreds of parcels" was obvious "proof" that "almost nobody uses orbs or ban lines any more".

I then pointed out that in fact the whole trip from Ahab's Haunt to south central Satori via the Bay of Admirals, both Nautili straights, the edge of the Blake, the west coast of Satori, and a small detour at Stromberg via the "new at the time" section of Belli marina before going back to the southern tip of Satori, had taken place over LLDWP protected water, or LLDWP protected roads, or Gov Linden's abandoned land, EXCEPT for a short stretch across THREE public access parcels, specifically a dock and two sections of railway line.

 

Somebody, a supporter of yours perhaps, objected to me refuting your fraudulent claims about MY journey, and your equally fraudulent claims about what it "proved". and my refutation of your "right to trespass" assumptions, that EVERYONE travels like you do, across whatever parcels might be in your way, was cancel cultured, *poof* gone.

 

So, again, I'd be very reluctant to accept ANY "data" from you, about the numbers of mainlanders who'd like some privacy on the property they pay for and which you do NOT.

 

I recall the context being more along the lines of you claiming there weren't many orbs anyway, and that you had made a long journey over mainland without encountering them. It is a bit disingenuous if that journey was over protected land because it doesn't make the point you appeared to be making.   

[Aethelwine]

3 hours ago, Clem Marques said:

I love to sail and my experience has been very similar to yours.

....

My opinion when it comes to traveling/exploring in SL. Correct me if I'm wrong:

I agree with all that what I would add though is that the best tip for anyone vehicle travelling, or indeed walking is to use the mini-map and turn the view of property lines on. Without it, it isn't possible to navigate rivers safely and it makes finding rezz zones much easier..

The Linden Viewer didn't use to have that function, why I haven't used it in years. (I don't know if it does or doesn't now.)

Edited January 24 by Aethelwine

[elleevelyn]

18 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

ETA: Now I don't quite believe this, but: I seem to get the ban notifications now when the script that calls llAddToLandBanList is near the avatar being banned, where the "nearness" threshold is TBD. If the script is at 2000 feet elevation and the banned avatar is at ground level, no notification appears, or if those altitudes are swapped, but if they're both at either level he gets notified. This is too silly to be true, though, so I'm probably missing something still.

am defo going to test this and try to work out what the nearness threshold is

it also explains why we weren't always seeing the message

 

edit add: my testing tells me that the nearness threshold is 96 meters from the device. 96 and beyond then no chat message or notification toast

so thats pretty much the solution to not spam the neighbours with chat messages, place the device up in the sky so that is 96 or more meters away from neighbours builds and skyboxes and done

well done! QIe

 

Edited January 24 by elleevelyn
more info