Codex Alpha

Ah-ah-ah... that is not what I was proposing. I CLEARLY stated if it goes outside the TOS defined by Second Life and or even RL-laws of 'calling for violence against others', then it is already handled by the TOS or in RL, the law. Again, you can't be championing a movement to censor one person's expression, then bolstering another - which either/or is going to offend someone, so as a society we have allowed the maximum expression possible - making it legal to express your ideas short of calling for violence against the other. Yet online, when one group goes after another individual, and calls for them to be 'fired' from their job, or their 'career ended'.. this should be considered a 'call to violence against others' because it is an attack on their livelihood and how they feed themselves and their family and therefore is a direct and violent attack on their very lives. Why is it an attack on their very lives? Because the clear and END intention is to separate them from their means of living and creating an income - and people shouldn't play stupid like they don't know what this literally means - they die. Last time I checked if you don't have a job, you don't have money, you're first homeless, then you die. People play at this like it's no big deal - but it is, and in extreme cases people will act out in justified self-defence against such action - and as a country that can have serious ramifications and lead to serious conflict. Censoring, cancelling and inevitably destroying someone else just over what they said or a word they used is going too far, but some people will only learn civility the hard way - with uncivil like action.

Maybe not. One could argue it costs LL less to run your parcel (which one may want 100% private and free from visitors and griefers) and could be part of a Premium plus package. And yes, more features outside the norm will cost more money, but it is a solution for those who are apparently besought and besieged by people they never want to see, and can't get the 100% privacy they need without affecting the user experience of others around them in the process. If the counterargument is "I know it makes sense, and I would get the privacy I want and need - but I just don't want to pay extra for it" while being in a publicly accessible area - well then that's kind of revealing, don't you think? If the argument is "I would like private land away from everyone else that might bother me, but it's too expensive", then we work for solutions to that.

This affects the auto-loading of all the meshes of course. If one changed their mind and use LOD0 for both 0 and 1 slots, then the suggested "Use LOD above" (to not reload meshes - could have been one of your suggestions :D) is very easy. If I was to manually enter them in, I've been doing that pretty much all the time until recent, but then discovered its backwards from what I expected. I generally try to make LOD_1 a bit more optimized then the default higher poly, remove stuff that I can get away with, and fill out all the rest, though admittedly LOD_3? (Lowest) is generally a waste of time unless you have an image on a billboard, so it's mostly pointless. This new trend of 12000, 12000, 2, 2 on objects isn't the answer either, but if SL is working on Auto decimation might not matter

The mainland region and how it operates now remains. It remains open as it is now for people to purchase the parcel as they are today - except they are limited like in Belissaria as to what they can do - to maintain that relative openness. Those who would pay/move to a private instance have nothing more to do with the region (which is a server), and moved to their own 'instance'. Completely unrelated to each other. See Kitely to see how they spin up regions and others 'on demand' other than 'always on'. See Sansar for how an individual world is an 'instance' of it's own.

To be fair, and the risk of going off topic, that would be an unfair comparison. I can disagree with an implementation or policy, and not be a threat to anyone. I can disagree with 0 second orbs, and yet not be a griefer, troll or threat to anyone. I can be against the over-regulation of firearms, and not be some psycho or criminal. Or the classic comparison in this vein "If you have nothing to hide, why do you care?" regarding surveillance, monitoring, etc. One can have nothing to hide at least for criminal or other actions, and still be against unreasonable search or surveillance of their lives. I can be seriously upset about a sudden requirement by an employer to submit to a random drug test, or be *****ed by a needle - and yet not do any drugs. We need to discuss ideas here only, and not the person underneath. It's also a trait of intelligence to discuss and explore ideas without actually having to agree with them, or even believe in them ourselves - as by discussion or knowledge and understanding can be expanded. I'm also for Free Speech and Expression to be allowed for all, or NONE at all, and nothing inbetween and just short of breaking the TOS. I don't agree that you should be able to AR or call to ban those who hold different political views to your own - even if it is Nazi, or other. Being offended or severely disagreeing with another worldview should not be considered abuse, unless they have gone outside that normal expression and purposefully have done things to grief, troll or taunt you... then that becomes an actionable abuse report. If we are to exclude, silence, censor, limit and ultimately ban everyone who offends us - then the same governance should extend to anything political and social, and scrub SL of all of it. Including movements or ideas that YOU may support. After all, is Second LIfe advertised as a virtual world for everyone to come explore and build, or as some sort of political and social platform to spread ideas on their dime?

True. Changing from some mass convention for SL's sake isn't going to work. I've tried and even dedicate each project to it's own folder, but when something is backwards... becomes counter-intuitive That is what makes Firestorm so great for many of us who are creators, developers and observers/deconstructers/learners/admirers of other people's products. I understand it's hard to be a be-all for everyone - perhaps that could be solved by hiding all the 'engineering'-level features by default - like a 'developer' mode or "Advanced" menu like SL Viewer has. I'm just one person, so may not be worth changing for me, but the options to match other engine schemes would definitely be helpful - but I'd hate to cause you to waste your time with such features - when I'm just one person and the general attitude seems to be 'just deal with it'. Looks good though and useful for those of us who want to maintain a certain workflow. Right now many of us are of course working with more modern file formats like FBX, working in PBR, working in or trying out different game engines, already dealing with other issues trying to get things into SL (as relatively newer creators still figuring out the kinks) so anything that facilitates that is good for anyone who would be interested in such a thing. Not sure how many people working in Unity, Unreal or other engines (Even Godot) are actually using *.dae Probably very few. FBX is king. But yes going from a more intuitive (and standardized) LOD_0-4 naming system will definitely help. It's not intuitive to select #4 before #3, even if one were diligent, and if you name so that SL can automatically load it, then the filenames have to be backwards. Appreciate you working so hard on Firestorm. It is a good example of how a viewer can be, and I am progressively unable to live without it because as a creator builder and explorer it has too many tools that are useful for me NOT to make it my go-to now

Sorry I don't understand the use of Potemkin Village when talking about this, and no I never said anything about the Wild West, or allowing access to your property, just that if a parcel WERE instanced, it is no longer technically in that region grid. It is as I have presented it as - an 'instanced' world, much like a Kitely region is now, or as a Sansar world already works as. I was providing a theoretical answer as to how a parcel would be represented - as an 'instance' it would no longer be represented in the physical mainland, it would revert to open and available to others. It is not a second 'instance'. Your 'instance' removes you from the region altogether. I'm still not so sure why people who want major privacy or to not be disturbed still want to reside on public-accessible lands - which will immediately and forever expose them to all sorts of variety types of users.. I'm just offering a real solution to that problem. And also solves an issue I have with free flying and exploring. You don't have to agree, and that is okay

Sometimes the best thing to deal with alleged trolls and griefers, and on the other side 'elitist' or 'early access community members' is to dilute their effect with having a platform grow big and fast enough - to make their influence moot. Yet anonymity has probably been one of the most freeing concepts universally that has allowed the safe exchange of ideas. I've seen what people can and will do when given the opportunity to silence others for a view that they disagree with. It underscores more than ever the need for anonymity (at least between users) - as many people truly 'play for keeps' and will come after you and your RL interests 100%. This is what the whole NFT and crypto-coin movement is about. It is a trojan horse promising riches for one group, and opportunity to get rich for artists - but you will have a unique ID world wide. This may apply to your participation in "Metaverse" style platform like Decentraland or other - and be the ultimate control over you. There will be no escape, no restart, no reset for you. It happens all the time. If people disagree with another on the internet, it won't end there.. they will seek other ways to continue to 'punish' that person by whatever means they can. Or the more recent tactic now employed by many companies - to hide away all information, discussion, news and announcements behind a Discord wall - far from the internet access and search - and under close watch of governance as to who is allowed in, to view what, and who can participate. This creates a chilling effect for many - and the result is only a handful, a literal handful are vocal in any way, and only because they unceasingly bow to and pander to the status quo.

As a person who expresses many views and opinions for many years participating on the internet, and experiencing the most mundane of disagreements to the largest - to the point that in 2022 I know have to compartmentalize and protect myself from others who stalk me across internet platforms to dislike, thumbs-down, 1 star rate and purposefully destroy my reputation and in some cases where they had personal details - dox me to unsavory types - it is most certainly important to protect one's real identity. Of course this is not always the case, as some places it is fine - but with the growth of ease on finding people through search now with many methods, and connected databases (and even motivated employees of companies with access - yes it's happened who have relationships with users) can be an Achille's Heel should you 'offend' someone because you said in chat "Warehouse jobs should be automated because they are soulless, mind-numbing jobs. Human beings aren't meant to do boring repetitive tasks like stacking boxes - so robotics is the answer and we could get retrained into something more meaningful" and now they hate your guts because you allegedly "Insulted my living/job". Yes. Something that little can quickly snowball, and especially in 2022 - to quickly make you a target and the Devil after one incident through the 'telephone' psychology sounds worse and worse each time it's told until its "oh he said warehouse workers are numb-brains and that they should be replaced by robots - he's insulting the job I have been doing for 10 years" - then turns into a campaign to ostracize you, or the hatred they now feel for you over one incident grows into "let's ostracize this guy", or other malicious things. I've had to remove all my friends of friends list because otherwise they would be caught up in all of this themselves, and have been in the past. "Yep, sorry about that. They probably banned you cuz you were on my friends list, for a social or political view I expressed inworld or on a forum." If these same people had access to my personal details, place of work, etc - and as we have seen from RL incidences about how hard and how far some groups will go to censor, silence, ban, and ultimately the big prize - destroy their reputation and livelihood - yeah there is good reason. If people were civil then we wouldn't need to. Also consider too that even if we use a nickname for ourselves, especially us current and former hardcore gamers :D, that our nick becomes our identity - and it becomes very personal - and even under that nick we can gain or lose reputation - and can feel the same as if our real life persona is being attacked. Civility is first taught by Mom and Dad, and other adults we grow up with. Then if that's not enough, or there was a shortage of parenting and teaching that that person still is not civil and respectful of others - then we have the guns of the State to enforce their civility. Personally, I like to debate and discuss the IDEAS a person may present - as it wouldn't matter what their name is or whether they are private or public in their speech - and thats we should all stick to - Civil discussion. As soon as someone goes beyond that and want to destroy someone else in any way - then the need for anonymity and compartmentalization is made clear. Also, if you apply a Social Credit type status to people (Bansar (typo but lol is that funny gonna leave it in :D) loves to do this - everything you say or do is on record to forever judge you with - right or wrong) - you effectively chill conversations and free expression - because others see what can happen to others that fall afoul of a ruling party/government/majority's preferences at the time - they don't want to be treated like that either. Wield a banhammer big enough and terrible enough and without mercy or arbitration - and apply it unevenly and erratically and hitting innocent people in the process - very much creates a chilling and fearful attitude. "I don't want to say something that will get me in trouble or banned. I don't want to be seen agreeing with or associating with that person, etc","I don't want to forfeit all my creations, world and hard work over this". This is the kind of existence Facebook and other 'metaverse' companies want to run - the promise of fun and opportunity - with the reality of lording over you, monitoring your behaviour and speech, and holding your purchases, worlds, creations and investments hostage to control you. I would also argue that if the goal is to be civil, there is a strange phenomena that was observed on YouTube and the comment sections: When there was a move to promote the use of real names - there was a time where it was civil - until people became even so emboldened in their positions - and with the rise of virtue signaling type of behavour - they PROUDLY stated their full names. Of course they only do that when they're in the majority and relatively safe from being mobbed, censored and banned by others - and they forget that should the tide shift that they would then be subject to the same measures against them. Even if their names were 'exposed', they didn't need or care for 'civility' nor did it shame them into 'good behaviour'. All most people need is to be in the majority, then they cannot be shamed or otherwise motivated to be 'civil' anyway. But yeah, arguing with others that "The rights you deny others can and will be denied you" is completely fruitless, because as humans I guess most of us simply do not care until we are personally affected. Of course there will always be an element of people who will use anonymity to do malice in the world - but taking away the anonymity from legitimate, law-abiding, productive people will only allow the malicious more weapons against them.

Yes Kitely is quite closed and many times the servers that spin up the world don't even bother and don't work - or they're not accessible at an instant. This wouldn't be a problem though for those who want such privacy and 'to be left alone', as that is exactly what would happen - with an extra layer that when they're not there, they're not a burden on Kitely itself (running an empty world) but also negates the need for security measures that annoy other users. These 'private parcels' would effectively be on their own instance, they're no longer actually in that mainland parcel. That mainland parcel is thus freed up for anyone else to use - with more 'open and contiguous'-friendly attitudes that you speak of - while the die hard 'stay off my lawn' types can enjoy their privacy elsewhere.

I could go on with great length on this, but perhaps it is all over, and as I had posed to recent staff on a related platform - that current society and it's social issues and needs of the individuals for safe spaces and to ban and cancel everyone and everything they don't like - then add to that some form of Facebook babysitting and governance, etc - that it is no longer possible to have a free and open virtual world. The last 2 years I saw how far the nanny state will go. I had experienced it first 2 years in a virtual platform and experienced first hand what it feels like when people want a safe space where nothing will ever offend them - and then in real life to a shocking degree that I will never forget, and am probably traumatized by if I am being honest. The nanny state is here and only growing in both virtual and reality worlds. AR is just code for 'tattletaling', and yet real disputes are handled with "Both of you stop arguing, or you're both grounded!" - both very frustrating and unfair yet modern practices. It's really hard to build worlds alright, creators will know more than anyone the work it takes even into the smallest instance or 'game level', and it makes it harder when it must conform to squeeky clean, apolitical, don't offend anyone with anything at anytime - or you lose it all - is not conducive to investment into it. It was fun while it lasted, but virtual reality seems to want to mirror the real world and be a hellish hole of governance and parental doting and tattletaling, and possibly with a bigger Metaverse manifestation - a means of mass user control. No thanks. As usual... born to early to get in at the ground floor, too old to take the ball and run with it because it all died before you had the chance. As a creator, for a company to have the ultimate say over your future - and who can wipe out your creations, your worlds, your accounts and your investments 'at our discretion' will allow them huge control over those types and other people - and I've seen it used and personally experienced it. I won't be joining any platform that aims to put me under chains in order to particpate. It can stay dormant and 'broke' like some platforms that decided to do so. I should be excited about the metaverse and the possibilities but how Facebook and other companies want to do it, just looks like a hellish experience

Yes that is what I get sometimes, and I'm not sure what changes.. Depends if it's analyzed or not, and not sure now for sure if the older 'plane' defined physics (unclosed mesh) now don't work because cube shapes are preferred. Yep sometimes have to take a break for SL specific stuff then get back to it

Sure, I didn't mean to make you feel like you have to defend yourself, just commenting that I value yours and other's opinion on SL related things, that sometimes get lost and I'm like "Now I know someone mentioned this before, but what topic was it..." later

All one piece? Using cubes and not just planes? Can't get the planes to work as I've seen an older video demonstrates, SL seems to close them all up now - pretty sure i was using planes (ala Chic Aeon tutorial) years ago but it doesn't seem to work now. And old piece in one of my builds once I separate it, or try to re-upload it, even now with more efficient physics shape now wants to be big Li. The same model, nothing changed. Glad you got yours working

Yeah, they post such good info and insights on the scripts used, then it gets lost in an unrelated topic

No.

[Redacted by moderator] As I have stated at least in my own experience that it is more common now - and that if it wasn't happening so much to be noticeable then I probably wouldn't have even posted about it myself. All I know is my usage of Second Life hasn't changed, but the community and environment in world most certainly have.

I got spoiled with PBR in Sansar - it's such an intuitive workflow, and can be transfered to Unity (though Unity seems more geared by default still to SPC/GLS too) - only started investigating Unreal recently has it's own but also easy PBR. For SL, I think I've got a good handle on my workflow to go PBR -> SPC/GLS conversion - but on the newer products I made are more complaints as amazingly I ran into the issue of many people still not using ALM. My view usually originates in wanting the standardization of things for ease of creating and workflow. With newer tech like Sansar the platform may not be the greatest yet to build on, but it is far easier to upload and manage everything out of the gate. My goal was to create my projects in PBR as I have in the last 3 years, which I enjoy, then develop a workflow to accommodate SL usage - the other engines are minimal tweaks. It's only SL that takes a bit more work now - from textures to LODs, etc. I was spoiled! haha I look forward to you checking out my work once I open a store, check out how I'm doing on materials and such, would value your feedback greatly. Have a nice day, always appreciate your posts through the years...

Hey if I missed something and can pull the messages back up, as well as the OWNER of it, that would be great. I would have expected the messages to be found in the chat, or msg window, but when I looked I couldn't retrieve them. Would be good to know for everyone who might read this topic in the future and who want to file an AR. Nah, we're going to post about it to get LL's attention and perhaps get it changed - as it actually is in the best interest for new and old user experience, and that 0 second eject scripts are affecting other users a bit too much.

This is the thing about rights. Our rights begin and end with ourselves. Govern yourself indeed - I agree. However when you use scripts that forcefully eject and transport other user's avatars not only from your parcel, but out of the region, and if it happens a lot in a particular area - then you are going outside governing yourself, and there could be grounds for a user to file an Abuse Report. Hard to do though, because 0 second ejects by nature happen so fast that one wouldn't even know what or who triggered it, or who owned the parcel in order to file a report to start with. I've seen people file ARs on less offensive actions... so why wouldn't this be included as it far surpasses other offenses because it happens to legitimate users. A white-list system by default might also be a good solution. One can have their privacy, and wouldn't affect anyone else in the process. I would think a private parcel, island or 'instance' might suit those people more - they just don't want to pay - but at least a whitelist is more sensible. Would take more work though than simply negating any 0-second eject ability on "mainland" or 'public' regions not designed to ensure 100% privacy.

Of course it isn't. It's annoying but can be dealt with - until it happens too often (more often than even 5 years ago) and with the addition of 0 second orbs - and some I notice with an even more obnoxious "insta-ban" included - then it's not so fun, and underscores just how antisocial SL has become over the last 10 years - or that people are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole by taking extreme actions to ensure their privacy in a region that was never designed to be private for them. So in order to get their 100% privacy, they are using tactics that are affecting SL users new and old - and has been one of the contributing factors to people I know leaving in the past (as part of a whole "Nah, SL is unfriendly") reason of leaving, or coming and exploring and experiencing a strange kick or ban or harsh words almost out of the gate, and not wanting to be part of that. Well in that extreme and exceptional case, you can take solace that it is a virtual space and no one can really hurt you at all, and the human naked body isn't much to be shocked by, especially if you're a grown adult. 15 seconds is a reasonable delay, that should handle most cases without affecting people too much. It will be annoying to be traveling around dodging 15 second orbs... but hey it's better than nothing. 0 Seconds are not reasonable and overly affect a resident's access and enjoyment of SL. Yes it's amazing when you just treat them with patience (or indifference) or remain calm or even just laugh at their antics. People don't realize, trolls and griefers are not born - they are made. If you ask many of them they will relate to you experiences in the past dealing with overly hostile or sensitive people - that may have affected them in one way or another - maybe even getting them unfairly disciplined or even banned - so they make a point of returning with a vengeance. Basically the nicer and more patient people are - the less they get trolled. In my experience, even the worst (accused) 'trolls' will settle down if you show a little patience, or just laugh at their antics. It's a virtual world, and nothing they do can truly hurt us - and nothing is easier than a 0.0001 second mouse click to remove them if they're that bad. So far I haven't run into anyone I couldn't handle - and many of them settle down and become normal people in the community. Enough or I wouldn't have felt I needed to post about it. I understand experiences may vary as we are all different people, but what sparked me to post my own topic on it was that I recently started exploring again probably after 3 years - and the landscape and experience is much different than I remember - and I was getting hit with way too many 0 seconds, and it seemed like every second parcel was warning, warning, warning.. kinda sucked. Haha, the irony of this post I had to spotlight. Yes private islands it won't happen to you as much. This is why if people want 100% privacy, but do it in a Mainland (non-private) region - and have to resort to measures that can seriously interrupt other SL'ers experience of the platform - then perhaps they're in the wrong area and should seek out (and pay for) that privacy they need. Sure it is. Just go into the code and change MIN_KICK_SECONDS = 15. Don't need any script changes, no big overhaul, just a quiet edit of a simple constant. Then if I set my own KICK_SECONDS to 0, the underlying api will ignore it. Ban lines are effective. I can't enter their parcel at all, and arguably are the least offensive measure, as there is no control being taken over my avatar - or teleporting me back home out of the region - and losing my place. It sucks thinking "Oh there's a rental plot by the water" and be flying towards it when ZAP - you barely get a notice come up on screen that said something something 0 seconds, and you're warped back home. Early in my SL when this would happen, I had no idea what was causing it - I thought I had hit my Home shortcut somehow LOL. At least ban lines will just block you from moving around, to the point where if two adjoining parcels have ban lines, you won't be able to even fly through at all.. To me it seems counter-intuitive to have a "Mainland" or public area, but then to allow it to be a gauntlet of orbs and ban walls. Yes, in the sense that if you had started paying your Premium 10 or more years ago, one could argue that there is LESS value today and LESS access and even LESS of a positive experience than 10 years ago. It's hard for a company to say "We want more customers, and lots of them" but then the community itself by it's actions discourages growth. Thinking of not resubscribing to a Premium is not a threat - it's a result of measuring "What am I getting for the price paid, and does the value and experience exceed the pain of losing $$$ in the process". Or maybe they expect that we as grown adults can govern ourselves - and that they don't have to be holding our hands and be doting parents over us all the time. Frankly I like it when staff stays out of it, and doesn't come running to the rescue of any random person screaming "offense! assault!". It's only when a Resident through their actions becomes a problem to the enjoyment of others that they should step in - or regulate certain things should they be abused - such as eject scripts. Everyone loses though. Exploring gives people opportunity to have their land rentals and land sales found organically, and store owners or those who have a cool little attraction that you may have never seen otherwise - results in sales and tips, etc. Most people aren't going to tolerate being blocked, banned and ejected randomly - if they even realize who and how it's being done (new people don't) - and all that goes down the drain, and maybe even that new resident leaves never to return.

Relevant Topics and the responses that show there is a need for and a demand for more privacy lots in SL for those individuals who do not want to engage with or be exposed to the general user base, and who may take measures that infringe on the enjoyment and free exploration of other users - might be better served with private regions.

Yep and I guess I just won't engage in that activity anymore, which is one thing less that I can enjoy in SL. Between lag and these strange antisocial issues - there's not much left frankly. I'm the last hold out of our group of 20 - looks like they were right after all. My latest explorations before dealing with these issues tat seem to be common now resulted in 1 x Land Rental discovered, 1 x Land Purchase discovered, and a few random products from stores that I would hae never heard of - but they got sales because of exploration. That will be gone too now, because if this is how it's going to be - not interested. But hey , I'm just one person right? Not important right?

I can respect your boundaries and still ask that you have a reasonable warning time on your orb, so that I may continue on my way (legitimately) and you still get the protection you need.