Female Winslet

Well, I gotta admit I've never heard anyone say that. Who would get that idea? Actually, they are often quite close to the roadside. Depends. But the last person who tried to show me how easy it was for any decent driver to avoid the banlines didn't even last five minutes before hitting one. Would you like to try next? 🙂 I'd love to see somebody who could do it. But the scarcity of such persons seems to show that it's rather difficult.

Looks like there is increasing movement toward addressing this problem in an organized, and hopefully productive, way. Those who are interested in getting together, getting organized, and trying to work with LL to solve this problem so it stops coming up repeatedly and interfering with SL users, please do let me know in world and not on the forums. I seem to be the defecto point of contact at the moment, though that may change. Thanks.

Deleted accidental duplicate posting.

Well we seem to have reached a point where one side of the argument is unwilling to discuss the matter in good faith. Instead we have verbal gymnastics and efforts to belittle us like the above and others. While I, and others on my side would like to have a discussion with you to find a resolution that works for everyone, it is readily apparent that you do not share that goal. Accordingly, I don’t see any point in continuing this thread any further. If you would like to setup your security orbs with zero warning and interfere with everyone else, then of course I cannot stop you. What I can do is AR it, as I have others, and let LL explain to you that you should have done what they told you that you should do. If it seems like it will be useful to jump in and make some progress again, I may do that. But I’m done for now. I’ll wait until someone on your side is interested in actually reaching a resolution.

Nailed it.

I think you forgot to mention that all of this is subject to TOS and other rules set by LL, which place a number of limitations on the abilities you outlined above.

Almost. The TOS (section 3.4) also says "You agree that Linden Lab has the right to manage, regulate, control, modify and/or eliminate such Virtual Land as it sees fit and that Linden Lab shall have no liability to you based on its exercise of such right." A couple of posts earlier, I gave you some of those rules that they make. Specifically, this one: Script Use You can use scripted objects to enhance your land ownership tools. Generally, such scripts should: Provide adequate warning to the undesired Resident. Only work within the property lines (this includes projectiles that cannot operate beyond the parcel boundaries). Not be excessive in the removal of the unwanted Resident. Pushing an avatar off the property or teleporting them home is generally acceptable; intentionally applying a script to disrupt someone's Second Life connection or online status is not allowed. Scripts or no scripts, you cannot use land ownership as a way to unfairly restrict another Second Life Resident's personal freedoms. So that is a written restriction. Can you explain how a zero warning script complies with this rule when the first bullet point says such scripts should "[p]rovide adequate warning to the undesired Resident?" No warning at all would seem to violate that restriction.

So is what I provided in response. The difference being that you tried to equate people flying by in SL to people barging into your RL house expecting dinner. I tried to compare people flying by in SL to people flying by in RL. You don't have to accept that my analogy is more accurate. If you think someone flying by is akin to someone barging in to your house for dinner, more power to you. Actually, airspace does belong to you. That is one of the basics of property that you learn in the first year of law school The idea going back to antiquity is that you own the land, therefore you own the sky above all the way to heaven and the ground below all the way to hell. That's actually how it was phrased (except they used the Latin phrase cuius est solum, eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos, which means the same thing). This obviously became a problem when the aviation industry was developed because it meant that aircraft were trespassing over whomever's land they happened to pass over. Imagine Delta Airlines flying overhead at 37000 feet and owing damages for trespass to everyone whose place they happened to fly over. It would (1) be impossible to control that with that degree of precision, (2) telling Delta Airlines to restrict themselves to flying over public roads would not help, and (3) it would kill the aviation industry. So how did this get dealt with? A change in law to allow overflight like this without it being considered trespassing. I wasn't aware that every single private property owner was comparable to a government. But apart from that, I love this idea! But I think it has to be fair. I want my plane to be armed with bombs, cruise missiles and all the usual stuff. What could possibly go wrong? 🙂 Or maybe they could have put in some hard coded limitations to allow flights overhead? Oh, wait. They did that. The ban lines used to go all the way up to the building limit at 4096m. Now they only go around 200m above ground level. That TOS gives them the ability to make rules and regulations too, so maybe they could make some rules and regulations to address the problem? They did that too. Script Use You can use scripted objects to enhance your land ownership tools. Generally, such scripts should: Provide adequate warning to the undesired Resident. Only work within the property lines (this includes projectiles that cannot operate beyond the parcel boundaries). Not be excessive in the removal of the unwanted Resident. Pushing an avatar off the property or teleporting them home is generally acceptable; intentionally applying a script to disrupt someone's Second Life connection or online status is not allowed. Scripts or no scripts, you cannot use land ownership as a way to unfairly restrict another Second Life Resident's personal freedoms. You can find that documented here: https://community.secondlife.com/knowledgebase/english/managing-your-parcel-r49/#Section__6_10 and here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Land_With_Restricted_Access#Linden_official_position About this time is when people who want to believe in the kind, benevolent, totally unselfish rule that they get to do whatever they want no matter what start talking about the vagueness of some of this policy language. And yes, there is some vagueness. But plainly these little or no warning security orbs do violate LL policy. And plainly, land ownership doesn't mean you get to do whatever you like no matter how it affects anybody else. That much is obvious.

Two things: (1) Last time I checked, SL was not the same as RL. If it is, then I'm bummed out that I don't get to TP and fly in RL. (2) Last time I checked, the subject at hand was waterways, airspace and the like. So a more apt analogy to RL might be: A RL plane flew over my house! I am so pissed! It's my land and I have the right to stop global air commerce from overflying my house! See the difference between someone flying overhead and someone barging in for dinner?

Well, in fairness, Blush Bravin seems to have given an example of a situation where an orb or something similar makes sense. I would probably do the same if pushed into the type of situation she has going on and I really feel terrible for her having to deal with it. She's welcome to come hang out at any of my parcels any time if she wants to get away from it all. See SLurls in my picks. With that said, it is also a really unusual situation and one I'm disturbed to hear that LL has apparently not taken action on. I do think it would be a good idea for groups adversely affected by the ban lines and orbs to get organized and start advocating for LL to address this issue. I've been increasingly thinking of writing a RL letter to Ebbe Linden about the issue myself as a start. Because this issue of "my land, I get to keep everyone else out so hahahaha" affects and benefits one person. But that one person is disrupting the activity of groups of people beyond themselves. For example, GTFO, aviation groups, sailing groups, etc. All are adversely affected by that small number of individuals. I can also say that I am increasingly thinking of getting rid of my premium account and all of my land due to frustration caused by this issue. It makes me a lot less inclined to spend money on it just to be aggravated. So I would certainly support some organized advocacy. What I would not support would be a shaming and blasting group. If we did organize, we should and absolutely MUST comply with TOS and more. TOS is not a moral guide where anything that complies with TOS is morally good. And if we want to urge the lab to address and resolve this issue for the collective good of all users, then we must be good users ourselves.

Indeed! Mainland offers tons of privacy features! Like guided yava script tours right outside your front door! Nothing says "privacy" like a guided tour right in front of your house.

Let me see if I have this right. Those whose argument is "mine mine mine mine mine mine and I can do whatever I want and interfere with whoever else doing whatever the way to, even if it affects large parts of the grid population" are not selfish. Those who say that the mainland is a shared resource that we should all share together and co-exist are being selfish. Am I following correctly? Because it sounds like the word "selfish" has changed to the opposite of what it used to mean. I realize this isn't directed at me, but here is one of mine. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Koss/87/89/118 Feel free to explore. Frankly, you will find the best of it on the far side of the mountain rather than where my landing spot is. In the holiday season, I set aside part of my land here as an area where all can come to decorate and share things that make them happy for the holidays with all being welcome--Christmas, Kwanza, Hannukah, etc. And I do mean everyone throughout the grid. People have told me that they find that very touching and meaningful. And you can read about last year's in the SL Newser, here, if you are so inclined: I think you'd find that a lot of us people that you call selfish set things up to contribute to the larger grid community in some way. It's all just a part of our selfish desire to give to others and make SL as a whole a tiny bit better place for all.

It sounds like something that could be a tool in the toolbox to address the issue and a step forward. You could even build the receiver into the aircraft control HUD so that pilots have to wear it. But you’d run into the same problems that affect ban lines—they don’t really in time to avoid them, lag doesn’t let you turn in time when you do see them, the sim crossing bounces you across the line. LL has dealt with this before. It’s also been dealt with in real life before. I remember studying it in law school. Here’s something I posted explaining that in another thread: Similar issues have been addressed in both RL and SL in the past. In RL, the law was that property owners owned the land and everything above it. When aviation was developed, this meant that you could have a plane flying overhead and the airline could be liable for damages for trespass to every single person whose house they flew over. As you can probably imagine, that would have destroyed RL aviation industries before they got very far along at all. Can you imagine United Airlines flying around at 37,000 feet and having to pay every property owner they overfly for trespassing in the airspace above their land? That was what the law required. So Congress passed a law so that property ownership of airspace only went up so high above the ground. This allowed aviation industry to develop. In SL, banlines were not previously height limited. So you could fly along at 4000m altitude and suddenly hit somebody's ban line with no warning. This made aviation nearly impossible. LL addressed it by limiting the altitude of ban lines. Now, if you set them up, they don't affect anyone above roughly 200 meters altitude. And honestly, they make nifty trampolines to bounce on. But people use security orbs now. They do not have the altitude restrictions and they frequently give little or no warning. So the same problem repeats itself that existed with ban lines before they were altitude limited. There are several ways that LL could address this. (1) Limit the power of security orbs to eject people to a certain altitude, most likely by limiting the ability of avatars to eject since the power of the security orb is derived from the permissions of the avatar. (2) Require all security orbs to provide a certain amount of warning. (3) Ban security orbs altogether. I understand that option #3 is not likely to happen due to the number of people who find that one of their favorite things about property ownership is to just keep other people out because "mine mine mine mine mine so I get to keep everybody out so there!" But the first two options seem very doable and it's hard to imagine something like one of those ideas won't happen eventually.

Accidentally left this out. Just wanted to point out that I’m not aware of any vehicle owner opposing the right to restrict access to their personal space. If I’ve missed something, feel free to point it out. I see a discussion happening about how to restrict access to personal space in a way that doesn’t restrict other users’ ability to make use of the mainland.

In my reply to Rosekin, I quoted the provision in full, explained how it fits in with TOS (TOS gives LL the ability to establish regulations and this is one of their regulations), and pointed out that it is unclear how much warning time is adequate (although more than zero warning is obviously required). Here, I’ll quote it in full again so it is not buried in a longish post. Script Use You can use scripted objects to enhance your land ownership tools. Generally, such scripts should: Provide adequate warning to the undesired Resident. Only work within the property lines (this includes projectiles that cannot operate beyond the parcel boundaries). Not be excessive in the removal of the unwanted Resident. Pushing an avatar off the property or teleporting them home is generally acceptable; intentionally applying a script to disrupt someone's Second Life connection or online status is not allowed. Scripts or no scripts, you cannot use land ownership as a way to unfairly restrict another Second Life Resident's personal freedoms. Agree on this part. There are a lot of people out there who just don’t understand the settings on their land or their security devices. They also don’t know the LL policy. So I think it is worthwhile to let people know about it before running to file an AR. Why involve LL at all if the situation can be handled friendly? I partly agree with you here. It is very worthwhile to buy optimized vehicles that handle sim crossings better and create less lag. But that is no solution to the problem. Why? Because there is no vehicle that is immune to frequent lag. Even using no vehicle at all is subject to frequent lag. It’s just a fact of SL. And it is a big part of why the people who say “just stick to the public roadways” are talking nonsensically—lag, sim crossings, etc., make it impossible to avoid bouncing into property lines just a bit and getting bounced out. Agreed. LL provides privacy management options. Use them. Even use security orbs that are setup so people can readily get out instead of ejecting with little or no warning, and people can live with it. But this attitude of “it’s my land, I get to do whatever I want, I don’t have to share, and everybody else can go to heck” is not helpful. It prevents us figuring out how to coexist together and share the mainland.

I really have to wonder about the bolded parts when people say that. Really? The entire grid is practically empty, but you have problems with people coming into your land? What's going on there that is so interesting? I track visitors on one of my land parcels and even with big displays setup for public use and contribution during the holiday season, I never got more than 20 visitors per day. Now that the holiday season is low, it's in the single digits. And that's a pretty big parcel that I want people to visit and enjoy. I happen to own several parcels on the grid. All of mine have ban lists that can fit 300 people on them. I'm sure yours has the same. Do you really have so many people coming and visiting you that 300 entries is not enough? Surely when someone came into your house and refused to leave, you could eject them? Why is this not sufficient? Since you were my across the street neighbor until a couple of weeks ago, I happen to know a bit about your land ownership history that makes this statement seem disingenuous, but I won't say more than that. That's the thing about mainland. You have neighbors. You have passers by. Tons of people around. There are even automated guided tours of the mainland like the yava script pods. If you like people (like I do) then that's a big benefit. But the downside is that people can do things like build eyesores next door. It means people do go exploring and they see your place and might even get curious and look at it. In short, the mainland is NOT all about you or me or any one person. It's a shared community resource. Private land, on the other hand, is private. You can have fewer or no neighbors. People are less likely to randomly teleport into your sim out of all the others on the grid. There are no roads that go by and lead people to visit you. There are no guided tours going by your front door. There are usually restrictions that keep people from building eyesores. In short, it's not so shared and it is much more focused on you and the small number of other people on the sim with you. These days it does indeed cost more. But it is the place to be if you want privacy. Ban lines working better would be nice. Wider roadways and canals and such would be a big help to make that happen. But SL is not RL. Have you read the TOS on what you actually get by "owning" land? Paragraph 3.4 of the TOS (find it here https://www.lindenlab.com/legal/second-life-terms-and-conditions) says something that sounds nice for the ban liner and security orb crowd. "You may permit or deny other users to access your Virtual Land on terms determined by you." Sounds good, right? "It's my land and I love keeping people out and don't care about how that affects everybody else" would be a perfectly fine response. Except if you keep reading. The next paragraph says: "You agree that Linden Lab has the right to manage, regulate, control, modify and/or eliminate such Virtual Land as it sees fit and that Linden Lab shall have no liability to you based on its exercise of such right." That seems a much lesser right to have your property respected than exists in rl. So . . . what if Linden Lab exercises that right to "manage, regulate, [and/or] control" your Virtual Land right to permit or keep other users out? As it happens, Linden Lab has done exactly that. You can find a copy of what they've done as far as bots and ban lines and such here: https://community.secondlife.com/knowledgebase/english/managing-your-parcel-r49/#Section__6_10 and the part on orbs also appears again here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Land_With_Restricted_Access#Linden_official_position In both places, you will see this policy statement: "You can use scripted objects to enhance your land ownership tools. Generally, such scripts should:the Provide adequate warning to the undesired Resident. Only work within the property lines (this includes projectiles that cannot operate beyond the parcel boundaries). Not be excessive in the removal of the unwanted Resident. Pushing an avatar off the property or teleporting them home is generally acceptable; intentionally applying a script to disrupt someone's Second Life connection or online status is not allowed. Scripts or no scripts, you cannot use land ownership as a way to unfairly restrict another Second Life Resident's personal freedoms." That bit about providing adequate warning and the last sentence about "us[ing] land ownership as a way to unfairly restrict another Second Life Resident's personal freedoms" are parts I wish I were clear. I've been having a lot of problem with zero warning orbs lately. It's hard to see how zero warning could possibly "[p]rovide adequate warning." And that bit about unfairly restricting another Second Life Resident's personal freedoms is not at all clear either. But, again, mainland is a shared community resource, so it's easy to see how disrupting other people's ability to use it (aviation, sailing, driving, etc) would fit within that.

Where was this confirmed? If it's true, then it would be wonderful. The ability to sail/fly/walk/drive from continent to continent would add hugely to the appeal of mainland and seems like a major boon to quite a few groups, including sailing clubs, gtfo, and probably others. Not to mention a boon to aircraft and boat manufacturers since their products would become an even better way to explore the virtual world. But, of course, there is a big caveat. Sailing/flying/walking/driving are hard enough with the reality of sim crossings. Throw in the added constantly getting automated ejection threats from people's security orbs and the occasional random ejection from a ban line or zero warning security orb, and it can quickly become an exercise in futility. So I think this issue *needs* to be addressed to realize the benefits of linking the continents. Just imagine exploring from continent and continent and repeatedly getting sent back home like some kind of video game. It's an old issue. But this new reconfiguration provides both an opportunity and a need to address it so that people can make use of what LL is providing. Can @Patch Linden share any news on this?

And another one in Mieto region. I was flying down to take a look at where the new land is getting put in place. Suddenly I got TP'd back home without any warning. Now instead of checking out the new stuff going on, I'm logging off frustrated. I'm hoping LL will take care of this, but I'm getting incredibly frustrated by people who feel it is their Linden-given right to interfere with everybody else making use of the mainland. I'm getting frustrated enough that I'm starting to have thoughts of cancelling my premium membership and writing a rl letter to Ebbe Linden over it.

I ran into a good example of the problem today. I was doing a GTFO trip. I start descending to the hub to do the delivery. And bammo. Security orb wet with zero warning bounces me out and automatically bans me for three hours. The LL policy on security orbs is here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Land_With_Restricted_Access#Linden_official_position It requires, among other things, that You can use scripted objects to enhance your land ownership tools. Generally, such scripts should: Provide adequate warning to the undesired Resident. I contacted the land owner and pointed out the TOS. I thought that was rather nice of me, frankly. They responded by telling me that the LL mainland is not an appropriate place for flying and that they wouldn't change a thing. I filed an abuse report. Unfortunately, I doubt the lab will take action. There doesn't even seem to be a category for ARing this type of abuse even though it is plainly a violation of LL policy.

Here's an example of a protected roadway and a protected river. Notice that the parcel options are set to allow object entry. Here's Koss sim. Ebisu sim protected river.

I notice that all over mainland, parcels sit there for sale for months at a time. They don’t sell. They are stupidly high priced. There are few reasonable priced parcels that pop up for sale, even briefly. In the absence of some sort of reliable study, this suggests to me that (1) a great deal of land has stupidly high prices, (2) mainland is generally overpriced, and (3) land is sitting around unsold at prices the market will not bear. Part of the problem may be that even non-land barons are influenced by ridiculous land baron prices. You’ve seen the problem if you’ve watched Pawn Stars. People come in wanting to sell their item at some ridiculous price and they think their price is fair because they saw listing so on eBay or elsewhere at that price. Rick has to explain that someone asking that much doesn’t mean it will sell for that much. Barring the occasional person whose ignorance can be exploited by those of questionable ethics, of course. Similarly, SL folks wanting to sell their land look at the minimap and see parcels for sale at ridiculous prices from the land barons, so they ask ridiculous prices for their parcel too. No one buys except the occasional person who doesn’t know any better and whose ignorance can be exploited by those of questionable ethics. Which brings us to . . . . Exploiting the ignorance of others to price gouge them is a scam in my book. I recognize that a lot of people think anything is okay as long as they get money. I think integrity and fair dealing are important. The lack of those things as in your scenario above is just a scam. I’m not sure what “free access” is, but I see things like this all the time. The edge of a sim that has no neighboring sim is sold as “unblockable ocean access.” A parcel adjoining an abandoned water parcel is sold as having “protected water access.” Of course all of this is easily visible to anyone who knows how to tell the difference. And it is either being sold by people who do not know better or being sold to target people who don’t know any better. Some say let the buyer beware because, after all, everything is okay that puts money in their pockets. Others say let the seller be honest instead of trying to cheat people by exploiting their ignorance. Whether it is ignorance about what a reasonable price should be or ignorance about land characteristics. In real life, you might get away with the scam pricing. The misrepresentations described above would cross the line and be known as “fraud.” And, actually, I dare say there are an awful lot of land sellers who should be thankful that people are generally highly reluctant to sue over anything because I see no reason they could not be sued over SL fraud.

Object entry is enabled just about everywhere, including protected land, abandoned land, and most people’s houses. If it weren’t then you’d get the message about your objects being unable to enter whenever you tried to drive/fly/sail or used any object that sends something flying like the famous SL Furniture Gun.

Isn't this the definition of a scam? Aren't scams supposed to be bad? That whole cheating people thing? I think the ridiculous land price problem is really an economic problem that exists in RL appearing in SL too. What is yours always seems more valuable. What is someone else's always seems less valuable. In RL real estate, people often think their house is worth more than it is and need a realtor to give them a reality check. And home buyers always think the price should be lower. Unfortunately, in SL no realtor provides the reality check. So sellers post sales for ridiculous prices. What I don't understand is why they seem to fail to learn from the fact that their property then sits unsold and they have to pay tier. Then there are those who just outright try to cheat people and wait for someone foolish to co me along.

I wish you'd make the script available for purchase on the MP. I bought the demo and I need to work on editing the script so that it moves back away from the banline without bouncing like a ball. But this sounds like a big step toward a solution. That said, I've been able to get the script to work in the ball, but not yet in a boat or similar object. Sounds good to me! Can security orbs work the same way too? "Hello, owner. You have left your parcel. You're not supposed to do that. You have 1 second until you a teleported back home. WOOSH!" With a 300 person ban list on every parcel, it's hard to imagine any legitimate reason why someone *needs* ban lines or security orbs. Just eject/ban anyone who causes problems. If you have more than 300 trouble makers, you might want to look in the mirror to see if you are helping to create your own problems.

Yes, I have seen the covenant. Unfortunately, this does not address the issue at all since it is just a restatement of current existing practice. Obviously, it is not possible for ban lines or security systems to eject people outside of the owner's parcel anyway. But the great thing is that the new continent has not opened yet, so this is a good time to discuss these things because LL can consider them and maybe make adjustments. However, it ranges from difficult to impossible to control boats on the water and aircraft overhead to be controlled precisely enough to avoid clipping a property line, especially at sim crossings or when flying or sailing. So we have a situation now where someone builds on the ground and sets up a security orb with a three second warning. Then you fly by at 4000m and suddenly get ejected with no change to react. This situation ruins the airspace for everyone. Even people operating motor boats and driving on roads, both circumstances where precision control is more realistic, run into these problems. Similar issues have been addressed in both RL and SL in the past. In RL, the law was that property owners owned the land and everything above it. When aviation was developed, this meant that you could have a plane flying overhead and the airline could be liable for damages for trespass to every single person whose house they flew over. As you can probably imagine, that would have destroyed RL aviation industries before they got very far along at all. Can you imagine United Airlines flying around at 37,000 feet and having to pay every property owner they overfly for trespassing in the airspace above their land? That was what the law required. So Congress passed a law so that property ownership of airspace only went up so high above the ground. This allowed aviation industry to develop. In SL, banlines were not previously height limited. So you could fly along at 4000m altitude and suddenly hit somebody's ban line with no warning. This made aviation nearly impossible. LL addressed it by limiting the altitude of ban lines. Now, if you set them up, they don't affect anyone above roughly 200 meters altitude. And honestly, they make nifty trampolines to bounce on. But people use security orbs now. They do not have the altitude restrictions and they frequently give little or no warning. So the same problem repeats itself that existed with ban lines before they were altitude limited. There are several ways that LL could address this. (1) Limit the power of security orbs to eject people to a certain altitude, most likely by limiting the ability of avatars to eject since the power of the security orb is derived from the permissions of the avatar. (2) Require all security orbs to provide a certain amount of warning. (3) Ban security orbs altogether. I understand that option #3 is not likely to happen due to the number of people who find that one of their favorite things about property ownership is to just keep other people out because "mine mine mine mine mine so I get to keep everybody out so there!" But the first two options seem very doable and it's hard to imagine something like one of those ideas won't happen eventually. A new continent could be a good opportunity to experiment, try things out, and figure out what works best.