Qie Niangao

Yeah, I don't think it's viewer-side, but I'm frankly surprised that it should ever have worked as you describe. That's not to say it never worked that way; I'm often surprised by which prim parameters respond which ways to events such as having the script removed, or then being shift-drag copied. (As it stands now, the effect of llTargetOmega() is not propagated through shift-drag -- which is how I remember it always working -- but persists after the script is removed -- which I thought I remembered working differently at one point.) If something has indeed changed, perhaps it's related to the recent introduction of PRIM_OMEGA, although as far as I know, that was (is?) deployed only to the BlueSteel RC channel, in late June. No idea if that's been promoted to the main release channel now or not. I'm sorry this isn't very helpful. Can only hope somebody else has some actual information.

Hard to believe, I know, but for once I wasn't being ironic. I actually meant it as positive feedback. I really do think that LL has done mostly the right things with these Forums, and followed much the same approach as counseled in the blog article I linked. In fact, the Forums were not always this civil, and I think they've been much improved by some hands-on management of the sort outlined in that blog. I guess my motivation was to provide the context that it's not only LL who considers these measures to be necessary.

I'm confused. Did something ever work differently? The "omega" of llTargetOmega is a rate of rotation, so what it means to set a target is to make it start spinning at a rate that it will maintain until the target is changed or nulled with another call to that function.

This is in the vernacular, but it's important, apropos the challenges faced -- and correct decisions made -- in keeping these Forums civil and productive. Or the reader may have a different reaction. Those reactions could be worth reading, too.

RL always turns me into a pumpkin about halfway through those meetings, but in case it helps, I just posted a transcript of the part of that 7/7 meeting that I could attend. (I haven't read back through it, so I can only hope that it doesn't contain too many incriminating intrusions into chat.)

TriJin Bade wrote: Experiment concluded. Thank you all for taking part with your excellent feedback and replies. So, did they lower the price for you or not? Thread award goes to Ciaran for saving subsequent posters from further embarrassment. Most of them, anyway.

Well spotted, Pussycat! There's still a question of whether parcel invisibility qualifies as "behind closed doors" on Moderate... it generally seems that it should, but then there are Moderate parcels that are set to show in Search. For those, parcel invisibility doesn't work: people following the Search link aren't protected by the parcel's cloak of invisibility because they land inside the parcel. So then there'd need to be that extra layer of "closed doors" (or vast separation, as in a sky platform, assuming that's equivalent), assuming "closed doors" applies at all to Search-listed land. Fully explicating this demands a troubleshooting flowchart of Steampunk contraption complexity.

You just need to create a support ticket asking to have auto-return enabled for those parcels. Use the "Land & Region" case type, and then "Linden Lab owner Parcel Issues" and supply a list of the parcel SLURLs (you can copy them from the Map, moving between the parcels). Once the abandoned parcels are set properly, they make very good neighbors: they generate a lot less lag than real neighbors.

Knowl Paine wrote: To a degree it [ranking] is [instrumental in making the forums more popular] and this is a good reason to improve the system by changing it. When considering the amount and form of participation required to obtain elevated Rank and the possible end product of contributing in that style; I believe that minor incentives from participation would not be sufficent to satisfy Residents who seek Rank for personal gain. Personally, I kinda doubt that any fixes to the ranking system can really increase Forums popularity, but then I would never have predicted the success of StackOverflow badges, so what do I know? I think I agree with the second point. With or without the proposed incentives, rank would seem to recognize obsession more than greed. That's good, given the choice between neurosis and cardinal sin. To be more direct: It seems to me that a more pressing priority for the Forums and Answers is to increase participation by a broader set of users, not so much to keep the current participants motivated. That is, whereas I recognize the importance of retaining a deep bench of knowledgeable, eager, and pleasant answerers and discussants, I think the current situation is a relative dearth of posters needing help or with whom to discuss topics of interest. I realize that's a different topic, so... never mind.

FWIW, back when LL had somebody visibly interested in the success of the Land product, they were planning to integrate privately-owned Mainland (at least) with the web-based auction pages, such that regular landowners could offer their parcels on that site. I realize that's quite different from the current proposal, but somewhat related, and it would be (mostly) limited to web-based development. Presumably, some fine day, LL would want to implement more Land-related operations via web interfaces. Whether or not they're actually exposed on the Internet, it simplifies the viewer and makes it more flexible to different (read: "mobile") platforms.

*yawns*

No offense to the high-ranking (nor to midgets), but isn't this whole ranking thing a bit of a "world's tallest midget" contest? It would be different if the Forums were more popular. And it would be very different if the rankings system were instrumental in making the Forums more popular.

I'm not at all sure to what the whole "common sense" post was responding, but I'll take up the topic: Peggy Paperdoll wrote: What's wrong with common sense? When you read a ToS or CS rule why does it have to spell every little detail covering every situation that may or could arise? It's impossible and everyone knows it. So why argue about it? The ToS is pretty clear if you read it and apply just a little common sense. Adult activities (like explicite sex animations or poses) cannot be placed or engaged in at any location that is readily viewable by the public unless the area is specifically restricted to "adults" only. It does not say you cannot have such activities in areas designated as mature..........it says in areas that are readily viewable by the public in any area except Zindra (and even then it must be restricted to "adults" only). You cannot advertise any content that is adult in nature unless the advertising is restricted to adults only. Common sense would tell you that means if you want to have your sex bed in your home located on mature rated land then it cannot be put anywhere that is readily viewable by the public. The OP's question about putting such pose balls under a tree out in the open is not allowed by the Tos. The pose balls could, technically, be put in a "shack" under the trees but then we get into a somewhat gray area..........with the ability to cam through walls (something all but the newest of the newbies know) makes it questionable. Common sense would tell you it's a dangerous tact to take. If you put your pose balls in a "shack" located 4000 meters in the sky, then that certainly is not readily viewable.......someone is going to have put an effort into "camming" in. Your cam will only cam as far as your view distance is set (that's 512 meters) so that someone is going to have fly up to 3500 meters to get a peek. The ToS is clear about advertising adult content............I think most merchants understand that very well. Common sense.......use it and you'll be fine. Ignore it or push the limit you'll probably have some issues to deal with. If you like pushing the limit, go ahead. I want to have fun, then think a little first. Sometimes you just can't do exactly what you want to do. That goes for RL as well as SL. It's important, however, to recognize the limited value of "common sense" in the interpretation of rules. That's very much true in cases of RL law, but even moreso when applied to Linden policy enforcement. Firstly, enforcement can be capricious and inconsistent. That's less true now, perhaps, than under the ancien regime, but still: this is the Adult Content policy under discussion here. Its enforcement is spotty at best, with blatantly Adult content still for sale on Moderate public parcels. More to my original point, however, both the Adult Content rules and their enforcement exist for LL's business reasons, and that business is under constant change. Whether yesterday's intepretation of a rule will apply tomorrow is really a question of whether it still benefits the business. Precedent appears to carry very little weight in such considerations; the "letter of the law" is rather more of a leg to stand on. Even that "letter of the law" is subject to change without notice. Indeed, the current official statement about maturity ratings cited in the Community Standards is dramatically different from what was communicated when Adult Content restrictions were first enforced. For the most part, this has been to make the rules more concrete and explicit, and that's a good thing. In fact, however, those changes have pushed the stated policy into restricting search terms, almost exclusively. I see nothing suggesting that a thing's acceptability is affected by being hidden from camera view. In fact, explicitly the opposite (emphasis mine): Dance clubs that feature "burlesque" acts can also generally reside in Moderate regions as long as they don't promote sexual conduct, for instance through pose balls ( whether in "backrooms" or more visible spaces). Now, I believe that enforcement is applying "common sense" such that the open visibility of content does affect its acceptability. That's fine: it's only common sense. But it's not a common sense interpretation of stated policy; rather, it fairly directly contradicts it.

Persephone Emerald wrote: Forgive me, Ishrara, but your post is a bit confusing. If a person is renting homes in a Moderate region, then it's reasonable to assume they'd be advetising & that those appartments or houses that are rented or owned would have sex furniture in them. The owner of that land could certainly advertise their rental properties, but not the sex beds & such inside them. Most rental units are rented unfurnished, but some are rented furnished, so they could even have sex beds in them when they aren't yet rented out. Also, a merchant is allowed to sell sex beds & such on Moderate land, as long as avatars aren't trying them out naked or with prim genitals attached. My land is a combination of public & private use. My home is also a combination of semi-public & private use. So even if I'm not advertising my sex bed or those of my renters, I can't keep avatars from wandering into the houses, without using a security system. The doors are closed, but I don't require renters to lock their doors or use security orbs. I think the use described is on the very edge of what's permitted on Moderate land, and a slight shift in the wind could move the line to make it a violation. The potential problem is using the same parcel for purposes both private and public (listed in search). At the moment, it seems to very much matter what is listed in search, and that's why I think you're still on the "allowed" side of the line. But I'm not aware of explicit policy permitting adult private use of a Moderate parcel that is set to show in search at all. It might be difficult to explicitly allow that because, without carefully designed traffic flow, such an arrangement could easily defeat the whole "more predictable experience" for visitors.

Unrealistic expectations. Free or otherwise, anything to be found on Marketplace is probably crap. Why would we expect it to violate Sturgeon's Law? Oh, I see. You want a crap filter, specifically for demo crap. That makes sense. In fact, demos shouldn't really be separate listings at all, but accessible from the listing for whatever stuff they're supposed to demo. That's just the tip of the iceberg, though. There are still separate listings for each color of slutwear, instead of structured listings that were promised -- what? two years ago? I really feel sorry for the Lindens stuck trying to manage this white elephant. They really should have spun it off again, while they had the chance.

Isn't that the whole point of griefers? To give us the diversion of considering what sort of RL brain trauma could cause such avatar behavior? At least that's how I always thought of adfarmers. They made it abundantly clear that they were quite odious slime buckets in real life, else how could they behave the way they did in SL?

If it takes you where I think it does, "the support section" gives you the option of searching for similar problems... from which you could find a possibly helpful result... which links to a possibly helpful wiki page.

Eep! Please do not try to use parcel access controls to solve a problem at 2000m. Whitelist bans (such as allowing entry only to a group or to specific individuals) only extends 50m Above Ground Level. Even blacklist bans (specifying individuals who cannot enter) are only effective to 768m AGL. To have any effect at that height, you'll need some sort of scripted device (a security "orb", scanner, whatever). Also, setting no-flying has no effect on neighboring parcels, so would only affect those who come to your parcel and fly straight up. (And even then, only the ones who don't know the easy "loophole" for that.) No-script has almost no effect on anything because scripted attachments routinely call llTakeControls() so they can keep working through no-script areas. I mean, it's so common that it's rare not to do that. [EDIT: Re-read the OP and this is a private full sim. I was responding as if it were about the Mainland -- the forum where it's posted. There are Estate-level access controls available for private sims, although I believe they affect all regions in the Estate.]

As all have said, if the objective is profit... well, Meeroos might still have a few good weeks / months before the Next Big Thing. Then they'll join all the other breedables, over-grazing sim CPU cycles for no reason other than ornamentation -- which is fine, for those whose aesthetic appreciation extends to factory farms. The one and only interesting thing about the breedables craze is whether the whole genre will die out completely, or if creators will keep finding ways to make the critters seem enough smarter than their predecessors to maintain interest. Granted, there hasn't been much real progress* but at some point, theoretically, given enough AI, they might seem sufficiently pet-like to be a stable fixture of SL. *That's not quite true. Breedables have significantly improved in how efficient they are at doing nothing. At present, that's what they do best.

Venus Petrov wrote: If one of your renters tried to raise havoc with the others, you as landlord would be able to 'deal' with them. I suggest that you make allowences for such a thing in the agreement that you distribute to your renters and/or the covenant. Well, this is Mainland (or at least it's the Mainland forum) so there's no covenant. Also, the landlord can only deal with such problems after-the-fact, and then it's too late. After somebody's stuff has been returned, or their carefully crafted terraforming messed-up, etc., there's not much a landlord can do to make the victim happy. Note that renters can hurt each other quite unintentionally, especially because Mainland renters are often inexperienced with land operations. Now, it's possible to strip down the Abilities of the group roles assigned to renters and thereby reduce the damage they can do each other, but that's almost never satisfactory. People who rent land expect to be able to manage their parcels themselves; that's easier for the landlord, too. So, really, using a separate group for each rental is by far the easiest way to manage all this unless you're operating on a vast scale. (Remember to add an alt as co-owner of the groups, too, so they won't go away and you can re-use them for the next renter.)

Depends where this will be used. If really "on the road" then yeah: texture anim (and maybe bling -- interesting idea) should be enough. But in, say, an urban build, the point of having the cop car around at all is mostly for how it illuminates the stuff around it, and that's going to require PRIM_POINT_LIGHT flipping on and off -- an object update per change, plus some viewer-side heavy lifting. With Viewer 2 projected texture lighting, it's possible to get the effect without the object updates (indeed, without an active script at all) by projecting the light source through an animated texture filter. That, however, entails even more work, viewer-side (and is currently invisible to the vast majority).

Very interesting. The same neighbors turn up "disabled" as when the bug was happening, which is why I thought it was still happening. I guess there are a lot of auctions ahead!

Actually, any profile not set to show in Search now seems to display that "disabled" text. (This was a cause of much short-lived excitement when some long-absent neighboring landowners turned up "disabled".)

Without seeing the code, this is really guesswork, but if timer2() is working, it must be defining a top-level function, not an event-handler within a state (such as default). So maybe you were trying to define a function, and merely got in trouble using the name "timer" because it's a reserved word in LSL, where it can only be used to specify a handler for the timer event.

If you are going to create a group and deed the land to it, when your alt has joined the group, set it as an Owner of the group so that it has as much land control as your main av does. It can sometimes be more convenient that way. Except in the case where you're trying to keep private the alt's relationship to you, because as I recall, it's impossible to hide membership in the Owner role from anyone who looks at the group. This may not be a concern, of course. (And I'm not 100% sure I remember that correctly anyway. If it is correct, there must be some specific Ability that triggers the visibility, and I have no idea what that would be.) More importantly, it may be worth considering whether to make that alt be a Premium account and contribute their free 512sq.m. tier to the group. If I understand the plan correctly, it's to own a total of 1024sq.m., which would mean that a single premium account would have to pay for an additional 512sq.m. of tier, above their bonus 512, and that's US$5 per month. An annual premium membership is only US$72/yr, or US$6/mo -- and it will generate L$300/wk in stipend, which at L$250/US$ is US$62.40/yr. That means the net-of-stipend cost of an annual plan premium membership is only US$0.80/mo -- quite a bit less than that US$5 fee for additional tier. (Even the quarterly plan works out to a cost of only US$2.30/mo net of stipend, so would still be a win over paying that first tier increment.) [EDIT: Note that this is only about Mainland ownership. On Estates, there's very little reason for either alt nor main account to be Premium.]