Deeds

OK, let me come at this again.

The group tools are about to be changed, and profoundly affect our world -- for better or worse, it's hard to know.

The current group tools and their vision (which even Lindens will describe as hippie-San Francisco) are honoured more in the breach. People curse them and work around them, but of course, human ingenuity and resilience are remarkable, and most people grouping land have survived and even flourished with even the existing crappy group tools.

For example, apparently some are cursing the "double-billing" problem of trying to deed, group, and transfer land, something I first experienced for a whopping double-billied $125 US when I was new, and which no Linden would examine or undo -- though it involved the exact same piece of land, and the exact same tier. Lindens later in tiny print in an update admitted that there had been a bug problem with the updating of tier in a group when you submitted, so that you'd think you had put tier in a group, and when you later bought land confidently, it bounced and took you to the web page, where you were told that if you did not tier up, you'd lose your land. Confused newbies would tier up then, thinking there wasn't a way out. (There was: just back out of the page, log off, and the sale won't go through; get the tier in the group straightened out, possible even with the help of friends, then go back and get the land.)

Often, when 3 people try to get together to put in their parcels, the whole thing bounces -- the group has to first have tier in it, then it can accept land. You either have to put tier in it from one person who has tier but no land to get it started, or figure out to toggle off "allocate with deed" so that your 512 allocation AND your land -- which are separate! -- go into the group together.

Now this feature is going to be changed, as Robin Linden has summarized yesterday in the forums:

What I'd like to see happen is the ability for groups to use permissions to express a set of standards (through roles, access lists, and their charter) and for those standards to be able to be applied to the parcels owned by group members without them having to deed their land to the group. This way group members in a contiguous area on the mainland can in effect create a homeowner's association. Hopefully, we'll be able to implement something like this in phase 2 of the group tools improvements (Phase 1 will open up the roles and permissions system to create greater flexibility and usefulness).

Obviously, unless there is a vision of deeding or associating entire sims together in mega groups, the chances of 10 random people with 10 small parcels of land needing to get together to deed or associate their land is rather small. Those who assemble randomly on a sim with their land will want to keep it to themselves -- I can guarantee you that will be the default for most people.  They're not at all going to like the idea of other people, even those with whom they share similar values about lag or views, being able to return any prims from their land.

So where are those 10 individuals with 10 separate pieces of land trying to make a "community"? The model is usually very different 1 or 2 people buying a huge piece of property or sim or island, then fitting in the others who pay much less in cost.

To break this out of Linden-speak, here's what is being suggested:

1. "Roles" will be established which will be other people's sets of permissions in the group, i.e. a deputy or officer who will be able to return prims but not sell land. This is the famous "granulation," or more fine detail, sought by many struggling with groups. Here, we're being promised that the Lindens will indeed close up the hole whereby a founding officer is vulnerable to sale of his land by another office -- but the price for this will be the removal of the 10 percent bonus of tier for groups, thereby forcing some individuals to stop grouping their land -- making the entire "hole" problem go away another way. Some will presumably keep grouping land anyway, using whatever workarounds they usually have to dream up to get through whatever Linden social-engineering wrench is being thrown at their works that day.

The Lindens might even get clever here and make it impossible to create a group with one's alts -- which means that 90 percent of land grouped in SL will become vulnerable to seizure. Let's hope they aren't going to listen to stupid, sectarian, and Puritanical voices on the forums that howl about alts' purchase of first-land, and the creation of group land to enable other features -- setting of prims for tenants, "set home to here," being able to see a group's whole land list, group IMs for communication, etc.

2. "Access lists" are the bans and access-only that *some* -- but not all! -- have advocated making a group function, rather than a land function, i.e. you could make a group, called Assholes of the Universe, and on the group membership menu, toggle people you want to go on this parcel and not that one, or block an entire list of 50 of your most hated enemies off any land owned by the group anywhere. It opens up entire vistas of banning "blacklists" and creating "whitelists"

3. The group's charter is going to be whatever one- or two-line sentence they can fit on the tiny panel, "To be the most kewl and exclusive ppl in SL" -- and that and $3.44 US and you can still buy 1000LL on the LindEx. I can't for the life of me imagine how Lindens are going to parse and interpret and adjudicate whether people's charter is being violated -- by themselves or others. This is going to be akin to the worst of the pre- and post-Soviet association laws, that create discretionary bodies that examine each petition for recognition and authorize or penalize activity on the basis of arbitrary criteria.

4. Without them having to deed their land to the group. Of course, this idea reveals the Linden hand -- still on the bus Further and trippin' in the hills of San Francisco. This envisions that there are 10 girls with long blonde hair and tie-dye shirts and Birkenstocks who all want to make a group. In the current way, they'd all hold hands and press "deed to group with allocation" instantly and the land would end up in the communal soup pot. Now, one long-blonde haired girl can simply press "join" and "activate" and put the tag "Sister Golden-Haired Surprise" on her head, and "associate" her land to the Love Inn. Of course, when another "Sister Golden-Haired Surprise" associates her land, and the two of them make a tree house...if one of them doesn't log on and doesn't pay her bill...or if they have a cat fight...the tree house is...well...try Lost and Found? I dunno. I'm thinking the game is still going to have that hilarious problem is has right now where it can't "find" the thing called "group owner" and destroys the object -- revealing that the inner heart of games are often far wiser than their makers.

5. Now, why didn't the Sisters want to deed their land? Because they'd lose it, it would not longer be "theirs". Now, presumably, they can "associate" with groups that are like-minded to the Love Inn, and ban the groups in the Hate Place. So...let's picture how this will work. Ten Sisters are sitting on a sim where they've bought up half the place....and perhaps joined with 6 more on the next sim over that also enjoy the rainbowed and tie-dyed hues of the Love Inn. Their group, Summer of Love, now has 16 sisters in it on 2 sims...and they're off! They may get aggressive and strong enough to push the Hate Place Bros off the map on one sim or two...or they may simply startle newbies who happen to get a first-land square nearby. Hopefully the Lindens won't confer on this sort of group the power to zone a whole sim where they do not own all the property, simply by sheer strength of numbers, but one nevers knows, better to flag this as a non-starter now rather than later.

6. So, the 16 sisters on the 1.5 sims have their Love-Inn -- but...they will never be happy as the Hate Bros will always be flying around the edges, building big ugly spinning towers and doing sit-box break-ins just when they get comfortable on the pose balls. So...they begin to realize they must all get together, pool their resources, and buy a sim -- a private island, a sim off the auction (cheapest), or a bulk-auction sim (either buying a part of a more controlled -- but still not grief-proof sim from a baron or buying a set of 4-6 sims themselves if they have the money).

Let's say they go for either 1) or 2). Either way, the happy hippie helpers are now forced to abandon their group grok and let one of their number buy the private sim or bid for the mainland sim...which means one purchaser will have to collect on paypal, or in the game in Linden dollars, the cash for the sims. Which means...none of the 16 sisters have any land of their own they'll be deeding...which means...the "urgent" need to deed completely disappears.

Therefore the "grouping without deeding" is is a solution in search of a problem that doesn't exist...and likely an accident going somewhere to happen.

7. By stating that groups "on a contiguous area on the mainland" can create a homeowners' association and control land, the Lindens are contradicting what they emphatically said in the group focus meetings last month, which was that the new covenanting tools would only apply to private islands. If "covenanting" is not the same thing as "homeowners' association," then it's not a contradiction -- but it's not clear how the HOA is any different than the covenant in theory if not in fact.

So the notion on tool-induced and patch-induced "communities" -- not created "as is" in the natural circumstances of the game by human being collaborating even in spite of, not because of, the engineering of "social software," -- opens up the following problems:

a). In existing land groups with dozens or even hundreds of members, what happens if the members/officers/tenants don't press or toggle whatever switches need to be switched to be in the "home-owners' association," which is the functional panel for creating control over land? This could happen not because of dislike of the owner or his simple rental goals, but could happen out of inability to figure stuff out, not logging on, and just not liking the sound of one more group to join. How can the existing group land be controlled -- as to prims, naming, deeding, sound, etc. -- when all the people in the existing group will not have consented to the creation of the "Home-Owners' Association". We can only hope there will be a smooth transition between existing groups that ALREADY function as Home-Owners' Assocations to this new coerced, from-above, state-made "home-owners' association".

b). Stepping on existing initiative, and punishing rather than rewarding it. I remember once trying to explain to Philip Linden that community associations (I didn't specify they had to be land or home owning) would be enough to run sims voluntarily, if voluntarily made, if the groups were simply tighted up to remove officer recall and the treacherous officer land-sale problem. Two simple little things. He was very skeptical that something voluntary and not tool-mandated and coded into the ground group function. I could only point to actual sims where I did this, but he could only tekkily respond that it wouldn't "scale". I could only point out that sometimes it's important to get things right and have them develop organically and naturally even if slowly, becaues they take root better than replicating it quickly in a synthetic fashion with tools.

c. Gated communities -- the Lindens just never seem to want to reflect on the horrible "white-flight" problem they've replicated inside their game. Wealthy people and uber-talented craftsmen flee to the suburbs -- the private islands, the more controlled bulk sims, the own-sim from an auction -- all expensive propositions, leaving behind the griefed-up, lagged-up but at least more free and more democratically accessible mainland. When there are bunches and bunches of closed, gated communities with really superior-brand arrogant and condescending asshole leaders in them, if their content is pretty and they bring in new members, the Lindens will look the other way. They privately confide that's what it takes to make a "community," one, strong leader. When these little fiefdoms begin warring with each other, the Lindens might convene a Star Wars Bar or two to keep people talking, but they are likely to move away from the town hall format where people are forced to hear the concerns of others they vehemently dislike and oppose in front of  purportively neutral ruler.

d. Red-haired children. Inevitably, the HOAs are going to have horrible, horrible fights, as anyone who has done anything with anybody else in SL can tell you. People are likely to pull key parcels out of beautiful builds out of spite. They are likely to take their "land not deeded to the group" in the middle of a beautiful field of dreams and put up an ugly hate build. The plan for dealing with defecting HOA members is very vague. I predict the forums will fill up with sordid tales of HOAs from Hell where one Diva rules the roost, keeping others on suffrance who, despite being in a "group" will be unable to put out a prim without clearance. In the current system, scripted automatic rental boxes and notecards with terms are the "rule of law" limiting the power of landlords and empowering the rights of tenants, at least to be able to have something to make a claim with to the landlord himself, to the forums, and with their feet, if they are unhappy. Under the new system, the rigid "charter" and a rigid set of tooled functions will take the place of human discretion, flexibility, and compromise.

8. Fortunately, the HOA is in Phase II, and perhaps there is hope of killing off this idea still, if it could be discovered, for example, that people do fine all on their own, without any more tools or engineering, in creating viable land groups for business or nonprofit work or entertainment. If the permissions indeed are granulated and communications improved

In short, the call to the Lindens then is:

a. Define the problem that you think you are solving by dreaming up solutions for this "without them having to deed their land to the group". Where are the people and groups asking for this? No, I don't mean Dianne Mechanique and her girlfriend, and eltee Statotsky and his 3 equal-parts friends in Lusk. I mean all the rest of the people -- where are they? Because surely you're not going to nerf and bork group tools to satisfy an imaginary Sister Golden-Haired Surprise who wants to join the Love-Inn without giving up anything from Daddy's Trust Fund.

b. Acknowledge that the main form of groups now is with individual entrepreneurs, i.e. managers and customers, landlords and tenants, theme-leaders and residents, etc. and not equal-parts groups seeking to pool individual plots of land into a group.

c. Ensure that existing groups and their roles and functions will be "grandfathered" or at least smoothly transitioned.

d. Define the adjudication process for HOA members who default or renege or betray and disrupt sims.

e. Announce whether the 10 percent tier bonus that has been an incentive for groups and continues to be is going to be discontinued or not so that people can adequately prepare for its demise by tiering down.

Comments

[csven]

Interesting post. I suspected you'd make some good points. Thank you.

[Brace]

Thanks for all your info on this issue Prokovy.

Its been a point of complete confusion on my part and I've pretty much stayed away from land deeding/group deeding and all that because of it.

Anyhow since I'm tiering down and hopping off the paying for land bandwagon, I wont be using whatever new tools come down the pipeline at anyrate.

But its good to know whats what.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

i have a new challenge for you prok, make us a post explaining that the holocaust never happened ^^

and by the way, i can't insist more on this...
can you stop insulting peoples and calling em of reductive names?