Got Tier?

A number of years ago when I spent almost all my time on the Isle of Lesbos I had actually given up my Premium member perk of owning land so my allotment of free tier was wasted until a friend came up with an idea ... give it to him! Did you know that you can donate your allotment to any group to which you belong? This allowed him to expand a friendly little community that did good in Our World. After a couple  years I needed it back and I'm still using it today, but I was rather pleased to see my friend Dakota Schwade post a request along these lines on her MySL feed here. I contacted her about it and asked if I could blog about it since I don't have any spare tier at the moment and it is for such a worthy group. So here goes ...

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NCI / New Citizens Incorporated Tier Donation

NCI has had to rely upon a few large tier donors in recent years. The problem inherent with that situation is that if one of the donors has to remove their tier donation, the land associated with the group may be placed into jeopardy.

And that is what has happened recently. A donor removed 6,000 square meters of tier donation (6,600 square meters which includes the 10% bonus given to tier donated to a group).

Ideally, NCI (and perhaps other groups as well) would prefer to rely upon a larger group of smaller tier donors, so that the loss of one or two donors has a reduced impact.

With that goal in mind, NCI is trying to secure tier donations from Premium Account members who (1) are not using their 512 square meters at all, (2) are perhaps not interested in using their Linden Home anymore and would consider abandoning it, or (3) have a fragment of tier remaining that they could donate.

 _______________________

So how do I go about this? Check out this NCI Wiki page for details.

Vick's Wish List

Too often end-of-the-year retrospectives are planned and published well before the end of the year. For example, I was watching a television news piece about celebrities and notables who died in 2012 when news hit that another famous person died just that day. And then each subsequent day saw a notable death. Why can't reviews created when the year is over? Instead, I like previews and wish lists and resolutions. Quite a few bloggers from Second Life have published these but the wish list from Vick Forcella stuck out (see the original here). Here's my annotated look at what Vick would like to see in 2013:

This spot needed a pic and has
nothing to do with the post.

80 people in a mainland sim
No. Sorry, Vick, but avatars cause lag. I don't want to see more avatars on Mainland, especially in areas with roads. Someone who needs to have a high avatar account should consider owning parcels on sim lines and spreading the content/avatar load like they do for big official Linden events. Long ago when my brother and I owned about 3/4 of Nangrim a Brazillian casino opened on much of the remaining land and kept the "agent limit" maxed most of the time. On the rare instances when we could enter our property, the lag was so bad from well across the region, we could barely function. Raising the limit may have seemed like a good idea, but from a functionality standpoint, it would not have worked.

Distribution quota so that each parcel (>255sqm >2) on the mainland is always accessible.
This would work, especially for the situation mentioned above. There is a club in part of Bay City that often uses the full agent limit of the region but they have only 1024 sqm of land. That is an abuse of region resources, but it not a ToS offense (many have tried filing and failed).

Tier reduction
This might work. The Lab certainly has quite a bit of unused land laying about in unsold and abandoned spaces so I see that if tier fees are reduced, folks might buy up more land.

my.secondlife.com moderation tools
Yes,  please. A lawyer would be needed, though, to decide if this would be legal or not. An abusive comment is free speech, at least to a point. MySL is public to view, like comments on news/blog posts and can be moderated by the thread originator by deleting comments (again, just like other public forums). MySL might have to be taken private to enable a more expansive tool selection.

my.secondlife.com moderation based on TOS
Again ... Yes, please! I further suggest that MySL users be required to take a mini-tutorial and comprehension quiz to be able to access the microblogging service. Come to think of it, the same should be true for access to any part of Second Life. Violators should be required to retake the course after a to-be-determined number of offenses, too.

Linden Lab unmuted
No idea what Vick means here. Really, Vick? Did the whole Lab mute you?

Linden Lab finding a single platform for communicating with residents
Excellent suggestion. Several different blogs, status report pages, Dashboards, and in-world announcements that lag (I'll change viewers, for example, and see notifications in the second viewer that never showed in the first one).

Pro-active griefer reduction by Linden Lab, policing
This would require more tools or better tools in the hands of the Residents because even with GOD powers, the Lindens can't be everywhere at all times. And when you do see a Linden, they are often "back office" staff that may not be as familiar with Governance as we'd think they would be.

What should be implemented is a form of limited access for "free" accounts, the types that are often used by griefers. For example, limited resource sandboxes or tiered-rights to resources as an account "ages" –– this assumes that many griefers are just noobs that don't understand now things work but also rewards learning and loyalty.

A Jira that gathers errors instead of covering them up
My opinion of the JIRA is well known. I almost believe it should be suspended until it can actually become useful. C'mon, now ... why should ANY Resident be able to close my JIRA without Lab review just because they think they are smarter than me? And JIRAs can go years without being looked at ... ask my brother.

A Jira that welcomes improvement suggestions
Not gonna happen. JIRA is too broken.

A new policy for the Linden Memorial Park and re-opening
Hear, hear. I whole-heartedly agree. What the LMP needs is a caretaker. Make it a fee to place a memorial if you have to, but please open the LMP.

Clean up of micro parcels
This would require a complete rethink of how land is marketed and sold. Then thousands of parcels would need to be claimed under Eminent Domain for redistribution.

Clean up of abandoned parcels
I agree, but The Lab doesn't see an economic issue here otherwise they would have done it by now. If a Resident wants to buy an abandoned parcel, there are tools available here.

Clean up of parcels owned by inactive residents, plenty of oceans
Same as above ... not seen as an economic imperative.

De-activation of new (*) accounts that do not enter world in two days
Yes and no. If The Lab wasn't trying as half-hard as it was to be a social network, I can see this being viable. As it is, people are encouraged to have accounts whether they come in-world or not because they can still use MySL.

From the game Lili, available for iOS devices here.

Noob micro learning continent where noobs are forced to remain for one week 
The current new Resident experience is bloody awful. I had more of a tutorial from an iPad game I downloaded the other day than new Residents get now. The tutorial in Lili (see a a review here) is not only more intensive, but it is brilliantly implemented. The lessons are progressive in that they "pop up" as a skill is needed. If The Lab wants Second Life to be a gaming platform, it could create a day-long game each new Resident would be required to complete before accessing the full world and during which they would learn all the skills and conventions of Second Life.

A forum that is no longer Béta
What? The forums are still relevant? Any time I look the are filled with trolls and 'experts' that never seem to be in-world. Rather they seem to enjoy being big fish in the little pond of forum-life.

my.secondlife.com that is out of Béta 
My Second Life (MySL) is a wonderful tool that has been officially abandoned. I've been told that except for basic maintenance, no more development will be done.

Webcontent more tablet friendly 
Amen. Flash is dead but some of the world just doesn't know it. Heck, my iPad has a faster, more powerful processor and more RAM than did the first computer I used to access the Web on "back in the day." There is NO reason Second Life itself couldn't run on a tablet or even a more mobile device. Scalability is the key. Oh, and effort. And caring.

Scalable sims: Optional more/less residents/prims = higher/lower price
But this would require work on the part of someone. The Lab no longer has a focus on developing the Second Life infrastructure.

Linden Lab Gaming Viewer (LLGV)
Huh? Sounds like it would be a second world. Third Life?

Resident created games for LLGV
The Moles are very clever and have a ton of game/experience content in Second Life even as I write this but it isn't promoted. Let's get people using the world they have before luring them away to yet another world.

Second Life doesn't need to be a game. It is a way to have a life that isn't possible in Meatspace. No way in heck you'd catch me dressing like this iRL and laying on a boat. Not that I haven't, but you wouldn't see it. You should see what I've done on boats.

Linden Lab Communicator Client (IM/Voice/Groups without in-world avatar)
Sooooo .... like MySL? They could just buy Plurk and be done with it.

Pro-active copybot policing (used client, use of proxies)
I don't think that The Lab sees any economic advantage to this. At least none to them.

UDP(*) type implemented for SL (i.e. SLDP, blocking of SL ISP side)
Sound like a good idea, but I don't know enough about it to make a cogent observation.

Life membership reward if premium >5 years
This idea works for me and I can think of lots of rewards.

Tier-free 1024 sqm when Life Member
Like this one. This is a good idea. Or even double-prims on any land a Life Member owns.

LL attaches it’s hired developers with a life maintenance contract
Not sure I understand what this is. Could you explain more?

Easier ticket escalation towards Linden Lab
I've told you twice now .. JIRA IS DEAD. Take its wallet and walk away.

Return of the quarterly Linden Lab report, more in depth
Yes, please. Not gonna happen, but yes, please.

Linden Lab that treats it’s residents for what they are. Owners and creators
That is done, but selectively. Look around. There is a cadre of Residents that is regularly hired as "outside contractors" to do work for The Lab ... not to mention the beloved LDPW Moles.

Linden Lab that acts as a trusted provider
Again, I'm lost. Reason #9087 why folks just shouldn't listen to me at all.

A TOS that protects the residents
Ideally, the ToS does that now, but the way it is implemented is lacking.

World peace!
Still wraping my head around whirled peas. I'll have to get back to  you on this.

MORE RESIDENTS THAT STAY
Alas, therein lies the rub.

ETA: Flying over parcels that are Full
Allowance does need to be made for occupied vehicles to cross land that has reached its agent limit and its prim allotment. Too often I've crashed or had my vehicle returned or bot just because I'm travelling.

 * This is the Usenet Death Penalty (see here).

Interesting list, Vick. Thanks for sharing. I can't add anything, really, as I'm pretty happy with Second Life overall or I'm rather accepting of the status quo. If I had to pick one item, it would be Web/mobile access to Our World. It is possible and shouldn't be too much work. Maybe Google needs to buy The Lab. I've suggested it before.

Grid Yuck & Insurance

Today's prolonged Grid Yuck (of which I fortunately missed the bulk of the "fun" as indicated in my previous post) generated quite a few blog posts (like from Snickers Snook and Glorf Bulmer) and a discussion in the Second Life Bloggers group, including a mention by me of my occasional campaign to have property insurance for when the Grid's problems cause an Inventory loss. I've written a couple times about this idea (see here) and it's time I make the call again ...

Nocciola the dragon, resting on my shoulder at the Lydia Rose Memorial Park (SLurl). I haven't replaced all the dragons I lost to Grid Yuck years ago, but I do have a few and I still think they are some of SL greatest pets.

The Lab should make available property insurance, perhaps as a Premium account benefit. Read anyone's Terms of Service and you'll see that no provider — be it a cloud storage company, a game publisher, or whatever — can guarantee 100% safety for a user's data (and our Inventories are just that: data). But if I'm willing to pay more than a base user pays, why shouldn't better data integrity be a benefit? Regular backups on Linden Servers could even be a revenue stream.

"It's good to be the King"

Well, I'm not a king and I'm not Mel Brooks from "History of the World, Part I" but I am a premium account member with Second Life. That doesn't get me anywhere with Live Chat or the JIRA or any issues that I have with Our World, but I can get a really nice Linden Home to go with my L$cash stipend and now I have access to Premium Sandboxes and Premium Gifts! Since I logged in my alt first today after getting the email about the new goodies I can't visit the places one would go to see them, but I'll get  around to it, I'm sure.

All G-Rated sandboxes, some with amenities for vehicle testing.

Turns out it is just 8 locations with the same gift (lots of stuff for your living room) at each. In a move of questionable economic feasibility,  several of the locations use an entire region for just the gift giver.

Forty-Seven Prims of goodness (not all shown here) for what is labeled "Exclusive Premium Content, September 2011" so I'm guessing there will be something new every month. The couch seats two and has several poses. I checked only a few pieces, but it looks like they are all from Colleen Desmoulins of The Loft. Cabin not included.

I left a comment on the Official Blog announcement of these bonuses.

About Alts

Just yesterday I was given a gadget that lets me detect the use of Redzone, a system that identifies a Resident's Internet Protocol (IP) address in an effort to determine if an avatar is an alt of a banned Resident. Someone is assuming that common IPs mean that the same human is behind the keyboard of each. That strikes me as a potentially false assumption. The IP for my computer is the same for my iPad, my AppleTV, my neighbors, and for the guy in the car parked across the street surfing on the neighborhood's unsecured networks. So if my neighbor logs into Second Life and visits a Redzone-provisioned place where I am banned, she or he is likely to be banned, too.

Silly, I know, and I made the same observation as part of a (poorly written) comment on Tateru Nino's blog post about the Quickware product (apparently it is like Redzone). I also noted that my alts are fairly public. For those of you not up to speed on who I am in various places at various times depending on my various moods, here is a recap and a small surprise.

Uccello Poultry, my first alt, if you think of all my accounts as alts. Not to be confused with Uccello (Resident), a recent account I made to "protect" the name when the new avatar naming scheme was implemented. Ms Poultry is a polymorph but is usually human-ish and sometimes goes by the Display Name of Caitlin Peale or Uccello Peale (sharing a last name with my wife, Angela Peale), though at the moment she is Caitin O'Mygosh for the coming holiday. She is my oldest account and was started the day I turned 18 and could flee the Teen Grid. That avie will remain anonymous if only to keep my reputation cleaner than the sullied state it is in now. My avatar looks very much like the Real Life me, though with my most recent skin purchase I've adjusted the face a bit to better fit the texture.

Uccello (Resident) looks nothing like me, seldom appears on the grid, and has but one "human" form. Nearly 100% of the time she is some form of bird ... "Uccello" is Italian for bird. Flying in Second Life is a great way to relax and that is what I use her for. Sure, I can fly in all my avies, but she needed some purpose.

Usra Ostrich, also known as Mousra in Display Name and in spirit. She is my twin. We have identical hair, skin, eyes, shape, clothes, though she is most often a Loco Pocos mouse. This account was started to help safely explore aspects of my personality with the help of a Real Life therapist. Actually, that is why I started in Second Life, but there's a long story and not that important right now. What you should know about Mousra is ... well, nothing. She's me. Just a mini version. She has morphed in purpose over time and is more or less just for fun now (and not "fun" like most SLers mean it).

Zyx Flux, the first of my pixy alts. As noted elsewhere on this blog, this account was created to help win prizes from Lucky Chairs, but has since taken on a life of her own. She's child-sized and child-like, but is adult verified. I think of her as my landscaper as I'm focusing her inventory on items used to create garden environments. This is helping my main inventory stay in check. But I also love to explore the world with her. Others seem to delight in her presence and are more receptive to chatting. I guess her smaller size and unique appearance make her "less threatening" in some respects. She's not the sexpot that Uccello Poultry often appears to be so folks seem to relax more.

Zyx (Resident), the bigger, more adult version of the previous avie, was born to preserve the name, much like Uccello (Resident) was created. But unlike the bird avie, she's become a complete entity unto herself. In Real Life, I am a rather butch, mousy, plain, quiet lesbian that practices not-standing-out in a crowd. In Second Life, Zyx (Resident) is my fashion model ... the sophisticated, confident me, that exudes a calm womanliness without pretention. But she's still a pixy and plays the role to the hilt. Magic is at her soul. Here is her debut on this blog.

Torii Heron, my very first alt after coming to the main grid. Notice her name is a form of Bird Bird like Uccello Poultry? Yes, I was on a streak. For a long time Torii was an asian woman then she became a fish, but lately she's a bird, like Uccello Resident, befitting her name. Originally she was created as per The Lab's suggestion in the first book on our world (don't buy it, it is dross, but you can see it at Amazon) to make an alt to store excess inventory or to back it up. This was going well until The Lab's servers decided to ruin my life one day by trashing the inventories in all my accounts, including Torii's. I've not really had the heart to cancel her account, though, partly because her name is so cool. No picture of her here but if you really want to see what she looks like, peek out your window. See those winged things flapping about?

Delicate Quandry, one of two alts I share with my Real Life brother (CC Columbo in Second Life), is the surprise I mentioned ... this is her first public outing. Several people know that she is me (or my brother) and henceforth so as to make it clear who is "behind the wheel" I'll make arrangements. She came about partly because the opportunity for a cool name came up, but my brother needed a female alt for modeling and I wasn't giving him my password so we decided to share. Likewise, he has a male alt that we share for the times I need one and to keep me out of his account.

Mystery Woman (not her real name) is another surprise. Not sure what to do with her yet. One person other than my brother knows her, but for their privacy I won't reveal Mystery Woman's name. She is sort of a "get away" alt, like many folks have ... an avie you use to be anonymous. I keep her solitary with no one but "family" on her Friend list and she doesn't socialize, that includes cybering. She could be the reason that systems like Redzone exist as I've used her to "spy" on griefers that have bothered the Isle of Lesbos and for similar activities.

So, those are the names. Ban away. Second Life is a big, big place, and I'm sure I'll find some place other than yours to visit and spend my money. But do me the courtesy and tell me I'm banned, please. It could all be a misunderstanding.

Click Here for more of Tateru's posts on the topic of Alt Detection.

PS: There is one more alt ... but I don't have permission to mention her as even a post-script ... ooops.

Premium Account Suspended?

Recently I convinced Second Life^® entrepreneur Peter Stindberg (Web) to convert his free resident account to a premium account with the argument that such a move would provide more paths for recourse if the account was suspended by the Governance Team (AKA GTeam; Web). So I was rather surprised to see Luc Aubret, Creative Director aubreTEC Labs (SLurl), Tweet that his account was suspended without any contact from the Lab for allegedly impersonating a Linden. "I was never contacted in any way and asked about the infraction," he blogged (Web), and added that "If you’re going to issue a warning, fine, but suspension or banning without so much as providing the accused with an opportunity to speak in their defense."

Luc is listed as the owner of the group that has the deed to his land in Everlite and his profile shows Payment Information on File, so I imagine he has a Premium account. That leaves the question as to why he was not contacted but I believe it shows that his status as a Premium member prevented may have protected him from an outright cancellation. I'm not sure if that would have been the punishment for his alleged crime so I could be wrong about the protection.

But back to the question and adding to it ... Luc is a prominent member of the business community, well-known by those in the virtual armaments and gadgets trade, so wouldn't a courtesy be a consideration in this instance? Or added detailed notes on his account so the Help Team could actually help when he contacted them? The lack of contact leads me to assume that either the GTeam rushed this one or they have the ability to check any and all chat/IM records grid-wide to investigate issues. If the former assumption is true, then shame on the process and the infrastructure behind it. Such a thing should not happen. Conversely, if we the latter assumption is correct then contact should have been made or records should be available to the Help Team. I have seen or used several different customer account management products and such ability to manage accounts is available.

As Linden Labs^® becomes more old-school business and less cutting edge upstart perhaps it needs to learn some lessons about customer service. Or better yet, blaze a trail to improve on customer service. My dealings with the Lab have always been quick, efficient, and have left me with a good feeling, contrary to the frequent reports I hear of residents in Luc's situation. Let's hope this is really just an aberration.