Heralds' Estate

Land and Estate owners in Second Life have an unusual set of freedoms that most Residents in Second Life do not. Primary among them is the ability to manage the estate to allow or disallow a slew of abilities selectively and at will to everyone, to groups, or to individuals:

• Access: being on the plot at all, teleporting to or within, or establishing landmarks
• Content: building, scripting, returns, landscaping, music, voice, rating.
• Residence: Rentals, sub-purchases, plot size & locations, prim allowances
• Combat: Push, physical objects, weaponry, scripts, effects.

These freedoms of choice are not absolute, but using enough money, any Resident can have just about anything they choose in Second Life. This is perfectly sensible - tier is NOT cheap, so special rights should go with it. Taken to a logical extreme, any element of Second Life's Community Standards becomes malleable for an estate owner. It's not hard to find examples:

• Intolerance: "We don't allow SL Mentor Tags here."
• Harassment: "Try a Sex-Gen Bed here!"
• Assault: "I'm enabling push now, so watch out."
• Disclosure: "Being here means you agree to a gay sex slavery lifestyle."
• Indecency: "Yes, we were PG. Now we are Mature."
• Disturbing the Peace: "FOR SALE! FOR SALE! FOR SALE! FOR SALE!"

One could file an Abuse Report on any of these, but it is not generally done. Understandably, the Lindens wrote allowances for owners preferences into the Community Standards. What might be abuse for me is not necessarily abuse when done by the estate owner, since the owner sets the standards in his estate.

In my experience, owners rarely enter this area - they simply set their rules and play by them themselves from simple decency. Financial pressure plays a part, too. Most owners are trying to cover some or all of their expenses by renting space. This puts some consumer pressure on the owner to be consistent and predictable.

Still, estate owners have the right to exclude anyone form any part of their holdings, for any reason or no reason at all. Since just about every bit or Second Life is owned by someone, for the likes of me, it comes down to a few choices:

1. Play on your own estate, but you pay up.
2. Play on others' estates, but you play by their rules.
3. Play not at all, but that's no fun.

I'll take number 2. Best if I can find estates whose rules I like.

Love Arth -

I enjoy the Linden owned Help Islands and Orientation Islands best: great design, excellent builds, liberal permissions, low lag, interesting people, little grief and absolute predictability. It's not ideal, though: They only allow new accounts and SL Mentors there, so many friends of mine cannot go there. I encourage them become a Mentor!

O {:-{D}