Wow, the enthusiasm for this project, and the amount of diversity, creativity, and talent that have come to the Linji sim is really amazing. We have creators of clothing, jewelry, skin textures, buildings, landscaping; future museum curators; public space designers; and at least one scripter (who hasn't done squat for scripting lately, unfortunately).
Invitations to participate were taken starting March 27, and now, 7 days later, every parcel has been spoken for, and all but two parcels have residents who have completed the rental arrangements. (Two potential residents have requested a little extra time to decide, but I was too excited and impatient and wanted to post about our community's great start.)
So, what now? Obviously people are going to be busy building, creating the spaces that they envision. But beyond that, there are some chores, some projects, and some ideas I have:
- Sierra Mills, as well as Ged Larsen, can now be asked to handle Linji Haven estate management issues; we'll share in the management chores
- send requests to whichever of us is around, or by notecard to both (I'll probably set up a Drop A Notecard kiosk, that will get the requests to us)
- if she has any difficulties, while she's still in the training and trial by fire phase, she'll forward the requests to me :)
- this is being done so I don't burn out and go stark raving mad, which would probably be bad for the sim
- the covenant has to be finalized and agreed to by all residents; obviously, nothing construed as potentially "negative" will be added, but clarification and additions are necessary
- current build height rules are NOT tenable, and require clarification to prevent conflict and misunderstanding
- refund and late payment policies need to be described
- state that rent will never be increased, so long as mainland tier doesn't increase
- how to handle filling vacancies
- starting a L$1 or L$2 per sq m initial buy-in charge for future tenants, after the Sim fills, to be used for Sim-related improvements and support (some ideas below)
In case you're curious, at this point, with this kind of tenancy, the future of the Linji Haven community Sim is absolutely assured, from a financial standpoint -- it can continue indefinitely, so long as tenancy is this good, and mainland tier doesn't go up. If you're curious, I'd be willing to post the nitty gritty details of the financials -- I'm perfectly fine with an "open book accounting" policy.
I'll admit this though: the only major threat to the continued long-term existence of Linji Haven is if maintaining it becomes a terrible burden, chore, or hassle to me. I'm a reluctant organizer of this, and don't really want to be a "landlord" if it means conflict resolution, facing disputes and arguments, dealing with non-payment, etc. Luckily, from what I can see so far, we have a GREAT group of people, so I'm hoping this won't be an issue, and I can just step back from the organizing, and let you guys just create and have fun :)
OK, those were the chores, ranging from unpleasant, to merely boring. Now for the more fun stuff:
- http://linjihaven.com/
- we happen to have at least two professional web / IT professionals in our midst. Gabriel Watanabe has registered a domain name for us and set up a Wordpress blog, which may take over much of the role of this blog for Linji Haven-related business
- Crispin Cleanslate has also volunteered, if Gabriel is willing, to share responsibility for maintaining a phpbb forum
- for those who are familiar with Linden Lab's web services, this would be analogous to the official Linden Lab Second Life Blog and the official SL Forums; one might be best for announcements and official business and comments, and the other for community discussions and planning
- Community benefits. Why would we need a place to discuss anything? well, other than complaining about management, I'd like to solicit suggestions for perks and benefits to the community. Here are some ideas:
- community "wish list" for items to be purchases for communal use, for example the recently acquired Barnesworth Anubis "Larsen" pre-fab shops. Any item that might be useful to the community that is COPY / NO TRANSFER, I'd be wiling to consider purchasing and providing to Linji Haven, set to "Share with group"
- Radio Linji. If there were interest, I could lease a Shoutcast external server to distribute our own audio streams. Some uses might be to broadcast live performances (I have some friends in the classical music community; I'm sure some of you might have friends in more normal music), or else to simply share (inflict?) our own music streams as DJ's. (Will have to look into the limits of "fair use", though, of audio streams.)
- Shared / discounted creations. Obviously, this is totally up to the content creators, but I personally would like to eventually offer up script gadgets and tools that might be of interest to others. Even collections of useful freebies that are used in the Sim (like, shared cobblestone path textures, lamp posts, and whatnot), could be housed in a communal location.
- any other suggestions?
I think we're off to a great start, far better than I ever hoped for! And somehow, I think the best is yet to come. :)
