Saturday, April 21, 2007

Peronaut: new mainland rental sim



Peronaut, a mixed residential / commercial mainland rental sim without casinos, clubs, camping, or eyesores. Beautiful park, nice walking paths, and ocean views.
17 parcels claimed
0 parcels reserved
6 parcels remaining





Parcels in Peronaut Sim AVAILABLE

After my very positive experiences with the Linji Haven mainland rental sim, I've decided to try another mainland rental sim -- the Peronaut Sim, with improvements (I think) from lessons learned.

Again, it's an unthemed sim, with a generally sensible covenant that tries to keep it as pleasant as possible. The sim itself is beautiful, with both nice flat areas and rolling hills, as well as access to water.

Parcels are now available for rent. The Peronaut Covenant is very similar to that of Linji Sim. Some differences include:
  • setting aside dedicated land for roads and paths, as well as a single large central park, rather than small protected parcels
    • this park is shaping up REALLY nicely, with a pond at top, waterfall segments, and a wandering stream to the ocean
  • pre-defined sizes and shapes of the available parcels, which are now all either 2,048 or 3,072 sq m
  • "squaring off" the parcels, so that they are more usable, than the 32 x 64 m (2,048 sq m) parcels frequently found in Linji
  • the covenant is changed to be a bit stricter about build heights, because that was occasionally an issue in Linji
Rental parcels are again going to be made available in a first-come, first-served basis. Like before, if you are interested, contact Sierra Mills (or Ged Larsen), or post a comment here, with your SL name and which parcel you are interested in. We can "reserve" the parcel for you for 3 days or so, after which we'll again make it available to other people.


Peronaut Public Park:

Parcels claimed:

  • E1 / B2: Ged Larsen
  • D3: Johanna Hyacinth
  • D1: Lizbeth Saenz and Adriana Gustafson
  • C3: Nefertiti Nefarious
  • A4: Stuart Simonds
  • B3: Gabriel Watanabe
  • E2: Bodhisatva Paperclip
  • E4: Cameron Yip
  • C1: Kitten Sautereau
  • B1: Sierra Mills
  • E3: Axienne DeVaux
  • C4: Lucien Franciosa / Caliae Jewell
  • E5: Shizuka Hayashida
  • A2: Mic Mills
  • E1b: Tigress Jewell
  • A1: Beauty Rosca

Parcels reserved (held for 3 days):

  • (no current reservations)

Peronaut Sim


The below information is being kept for archival purposes only.



--== Peronaut ==--

This is the
charter of the Peronaut Sim (last updated 2007-April-21). Whether you are interested in joining this community or not, questions, comments, and suggestions are very welcome.

The goal of the Peronaut Sim is to provide:
  • an unthemed mixed-residential and low-impact commercial oasis on the Mainland
  • a community of like-minded individuals who believe that the Mainland can still be a beautiful, wonderful, minimal lag place to enjoy Second Life
  • the lowest price possible
To insure that the Sim can maintain it's zoning guidelines, it is a rental only community. Estate Managers to contact for more information or problems: Ged Larsen and Sierra Mills


ZONING GUIDELINES


Residential and low-impact commericial

Guidelines:
  • be considerate
  • low-impact commercial welcomed
  • small events encouraged
  • no Casinos, no Clubs, no Camping, and no Crap (ad farms, lag hogs, incredibly ugly builds)
Lag control
  • try to use efficiently-written scripts, without loads of listeners and scans
  • try to use the minimum-sized texture that gives you good results
Spelling it all out

Really, if you're just being considerate of others, you don't need to read these details. If you are trying to use this list to find loopholes of what you can get away with, this community is probably not for you.

And,
if you and ALL your neighbors are OK with it, bending the guidelines is fine too. Just see "Conflict Resolution".
  • restrict build heights to twice the distance from the nearest neighbor's parcel boundary
    • a 2:1 build height tool will be provided to you to help you determine whether you are within bounds
    • IF you and your neighbor agree, you are free to violate this rule
    • however, agreement should be obtained BEFORE building higher / closer than allowed

  • try not to obstruct your neighbor's views
  • no major eyesores
  • no excessive particle effects
  • no flashing / rotating / neon signs
  • no banlines (banning specific avatars is fine)
  • no walls or fences that completely close off your land
  • skyboxes shouldn't be visible from ground level builds
  • no non-consensual combat
  • events should not be so large and frequent as to cause problems for other residents


COMMUNITY

Goal: it would be wonderful if instead of a bunch of separate carved out parcels, we had a community. Of course, this can never be something dictated, but I'd welcome ideas to help promote this.

To promote this:
  • a central 4,928 sq m public park to provide a focus and meeting place for the community
  • footpaths, small roads, and stopping areas (5,504 sq m) set aside, to encourage foot-exploration of the sim
  • shared resources (e.g., pre-fab buildings, landscaping objects, resident creations, etc.)
    • Barnesworth Anubis pre-fab buildings and landscaping
    • "Living Creek" streams and waterfalls landscaping
    • suggestions welcome for additional community purchases (copyable items)


CONFLICT RESOLUTION
  • I want to remain as absolutely hands-off as possible, hoping that the simple rule of being considerate towards others will minimize conflict. And, I hope that people will be as open-minded and accepting as possible of other people's tastes. But, conflicts happen.
  • if 3 members of the community have a grievance against another member, and a Peronaut Estate Manager agrees, then the grievance must be addressed.


RENTING

In addition to weekly rent, there may be an
initial L$1 per sq m non-refundable joining fee, which will be used for community purchases and other expenses. This fee is waived for the founding members of the Sim.

Weekly rent will be closely tied to the Linden Lab Mainland Tier Schedule, recalculated in L$ per week at the current L$ sell exchange rate, correcting for the 3.5% LL exchange fee.

If the current L$ sell rate is L$267 per US$1 + 3.5% LL exchange fee:
  • 2,048 sq m: US$15/month =~ L$4,145/month =~ L$951/week
  • 3,072 sq m: US$20/month =~ L$5,527/month =~ L$1,268/week
  • 4,096 sq m: US$25/month =~ L$6,908/month =~ L$1,586/week
  • prim allotment: 234 prims per 1,024 sq m
    • extra prim allotment may be rentable, based on availability. The rate will be based on the 4,096 sq m parcel rental rate; i.e., US$3.125/month for an extra 117 prims

  • rent to be paid weekly, in advance
    • there will be no grace period for late rent
    • if there are people on the waitlist when the rent expires, it is possible that the parcel will be re-assigned to a new tenant

  • full refunds of remaining rent, with no penalty, if one week advance notice is given
    • otherwise, a maximum penalty of 1 week's rent will be assessed, and the remainder refunded

  • no plans to increase rent
    • the only reason I will raise rent would be if LL's mainland tier prices increase. If this were to happen, I would increase rental rates proportionally, and offer current tenants the option to cancel their leases with full refunds without penalty

  • no support for sub-leasing
    • you will be able to add others to the Peronaut Group, but they will be regular group "Members" without the "Resident" abilities that tenants will have (see below)
    • however, on a case-by-case basis, estate managers can grant "Resident" abilities to multiple people who are sharing a parcel

GROUP ROLE ABILITIES FOR RESIDENTS

The group role abilities listed below are my attempt to give maximal flexibility to Peronaut Sim residents, while trying to keep inadvertent disasters to a minimum. They may be adjusted, as necessary.

Group Roles
  • Owner (Ged Larsen) / Estate Manager
    • Estate manager has all abilities EXCEPT:
      - assign members to any roll
      - assign and remove abilities in roles
      - deed land and buy land for group (?)
      - abandon land to governor lindon
      - set land for sale info
      - pay group liabilities and receive group dividends
  • Resident
    • this is the baseline role that ALL renters will get
  • Regular Member
    • residents can invite people to join the group, who can then set objects to the Peronaut group, avoiding auto-return
    • they will NOT, however, have access to most other Resident abilities
Group abilities, complete list

Membership
  • Invite People to this Group (ALL)
    • non-owners can only invite people to the plain "member" status
  • Eject Members from this Group (ALL)
    • non-owners can only eject people who have plain "member" status
  • Toggle 'Open Enrollment' and change 'Signup Fee' (OWNER)
Roles
  • Create New Roles (OWNER)
  • Delete Roles (OWNER)
  • Change Role names, titles, and descriptions (OWNER)
  • Assign Members to Assigner's Roles (OWNER)
  • Assign Members to Any Role (OWNER)
  • Remove Members from Roles (OWNER)
  • Assign and Remove Abilities in Roles (OWNER)
Group Identity
  • Change Charter, Insignia, 'Publish on the Web', and which members are publicly visible in Group Information (OWNER)
Parcel Management
  • Deed land and buy land for group (OWNER)
  • Abandon land to Governor Linden (OWNER)
  • Set land for sale info (OWNER)
  • Subdivide and join parcels (OWNER)
Parcel Identity
  • Toggle 'Show in Find Places' and set category (ALL)
  • Change parcel name, description, and 'Publish on the Web' settings (ALL)
  • Set landing point and set teleport routing (ALL)
Parcel Settings
  • Change music & media settings (ALL)
  • Toggle 'Edit Terrain' (OWNER)
  • Toggle various About Land > Options settings (ALL? or ON REQUEST?)
Parcel Powers
  • Always allow 'Edit Terrain' (ALL? or ON REQUEST?)
  • Always allow 'Fly' (ALL)
  • Always allow 'Create Objects' (ALL)
  • Always allow 'Create Landmark' (ALL)
  • Allow 'Set Home to Here' on group land (ALL, regular members)
Parcel Access
  • Manage parcel Access lists (OWNER; no general banlines allowed)
  • Manage parcel Ban lists (ALL)
  • Change parcel 'Sell passes...' settings (ALL)
  • Eject and freeze Residents on parcels (ALL)
Parcel Content
  • Return objects owned by group (OWNER)
  • Return objects set to group (OWNER)
  • Return non-group objects (ALL)
  • Landscaping using Linden plants (ALL)
Object Management
  • Deed objects to group (OWNER)
  • Manipulate (move, copy, modify) group-owned objects (OWNER)
  • Set group-owned objects for sale (OWNER)
Accounting
  • Pay group liabilities and receive group dividends (OWNER)
Notices
  • Send Notices (ALL)
  • Receive Notices and view past Notices (ALL, and regular members)
Proposals
  • Create Proposals (ALL)
  • Vote on Proposals (ALL, and regular members)

Thursday, April 5, 2007

Linji Haven has filled

Linji Haven has filled -- all parcels have now been claimed.

In the future, further announcements will be moved to Linji Haven's own blog page at http://www.linjihaven.com/, provided and administered, thanks to Gabriel Watanabe.

A public forum is also in the process of being set-up, administered by Gabriel Watanabe and Crispin Cleanslate -- http://www.linjihaven.com/forum/ -- and I would encourage residents to comment, discuss, request, and contribute anything and everything they would like.

I'd like to thank everybody for their support!


Founding Members of Linji Haven
  • Ged Larsen
  • Sierra Mills
  • Taffy Allandale
  • Gabriel Watanabe
  • Eleanora Newell
  • Stephen Bentham / Caliah Lyon
  • camilla Yosuke
  • Charron Marseille / Roslin Petion / Morgaine Maktoum
  • Euterpe Zagoskin
  • Shizuka Hayashida
  • Tigress Jewell
  • Crispin Cleanslate
  • Tiy Ferraris
  • Harriet Hallard
  • Tamala Tombola
  • JH + Jessie Gervasi
  • Patric Rotunno + Theodote Carthage
It's silly, but I think I'm going to ask that somebody create a little chunk of prim rock, with our names "engraved" in it, to place in our central public park. Nothing Starax-like, but I think it'd be nice to commemorate our achievement. Any volunteers?

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

LoopRez texture problems? Need comments!

Recently, LoopRez users have described a really mysterious sounding bug (or BUGS), with textures reverting to previous ones, textures changes after linking (although I'm not clear why a user would be re-linking a skirt, after starting to work on it), etc.

Because several people have mentioned these problems, and yet I can't reproduce the problem on my own, I'd love it if people could post comments to this blog entry, describing in step-by-step detail what they did, and what happened. That way, I'm much more likely to be able to figure out what happened, and try to fix it.

Please post! And if you have the ability to host pictures, and think pictures would make it more clear, please do that too!

I hope, once I have more of a clue, to be able to get together with LoopRez users in-world, in-person, to come to a solution, too.

Thanks!

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Linji Haven, almost completely filled

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. :)

Monday, April 2, 2007

Linji, idea for shared prefabs



Caliah Lyon (who has excellent taste) suggested that I check out prefab builds by Barnesworth Anubis. And they ARE really really nice builds, for the residential as well as commercial work. Someday, I'd like to have a script thingie store, and one of these might work nicely.

But the above advertisement got me thinking -- if there was interest, I'd be willing to purchase the 11-store pack, and share them out on Linji Group-deeded land. They are "COPY/MOD" and I think it would be fair use, so long as they weren't "over-used".

I'd like to place that nice park bench, maybe a pair or two in each Linji Haven Protected Land area (even though I know they'll be a bit prim-expensive, they just look nice!). The table / umbrella / chairs might also be nice, if anyone felt inclined to build a cafe.

I'm more likely to go ahead with this if anybody else will get use out of a pre-fab store front, too. If it's just me, then I might as well just get things separately.

Any interest?

Edited to add: this collection has been purchased. All components are now available to any Linji Haven residents upon request.

Sunday, April 1, 2007

Linji Haven, proposal for more green space

I am proposing to set aside a few 1,024 sq m parcels as "Linji Haven Protected Land", along a border of the sim. If this seems like it'd be a popular idea, I would place in the covenant the promise that these areas would remain protected and unrented.

These plots would NOT be accessible for public projects, but would instead remain green spaces, with a few trees, bushes, maybe paths and a park bench or two. In fact, I think I'd like to contact the SL Arbor Project folks for suggestions.

The purpose of these parcels would be to help provide more open green space. A side-benefit would be that they could be used to provide Residents with a potential source of extra prims, which could be made available for rental -- rates to be determined, but hopefully none of you have run out yet ;)

Comments or suggestions?