Emergency Discussion About Land Setting Changes to Prevent Griefing
The first item on the agenda at today’s Town Hall Meeting was the urgent need for private landowners to change their land settings to prevent griefing. When the majority of land was owned by the group, we set most parcels to allow public building – but this was only feasible because we had dedicated members who patrolled the parcels daily or every few days to ensure no litter or griefer objects were left behind. Since we changed to a largely private landowner model this summer, we’ve had several griefer attacks and plenty of litter left behind that hasn’t been cleaned up by new private landowners. This has caused a number of disturbances and problems for the community as a whole, and these items can no longer be cleaned up by community members since the land is privately owned.
If you are a landowner in Chilbo, you are responsible for maintaining and keeping your parcels clear of litter and griefer objects. We understand that not everyone can log in every single day, but if you can’t log in on a daily basis, you must make sure your land settings are properly configured to mitigate griefing activities so the entire community isn’t disrupted during your absence.
Based on our discussions today, we have a number of recommendations for private landowners in the Chilbo Community:
- Unless you log on daily, or nearly every day, you should NOT leave public build turned on.
- To turn off public build, go to the About Land > Options tab > uncheck Build – Everyone, and uncheck Object Entry – Everyone.
- Everyone should restrict sounds to their parcels, even if you log in every day. To do this, go into the About Land > Sound tab and make sure “Restrict gesture and object sounds to this parcel” is checked.
- Consider deeding your land to a group you control, and invite trusted members of the community as officers of the group so you have a backup in the event of disaster. Suggested members to invite to your group include: Fleep Tuque, Rachel Corleone, Kristine Kristan, and Corcosman Voom.
- If you are very comfortable with land and object permissions, and are 100% certain you understand how they work, you may want to consider setting all of the objects on your land to a group and then turning on prim auto-return in the About Land > Objects tab. NOTE: If you do not understand object and land permissions 100%, this is NOT recommended if you have legacy builds or builds created by people who are no longer in the community. It is possible to accidentally return items you don’t intend to return if you don’t fully understand how auto-return works, and for some of our older builds, this could mean permanent loss of historical items.
If you have questions about these suggestions, or would like someone to help guide you through the process of setting your land parcel settings properly, feel free to ask for assistance on the Chilbo chat channel, or contact an officer or administrator to set up a time to meet with you. We can’t emphasize enough how important this is for the health and enjoyment of the community – please check your settings today!
Returning to Scheduled Monthly Town Hall Meetings
The next item on the agenda was returning to scheduled monthly Town Hall meetings on the second Saturday of the month at 11AM SLT. Switching to a private landowner model actually requires more effort and more communication for the community to function well than under the old group model, because as we’ve discovered, each landowner must individually manage their own land and coordinate with others to keep the community spirit going. Community members should make every effort to attend when possible, and to contribute agenda items and discussion points to help keep the community informed of activities, events, and issues that need to be addressed. The next Town Hall meeting is scheduled for Saturday, November 10th, at 11AM SLT.
Increasing Communication Through Group Notices and the Chilbo Wiki
Since we want to encourage increased communication among the group, we’ve opened up access to allow more members to post group notices and edit the Chilbo wiki. If you don’t have access to send notices or edit the wiki and would like to, please email fleep.tuque@gmail.com and she will set you up to do so, with the caveat that everyone should please be mindful not to be too spammy about event notices and the like. Generally an announcement about an upcoming event and a reminder closer to the date is usually sufficient. We expect that most people will use the notice function wisely, and hope more folks will send notices and updates to the group. We would also especially encourage you to send notices if you notice a griefing attack or other widespread problem in the sim so landowners can be alerted even if they are offline.
Revitalizing & Redesigning the Chilbo Road Press
In keeping with the spirit of increased communication, several members have volunteered to help revitalize the Chilbo Road Press with new articles, features, event listings, and more. In addition, Fleep has updated the site with a modern “newspaper” theme that works well with tablet and mobile devices, and you can also subscribe to the site via RSS or email – so be sure to check it out! And, as with the notices and wikis, if you would like to contribute to the website and don’t have an account, send an email to fleep.tuque@gmail.com and she’ll help you get set up.
Announcements & Other
We welcome Ellie Brewster and the Minerva Cafe to the Chilbo Community! Ellie teaches Women’s Studies at Ohio State University and she’s using the Minerva Cafe both as a teaching space, and as a “between-worlds” collaboration space for Opensim and Cloud Party users. Please be sure to send Ellie a friend request and visit the Minerva Cafe in Chilbo at: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Chilbo/238/42/94.
Kristine Kristan updated the Chilbo Welcome Kit and Chilbo Architectural items in the Town Hall with the latest versions of the Chilbo banners, sidewalks, lamp post banners, and more. If you haven’t picked a kit up lately, make sure to stop by the Town Hall to get the latest and greatest versions of the things that help tie our community together visually. These kits can be especially handy for our new landowners! Visit the Town Hall at: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Chilbo/108/230/121
Fleep Tuque mentioned that there are discussions of an in-world Opensim Users Conference that will likely take place next year. If anyone might be interested in helping organize the conference, please let Fleep know and she’ll make sure you’re included in the early planning. More to come as the discussions progress, so keep in mind any great ideas for presentations or proposals.
Wayne Alsop has added street signs around the sim to better identify Chilbo Community streets to match what is labeled on our sim maps. Thanks Wayne and be sure to look for the new signs when you’re out and about!
A reminder to our European members that the real world Meta Meets conference will be coming up soon on November 30 – December 11, 2012 in The Netherlands. Meta Meets covers virtual worlds like Second Life and Opensim, as well as augmented reality and the metaverse and “3D internet” more generally. If you plan to attend, we hope you’ll represent Chilbo and take plenty of pictures!
Fleep Tuque also relayed the sad news that DJ Earnshaw (Professor Viper), a Second Life member who was active in both the educational and building communities, passed away on October 6, 2012. A memorial service was held for DJ today at EduCommons Alpha (89,221,28).
In Attendance: Fleep Tuque, Kristine Kristan, Maddog Easterling, Rachel Corleone, Corcosman Voom, Malburns Writer, Tara Yeats, Ellie Brewster, Praxislady Witt, Wayne Alsop, Cecilia Delacroix
The meeting was adjourned at 11:58 AM SLT. The next Town Hall is scheduled for Saturday, November 10th, at 11AM SLT. As always, the complete transcript is available in the Chilbo Town Hall, http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Chilbo/108/230/121.
