CDS Covenant - DRAFT 2011-04-24

[FernLeissa]

During yesterday's RA discussion about the Covenant re-write, I realized that I had not solved the problem of Group land ownership, identified during the covenant meetings.

So I have re-edited that section as follows (and updated the draft of the Covenants posted a little earlier in this thread):

USE

1. An individual can own a maximum of 8 C.D.S land parcels and cannot own more than 8192 m2. Additionally, some zones within individual CDS sims have specific parcel ownership restrictions. For purposes of this covenant the amount of land owned is calculated based on the name of the owner, as listed on the General About Land tab. A Group owner is treated as a single individual owner and is subject to the same maximums.

This will not solve the problem of someone reaching their maximum of 8192 m2 and then forming a Group and acquiring an additional "8192 m2. But the covenants need to be enforced and unfortunately it is not possible to determine what percentage of group land any one individual owns.

Fern

[Beathan]

Why not take a page from LL's book and allow citizens to donate some of their land quota to a Group they are a member of at a rate of, say, 1.5 meters per meter. Then require that every group have at least one citizen member and have a right to own land only through the donation process.

[Sudane Erato]

This will not solve the problem of someone reaching their maximum of 8192 m2 and then forming a Group and acquiring an additional "8192 m2. But the covenants need to be enforced and unfortunately it is not possible to determine what percentage of group land any one individual owns.

We've been plagued by this problem since it was decided that people can be citizens by being members of a group that owns land. Please remember that even though legally it might be a group that owns the land, it is an individual that pays for it. I have only been able to sort out the administration of this policy by asking the group to designate one "payer", who pays the entire amount, and then assigning the additional citizen members the minimum fee of L$100/month. But that "payer" may or may not be the actual source of the money... we have no idea. The bottom line is that so long as we keep the group membership provisions in our citizenship rules we will have no idea how much a given citizen owns.

Sudane.........................

[FernLeissa]

Hi Beathan and Sudane,

First off, I agree that there is a problem with the Group citizenship model. As Sudane points out, we really have no way of verifying that each of the “citizens by group” is paying the minimum monthly fee nor of knowing whether or not the citizen members of the group are one-to-one, people-linked avatars and not alts.

But even if we repealed the Group Citizenship option, we would still have a problem enforcing Covenant land holding restrictions on individuals, if some of their holdings (or all) were part of a group’s holdings. Unlike LL, we have no way of knowing how much land each individual contributes to a group.

Let’s say, Beathan purchases 7000 m2 of land in CDS. But Beathan also has his old fox lawyer (who has no interest in the CDS community) form a group called Foxy Lawyers . Foxy Lawyers, which appears to be composed of only Old Fox and Beathan, purchases an additional 8192 m2 of land. Beathan tells us that he only contributed 512 m2 to the Foxy Lawyers group and therefore is under his individual maximum rlandholding limits. But what if, in fact, Beathan is the real payer/owner of Foxy Lawyers and has used this ruse simply to increase his landholdings over the prescribed limit?

The Executive Branch, which is charged with enforcing our covenant, has no way of knowing or discovering how much group land is owned by Beathan.

Setting land holding limits for groups doesn’t really solve the problem of individuals forming groups for the sole purpose of circumventing their individual landholding restrictions. All that setting landholding limits for groups really does is give the Chancellor the ability to say, “sorry Foxy Lawyers, you’ve reached you max in landholdings.” And then Beathan has to shell out another L$100 to LL (plus lawyer fees) to set up a new group called, OutFoxed Again.

As I said, I really don’t have much of a solution to the problem behind restricting and enforcing landholding limits. The reason we have not tossed off all restrictions (especially with our high number of vacancies) is a feeling among a number of our citizens that we do not want to become a community dominated by a few landowners. So we are looking for ways to establish limits that can be enforced, at least to some degree.

Fern

[Sudane Erato]

LOL Fern

Exactly!

[Beathan]

On my model, the group would be able to own land only based on the amount of the donation -- 512 meters or, if a multiplier is used, 766 meters. Groups would have no independent right to own land except that derived from donations from citizen landowners. I think I forgot to note that I meant that a citizen who is a citizen only through group membership should not have a land allotment to donate to the group. This last provision solves the problem, I think, while still allowing group-minded folks to have groups and to bring landless friends into our community through those groups.

[FernLeissa]

Hi Beathan,

I took a look again at your earlier thread comment about citizens’ donation to a Group as well as this post. I realize I’m very focused on enforceability, which may not be the same spot you are talking from.

Ok, so.... under your model, Groups have no independent landowning rights and therefore there is no need for group land ownership limits. Right? We would have only individual land ownership restrictions under your model.

Then... at least one of the group members is a CDS citizen and that citizen donates some of his/her land quota to the Group. His/her donated amount would be subtracted from the 8192 m2 limit he/she has as an individual.

Let’ say I am a citizen, I am a member of a group and I claim I have donated 4000 m2 to this group. I then purchase an additional 4192 m2 as an individual; land I do no donate to the group. Now I have reached my maximum landholdings allowed to me. But let’s then say that, really, what I’ve done (as opposed to claimed) is I donated 6000 m2 to the group, making my real total land ownership 10192 m2 or 2000 m2 over my covenant limit for individual landholdings.

If you’re the Chancellor, trying to enforce individual land ownership restrictions, you have no way of knowing that I have exceeded my limits. LL knows how much land I donated to the group, but the CDS government doesn’t.

Ability to enforce the covenant restrictions was one of the things we were after with this re-write. Some think that covenant restrictions that are impossible to enforce are better not included at all.

So... Is enforceability not that much of an issue for you or do you see a way to track the amount of land donated to a group by an individual that I do not?

Also, I’m not sure what you mean when you say, “a citizen who is a citizen only through group membership should not have a land allotment to donate to the group.”

Fern

[Beathan]

Fern --

I don't see the problem here. If a group has one landowning citizen member, and the group and citizen, between them, own too much land, there is a violation. If not, there is no violation.

We can do this in two ways. First, we can have citizens declare donations and directly limit group land to declared donations. Second, we can total the residual land owning rights of group members and assume that all unused land is donated (requiring recalculation if and when a citizen buys more land personally). In either case, the amount of land that can be lawfully owned is calculable from known facts and therefore enforceable.

I don't see the problem.

Beathan

[Sudane Erato]

I don't see the problem here. If a group has one landowning citizen member, and the group and citizen, between them, own too much land, there is a violation. If not, there is no violation.

We can do this in two ways. First, we can have citizens declare donations and directly limit group land to declared donations. Second, we can total the residual land owning rights of group members and assume that all unused land is donated (requiring recalculation if and when a citizen buys more land personally). In either case, the amount of land that can be lawfully owned is calculable from known facts and therefore enforceable.

I am utterly mystified about what you are proposing. What are the "residual land owning rights of group members"?

If you are referring in some way to the Second Life system in which group members, contributing their monthly tier to group owned land, receive more land than they would if they owned that land outright as individuals... in some way calling this "land owning rights"... please understand clearly that these rules apply to land tier paid on the mainland to Governor Linden. They have nothing whatsoever to do with owning land on a private sim such as ours. On the mainland, individuals pay "tier" (this is where the word "tier" came from) to LL. For their various "tiers" of payments, they can own the amount of land associated with that "tier". If they are a member of a group and that group owns land, LL grants them ownership of a bit more land than if they owned the same land by themselves (for some reason known only to LL).

But these considerations apply ONLY to the mainland and are utterly irrelevant to private sims.

But maybe I too am misunderstanding. Please explain this with examples. The solution is of course the community's to make, but until you manage to find others willing to administer the land policies of the CDS, I and the other members of the executive staff will at least have to understand the policy and provide means... or explain why means cannot be provided... to administer it.

Sudane.............................

[Beathan]

I am mystified by the confusion.

This is what I mean.

Each landowning citizen can own 8096. If that person owns 4000 meters, then there is a residual right to own an additional 4096 meters. This land can be allocated to a group -- either impliedly or explicitly.

As long as we know who (or what) owns what land, we can simply add up the total meters owned. As long as we know who the members of a group are, and how much land they own otherwise, we can determine how much land the group can own.

For instance -- a group has three members -- one owns 4000 meters; another 2000 meters; another 6000 meters. That would leave total of 12288 for the group. Then, if one of the members buys another 1000, then the group's right to own land would be reduced by that 1000 -- to 11288.

Alternatively, the members could expressly allocated some land to the group and inform Sudane of the donation. This might work better in case a single citizen is a member of more than one group. However, otherwise, as long as we know who or what own what land, we should be able to calculate these amounts without any problem.

Rents would then be paid in the usual way -- by the owner associated with the land, with the possible option of allowing the individual who "donated" some of their land ownership right to a group to pay for the land the group owns under than donation.

This is completely different from tier.

[FernLeissa]

Hi Beathan,

How about re-writing this section of the covenant as:

1.An individual can own a maximum of 8 C.D.S land parcels and cannot own more than 8192 m2. Additionally, some zones within individual CDS sims have specific parcel ownership restrictions. An individual may donate any or all land, up to the allowed maximum of 8 C.D.S. parcels or 8192 m2 to any Group of which he/she is a member.

Hopefully, this makes clear that the intent of the covenant is to restrict land ownership of each C.D.S. citizen to 8 parcels or 8192 m2 no matter how it is owned; as part of a group or individually. We will trust C.D.S. citizens to comply with the covenant, though we cannot verify compliance and therefore cannot, strictly speaking, enforce compliance. If, as a community, we come to suspect that an individual is using group land donations as a way to expand land holdings beyond the prescribed limit, than the Chancellor could “remind” that individual that we have a combined individual/group donation land ownership maximum.

Would this work for you?

Fern

[Beathan]

Fern,

Yes. There is no monitoring mechanism built in, but that should be fine. As long as we have a list of land associated with owner and a list of the members of landowning groups, we should be able to determine violations and the Chancellor can then act on them.

Beathan

[Sudane Erato]

I must note that we have had at least two citizens in our history recruit new citizens to their groups, purely for the purpose of enlarging their groups. Comments from several of those recruited indicate that they were told that the land they occupied was free of tier. These groups grew in both cases to a dozen or more people, and in other cases I can think of, smaller numbers of people. In all those cases, under the proposed rules, the organizer of one of those groups would have the right to own 8192 x the number of people in the group. According to other legislation, each of those members would need only to pay L$100/month in order to sustain this situation. Is that correct?

In addition, one of the advocated benefits of the newly testing Hippo system of tier collection would enable designated proxies to make a citizen's tier payments. If that system is adopted, in theory, those group members would need make no payments at all.

Sudane.................................................

[FernLeissa]

Hi Sudane,

Under the last re-write (above) of land ownership limits, the organizer of the group, as an individual, would only be allowed to own more than the max of 8192. Each of the people in the group could also own 8192 m2. Everybody could donate all their owned land to the group, which would mean the group as a whole would have a lot of land. Each individual owner, if they chose to acquire 8192 (even if they donated it to a group) would have to pay, individually (or if hippo w/ a proxy), each month's tier for the land.

I think you are thinking more of people packing Groups, where you can become a citizen by making a minimum land donation to a group. Someone could do that to increase the size of the group, and obviously the voting pool, at very little expense. That's an issue outside the covenant rewrite. From the covenant angle we're only trying to prevent one person from owning tons of land.

Fern

[Beathan]

As long as there are not land barons by alt or proxy and as long as the CDS generates revenue to function through collecting money from rents, there should not be a problem.

That said, I am concerned about the multiplier effect of group ownership. However, if we find this to be a problem, we can address it later by limiting the amount any group can own (while still requiring that groups only have a right to own any land based on donation of the potential ownership right).

That said, I would prefer to require that a citizen own some land before they have the right to donate potential ownership to a group.