This is the second bill proposed by the CDS/LV Groups Discussion Commission for approval by the RA. Again, I thank all participants and the reviewers of the final text for their participation and work!
The full text of this act, as well as some comments leading to it, can also be viewed at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZCE ... 9YEC4WrAQ/
Land Verwaltung Group Act
Preamble
Historically, the Land Verwaltung Group was created mostly to preserve the buildings and spaces which are common property of all citizens of the CDS, i.e., public land and public buildings. However, the CDS grew, and with time, this group was adapted to fit different purposes. Currently, it is felt that, since all citizens contribute towards public land, all should have equal and fair access to it, and not limit public land to a privilege enjoyed by a selected few. This is a change of purpose of this group, which introduces new possibilities but also requires some strict rules to prevent abuse.
Therefore, the Representative Assembly decrees:
Access to the Land Verwaltung (LV) Group shall be open to all citizens, who shall be placed in a role to allow rezzing of prims on public land.
A special commission shall be formed, mandated to identify ‘public rezzing areas’ where any citizen can temporarily rezz their objects, including, but not limited to, the streets, the river, the beach, some of the parks, and any similar places which are appropriate for public rezzing of objects.
Any citizen is allowed to rezz as much as they wish on public land, so long as they do not leave their objects unattended (and so long as those items have no griefing/abuse purpose), that is, the owner of those objects has to be in-world and in line of sight of their items.
Objects left unattended are to be returned by the Janitors, who are civil servants appointed by the Chancellor for this purpose.
All existing stray rezzed objects in public land, at the moment this bill is approved, shall be returned, and the Executive is encouraged to temporarily appoint more Janitors to the task.
All public buildings currently in the Land Verwaltung group shall always be copied to the content archivist (the ‘Archie’ avatar created for that purpose).
The Land Verwaltung group shall not need notices or public chat.
These are the roles that the current Land Verwaltung group shall have, as well as its powers and limitations:
'Citizen': allows them access to rezzing objects (but not returning other people's objects) in public land. They are invited to the group with this role by the Executive once they buy their first parcel in the CDS, and removed by the Executive when they sell their last parcel.
'Janitor': return objects on public land and eject griefers from public land. Their powers are revoked once the Executive term ends.
'Event Hoster': access to rezzing objects, setting stream music, inviting other members of the event hosting team with the same role, ejecting griefers from public land. This role is to be set by the Executive and reverted once the scheduled event finishes.
'Builder' (appointed by Chancellor): besides rezzing items, additional powers for terraforming and parcelling, to be temporarily set when building new regions or redeveloping existing regions, and to be reverted once the building is completed.
'Executive' (usually the Chancellor or any Executive member this power is delegated [for example, the PIO]): ability to add and remove citizens (inviting new citizens once they buy their first parcel in the CDS, and removing them once they sell their last parcel); ability to add and revoke the Janitor/Builder/Event Hoster roles; ability to confer this same role to any Executive staff member.
'SC' (to be delegated by the SC to one or more of its members): same roles as the Executive and used in extreme cases and/or emergencies in case the Executive neglects to revoke roles, or to empower a new Executive with their role and revoking the previous one (this role should be used instead of the 'Owner' role for all special maintenance).
'Owner': currently set to Rudeen (Estate Owner) only. All other existing 'owners', currently just Jamie Palisades, shall be encouraged to remove themselves from this role.
This role separation shall not constitute an attribution of executive powers to the Scientific Council (SC). Rather, the SC will only use their powers in the group in extreme cases, e.g. when a Chancellor refuses to relinquish its role or the roles of its staff once their term is finished, or as a result of a SC decision regarding an abuse report. It is meant as a 'last resort' role only.
Similarly, the 'Owner' (currently the Rudeen 'bot as Estate Owner) shall also not be asked to manage the LV group, except as a last resort (e.g. both the Executive and the SC being simultaneously not available to deal with a critical emergency or a role change that might be determined as a consequence of new legislation in the future).
Executive and Scientific Council shall be politically responsible for the exercise of their powers within the group.
The SC shall also provide judicial oversight of the exercise of group powers, acting only on eventual requests and appeals by the citizens.
Regarding the scope of abuse reports, these will be handled as follows:
Prims or objects left unattended shall be simply returned by the Janitors.
In case a citizen consistently leaves unattended prims around for three times, or actively uses prims to grief others, the Chancellor shall issue a warning to that citizen, by IM and notecard.
After a further incident, the Chancellor shall temporarily ban the citizen from their role in the Land Verwaltung group, notify them to that effect by IM and notecard, publish it on an official source, and notify the SC about the incident.
All decisions of the Executive regarding removal of prims or banning from the LV group can be appealed to the SC.
For a definition of griefing, see the Official Second Life Wiki as well as the Linden Lab Terms of Service and the Linden Lab Community Standards.
Recommendations
This commission questioned its mandate regarding the discussion about Estate Managers. It was decided that such a mandate was not clearly specified at the time the commission was formed, and the commission decided to ask the RA to form a new commission to specifically address pertinent issues regarding Estate Managers, by also noting that the restructuring of the LV group will go a long way to provide proper ongoing maintenance and oversight without requiring additional powers.