A Radical Proposal: No land sales on Alpine Meadows...

[Diderot Mirabeau]

This is an interesting idea. As I see it there are a few ways that it can be made more financially feasible while staying true to the ideal of preserving the sim(s) as a natural wilderness area:

1) Offer a portion of plots for sale anyway but create a covenant that only allows for 'gardening' or 'natural wildlife' style decoration - i.e. no furniture, pavillions or houses - and forbids using whitelist access control. I think we would be surprised how the concept of a sim without houses could appeal nevertheless to budding landscape designers, who have nowhere else to go in SL if they want to buy land that is guaranteed to resemble natural wildlife surroundings. If necessary, a subportion of these parcels could be permitted to have skyboxes above 500 metres or whatever is necessary to ensure they stay out of view from any of our sims.

2) Go void. Put void sims all around Neufreistadt as suggested by Salzie. Sell (portions) of the low-primmed land anyway in a 'sponsor' fashion under the same restrictive covenants and maybe one or two parcels in each void sim for 'real purposes although we'd need to look into if the void sims lower ability to support many avatars could pose a problem with regard to hosting public events. In any case if we went the void way we would need to discuss whether the low-primmed land would give rights of citizenship.

[Dnate Mars]

Wow, am I reading the numbers right? Are we currently taking in $700 a month in land tier and have $3,404 cash on hand?

As an side with regards to increase, no matter what, there will be at least a 50% increase in fees when the tier for the 2 sims increases from $195 to $295 a month. The current rate is only locked in until November.

[Sudane Erato]

[quote="Dnate Mars":2qbnnaxh]Wow, am I reading the numbers right? Are we currently taking in $700 a month in land tier and have $3,404 cash on hand? [/quote:2qbnnaxh]
No, we have US$2954 "cash on hand", current assets. The rest could be understood as investments... the value of what we have spent for our infrastructure.

And, yes, August was a high month for land revenues, but the number will flucuate wildly (in July we lost money by a slight margin). It depends on how many people procrastinate, and then pay two months fee in order to make up. Thankfully, that will not be possible under the new system.

The real measure of how much tier we take in, over the long term, is the $3400 figure you mentioned. We've been plus rather than minus for long enough to have added up that amount of money, and we may be thankful now that we have it.

Sudane.......

[Bromo Ivory]

I beleive the current laws are written without assumption of "prim bonuses", and "void" sims. With the test of citizenship (128m^2 purchased and tier paid upon) I believe we could have a constitutional issue ... maybe.

Either the proposal with prim bonus or a void SIM would require at least a look at what CDS means when they say 128 - 4068m^2 as the amount of land to be owned. Does it mean the Prims associated with 128-4096m^2, or just the amount of m^2 of a SIM without consideration to the number of prims, or are these forms of land ownership ruled out constitutionally? The way the law is written currently without a clarification or reform, it would be subject to abuse and gaming systems, either way if we were to insist upon prim bonuses or void SIMs for Alpine Medows.

For instance, the Alpine Medows plan with a Prim bonus of 2 - would mean a 4068m^2 plot would control twice the prims normally associated with such a plot - and the way I assume the law was assuming prims were split up - for a maximum plot. A void sim would require over 4096m^2 in order to control the prims associated with a 128m^2 plot in NFS or CN.

The way the law is written, a m^2 is the only thing that matters when calculating qualifications for citizenship (meaning there could be no prims associated with a plot and the citizenship would still be legal - though I am doubtful the laws anticipated these novel methods of specifying a new SIM and I am not certain the same metric would be used to calculate citizenship in light of this ...

[Jamie Palisades]

Kudos to Sudane for coming up with a really cool idea. I think it's really attractive. It needs a better spreadsheet, obviously -- and a widely shared one. (I feel acutely the lack of posted hard data on land demand inquiries over time. And I'm not even on the RA.)

Consider: (1) using voids does NOT bar further expansion, it just potentially changes the spreadsheet from making 1 new sim foot out, to making 4 new sims (1 commercial and 2/3 voids) foot out. (2) Another variable; we could move one or two of the existing NGO instititions to the new sim. Might give you some more medieval-urban-renewal options. (3) This ought to be solved in the context of the constipated Kendrastrasse property too, no? Who or what's holding that up?

Fears: (a) No spreadsheet. (b) Some will oppose this just because it slows their desire to turn CDS into suburban New York. (c) Some will support it just hoping to KEEP us from growing at all. (d) No spreadsheet!

Two loose issues. (I) This proposal would change Rose's citizen-selected plan and, among other things, materially increases the desirability of a few specific plots - er - including some held by government persons. So it would need a new consultation and re-approval process, to be fair. (II) Heh heh, I heard Su's comment about the NFS valley becoming Westchester, too. Separate post on that. :) JP

[Dnate Mars]

We had a theme, but we never really talked about plots. When I voted for it, I saw it as a very open sim, there would not be much in the way of builds on it. I saw an open sim with just a few builds and a lot of room to just roam and explore.

I don't see this as a very big change from what was voted on. Maybe others do. I guess in a way, that might have been a flaw in the system to begin with. Maybe next time we need to establish plots and zoning much more before the vote. But in the end, it really is up to what the 7 RA members want, they have the final say.

[Bromo Ivory]

Dnate - Given how polarized things are ATM, it might be good to figure out a couple of options form someone not a member of a faction and present that.

[Jon Seattle]

Having posted a bit on the scale issue, I want to also say why I think Sudane’s proposal is a good idea. On the whole, I think both the detailed plan we are developing in the Guild and Sudane’s radical plan (perhaps in the four void version) are quite good. Given a choice, personally, I would give a little more weight to Sudane’s approach.

I don’t happen to believe that the main issue is if the new sim will appear rural or not. We can do a good job in any case. The main thing is that is gives us a space where we can decide as a group (and as voluntary groups, NGOs) what should go there. Building and designing are vitally important aspects of Second Life, and we could use the space to do some of that together. Its what makes us a Second Life community, and not just a debating club on government.

[Bromo Ivory]

Hi Jon -

I do tend to agree, we do not have unity of purpose yet when it comes to plots and allocations, and I am attracted to Sudane's vision as well.

I am wondering if we could do a binding or non binding poll on the approach to the citizenry at large to get the sense of the populace? Using the neat technology you used for the voting on the SIM itself?

Seems to be a good way to get an poll... and would remove a good deal of argument. I am thinking I should have requested to use that technology on the Citizenship commission.

[Sleazy_Writer]

[quote="Bromo Ivory":3tfss6ei]I am wondering if we could do a binding or non binding poll on the approach to the citizenry[/quote:3tfss6ei]
[quote="Jon Seattle, announcing the sim contest results":3tfss6ei]In this contest each voter had as many as five points to allocate ... The results are:

Alps: 82 points
Nea Hora: 38 points
No sim at this time: 8 points[/quote:3tfss6ei]
I think this means that of the 27 (or 26) people, [b:3tfss6ei]17[/b:3tfss6ei] voted for Alpine Meadows. Figure out what you need to make a poll significant.

- - -

Jon, personally, I would love to pay a bit more for a beautiful sim that would be used day-in day-out by active designers, but not enough people do these community or NGO-ish things to make the whole citizenry pay for it. Unless it is chosen as a bold step for the future, of course.

[Jon Seattle]

[quote="Sleazy_Writer":3m2284w5]Jon, personally, I would love to pay a bit more for a beautiful sim that would be used day-in day-out by active designers, but not enough people do these community or NGO-ish things to make the whole citizenry pay for it. Unless it is chosen as a bold step for the future, of course.[/quote:3m2284w5]It depends on wether this is seen as a elaboration of the Alps proposal or a radical turn. I am not sure which category it fits in to. I read it as mainly a proposal for financing and selling the new sim rather than a proposal for changing the terrain or landscape.

Nevertheless it is radical enough that it must be approved by the RA, and if the RA does entertain this option, I hope they will do some sort of poll to determine how much support there is or is not among the citizenry before final approval. That is a poll having to do with the financing and sales model in particular, not sim design, since doing it this way would raise everyone's rates. I am glad to help with the software, but the RA has to sponsor the poll.

Nevertheless, I think the Guild must continue its current planning process until a decision is made. We have been given that task by the RA and are within a week or so of completion. Lets complete the plan and then see how it measures against other alternatives.

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

While my position towards a "free sim" — or even "free void sims" — is pretty much neutral (ie. between the three choices: 1) population expansion; 2) territorial expansion; 3) No expansion at all — I'll always pick either 1 or 2 over 3, but I can't say what is "best" between 1 and 2), there is a procedure to be followed.

Changing the revenue model is a budget change. All budget changes can be proposed by the Treasurer, but the RA has to approve them. The [i:gz39s1r9]current[/i:gz39s1r9] model for the building of "Alpine Meadows" was grounded on the assumption of an expectation of return on investment, without raising taxes. Any changes to the underlying model — ie. having no expectation on ROI; raising taxes — require a new budget to be approved at the RA.

Furthermore, one has to consider that the Guild might not have designed a sim appropriate for being 100% public (my unqualified and unskilled view is that the sim was designed to be 90% private). Now we know that the Guild will basically design what the RA comissions them to design; nothing more and nothing less. On the other hand, the Guild works voluntarily. In RL, such a dramatic change would require a new design plan, new blueprints, and paying for another set of blueprints. Just because the Guild does forfeit any designing fees does not mean that they should be endlessly exploited to re-design and re-design until the Cold Death of the Universe

That said and done, I'd personally welcome four new void sims, if the RA is willing to change budget for them

[Bromo Ivory]

One thing that is done on some of the massive lightly populated continents is that they split a void SIM between 2-4 people - since you get 4 for tier $295 ($75/ea) and an outlay of I htink $1695, you would be splitting it 8 ways plus whatever extra you need for your ROI.

In this manner you get lightly populated SIMs, the possibility of the monastery as a self funded NGO, and soem nice landscape would be possible.

Though ...

I have found when in the conceptual phases (and this is one of them) it is easy to get sidetracked, and distracted by a number of ideas that take you away from the task at hand - or abandon it. Since the idea was not 100% locked down in intricate detail when it was approved, I can't tell. I hope we are not doing that ... but I do wonder ...

[Claude Desmoulins]

Allow me to muddy the waters by throwing yet another consideration into the mix.

One of the first things to set our community apart from much of the urban planning of early SL was its sense of realness. Both our sims, because of careful planning, feel not particularly planned.

Think for a moment about what would happen in a RL situation, There would likely be builds, albeit less dense, all around the walled city, Resulting in low density zones in the north and south of Alpine Meadows, with a green belt in between. We need something like that green belt to prevent bad theme clash.

Now if we keep Alpine Meadows completely build free, the question follows, "Why is there nothing outside the walls to the north of NFS?" A steeper slope would make the absence of buildings more plausible.

[Aliasi Stonebender]

I can't say I'm terribly wild about the idea of a third public sim and having the other two sims pay for it entirely. If one wishes a relatively building-free zone, there are countless other dodges one could use (for example, [i:2q3kcjth]requiring[/i:2q3kcjth] skyboxes for any significantly sized building).