Urgent Covenant Addendum

[Sudane Erato]

I have just submitted this covenant addendum for consideration of the RA tomorrow. It is urgent that this provision be put in place as we move to implementing the new Land Management system (which should be ready for public beta operation within a week.)

Sudane.....

Urgent Covenant Addendum
applicable to all sims
under the authority of the CDS
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No citizen shall alter any parcel boundary.

No citizen shall alter any parcel name.

Citizens wishing to combine parcels or in any way alter parcel boundaries may make a request to the Estate Owner. Alternatively, the RA may direct the EO to alter certain boundaries. No citizen may perform this action on their own. Any alterations performed in consequence of these requests must be done with the full cooperation of the Estate Owner, who will update the land database records accordingly.

Citizens wishing to identify their parcel with personalized information may use the "Description" field under "About Land" to do so. The "Name" field shall not be altered.

Violation of this covenant provision shall subject the citizen to the dreaded guillotine treatment. In addition, their land may be temporarily "Reclaimed" by the EO in order to revert this information.

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Explanation:

Efficient land management has always dictated that parcel boundaries and names be left unaltered. Purchase price records, and the data for calculating monthly land fees is based on defined land parcels. These two features of land must not be changed.

In the past, the Estate Owner has been lax about this matter, since all land transactions were done manually. Now, however, we are on the verge of installing a semi-automated Land Management System. It is absolutely imperative that these provisions be observed.

[Ashcroft Burnham]

Umm... what's the "deadly gilloutine treatment" in the context of SL?

[Sudane Erato]

[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":2a02zwoi]Umm... what's the "deadly gilloutine treatment" in the context of SL?[/quote:2a02zwoi]
ahhh.... it's an example of what's called a "deterrence" provision. It's intent is to create the distinct impression on all would-be perpetrators that it's probably an experience they would prefer to forego.

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Sudane Erato":39ba0i2o][quote="Ashcroft Burnham":39ba0i2o]Umm... what's the "deadly gilloutine treatment" in the context of SL?[/quote:39ba0i2o]
ahhh.... it's an example of what's called a "deterrence" provision. It's intent is to create the distinct impression on all would-be perpetrators that it's probably an experience they would prefer to forego.[/quote:39ba0i2o]

Hmm, I understand the intent, but perhaps slightly more specific legislation would make things clearer to our citizens and courts?

[Sudane Erato]

[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":1vjwycnn][quote="Sudane Erato":1vjwycnn][quote="Ashcroft Burnham":1vjwycnn]Umm... what's the "deadly gilloutine treatment" in the context of SL?[/quote:1vjwycnn]
ahhh.... it's an example of what's called a "deterrence" provision. It's intent is to create the distinct impression on all would-be perpetrators that it's probably an experience they would prefer to forego.[/quote:1vjwycnn]

Hmm, I understand the intent, but perhaps slightly more specific legislation would make things clearer to our citizens and courts?[/quote:1vjwycnn]

.... I shall consider any ammendment to be "friendly" and will raise no objections at all .

[Aliasi Stonebender]

I raise concern about "THOU SHALT NOT ALTER THE NAME OF THINE PLOT", considering that effectively cuts one off from placing it in search under a logical name; surely providing the plot identification be left in the name (or, as I did on my plots, left in the description) is enough?

[Chicago Kipling]

If my understanding is correct, it is a matter of allow automated scripts to quickly and consistently identify plots. Is that true? If so, it's what would need to happen in any file management system so I have no issue with it.

[Sudane Erato]

[quote="Aliasi Stonebender":21b0olry]I raise concern about "THOU SHALT NOT ALTER THE NAME OF THINE PLOT", considering that effectively cuts one off from placing it in search under a logical name; surely providing the plot identification be left in the name (or, as I did on my plots, left in the description) is enough?[/quote:21b0olry]
Unfortunately no, because SL provides us with no mechanism to identify the boundaries of a plot. Instead, in order to record the boundaries, we are forced to scan the entire sim, s/m by s/m, identifying the owner registered for each piece of land (the ONLY bit of data accessible to us via LSL), and thereby assemble the parcel boundaries, in a form which can be stored in a database.

(Sky Honey's system of mapping performed a similiar scan, and was able to display the parcels on a map, but did not resolve the parcel boundaries in such a way that we could store parcel data in a dbase).

If, for any reason, a parcel name is changed, the system will store that as a different parcel. On a day to day basis, that could work, as a snapshot of the moment. But if the parcel was last week called AAA and this week called BBB, we'd have no way of knowing that they were the same parcel.

It is essential that the "Name" field remain constant. It can be changed, but only by involving the Estate Owner, or whoever maintains the land records, since an array of related tables will need alteration should that need to happen.

Sudane.....

[Aliasi Stonebender]

[quote="Sudane Erato":vuadmxqv]

If, for any reason, a parcel name is changed, the system will store that as a different parcel. On a day to day basis, that could work, as a snapshot of the moment. But if the parcel was last week called AAA and this week called BBB, we'd have no way of knowing that they were the same parcel.

It is essential that the "Name" field remain constant. It can be changed, but only by involving the Estate Owner, or whoever maintains the land records, since an array of related tables will need alteration should that need to happen.
[/quote:vuadmxqv]

Then [i:vuadmxqv]say[/i:vuadmxqv] so, Sudane. While a lot of people stick to classifieds and other ads over the in-world search function, what I still think of as "Find Places" is still a cheap way to get the word out about a shop; restricting a plot owner's ability to intelligently name their plot would hurt this, and the last thing we need is something else to make setting up shop here a pain, no?

That said, if you cannot gather the name of a plot through LSL, how can the name of the plot (as opposed to the owner, which should hopefully remain constant) make a difference? Perhaps there is something that is eluding me, given I haven't played with the land-management test setup you had nearly as much as I probably should have. (Then again, I never expected to have any occasion to make use of it, at the time, so... )

So, I have no doubt you are correct, but it seems to me so long as the owner is the same, the name is largely cosmetic. We know the "proper" boundries, and it is possible to disallow parcel join/divide in the estate tools. What am I obviously missing?

[Sudane Erato]

[quote="Aliasi Stonebender":2fucrwgn] So, I have no doubt you are correct, but it seems to me so long as the owner is the same, the name is largely cosmetic. [/quote:2fucrwgn]
Well, this is exactly the point. If the owner never changed, then they could call it whatever they wanted. That name would be attached to the s/m which make up the parcel, and all would be well. But if the owner changes, and for some strange reason the new owner finds the previous name inappropriate for their needs, a scan of the entire sim would have to be run. Perhaps a procedure could be developed by which the old name was recorded in an official name change procedure, after which a search and replace was performed on the database. But the deeds generated in the process of transfer, both for the buyer *and* the seller, would be affected.

But, this may now all be moot. You have pointed out what for us is a very welcome development: http://forums.neufreistadt.info/viewtopic.php?t=487.

At the RA meeting this morning, I'll propose that the proposal be tabled while we study the impact of this announcement.

Its indeed a welcome development, and one which we had anticipated happening "sometime" (LL speak for sometime in the next few years). Considering the hundreds of hours that have gone into a system now on the verge of release, a system that is desparately needed in light of our expanding population, the development is unfortunate in its timing. We probably will want to re-write the code to take advantage of this.

Sudane.....