Asking for my lands back

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Tor Karlsvalt
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Re: Asking for my lands back

Post by Tor Karlsvalt »

Seems like a good idea to take a refund in order to set the boxes to come due at the same time. I never thought it cuz I am one of those folks who don't much care. I am in world enough to just check the tier box while I am at my parcels. I use my my lands, so a box is usually just a few feet away.

I suggest people get in the habit of just paying the box when they are near it. It takes a second. But if one needs the full three months, taking the refund to reset the box is a great idea.

I am curious at Bromo's squeamishness about having the government go after tier. To me I would much rather see government be mindful of people merely forgetting and going the extra mile to notify a normally current citizen then just boot him off his or her parcel. An informative notecard which clearly lays out the issue and consequences is preferable I think to mechanical adherence to deadlines that ignores people.

Hippo is not perfect. The Chancellor will often be going after tier because Hippo and land tools are not always in sync. For instance, it is very common for people to decide to leave, take a refund at the tier box and NOT abandon their parcel. It had been my practice to attempt to contact owners before I reclaimed land in this situation. Usually the owner quickly responded.

I note that if you follow this suggested practice of taking a refund to reset the box, remember to immediately pay the tier. You will be setting the tier box 'For Sale' when you take your refund. Might sound trite to mention this, but having dealt with people long enough here and in RL, you can count on simple things going awry.

I read here that this issue could be causing a valued citizen to give up on CDS. To be sure we are a business. The tier must be paid. And LL will demand its tier timely. It behooves all citizens to respect each other and pay tier on time or in advance. Still, we are a community more than just a business run for the profit of an EO. It seems to me, therefor that good stewardship, not just of the tier boxes, but of the commonwealth is the executives chief concern. Booting normally current citizens off parcels without some effort to notify the person above and beyond mere hippo notices seems legalistic and destructive of our community. That said, of course executive actions must be reasonable. Chronic late payers should eventually be merely booted.
But our desire to try to make everything cut and dry will destroy our community. And it already has begun chipping away at us if we are losing a person who is not even directly affected by executive actions in this matter, but merely disgusted with our legalism and government RP.

I note here, however, that the Villa of the Pines, sits unproductive, not producing tier and and eyesore bereft of its graceful landmark. All the while, Jon has been willing to pay all the tier past due and owed for the next three months. As he has had no use of his land since it was seized, I gather the CDS could not ask him to pay for the days since the seizure if Jon regains his land. In essence, CDS is telling a willing payer that it does not want his money. I think this falls into that category of actions where one cuts off one's nose to spite one's face.

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Re: Asking for my lands back

Post by Bromo Ivory »

Tor Karlsvalt wrote:

I am curious at Bromo's squeamishness about having the government go after tier. To me I would much rather see government be mindful of people merely forgetting and going the extra mile to notify a normally current citizen then just boot him off his or her parcel. An informative notecard which clearly lays out the issue and consequences is preferable I think to mechanical adherence to deadlines that ignores people.

Hey Tor, I think you misinterpreted my feelings ont he subject.

Of course the government should do all in their power to make sure that people pay for their lands. IN fact I agree with the law that outlines the minimum action taken by the Chancellor.

My issue is when people are assuming the government is ultimately responsible for the tier payment to be made, and that if somehow they didn't get the reminders, that it absolves them of responsibility. At some point personal responsibility needs to have a role in this thing. But that's just me.

Where I do think we can have a "safety valve" on this - is that the RA should give the Chancellor flexibility to sell the land back to the owner before it was repossessed up to the moment it get set for sale to the general public. But that would take a law in order to do this thing, and despite your philosophy on the subject, we haven't actually given our Chancellor a whole lot of flexibility in this thing, and perhaps we should?

So I hope this clarifies my feelings on the subject?

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Re: Asking for my lands back

Post by Rosie Gray »

Bromo Ivory wrote:
Tor Karlsvalt wrote:

I am curious at Bromo's squeamishness about having the government go after tier. To me I would much rather see government be mindful of people merely forgetting and going the extra mile to notify a normally current citizen then just boot him off his or her parcel. An informative notecard which clearly lays out the issue and consequences is preferable I think to mechanical adherence to deadlines that ignores people.

Hey Tor, I think you misinterpreted my feelings ont he subject.

Of course the government should do all in their power to make sure that people pay for their lands. IN fact I agree with the law that outlines the minimum action taken by the Chancellor.

My issue is when people are assuming the government is ultimately responsible for the tier payment to be made, and that if somehow they didn't get the reminders, that it absolves them of responsibility. At some point personal responsibility needs to have a role in this thing. But that's just me.

Where I do think we can have a "safety valve" on this - is that the RA should give the Chancellor flexibility to sell the land back to the owner before it was repossessed up to the moment it get set for sale to the general public. But that would take a law in order to do this thing, and despite your philosophy on the subject, we haven't actually given our Chancellor a whole lot of flexibility in this thing, and perhaps we should?

So I hope this clarifies my feelings on the subject?

Bromo I agree completely that ultimately it is the responsibility of the citizen to pay their tier on time, and that people should take that responsibility more seriously.

I do not agree that the Chancellor doesn't have flexibility in selling the owner their lands back in the situation we are talking about here. The Chancellor has huge flexibility in how they choose to manage the land - in fact I think way too much flexibility. In any case, there is no reason at all that Ceasar could not sell Jon his lands back right now (or there wasn't until this whole situation went to the SC, which means now we do need to await their findings).

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Re: Asking for my lands back

Post by Bromo Ivory »

Rosie Gray wrote:
Bromo Ivory wrote:
Tor Karlsvalt wrote:

I am curious at Bromo's squeamishness about having the government go after tier. To me I would much rather see government be mindful of people merely forgetting and going the extra mile to notify a normally current citizen then just boot him off his or her parcel. An informative notecard which clearly lays out the issue and consequences is preferable I think to mechanical adherence to deadlines that ignores people.

Hey Tor, I think you misinterpreted my feelings ont he subject.

Of course the government should do all in their power to make sure that people pay for their lands. IN fact I agree with the law that outlines the minimum action taken by the Chancellor.

My issue is when people are assuming the government is ultimately responsible for the tier payment to be made, and that if somehow they didn't get the reminders, that it absolves them of responsibility. At some point personal responsibility needs to have a role in this thing. But that's just me.

Where I do think we can have a "safety valve" on this - is that the RA should give the Chancellor flexibility to sell the land back to the owner before it was repossessed up to the moment it get set for sale to the general public. But that would take a law in order to do this thing, and despite your philosophy on the subject, we haven't actually given our Chancellor a whole lot of flexibility in this thing, and perhaps we should?

So I hope this clarifies my feelings on the subject?

Bromo I agree completely that ultimately it is the responsibility of the citizen to pay their tier on time, and that people should take that responsibility more seriously.

I suppose that if the Chancellor does really have that sort of flexibility (I am skeptical, but I haven't made it a study of the subject, so I'll just assume right now that you are correct) - the policy has to be crafted to give everyone the same break, and no special treatment. I think the difficulty of such a policy really comes in to the fact that we define voting rights by land ownership and tier payments being up to date - I could easily see a Chancellor getting into a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation - as perhaps Ceasar has.

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Re: Asking for my lands back

Post by Gwyneth Llewelyn »

A tricky subject. I think Tor's post illustrates the dilemma well. There are at least three issues at stake here. One is paying tier in due time. The second one is notifying citizens if they are in arrears and allowing them some leeway to pay back. The third one is linking land to citizenship.

Paying tier in due time is the citizen's responsibility. Of that there cannot be any doubt whatsoever. It's not the CDS' fault if the citizen is forgetful, or absent, or has some physical issue that prevents them to pay. In all those cases, we cannot be more 'soft' than LL. We have to impose the same rules. Sorry, guys, but that's how it is!

Some of you might have noticed that the server hosting this forums was down for a day or so, during early July. At that time, I was some 10 days without Internet access. I knew that the server's payment date would happen while I was away, but I was confident, since I had set the payment system up to use a recurring payment using PayPal — my account has two cards in it, so there is some redundancy: if one fails for some reason, the other is very likely going to work.

Sadly for me, both failed on that day. The company hosting the server notified me repeatedly over a period of five days. But I was away without Internet connection. So, on the sixth day, they regretted to inform me that the server would be put out of service. I could still pay what I owed, and had a few more days to do that — if I ignored them, then they would delete all content on my server and sell it to another customer.

But I was away from all those notices. It was just by pure chance that I managed a brief, 9600bps connection through my ancient iPhone, and got to see that email. I panicked! Unfortunately, I was completely unable to log in to the service and try to get it to accept my cards again. The 9600bps connection was simply not powerful enough for that.

So, the next day, I had no choice but to try to find a free Wi-Fi connection and log in with my laptop. Unfortunately, again, my laptop is so old that it had already blown up its second battery; it manages, at best, some 20 minutes of battery power. That was enough to pay back what I owned, but not enough to log in to see if all was working well... I had to go back home, recharge it, and try again on the next day. Fortunately, the server was up by then, and no content was lost. I do have a secondary server on stand-by, with real-time replicas of all the sites (including this one!), but switching over takes considerably longer than 20 minutes...

My point is that real companies operating real services make all the efforts to notify their customers, and might even give them a few days over the date of service termination, but their flexibility stops at that. They don't care if I'm forgetful, if I'm away from home, if I have a working Internet connection, if I have a faulty laptop... those are all plausible excuses, but they couldn't care less about them. I could even be running the website for the American Cancer Society, the United Nations, or even the personal blog page of the President of France (this server is running out of a data centre in France). If I don't pay at the correct time, I get disconnected. Simple as that.

If LL acted differently towards us, then, yes, I would be all for flexibility. But LL simply shuts us down without questions if we 'forget' about paying, or if Sudane's credit card fails, etc. They couldn't care less if we told them that we're one of the few communities in SL being around for a decade and never missed a payment. They couldn't care less if we told them that their beloved Draxtor, who has been such a huge promoter of LL through his videos, would have done nothing if he hadn't been a member of the CDS and started his news service through us (yes, few people know that). They would just pull the plug on us, and end of story.

And they treat every other customer in exactly the same way — even though they're not even a democracy!

Now, where I think we can make a difference is in how the land is actually claimed and re-sold. The proposed amendment suggests that the land is claimed on the 14th day, announced 72 hours later about the date of re-sale, which happens 72 hours after the announcement. During that period, the citizen in question is allowed to pay everything they have in arrears and buy their land back. This is equivalent to my hosting provider saying that they will keep the data in my server for a week or so, and, if I pay, I can restore the service to what it was. Allegedly, LL also keeps backups for 2 weeks, so, in theory, if someone wants their region back, before it gets sold to someone else, they could theoretically restore the last backup. I think this is fair and reasonable and gives citizens a last chance. Also, all Chancellor notifications during this period are made to be much stronger — they really have to make a strong effort to get in touch with the citizen, or the citizen can complain to the SC. Technically speaking, we're being actually very nice about this point, because it's the person's responsibility to pay in time — not the Chancellor's responsibility to run wildly after non-paying citizens. In RL, if you don't pay, and are unreachable by the company, they assume you don't wish to continue the service. They might make an extra effort to notify you because it's easier to keep a client than to attract a new one, but you cannot sue them for failing to notify you! We, in the CDS, are much nicer about that — we make the right to reclaim the land dependent on proper notification.

Why? Because land is tied to citizenship. Unlike what happens with LL — or any other service, in fact — you don't get deprived of your citizen's rights if you stop paying LL for your land :) So it makes sense, for us, to be stricter in depriving citizens of their rights, which is what happens when all their land is claimed. We also give them extra rights to complain to the SC. So I see this as two separate things. On one hand, citizens have to pay every month to keep their land. But on the other hand, removing citizen's rights is something extreme, and should be handled with utter carefulness. It also means that all citizens have to be treated in precisely the same way.

I really don't want 'more flexibility' here. I want the same laws and rules to apply to all. But I can certainly agree that the extreme case — removing a citizen's right by reclaiming all their land — has to be exercised very carefully and given all the chances for a citizen to pay back. But... within limits. Someone disgruntled with the CDS might never talk back to us, and ignore all attempts to get contacted — because they really don't want to contact us again — and in those cases we should be able to reclaim their land and sell it again. There are plenty of such examples, where people failed to pay for months (yes, months) simply because they never logged back to SL, and we had no idea if they wished to remain citizens or not. In the mean time, their land was stuck being unsold, with people on waiting lists. That should not be allowed to happen!

Please take a look at the amended proposal — http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php? ... =30#p29335

Many of your concerns have already been addressed there. Maybe you can contribute all to some further changes, if you deem them necessary.

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Re: Asking for my lands back

Post by Shep »

Forgive me Gwyn .. I thought taking ALL of a citizens parcels was changed to taking ONLY the one in arrears ?

And I think Jon being as involved with us as he is SHOULD have been given more leeway!

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Re: Asking for my lands back

Post by Gwyneth Llewelyn »

Yes, Shep, exactly... the only parcels claimed are those in arrears, that's the current proposal on the table. All the others, if they're paid up in time, will not be touched!

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Re: Asking for my lands back

Post by Bromo Ivory »

Shep wrote:

And I think Jon being as involved with us as he is SHOULD have been given more leeway!

I don't know what the schedule of the SC might be, but I am sure they are going to consider that very issue (along with the notifications).

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Re: Asking for my lands back

Post by Widget Whiteberry »

Tor wrote

To be sure we are a business. The tier must be paid. And LL will demand its tier timely. It behooves all citizens to respect each other and pay tier on time or in advance. Still, we are a community more than just a business run for the profit of an EO. It seems to me, therefor that good stewardship, not just of the tier boxes, but of the commonwealth is the executives chief concern.

I would say we are an intentional community modeled on ideas of the structures, workings and obligations of democracy. While we employ certain business-like practices, we are not a business as I understand 'business.'

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Re: Asking for my lands back

Post by Bromo Ivory »

Widget Whiteberry wrote:

Tor wrote

To be sure we are a business. The tier must be paid. And LL will demand its tier timely. It behooves all citizens to respect each other and pay tier on time or in advance. Still, we are a community more than just a business run for the profit of an EO. It seems to me, therefor that good stewardship, not just of the tier boxes, but of the commonwealth is the executives chief concern.

I would say we are an intentional community modeled on ideas of the structures, workings and obligations of democracy. While we employ certain business-like practices, we are not a business as I understand 'business.'

At the core of our communities' presence in SL, is the tier we pay to LL. CDS really makes very little profit, but we do have to make sure we can pay tier.

While I beleive the RA should spell out the amount of flexibility the Chancellor has to resell land to the person that it was repossessed from, at the core, when Tier is due every month regardless of any personal set of circumstances, the 2 weeks grace period we give is extraordinary when you realize ZERO slack is given to us to get our tier payments in.

I say this as a former SIM owner who struggled to gather rents to pay tier every month - and while there is some consideration due to someone who has rented for awhile, that relationship and slack, will make paying the sim fees due that much harder. I think 2 weeks is a pretty good deal in light of it all. I certainly wouldn't want it to stretch into a "tier free month" or anything - it took a decade to build our reserves, and I am not sure that subsidizing people's failure to pay is a good use of it. I know if the reserves were gone, even the 2 weeks might put an undue financial obligation in the lap of the EO. (Where Tor and I could find common ground, is that if someone who fell behind in payment was willing to pay all arrears, and perhaps re-buy the land back, or something along those lines, I could see selling the land back - perhaps the 3 days after repo and before selling it? Of course, if there are no buyers other than the original owner, getting the land back would be trivial).

And of course, the SC hearing the case, and thereby freezing the sale of land is hardly an optimal situation, either. I hope the SC realizes that every day the case isn't heard, CDS becomes fiscally weaker?

Ok, I'll get off my high horse right now, and I will just leave everyone with the idea that Linden Labs does not give us the same level of slack we're willing to give each other, and in the end, that payment to LL keeps our SL community together. While we're not a business, the payment of tier is one of the most important things that happens to keep us a community.

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Re: Asking for my lands back

Post by Callipygian »

Bromo Ivory wrote:
Shep wrote:

And I think Jon being as involved with us as he is SHOULD have been given more leeway!

I don't know what the schedule of the SC might be, but I am sure they are going to consider that very issue (along with the notifications).

I am not at all sure why you would think this Bromo.

The SC will be considering if the notification of delinquency used with Jon was sufficient to satisfy the law and have all those with delinquent parcels been treated equitably i.e. received notification by the same methods. Whatever the decision, it will apply to all those who might be or become delinquent.

So any question of 'should Jon be given more leeway' is not going to be discussed, nor should it be.

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Re: Asking for my lands back

Post by Callipygian »

Bromo Ivory wrote:
Shep wrote:

And I think Jon being as involved with us as he is SHOULD have been given more leeway!

I don't know what the schedule of the SC might be, but I am sure they are going to consider that very issue (along with the notifications).

Posting my personal opinions here, not 'comments from the Dean':

I don't think there is an issue to consider. Why would Jon be given more leeway? Feelings of fondness, gratitude, enmity aside -the law is clear that failure to pay tier results in reclamation of land. Why should anyone expect or be given special treatment?

If there is a desire to give leeway based on involvement, who exactly gets to decide what criteria are used to identify 'enough involvement' or what qualifies as appropriate involvement to give you a pass when it comes to the law? More so than involvement I suspect the difficulty here for many is that Jon is a friend, and no one wants to see a friend lose their land.
There is a simple test for objectivity in this- in the sentence ' Should Jon be given more leeway because of how involved he is', remove Jon's name and insert a few others, names of very involved people who may not be your (global you) friend.
If your answer is not the same for each name you slot in, you are not being objective, you are reacting out of personal feelings towards the name involved.

Everyone wants the laws applied objectively and equitably; as soon as you identify anyone as deserving special treatment - whether in one's own personal opinion, the opinion of the Chancellor, or the opinion of large blocks of the community - both of those criteria come into question. So for me, no-one should get special treatment in application of the law. If there is a desire for residents who lose land to reclamation to have preference in purchasing it back (at land cost, for payment of the arrears, for payment of the arrears plus a penalty, whatever) then legislate it! That preferential treatment is then available to *all* citizens.

Calli

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Re: Asking for my lands back

Post by Shep »

Calli ... my thinking on Jon's case is for the recent past only .. not an ongoing situation beyond this time ... why? .. because of the leeway other chancellor's gave .. for many that leeway would have become 'common law' .. what was expected .. was people's experience .. and yes different from written law ... I think Jon would have made more effort to pay tier on time had he realised our present chancellor was ignoring the leeway previously given .. with no warning ... he can say no warning was required in law .. no it was'nt ... but in my view the chancellor forgets we are a community ..

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Re: Asking for my lands back

Post by Bagheera »

Rosie Gray wrote:
Bagheera wrote:

Considering I was scolded quite roundly by Rosie for not reclaiming Jamie Palisades' lands back, I don't think you can lay the blame at the doorstep of this Chancellor's "political thinking" but instead squarely as a responsibility of the RA when making the laws. You seem to think the Chancellor has discretion in this matter but it was made quite clear during my administration that the Chancellor does not.

Bagheera, Jamie Palisade's lands were over 3 MONTHS overdue in tier payment... don't you think that is a little different from 14 days? I think a bit of flexibility is in order for long term citizens, but 3 months was way, way over that.

Just going through my emails to find answers for the SC, I see that the same one that contained Rosie's scolding for Jamie's parcels being in arrears - ALSO pointed out that Jon Seattle was 84 days past due (Feb. 20th)

We are approaching another person not paying for 90 days as well - Jon Seattle, who is up to 84 days unpaid as of today.

This was an email you cc:'d to Tor, Sudane and Shep...some of whom have weighed in on the topic of Jon's parcels being reclaimed by Ceasar as draconian or hustling to get him out of his lands, yet it now becomes quite obvious that this was singling Ceasar out for grief, and not impartial or fair ... as you all knew that this was NOT a single brief lapse.

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Re: Asking for my lands back

Post by Shep »

Bags .. I assume you were cc'ed also ... otherwise how do you know what was sent to me ? ... I'll have to go search because I don't recall an email of this ... I did go through a time of having things vanish on my email .. people would say 'but it did'nt come back' .. and I would say .. but I did'nt recieve it! However I'm lousy at remembering to check my spam folder ... IM is my favourite way of getting in touch .. I know I'm AFK a lot of the time .. but as long as I hold my connection then I'll get the message ... same for notecards .. I'm less happy to get those sent as I often get up to 99+ on them and clear all ... I belong to a couple of events/fashion ad sites ... so I get loaded with mostly rubbish .

Now getting back to the point of Bags' revelations .. being that Jon Seattle is a bad payer ... well as he was in the same lands when he went over 14 days .. that just proves whichever chancellor gave him that leeway .. which ok is a bit long ... was correct in thinking he was intending to pay .. as he must have done to remain there .. so CDS lost nothing by allowing him extra time ...

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