I won't talk about how somebody has a right to make own land any way they want. That goes without saying. Freedom of choice and freedom of expression and creativity are something that makes second life beautiful and great as it is. I want to address stupidity here. Stupidity that parasites on aforementioned freedoms and makes second life as ugly as it can be.
I love Topgol for many reasons. It is beautiful, but that is the matter of taste. It is warm and cozy in red bricks and worn-out side walks. It is coherent, you can safely walk around and stay in the same mood and environment, still enough creative not to feel like in an array of prefabs. And, believe me, people are great. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to make a themed sim in the middle of the mainland that works so good. But, as Myg will tell you,
when new blingin’ neighbors came in and put up a shitty ad cube in the middle of town, we didn’t like it. I posted about it here. In addition to the ugly ass ad cube, there’s also the matter of their club and mall being extremely ugly. Their property, in the middle of the sim, seriously degrades the overall look of Topgol.
Now, there is something I really don't understand. Somebody buy some land. Doing that he see what is around. He might like it or not. But in the case like Topgol, he is buying a plot in the middle of developed and themed neighbourhood. And, one can safely assume that neighbourhood like that affects the price of the land. So, one would guess he likes it. But then, he starts building and he goes against the theme, put ugly mall and renting apartments and crown them all with rotating ad cubes.
One thing has to be cleared here. Ugliness we are speaking about is not a matter of taste. It is matter of somebody not knowing how to tile the textures. It is also a matter of lack of creativity and common sense. And a matter of being an asshole who, without any reason, cuts the street which connects the whole sim.
Having no sense for look and feel of virtual environment is not a nice thing when you think you are doing land biz in second life. Lack of building skills is not a problem when you are aware of that and leave the job to somebody with more talent. In Topgol, that usually means to meet your neighbours and things will make themselves.
But stupidity… One don't need to be an expert in virtual worlds, biz, marketing and such to see that making ugly parcel that has been seen million times all over the grid, and doing that next to the developed community with original look is bad for business. He shit on his own investment. Which is ok too, but that shit stinks out of the property lines. And that is not ok.
Topgol has always embodied the best of SL for me: a disparate group of individuals getting together, with little or no thought of profit, and building something consistent and evocative. It’s a little island of order in the sea of chaos that is the Mainland.
And now the worst of SL rears it’s ugly head. I’d say the guy is a solipsist, oblivious to the existence of others, but his putting an ad cube up in “retaliation” for Myg’s blog entry shows that he’s just a plain old asshole.
Well, we just need to keep shining a light on the roach and hopefully he’ll crawl off to a darker corner of SL.
If we shine on him it might be dangerous, considering the amount of bling that guy wears.
Thanks dandellion and Argent for your support. I do want to tell you, the buildings in the photos above are new, and actually a substantial improvement over what was there (with the exception of the ad cube, of course). I think our neighbors may be trying to blend in to the best of their ability, although you are right and they’d be much better off getting some help with their builds.
My bigger complaint was with Richard Palace, the land owner, (my neighbors rent from him) for buying parcels in the center of the Topgol build, and for having no regard for how they are used. That is the greater stupidity – he lowers the value of all our land – including his own – with is blatant disregard for the community. He should have given the tenants buildings or helped them to assimilate or explained that ad cubes are in poor taste (I think my neighbors have been in SL only a few months.) But he is pretty negligent, and thus a real drag on our community. That’s the big target of my complaints.
Again, thanks for your support of Topgol. Your presence there also helps add to our community in important ways!
I’m glad you had the balls to take on this issue of taste, which most SL liberals pretend they never criticise, so ardent is their belief in the all-holy doctrine of Second Life, which is: “I get to do what the fuck I want on my land, so fuck you.”
So often, I, too, marvel that someone can come to a sim, see that 10 or 15 people have worked very hard to make it “look good” with a theme or some significant builds, essentially get that view for free from other people’s work, then crap up THEIR view and their land by laying down something completely retarded.
It’s hard to make rules about this. When I have tenants doing stuff like this that I can’t exactly invoke a lease regulation about, I IM them and try to have the conversation. I ask them if they have considered their neighbours, if they are aware that their giant flat prim lawn *board* that they have used to *utterly crush* a lovingly terraformed little mainland island is really a “plus” in the neighbourhood. I ask them if they could please remove it as it is scaring the other tenants away. This often works. Sometimes people are heedless gits. Other times, they get their back up and rant and rage. I don’t care. Consideration of your neighbour has to be paramount.
The Linden policy against ads should be very simple, under Community Standards No. 6. Undesirable ad content means any ad that is in my face, devaluing my land. Not all ads do that. But many do. And they need to lose those, return them, and understand that they do devalue land and have no special “right” to be on a sim where the rest of the adults have collectively spent hundreds of dollars. Some asswipe on a 16 m2 shouldn’t get to hold me hostage with their fake “legitimate business”.
I’m sure your lot wouldn’t find anything wrong with it, but I have people who seem to think that the hobo look or the distressed urban look is le dernier cri, and they put up their blazing trashcans and tattered bodega posters as if this is the original dawn of creation. I delicately point out that 12,837 people on the grid have the exact same idea because those textures and objects are free. And while some sims “work” with this look, plunking it down and driving away all the other people with it just isn’t on.
I hate it when elitists and snobs about architecture get into a rant with you about their ugly shit if they think the problem is that you are upholding the right of McMansions to spawn across the land. But I’m sorry, it’s about a, consideration, and b, watching what other people are doing and trying to blend in a little more.
I continue to believe there are basic rules for good neighbours that everyone could agree to, like not building smack on the property line. That’s inevitably a sign of a nit who can’t be bothered to fit with the land or the area but just wants a stupid club box.