A short break from my thoughts and ideas to take a gander at some of Linden Lab’s. Earlier this evening, I was able to take part in a small discussion group about… groups. It’s funny that I had to join a group to attend the group about groups. In fact, since I was at my limit of groups (a limit that is technical, it was mentioned this evening), I had to drop a group to join the group to attend the group… about groups.
Groups on the brain.
Before going to the discussion, I was wondering whether Linden Lab had a blank slate and was looking for any and all input, or if they had a general idea of where they were going next only, OR if they knew exactly what they were going to do and just wanted to get our reactions.
Showing up a bit late (about 8 minutes), what I first heard upon rez made it feel like it was the third possibility. But after getting TWO notecards with logs of the parts I missed (thanks!), I saw that it was the second case. They know where they want to go, and they’re working on the first steps to take them there.
One of the topics was Covenants. (Think homeowners’ associations, for those unfortunates, like me, that are saddled with the damn things.) This is something that really only concerns the Estates, or island regions. This confused most of the attendees, even me at first. It seemed like it was just a document stating the rules and regs the Estate owner wished to uphold. Sounded like your typical notecard-giver would do the job just fine. But then, from Daniel’s comments, I saw where they were going with it.
Eventually, much to a number of people’s joy, Linden Lab does want to let us host our own grid servers. Oh… Nowhere in the near future, nor even in the nearish-far future, but eventually. Giving the Estate owners more autonomy is a step in that direction. When they can make the local rules — their own ToS, if you will — then we’re a little closer to the day when people can run their own continent from home. (Hope you have a lot of bandwidth by then!)
Now, this was all mainly for the Estates, not the mainland. But it makes sense if you think of the mainland as the estate run by Linden Lab. They run the “hippy-San-Francisco-Utopia” we all know and love, but they want to leave the Estates open to be anything else we can imagine. I’m encouraged by that mindset.
But even the mainland can possibly benefit from such ideas in the form of zoning and collective projects that go beyond share-and-share-alike. There’s room for new ideas everywhere.
But all that, we were told, is still in the future. What we can expect to see soon will be updates to the interface of our current group system, AND one new feature that remedies one of the many flaws I mentioned in my previous entry here. That of locking permissions — what a particular group participant can and can’t do — to the two levels of current group design: the Officer and the Member. So just two, and no more… For now.
From what was said, I gather that (at least at the time of creating the group, or maybe later as well) the permissions of each sub-group can be customized from a list of options. The interface has yet to be finalized, but one can imagine a list of checkboxes for each sub-group that can be clicked on or off to limit or empower. Ability to edit group land or objects, manipulate group money, invite people to the group, initiate a vote… All candidates for such options.
Could it be? Granular permissions! Albeit only for group-related actions, but granular nonetheless. Could this be a sign of things to come? Granular permissions across the board?
One can hope.
But still, this change remains of a top-down design. It answers the question “What sort of groups will people want to make?” instead of the more fundamental question “What are the basic building blocks of social interaction in Second Life?”
I’m more interested in answering the second one…
2 Comments
We may be hosting in the nearsemifar future. I’m gaining the impression that the idea of creating, thus somewhat controlling, the inevitable competition is behind this sudden push to accomodate the needs we’ve been vocalizing all these years.
If LL manage to market a shrinkwrap late this, or early next, year, they’ll p4wn their own competitors with licensing and update fees. Not a bad model to follow if they can manage it. First they have to achieve profitability. I’m not honestly seeing where any of this revision leads to fullfilling that primary goal. Only a killer app will help there and, so far, noones fathomed a genuine use for the software not more easily accomplished using some other, more traditional, method.
Back to groups, I see no need for providing membership tiers or “roles.” Openly assigned permissions will accomodate those needs per member without having to squeeze the definition into a hole. I also support the notion that builtin voting mechanisms are unnecessary. They’re dangerous to business oriented groups (pizza anyone?) and easily handled outside the group interface.
Reading on…
Read on to the most recent, Anatomy of a Perm, and you can see that the Role are just a way to apply the same permissions to several people at once. There’s nothing stopping each person from being in his or her own Role with unique perms, but that’s just one end of the scale. (At least, in this imaginary design of mine.)
As for putting server code in the hands of non Linden Labers, I can see several ways they can orchestrate it, when the time comes. For now, they are just digging a foundation to build that future on.