Update on Notre Dame de Cyberie

It's been amazing, all the people who have sent in donations to help with this disaster of the destroyed Notre Dame de Cyberie cathedral in Champlain.

It was griefed, most likely by Rimpoche Kiama (now missing from the People List and hopefully permabanned after savaging 12 sims, costing me literally hundreds of dollars as people moved out in a rage). Knowing how LL works, however, I won't be surprised if I see him back in -- it could be merely a 7-day ban.

The reason it could be griefed is because the build was "group owned". Not in share, and not deeded, but merely group-owned. It has been like that for some six years, without a problem. It got that way because of a "buy as group" option that converted all the prims to "group owned". It was hundreds to try to move from group to single ownership so I didn't bother. It wasn't in "share," so I didn't think immediately it was a problem.

In fact, in the group tools is the function "Move, manipulate, copy" as one of the options for objects on group land. The other options are "deed to group" or "sell group object". I keep only "deed to group" turned on for people to do their TVs and radios; I have long since turned off "sell group object" as it is exploited by griefers to steal TVs or just dismantle them and make havoc. I have to have that "on demand," i.e. when someone needs to move out and get their TV back, they IM me and the power is turned on briefly. Or, more and more, I just come and sell the TV to myself as group owner, and then send it to their inventory.

"Move, manipulate, copy" is turned off usually as well, because that's also used to harass people and move their TVs, etc. However, it gets left on, when there are people who are changing their houses, and want to move their deeded objects on. You have to weigh inconveniencing people constantly in a group rentals versus the rare exploitation of the vulnerability to cause havoc.

In any event, I requested a rollback, and was denied. I appealed it, because even though I know the Lindens have a policy never to roll back mainland sims, they do occasionally roll them back. They did once for me on Ravenglass a year or so again when the a terraforming griefer hit it that time. Perhaps it's easier to roll back regarding sole-owner sims or on issues like terraforming versus builds. I basically don't buy their line, because if they can roll back an island, they can roll back the same sims which is on the Governor Linden estate, which are also essentially just contiguous islands. Yeah, I get that if someone put out a build or a unique object on no-copy, the roll back creates the problem of either copying that object or ruining that build by going back in time.

So I asked my neighbours and fellow owners to support me. I got one to file a ticket in support of me, and the other never answered, but I had seen no change in their builds for weeks, so I figured it was OK. In any event, that path wasn't working.

As I struggled to get the pieces in order, it was taking hours. Putting them into my ownership, trying to line them up using various fixed objects of mine -- it was insane. So I wrote to Concierge and asked them to take another look at the ticket, noting that I was soliciting the consent of others on that sim (that seems to be the Lindens' main issue).

So that was "going nowhere," but I was giving it time to perc while I waited for that main owner of the sim to come forward. Then on Twitter, @SecondLife tweeted something about fixing the Shakespeare sims problem for Ina Centaur, so I responded, say, what about fixing this problem with Notre Dame? And looked to this blog. I hardly expected that to work, but I thought it was worth tweeting.

Next thing I know, Maggie Linden is sending me something, but it seemed it was missing -- I thought it was a notecard. I told her I saw she sent me something, but didn't seem to have it, and she said it was a landmark, but since it said "Notre Dame de Cyberie" on it, I didn't know what her point was.  "Do you know what happened there?" I tried to explain. She then said to click on it and I landed in what turned out to be a sim named "Champlain2". It was an empty island and it had only the cathedral standing on it, nothing else. So what the Lindens were able to do was copy just my parcel and its contents.

It wasn't a roll back, but it was called a "sideroll" I believe, just the one build. On the parcel were my owned objects but also as it happened one of my candles which had sold, but which hadn't been picked up by its owner -- so this apparently was a second copy. Everything else seemed to be there -- and even sion chickens. So it was a copy of everything on the sim, owned by me and others, i.e. my alts and that purchaser of the candle.

Maggie told me to sell the land to myself, which I could do as it was an island and wouldn't upset tier, and then try to transfer the whole thing back to the original Champlain.

I asked a few people about rez-foo, which I've never used -- but the problem is, this is a build made by Markie MacDonald, it's not my creation. Her build objects are no-copy, no-mod. So I can't link them up physically using the "link" function or copy them in chunks. Maybe there are rez foos that allow this, but I didn't find one, and I didn't have forever to fix this up -- it was a temporary thing and Maggie said "experimental" and I had to get on with it.

When I transferred the build, the chickens went off world and therefore died. But that's ok because they were illegitimate copies anyway, and in the sion system, you can't make copies that work because they are tied to a server and function in relationship to that. I then had to return the item bought, even though that meant two copies got made of a non-copy object that I commissioned for support of the SL Public Land Preserve and put out in individual editions and set to sale each time, because it isn't on next-owner copy. I then deleted the other unique objects because they were just in the way and because they weren't legitimate -- I already had their originals, and putting down the new copy over stuff and having it jam on top of other stuff already there was a mess.

I next tried to figure out how to divide it up into 4 or 8 chunks to transfer. I cleared one back corner on the original site of all the debris, but took it all into inventory just in case the puzzle pieces were needed. I then did a highlight in the yellow box of part of the build and did a "take" -- so that gave me one of those aggregated object bundles in inventory. I went back to Champlain -- the original -- to try to put it out. I was careful to step away from the sim border, but it was close. And unfortunately, it rubber-banded as I put it out, claiming it was going on another sim (possible it was going on to the next sim over in part), so unfortunately, 37 objects returned to inventory, but the rest of the flying buttresses and walls were more or less set out intact.  Even so, I could see there would be a lot of puzzle work -- the grab I did took more then what I had wanted, not just a corner, but part of the opposite walls.

So now I will try to very carefully transfer the rest -- but it's going to be still a puzzle.

This is the sort of thing people complain about and demand copybotting capacity everywhere. And I don't. And this experience hasn't changed my position on this. The reality is, if you are careful and take smaller chunks, you can transfer something like this if you have a copy.  Perhaps it will turn out there is a rez foo or a viewer or a copybotting thingie that could grab the entire build better, but the reality is, in real life you don't get to copy and repair and pick up buildings, and I don't mind that constraint in virtual life.

If for some reason I can't get this to work, well, in the end, I will commission a  new build. It's ok. Nothing lasts forever.

Unfortunately, the original builders doesn't log on anymore. And this is the very situation the copybotters and edupunkers bitterly flog and demand copybotting permissions for this edge case.

And I'm right in the middle of this edge case and I say -- no, I don't demand that. This builder can't be expected to give up rights to their items just because they don't log in. I don't get to copy their build just as a convenience to me. So it is what it is...

 

 

Comments

[Laetizia Coronet]

Good luck with it.

[Micha Sass]

I am impressed by the way you are happy to let your ideology trump convenience. Hours of work could have been saved if you had made a copy of the build.

It is refreshing to see, usually capitalism offers convenience that trumps ideology. In a world of pre-packed meals, short trips in petrol drinking motors and fast-track loans you are a shining light. Sufferance for a cause, an arduous march.

Sassism aside, well done for getting the Labs on side and working to provide a service to a customer.

[Amanda Dallin]

It's good to see LL trying to help even if it's not 100% effective.

Hope you can get it back together Prok.

[ichabod Antfarm]

Just imagine the quality of repartee if one didn't have to wait for those damned ads to load every time.

[Micha Sass]

@Ichabod, I mentioned elsewhere the Google ad latency. If you use Firefox, the NoScript plugin removes the google bar and allows the page to load promptly. It will break the voting widgets in the left side bar, but they can be enabled individually and seem to have no great effect on page load times.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noscript/

[Micha Sass]

I only disable adSense on this blog, as I actually find the ads thrown up are often relevant and tuned to my purchasing habits. I have spotted some great eBay items displayed on adSense as it seems to have an uncanny knowledge of the things I like to buy.

@Prokofy, do you need to update adSense widgets from time to time?

[Prokofy Neva]

Micha, it's not required to update widgets, not at all.

If you're unhappy with the ads or the way the page loads, don't bother to read my blog, go read some other blog. You're not a plus here.

[Amanda Dallin]

Google Ad-Sense seems to have an uncanny knowledge of what people like to buy because they send you ads based on your purchasing history. I ordered some shoes a few weeks ago and I've been getting a lot of shoe ads from the same store every since.

[Micha Sass]

I was just pointing out a problem. Ichabod also seems to be affected by the delay, as I would expect are many others. I offer a solution to allow the page to load quickly.
I am a plus.

[Prokofy Neva]

Micha, you're such an ass.

I'm hardly going to take instructions from a British socialist about how to run my page's ads.

First of all, there isn't any such thing as "updating widgets". Go and read Google itself if you don't believe me.

Second of all, your "solution" is to tell readers to disable them. That's retarded. I'm not going to be doing that.

The combination of Say and Google ads here work pretty well for most people. I don't have complaints except from. On three different computers, I see them load quickly. So like I said, go somewhere else.