New region

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Gwyneth Llewelyn
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New region

Post by Gwyneth Llewelyn »

Bromo Ivory wrote:

We've been talking about getting a new sim since it seems like our vacancy rate is rather low. Do you feel we are ready for a new sim?

I'm an expansionist. We're always ready for a new region :) [note: we should stop calling regions 'sims' :) but that's another story...]

And I'm not waiting for the next elections. Why postpone the discussion? We can get it rolling out right now: http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4621

Unless your question is targeted towards the 7th region, not the 6th :) In that case, read on...

Bromo Ivory wrote:

What do you see as the risks and rewards?

The main risk is that the chosen theme might not be attractive enough for new citizens (even though it might allow current citizens to expand their current land ownership). The secondary risk is that there might be a short 'bubble' where a lot of parcels are sold on the first days or weeks, but that the region might remain financially unsound for many months.

Alas, land management is business; and business is all about risk. There are no 'safe' businesses. However, the great thing about risk is that it can be managed. In particular, due to our current legislation, when adding a new region, we need to update the amount of funds to hold in reserve to deal with 'almost empty' regions, for a period up to three months. The current reserves held by the CDS, even if we duplicated the amount of regions (i.e. going from 5 to 10, not 6!), would last us some six months (one RA/Chancellor term!). I feel that, in those circumstances, our risks are really very low indeed and fully justified to take.

The main reward, for me, perhaps surprisingly, is not 'get extra money', not even 'adding something beautiful' to the already-lovely CDS. For me, the more important aspect of having a new region, is that the community participates to get it built! In the past, in situations of tension and stress between citizens, getting them to collaboratively build something together was almost therapeutic: old foes joined forces together towards a common goal. If you look at the history of the CDS, you will see that the drama level is highest during periods where no expansion occurs, and, conversely, it's during those times that we build something together that drama decreases. Thus, under the expansionist ideology, to which I fully subscribe, keeping the community constantly busy with planning and building more and more regions is the best way to keep everybody happy. It might be strange for an outsider who never enjoyed the simple pleasures afforded by Second Life. For us residents — many of us long-term residents — it should not be so surprising!

A minor 'reward' is also the ability to 'show off' to the grid-at-large that here we got a community that, in spite of an overall landmass decrease in SL, and communities failing all over the place, we continue to grow — in citizens, in landmass, in activities. It's a most excellent promotion of our community.

Remember, some of the most insane among us believed in 2004 that we could have 5% of the SL grid under a democratic government, mostly to prove the point that democratic, self-managed communities thrive and endure long stretches of time. I don't think that 5% of the SL landmass is achievable, but at least we can try to do our best :)

Bromo Ivory wrote:

DO you have any ideas on how you will work with CDS to determine the theme?

By pointing them to the General Masterplan, approved in 2008. The whole point of having a General Masterplan was to facilitate theme choices and making sure that future expansion is logical, coherent, and, most important, doesn't require endless discussion!

We had great visionaries back in 2008 :) Let's not put their extraordinary effort — designed to make our work simpler! — to waste by ignoring them.

Bromo Ivory wrote:

How do you see the RA and Chancellor working together towards this goal if you feel a new sim should be done?

Again, we all have that codified in law: http://portal.slcds.info/index.php/faqs ... nsion-act/

There is no need to reinvent the wheel. We already have a perfectly round one, set in reasonably clear detail, and we know it works, because it has been applied in the past over and over again :) All the RA needs to do at this step is to slightly amend NL 8-2 to clarify who should replace the role of the 'New Guild' mentioned in that law.

"I'm not building a game. I'm building a new country."
  -- Philip "Linden" Rosedale, interview to Wired, 2004-05-08

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