Living on the mainland requires consideration of others. It’s a constant amazement to me how people can decide to live on the mainland and have no consideration of their next-door neighbors, treating this precious land like trash land… Buying a full region on the Mainland can cost upwards of 2000 USD, depending on location even more. This is not to be treated as a meaningless investment on someone else’s part. This is the GOOD neighborhood, for good neighbors, theoretically. Those who can’t play nice should get themselves a private island… Me thinks. (When frustrated, I convince myself it’s a language barrier that makes people unaware, but still… Huge boxes at a ground level?! Let me reel back a little and start from the top.)

Mainland living would be ideally sociable, sharing, caring, and a fun way to build this world together with connected roads to lovely people who have a sense of humor and kindness. Still, sucky fellow players make it a bit of a mothafucka, if you pardon my French.

These are the most commonly seen mainland social blunders that people STILL seem uneducated enough to commit regularly. (These practices have been in place since 2009, at least, and there are STILL people who haven’t gotten the memo.)

Let’s go through a few:

If you can’t see them, they can’t see you is not true

People access Second Life with different kinds of computers that are not necessarily equally powerful. Therefore, some players use a lower “draw distance” than others, which means that the lower your draw distance is set to, the more likely others see you (and your crap) when you don’t even realize they’re there.

You should check what can be seen AT LEAST from a 224-meter distance, even if you have to wait a while for a scene to load. (Why this distance? It’s far enough to see most things on a single region, so if one’s device is powerful enough, that’s probably the ideal draw distance.)

Please don’t build big boxes on the ground.

Your mainland parcel lacks privacy, yes. If you want privacy, you can build your scene into a skybox or a private island and hide avatars and chat on your land as well as use a security orb to stop unwanted visitors from entering your land. NOT by building your scene into a huge box on the ground level.

You also don’t need to “beautify” your scene with a box. If you need to keep vehicles from flying over the edge of your sim on a high-speed chase from the inside, please use invisible prims for that purpose. On flight height, it’s polite to give a bit of a warning the other way around when others are about to fly into your space… and an invisible wall.

If you NEED a huge box, move that box high up in the air (3000 meters is a great starting point) and try to avoid heights that could, again, ruin the work of another resident who came there before you and built a platform rather than a box. Create a landmark and set your home up into that skybox, and you won’t even notice that anyone else exists. STILL, it would be nice if you’d pan your camera around your skybox occasionally to see if there’s anything you could do to improve your neighbor’s view.

If you wish to be SUPER NICE, spare a few prims to decorate the ground level with a tree or two. The standard Linden Labs’ 1-land impact trees are quite fine for this purpose, albeit you could add more with well-made mesh that shrinks into fewer prims when linked. You can find them in the ‘create’ menu, where you’d normally rezz a box.

How to start building in the sky if you have a ton of space: First, while on land you are allowed to build on, turn on flight mode and type in local: gth 3000 (or any other number over 500 and under 4000 m (you can’t build over 4000 meters to keep flight space clear). (gth is short for go to height) Once there, type in local: rezplat

If you own a small parcel, first build a prim on the ground level that matches your parcel size exactly. (Note that all measurements that match a parcel are devidable by 4 meters, and the center spot for your prim should be an even number). You might find this gadget useful: Furious Auto Platform (Note that it goes over your boundaries if your parcel isn’t evenly cut. It looks for a boundary but goes over a missing corner you don’t own if that makes sense. Check it by selecting your land and seeing where your boundaries lie.)

Everything else, you’ll figure out once you’re there.

Mainland water access parcels.

Sure, you paid the big bucks to be on the non-blockable land on the mainland water parcel. STILL, now, you have a responsibility to everyone living “behind” you. Do not block sailing access from your water parcel to the rest of the coastline. The coastline, by the way, is determined by Linden Labs. It is fair for the owners of those parcels to assume they will continue to have access to the sea.

You may not be aware of this, but mainland continents are sailing connected to each other (apart from Zindra). Don’t be the spoil sport that prevents sailing from one continent to another or for what would be a beach parcel from BEING a beach parcel because you built an edge-to-edge club right on the water.

I wish Second Life real estate agents would be savvy enough to not block sailable land behind their over-priced parcels for months on end, but no… They’re not. (Black list upon discovery or send instructions, I say.)

Second Life Parcel Security

Please don’t use access borders – ban lines on Mainland parcels.

In your parcel settings, there is an option to ban access to your parcel from anyone you don’t know. This creates ban lines around your parcel, and it is UGLY for everyone who doesn’t know you, your neighbors, and their visitors.

Please only use them in an emergency and temporarily.

For permanent use, please buy a security orb. (You can also create one from ready-made free scripts if you prefer.)

Security Orb settings.

When you use a security orb, give enough time to fly over your parcel and if you have to eject, eject to a nearby parcel rather than “home”. Use “home” ejection ONLY on private islands. This is so that if there are travelers flying over your parcel, they won’t lose the track of their route simply because you ejected them all the way home.

Remember that most people can’t even rezz things in a very short time, so your secrets are mostly safe for the duration that flying over your parcel takes.

Phew! That was a lot!

You got this far?! Well done, I think you’ll make an awesome neighbor to some lucky Mainlander.

If you ever need help hiding neighbor’s crap…. Check out ZEN METAL Marketplace. You might also find some sim dividers on ZEN METAL hidden objects game.