Caledonia and Pavonis Covenant Version 18 Apr 2010, first version. 1. Avatar Rights. In an attempt to recognise the inherent worth and dignity of everyone, and view all as equal, we establish the following principles:
I) Anonymity. - Never shall an avatar be required to reveal ‘first life’ information about themselves to the estate.
II) Freedom from Discrimination. - No discrimination will be based upon an avatar’s (or operator’s) ethnicity, gender, religion, or sexual orientation, either real or apparent. If your avatar is furry, mechanical or otherwise, you have the same rights and privileges as everyone else. - Reasonable limits apply, regarding the use of an avatar’s form to cause technical problems, harassment or grief.
III) Freedom of Speech. - An avatar may express ideas and opinions without fear of retribution. - Please note that slander, libel, hate speech (racial, ethnic or gender slurs), scamming, fraud, harassment &c. are not considered free speech and thus not protected. - Protests are protected speech. The time, place and manner of a protest may be limited in a reasonable, nondiscriminatory manner so as to protect other avatar’s rights. - Methodic, active attempts to lure residents or visitors away from Caledonia or Pavonis while on our shores is considered a betrayal of the trust that allows you to remain. Heavily promoting a foreign region is an issue; a modestly offered landmark to an offshore store in your home or shop is not.
IV) Liberty. - We recognise personal responsibility for personal actions, regardless of declared status or interpersonal relation. All are considered free, bearing both the right and responsibility of Liberty.
V) Domestic Association. - Interpersonal associations such as avatar partnerings are not our business, and no discrimination or restrictions shall be placed on such.
VI) Freedom from Blacklist. - We will not use lists distributed by other parties or agencies to take action against avatars, especially global or automatic ‘ban lists’. - An avatar banned elsewhere will never find themselves banned here simply because they were ‘on a list’. We may, however, take reasonable precaution to protect ourselves should we hear reports of individual griefers of great harm and high notoriety.
VII) Freedom of Association. - We will not act against groups categorically due to the actions of a minority of its members, unless the group’s stated raison d’etre is to cause harm.
VI) Freedom from Asset Seizure by Offshore Groups or Individuals. - Neither land, nor property, nor business of an avatar will be subject to seizure based upon charges brought before us by other parties.
IX) Freedom from Unwarranted Search. - No property will be searched by us without prior, reasonable cause to believe that something not allowed is present.
X) Rights of the Accused. - Regarding actions to be, or that have been taken against an avatar, the avatar has a right to know why within a reasonable period of time. No punishment will be cruel or unusual, such as: a lifetime ban for casual littering. If anyone wishes to dispute a ban or restriction, they may do so by contacting a representative.
- Please note that we are not constitutional rights experts, this may be an imperfect document, and we may not make perfect decisions every time. But we promise to try to do things right in good faith. 2. Land and Theme. 2a: Caledonia. Caledonia is Steampunk Victorian themed, which applies to the general look and feel of the continent. What that means: shops have to be actual shops, with a 19th century period feel. As opposed to say, "yard sales" with a bunch of junk scattered around in the open. This doesn't have to be overstrict; for instance a Germanic or Italianate structure of that time period is pretty much okay, or if your avatar is, say, clearly Turkish (for instance) a Turkish home of that time period would be acceptable. But by and large, if the average person arriving in Caledonia has to be able to tell what the theme is. Downtown Caledonia City has to remain a fairly Victorian downtown. If you have a shop or residence (or anything) downtown it can't be "just a park" ~ or in short order, we'll end up with a bizarre wasteland of parks in what should otherwise be a downtown; I've seen this effect before. City locations have to have structures on them; either houses or buildings or whatnot. If you are on the edge of the city, I'm not so worried about this, but if you don't want to have a house or building, don't get a city parcel. That said, there is no dress code. In theme clothing is encouraged, but not mandatory. Out of theme items are allowed in residences and people can sell out of theme items in shops. But from the outside, the residence, shop or whatever else built has to be in theme, structurally. If someone wants to fly an out of theme vehicle, they can (though obviously in~theme transportation is encouraged). Out of theme vehicles and 'stuff' can't be left out for long periods of time. Note: I am going sort of 'easy' on out of theme vehicles for now, as the platform is new, but later on we may generally frown or possibly prohibit 21st century vehicles flown about 19th Century Caledonia. In the perfect world I like to allow anything in the name of freedom and fun, just so long as it's not abused. Personal appearance, however, is considered part of people's individual identities and no rule will be made to restrict people's appearance, provided they clearly aren't dressing in such manner for the sole purpose of disrupting other people's enjoyment (such as in the case of a 200 meter tall fire~spewing robot at an afternoon tea, for instance). Structures: Be reasonable, be realistic, or be waaay far away from neighbours that might be impacted. This is Steampunk Victorian Caledonia, not a venue for a neon glowing treehouse atop twenty meter chicken legs. The giant Megatron~like robot you just built... no, just... no. Unless it's totally steampunk and you've got a mountain lair! Keep in theme, try to stay roughly in proper proportion with your builds, and in general keep builds lower than say, double the height of nearby trees, maximum. Regarding "E~peens" ... I wish I had a better word or example for this. Let's say you are new, and are very excited about this really cool massive tower you just built, with the strobelight warning system to ward off approaching airships. It's 2 kilometers tall ~ what a wonderful thing for everyone to see, from everywhere! All your friends were so encouraging... hey, why did everyone within sight of it just move out? Anything like that... contact me first before uploading it, or it probably won't get uploaded. I'm pretty casual about things and eager for business, but let's not drive everyone else off in the process. There is such a thing as a cool monumental project... but you had best be *verrrrry* good at design, and recognised as such before doing one. If the neighbours are going to dread it, it's not happening. Remember that draw distances on Blue Mars can be very far; large builds are not easily ignored here. What I would try to do, for someone who is eager to do a big, daring project is get you some land in an area with like~minded individuals. I love big projects myself; the key, I think, is zoning. When I have a proper zone for such projects (and I expect to), I shall describe it with the convenant here. 2b: Pavonis. Pavonis is a tropical archipelago, less formally themed than Caledonia. Read Caledonia's theme, and everything is the same except that you don't have to have a 19th century steampunk theme to structures. You can do, for instance, tiki or modern or asian or whatever you want. In time, I shall have sub~themed areas in Pavonis, such as say, a 'tiki village' or a 'modern resort' or an 'island of danger' ~ who knows, and this will probably be done in conjunction with people who want to organise such things. As these areas form organically, I shall list them here. In the meantime, if you want to do something a bit wilder and unthemed, Pavonis is the place. It's so ridiculously huge geographically, even larger projects won't affect the neighbours much. 3. Pricing. Unless there are radically unforseen circumstances, I won't be raising land prices on anyone after they start a lease (it's just not fair, bad for business &c). That said, if the project ever has financial issues or viability issues, I shall do my best to give warning ~ at least 30 days if at all possible, and hopefully far longer. Note: in the past four years on other platforms, from the very beginning I have never raised rates on anybody. I hope to keep that reputation forever. No refunds. Generally I like to run a 'reserve' or 'cushion' of funds, to ensure business stability and continuity on virtual platforms. Were I to offer refunds, that safety cushion simply wouldn't be a cushion, it would be everyone's emergency cash account to be emptied the moment winter holiday bills or summer vacation bills are due. When leasing land, please make sure you truly intend to lease and are not about to change your mind. 4. Liability. I shall not be liable for anything that is essentially 'force majeure' from my standpoint. Example: say the platform closes unexpectedly and I can't cash out, or the global internet fails, or that sort of thing. Stuff out of my control that would be a disaster to me, as well as tenants. From both my standpoint and yours, I would suggest the following: let's keep your risks and my liability under control by keeping paid~ahead leases limited to say, just 2 or 3 months. Because risk is a lot more manageable if your risk exposure is 20 to 50 dollars, for example, as opposed to 200 to 500 dollars. Just common sense stuff that keeps us both out of conflict over big money ~ neither you or I need that kind of trouble. Ownership: To be clear, you and I don't own the land, it all belongs to our service provider and we effectively lease services. Neither you nor I "own" any land and I shall never frame the land relationship as such: be clearly advised, neither one of us owns land. I do however respect lease rights, and would not lightly evict anyone. I bear no liability for eviction in the case of lease nonpayment (don't be late on payments), or egregious covenant violations. In the case of a tenant being obviously obnoxious in hopes of getting an 'eviction with refund'... there won't be a refund. Let's say the very worst happens, for reasons I can't even imagine right now ~ if I end up in a court dispute with anyone, the venue for litigation is Orange County, California. In the past four years, and thousands of tenants on other platforms I haven't had to deal with anything even remotely like this. But now that I've been in this business four years, I could easily see staying in this business 20+ years, and it's time I get responsible and put stuff like this in the covenant. 5. Good Faith. Insofar as there's a lot of scary, necessary stuff in the covenant, the cornerstone of business is dealing in mutual good faith. Online, reputation is everything. If there is a way that I can go the 'extra mile' for someone, at my discretion, I shall. For instance, I have a 'no refunds' policy clearly outlined above, but if someone changes their mind 2 seconds later and I can easily refund them, well, yeah, of course. Frequently asked questions: Q. What's it like? Or, I've checked it out, and, wow it's huge! A. Caledonia is mini continent of over four million square meters, with forests, meadows, mountain ranges, and themed towns. It's a temperate climate. Pavonis is nearly 17 million square meters of tropical archipelago. Q. Okay, I've checked it out ~ are these areas always going to look exactly as they do now? A. Not at all! These are early days. Expect to see changes and a LOT more content as people develop the country! Q. It's all so new! I can't get things like this to run on my older machine with an ancient graphics card! A. Let me know if you have problem Q. I have a Mac! Or I run Win XP! Does this mean I'm locked out? A. Not at all. Macs at this stage would have to run Bootcamp, or use fusion render cloud services coming in a few months. More on that later. Q. I hear it's hard to be a developer! Don't I have to be a professional or a corporation or something? A. Nah. Sign up at http://www.bluemars.com/ as a developer, and you'll be a developer inside of five minutes. Q. Can I actually build stuff and have it, you know, set for sale or set out in Caledonia? A. Yes! Sell pretty much anything you want, but please keep structures steampunky or Victorian themed. In Pavonis there isn't even that restriction. Q. I don't have a bazillion dollars to buy a professional 3D design program! A. Download Google Sketchup, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCqr3ZJ8Igc Free, easy, imports to Mars. Q. I still have highly detailed questions... Help! A. Email me. I shall do my best to answer! desmondshang 'at' gmail 'dot' com Q. I leased some land, and while doing so, noticed a corporation name I'm not familiar with ~ is that you? A. That's my "real life business" ~ yes you can reach me there via phone and website during the day, California time, if you like. I am in and out frequently though, so your best bet is just to use my gmail or skype ('desmondshang' on skype) if you need to talk to me.  |