Automated Mainland Vehicle Guidelines

-- Under construction! --

About

Along mainland protected routes [1][2] there are two types of automated vehicles regularly seen, self-navigating "roaming" vehicles and pre-programmed "tour" vehicles. These have been a topic of heated and polarised discussion for some time [3][4] with little official line on the subject in public from Linden Labs. This page aims to dispel myths and clarify the boundaries for their use as indicated by Linden Labs employees, Terms Of Service and Community Guidelines.

Quotes from Linden Labs employees

Blondin Linden in IM with a resident (19-May-2011) regarding the concept of tour vehicles (excerpts)

Blondin Linden: :)when you say ON THE ROADS, what do you mean specifically?

A Resident: I mean, sending it off my own land onto Linden land

Blondin Linden: yeah I dont see a problem with that. The roads are meant to be used by vehicles

Blondin Linden: be it car or pod

A Resident: OK... and unmanned vehicles are fine then

A Resident: Well, I don't just use roads

A Resident: These don't rely on roads

A Resident: I use waterways, and any Linden land I can find that is a through passage

A Resident: They self-delete in 4 minutes if they don't move though, so no littering

A Resident: And they also send me an IM to say what happened, so I would soon spot it

Blondin Linden: oh gottcha

Blondin Linden: yeah, Its fine

Blondin Linden: it would be cool if it would like, stop at historical sites and give an update or soemthing.

A Resident: I have my logo on this, not the YavaScript name, just the YS symbol. Any problems with that?

A Resident: (actually the name is faintly etched on the windshield)

Blondin Linden: not really. I dont see a problem with the logo

Blondin Linden: So here is what I would do. If someone complains, take a moment to try and explaint (sic) to them what it is you are trying to do. If they still have an issue, let them submit an AR I wouldnt worry about it until a Linden contacts you about it, At that point, reach out to me and Ill look into it

A Resident: Good. I think it would be a nice thing to do. I have been cautious what I've said, I guess maybe I am too worried about offending people

Blondin Linden: no, Yove made an effort to be respectful and it shows

Michael Linden at the Rail Community meeting (03-June-2011) regarding vehicle appearance

• Michael Linden: Mild note #3: one area the Lab won't act on is the "appropriateness of appearance". [5]

• Michael Linden: If a train looks like a potato with twelve noses and "eat at joes" written on it, that's fine with us (TOS-ly speaking). [6]

Known issues which cause confusion

• PJIRA - Self Cloning objects reproducing: 31/July/2010[7]

This bug causes exact replicas of automated vehicles to be created upon entry into a new sim. This issue is aknowledged and under investigation by Linden Labs and responsible for "swarms" of vehicles sometimes seen on the mainlands. This issue often leads to residents mistakenly accusing owners of excessive rezzing of vehicles and sending abuse reports for "unfair use of region resources".

• PJIRA - Sitted (sic) Avatars 'ghosted' by losing contact with a vehicle are not removed from the prim settings: 29/November/2008[8]

This bug causes a vehicle to retain its status regarding an avatar being sat on it. This means that sometimes when an avatar crashes on sim entry, the vehicle is unaware that it has lost the avatar, and the upshot of this bug is that sometimes residents are unable to sit on an automated vehicle, leading them to believe it serves no purpose other than to advertise the scripting abilities of the maker.

Related pages

Route Problem Guide

External Links

http://protected-routes.com/